"The fire be ahead of us, boy!" exclaimed the trapper, "and death is sartinly comin' behind. The odds be agin us to start with, for the smoke is thick and the fire will be in the bends at least half the way down, but it's our only chance; we must run the rapids." "What about the dogs?" "The pups must shirk for themselves," answered the old man. "I'm sorry, but the rapids be swift and the waters shaller on the first half of the stretch. And the pups settle the boat half an inch, ef they settle it a hair. Yis, overboard with ye, pups! overboard with ye!" commanded the trapper. "Ye must use the gifts the Lord has gin ye now, or git singed. I advise ye to keep with the current and come down trailin' the boat; for man's reason is better than dogs' reason, techin' currents and eddies, not to speak of falls. But take yer own way; for yer lives be in jeopardy with yer master's, and ye ought, for sartin, to have the chance of dyin' as ye like to. But yer best chance is to foller the boat, as I jedge." The trapper had continued to talk as if addressing members of the human and not the canine species; and long before he had finished his remarks, the hounds had taken to the water and were swimming with all their power directly in the wake of the boat, as if they had actually understood their master's injunction, and were, indeed, determined to shoot the rapids in his wake. The conflagration was now at its fiercest heat. The smoke whirled upward in mighty eddies or rolled along in huge convolutions. Through the fleecy rolls here and there tongues of flame shot fiercely. The river steamed. The roar of the rushing flames was deafening. The tops of the huge pines that stood along the banks would wave and toss as the fiery line reached them, and then burst into blaze, as if they were but the mighty torches that lighted the path of the passing destruction. In all his long and eventful life, passed amid peril, it is doubtful if the trapper had ever been in a wilder scene. The rapids were ahead and the fire behind and on either side. The great mass of flame had not yet rolled abreast the boat, but the blazing brands were already falling in advance. It was not a moment to hesitate; nor was he a man to falter when action was called for. By this time the boat had come nigh the upper rift of the rapids, and the motion of the downward suction was beginning to tell on its progress. The trapper shipped his oars and, lifting his paddle, placed himself in a kneeling posture, gazing down stream. The fire was almost upon them, and the smoke too dense for sight. But pressing as was the emergency, neither man touched his paddle to the water, but let the boat go down with the quickening current to the verge of the rapids, where the sharp dip of the decline would send it flying.