"Yes, if you're far enough away to be safe," joined in Chuck. "I saw one once, but it was several miles away. It looked fine from there. It was the year we camped at the old hatcheries up in the Middle Park. Mount Deception was very much like Black Mountain, then--very heavily timbered with fine, large trees. As the years went by a very large slab pile began to accumulate back of the mill. Some way, no one ever knew just how, those slab piles got afire. It was on a very windy summer night, when everything was as dry as chips and the hills were covered with heaps of dry toppings and pine slash. Well, the fire got into a few piles of toppings, and before the men at the mill realized that there was a fire, it was running over the hills like a wild thing. The dry pine needles are just like turpentine to burn, so in less than two hours there were several square miles of timber land afire. The mill and hundreds of thousands of feet of sawed lumber were burned, and an area of many square miles stripped of every stick of wood, so far as value was concerned." "Did you see them fight it?" asked Phil. "No, I didn't see them, but I've heard them tell how they did it." "I was in a forest fire once," said Mr. Allen. "It wasn't such an awfully big one, but there was plenty of excitement while it did last, I tell you that." "Tell us about it," came in a chorus. "It's pretty hard to describe a forest fire, but it was a very exciting experience. It was up not many miles from Mount Deception, while I was stopping with a friend at Manitou Park. We were eating our Sunday dinner, when suddenly the door opened and in rushed the man from the adjoining farm. "'Fire, boys,' he called. 'I'm sorry to disturb you, but we need you, and you know the law. I'll have the buggy ready in a shake, and you be ready.' As he left, my friend cried, 'Come quick, Allen, into your old clothes.' 'Why,' I said, 'we don't have to fight the forest fire, do we?' He laughed aloud. 'Well, you just bet we do!' he cried. 'The law says that every able-bodied man in reach of a forest fire must give his services. If a fire starts on Government land and burns onto private land, Uncle Sam has to pay for all the private loss. But if it starts on private land and burns onto Government land, the land owner is responsible.'