The roaring was steady; and the crackling and snapping was worse than any Fourth of July. Sparks came whisking down through the willows and sizzled in the wetness. One lit on a coyote and I smelled burning hair; and then one lit on me and I had to turn over and wallow on my back to put it out. "Ouch!" exclaimed Van Sant; and one must have lit on him, too. But that was not bad. If we could stand the heat, and not swallow it and burn our lungs, we needn't mind the sparks; and maybe in ten or fifteen minutes the worst would be over, when the branches and the brush had burned. Of course the first few moments were the ticklish ones. We didn't know what might happen. But we never said a word. Like the animals we just waited, and hoped for the best. When I found that we weren't being burned, and that the roaring and the crackling weren't harming us, I lifted my head. I sat up; and the Red Fox Scouts sat up, cautiously. We were still all right. The air was smoky, but the _fire_ hadn't got at us--and now it probably wouldn't. But this was not at all like Sunday! The Red Fox Scouts were pale, under their mud; and so was I, I suppose. I felt pale, and I felt weak and shaky--and I felt thankful. That had been a mighty narrow escape for us. If we had not found the willows and the wet, we would have died, it seemed to me. "How about it?" asked Scout Ward, huskily, and his voice trembled, but I didn't blame him for that. "It's gone past, hasn't it?" "Yes," said I. And-- "We're still here," said Scout Van Sant. "Well," said Ward, soberly--and smiling, too, with cracked lips, "I know how I feel, and I guess you fellows feel the same way. God was good to us, and I want to thank Him." And we kept silent a moment, and did. The roaring had about quit and the crackling was not nearly so bad. The air was not fiery hot, any more; it was merely warm. The attack had passed, and we were safe. The rabbit beside me hopped a few feet and squatted again, and the fat bear sat up and blinked about him with his piggish eyes. It seemed to me that the animals were growing uneasy and that perhaps the truce was over with. In that case, unpleasant things were likely to happen, so we had better move out. "Shall we try it?" asked Van Sant. We picked up the packs and sticking close together moved on--dodging another gray wolf and a coyote, and an animal that looked like a carcajou or wolverine, which snarled at us and wouldn't budge. Of course, it was a little doubtful whether we could travel through burned timber so soon after the fire had swept it. The ground would be thick with coals and hot ashes, and trees would still be blazing. But when we came out at the opposite edge of the willows and could see through the aspens, the timber beyond did not look bad, after all. There were a few burned places, but the fire had skirted the aspens on this side only in spots, where cinders had lodged.