Frank glanced at the belt of fallen timber behind the fence on one side of the clearing. It had been badly cut and some of the trees lay across each other, while only a few of the branches had been sawed off and the undergrowth had not been mowed. If the fall had not been a dry one it would have been difficult to burn the slashing. Then he glanced up at the leaden-gray sky above the pine tops and fancied that it looked threatening. The dense wall of somber sprays seemed unusually harsh of aspect, and there was something curious about the light. Everything was gray and raw-edged, and he shivered, for the faint wind had blown across a wilderness of snowy mountains. "It's not the kind of day for hanging round," he said. "Let's get to work." Entering the house they found a can of coal oil and plenty of rags, for a heap of worn-out clothing lay in a corner. "They'll hold oil and that's about all they're good for," Harry remarked. "I expect it's months since Webster pitched them there with the idea that he might mend them sometime." Frank carried out one or two of the duck garments, and when they had torn them up and soaked them in coal oil he and Harry set about lighting fires here and there in the slashing, after which they stood near the door of the house and watched the conflagration. The fires spread rapidly, and one side of the clearing was soon wrapped in crackling flame that worked backward from the neighborhood of the fence, licking up branches and undergrowth as it neared the bush. That did not stop it, for the fire had flung out advance guards which leaped forward swiftly through the withered fern and hurled themselves in crimson waves upon the standing trunks. They seemed to splash upon them, flinging up fountains of blazing brands and sparks that seized upon the lower sprays and sprang aloft until each assaulted tree was wrapped in fire from base to summit. The conflagration made the draught it needed, and by and by it roared in what seemed to Frank malicious triumph as it pressed onward into the forest under a cloud of rolling smoke. Where it would stop he did not know, but he was almost uncomfortably impressed by the spectacle. "It's a full-power burn," said Harry approvingly. "Guess it's going to clean up this slashing. And now we'll look around and see if Webster's left anything we can make our dinner in." There was a stove in the house, but they soon discovered that it did not burn well, and Harry glanced disgustedly at the spider Frank discovered. "A hole in the bottom of it!" he said contemptuously. "That's the kind of thing Webster uses. I'll be astonished if you don't find another hole in the kettle. You had better go along to the well and fill it." In a few minutes Frank came back with the kettle, which fortunately did not leak, and Harry set it on the stove and laid a piece of pork in the spider, which he tilted on one side.