90 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 



pause, impressive in its mere inaction, that serves 

 to herald the imminent clashing of two gladiators 

 who neither ask nor give quarter. 



There were seven of us there in all: Reid, 

 Frazer, Moak, Wallace, Wetherby, Conway and my- 

 self. This gave each of us approximately sixty 

 yards of fire line to protect, sixty yards of rock and 

 dirt across which no flame must win, no spark leap 

 and live, throughout the night. 



At last the moment for action arrived. Here and 

 there tongues of fire, small wedges of burning brush, 

 the advance guard of the main body, broke from its 

 ragged front and sallied ahead in short, uneven 

 rushes, as if filled with a momentary confidence, a 

 presentiment of victory to come. But when these 

 scouting forces struck the cleared line they halted in 

 mid-career as a bullet stops at a wall of sand. 



This was our moment. The leaping flames sank 

 abruptly to a slow creeping line of yellow, close to 

 the ground, and the heat, intolerable before, moder- 

 ated enough to permit of our approach. We leapt 

 forward and with swinging bough or dampened 

 gunny sack beat out the wavering line of fire. 



At first it was easy. We were keyed to effort and 

 the burning spots along the fireline were yet few and 

 feeble. We had frequent opportunity to catch our 

 breath in the intervals, to rush for a moment back 

 from the line of battle and recover from each suffo- 

 cating swirl of smoke or blast of excessive heat. 

 But these chances became fewer and farther apart. 



