FIRING THE WOODS, 323 



Shut up the cattle on their owuer's premises, and the 

 temptation to destroy other people's property for their 

 benefit will be removed. 



The opening of spring brings with it months of anxious 

 watching, by night and by day; no one knows where or 

 when the inflammable pine straw will be fired, nor by whom, 

 far or near, and the only warning is the rapid approach of 

 the fierce-roaring flames, bellowing like a hundred bulls, 

 leaping like an army of demons rejoicing over the destruc- 

 tion of all they may meet in their resistless rush, and even 

 to the very lives of human beings! 



Only a few years ago a hapless family, driving through 

 a dense hammock where a wide wagon-track had been cut 

 from amidst the heavy underbrush, were overtaken by an 

 onrushing wall of roaring flames ; they lashed their horses 

 and fled onward ; there was no turning to the right or left, 

 even had there been no fire to bar the way. Close behind 

 them rushed the fierce fire demons, gloating over the prey, 

 for whom, alas! there was no escape. Vainly was the 

 whip applied to the afiinghted horses. Hammock roads 

 are rough, full of palmetto roots, hills and hollows; and 

 soon the poor beasts stumbled and fell ; then the family 

 alighted and fled on foot, the father snatching up two little 

 children, the mother clas23ing her babe to her breast, and 

 still another child, a boy of eight years, followed after them 

 in deadly fear. 



On came the flames with that horrible gloAv and that 

 awful roar so fiimiliar, more 's the pity to the Florida set- 

 tlers, and their pace was swifter than that of the wretclied 

 human beings fleeing before them. Soon the little boy 

 tripped and fell headlong into a tiny pool of liquid mud 

 in the center of the road ; his forehead struck a root and 

 he lay there unconscious as the flames swept by on either 

 side, leaving him scorched and suflering, but alive, 



