86 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



would allow them, they set to work burning broad 

 strips of grass before the advancing flames. It 

 IS of course impossible to cope with the fire itself, 

 no creature could stand near it for a moment and 

 live ; the only way to deal with it is to burn the 

 ground in front of the object you want to save, 

 so that when the fire comes down to the burned 

 and bare place it shall be forced, from want of 

 fuel, to turn aside. That sounds simple enough, 

 but in the case I am thinking of it was difficult 

 and dangerous work. The grass was very high, 

 dry as tinder, and with a strong gale blowing it 

 was no easy matter to keep in check the flames 

 that were lit on purpose. The men had to keep 

 on firing the grass and beating down the flames 

 with blankets, and firing it further on and beating 

 it down again, until a strip of burned ground, so 

 broad that it could not be overleaped by the 

 flames, was interposed between the fire and the 

 fort. It is hard to imagine anything more heUish 

 than that scene. The heat was intense, the sky 

 glowed lurid, red with the reflection of the flames, 

 the fire poured down towards us as if it would 

 devour everything in its way, and between us and 

 the flames, standing out clear and distinct against 

 the intense bright light, was the fighting line, 



