“Oh, gee--_golly_, Ranger,” the boy whispered, pressing against him, “get your gun! Get your gun! _Get your gun!_” “No, Scout,” he whispered back. “It’s against the law--written and unwritten; wild things fleeing from a forest fire are protected. Look at their eyes as they go past. Could you?--” “No, I don’t guess I could, Ranger.” His chin quivered a little. “What does it make you think of, Scout?” “A circus?” His face fell. “I saw a moving picture once--” “It’s like creation; it’s the first chapter of Genesis.... Boy, it isn’t given to many to see a thing like this; we must remember it all the days of our life. We are watching _the earth bring forth the living creature ... cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth_....” “Yes, sir,” said the Scout, earnestly. All the animals for miles about must have been congregated in that cañon; it had been, until now, scatheless, and there was water, but their sanctuary had betrayed them and they were fleeing for their lives from the red terror, passing the lesser enemy with hardly a conscious look. They came on for an incredible time but there was an end of them at last. Small stragglers came gasping at the heels of the procession and scurried by; then the slope was empty of movement. Dean Wolcott drew a long breath. “Now, we’ll get to work, Scout; plenty of time to stop it.” But the boy pointed excitedly. “Look--there’s one more lion, all alone!” It was far below them, standing still, a beautiful great beast, and it lifted its head and called, a long, seeking, mournful cry. “It’s lost its mate, Scout; it doesn’t want to go without it. That’s pretty fine, isn’t it, with the fire just three jumps behind?” Elmer Bunty nodded solemnly and they set to work. They already had a firebreak of sorts in that direction and now they widened it as fast as they could, plying hatchets and shovels. The fire came up the mountainside just as the doctor had said it did, as if sucked through a funnel, roaring, unbearably hot. The lone lion fled before it at last, loping forlornly and calling as it came; it passed between the two human beings heedlessly, engulfed in its private woe. Their break held; the fire stopped when it came up to it, hissing and snarling; burning twigs snapped with a sharp, incisive sound. “We’ve got it,” said the Ranger, exulting. “It’s just like a football game, Scout!--” He chanted hoarsely a slogan of old gridiron days--“‘Hold that line! Hold that line! Hold that line--_hard_!’” But it appeared immediately that they would have to hold a great deal harder yet and in a great many more places, for a whirling dervish of a wind sprang up, whisked here, whisked there, twisted and turned unexpectedly, caught up a flaming leaf and carried it carefully to a distant patch of dried grass, ran impishly back and forth, whistling, whining, making hot havoc.