Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/152

 was racing to the mountain, but the Red Flower swept on, fanned by the night wind, for it had gone mad and it was beyond the power of man to stop it. Soon it mounted to the lower slopes of the mountain and began creeping up the trunks of the trees. Up one tall pine it shot, twisting and writhing, and finally leaped fifty feet into the air, even lighting the ledge where Redcoat paced to and fro nervously. He could now hear the Red Flower roaring in its madness, and the smoke from the great conflagration choked him. Occasionally he coughed and sneezed. Frantically the men worked, plowing furrows, felling trees, and even using dynamite, but they could not stay the onward rush of the Red Flower. All that night Redcoat watched, and the flames crept higher and higher up the mountainside and came closer and closer to the den in the spruces. Finally the smoke became so thick that Redcoat could no longer watch this fascinating but terrible sight, so he fled into the spruces and marshaled his little family in preparation for moving them to safety.