Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/355

Rh "If it crosses here," indicating the line where the back fire had started—"you've got Burned Dog swale to fight!"

"I know that, Joe—and we can't let it cross!"

"I wasn't tryin' to learn you nothin'," he said apologetically, searching her set face.

Centuries ago when glaciers gouged out this Blueberry country the ridges were laid in strange patterns. Burned Dog Creek, a very small stream, drained a thin ribbon of swamp in the depth of the pine. It ran nearly due east until, meeting the abutment of a ridge that lay between it and the river, it swung sharply to the northward. But from the face of bluff springs seeped and for two-thirds of the way to its pine-crested top the balsam, which lined the creek, grew—If fire should go down that swale, igniting the balsams it would run rapidly, it would shoot up the inflammable cover of that bluff and mount the ridge with a hold in the pine tops that could not be denied; and then it could sweep on to the river, perhaps even across the Blueberry itself, destroying utterly as it went.

If Goddard's back-fire should fail! They could make one more stand, true, but that next line of defense dipped through the first of the balsam itself and if living flame got that far their fighting this morning would have been in vain!

The draft of the conflagration sucked at the back-fire. It moved faster, burning clean as it went, its flame tendrils and smoke banners drawn against the wind by the increasing draft. The crackling had grown to a heavy mutter. The two ragged lines of flame drew nearer. At a hundred yards apart each moved as fast as a man would saunter;