“It is a fire, of course, and no small one, either; but where, I can’t exactly make out,” slowly responded the hunter, intently fixing his keen eyes on the magnificent spectacle which had thus unexpectedly burst on their view in the distance. “Let me see,” he continued, running his eye along the border of the lake in search of his old landmarks: “there is the tall stub that stands half a mile down on the west bank of the river, and is now just visible in the edge of the smoke; but where is the king pine, that stands nearly against it, over in your slash? Young man,” he added, with a startled air, “was your father calculating to burn that slash to-day?” “No, unless it looked likely to rain.” “Well it _does_ look likely to rain, in the shape of a shower gathering yonder, which has already given out one or two grumbles of distant thunder, if my ears served me as well as usual.” “Yes; but such a smoke and fire can’t come from our slash. It must be a larger and more distant one.” “So I thought at first; but I begin to think different. Do you see that perpendicular, broken line of light, occasionally flashing out from the smoke, and extending upward to a height that no ground fire ever reached? That is your king pine in a blaze from bottom to top. Hark! why, I can hear it roaring clear here, like a distant hurricane. It must be a prodigious hot fire to make all that show and noise.” “Can it endanger our buildings?” asked Claud, in alarm. “I am afraid so,” replied the other, with a dubious shake of the head. “But hark again! ’tis your father’s horn blowing for help.” “Let us row, then, as for our lives!” cried the now thoroughly aroused and agitated young man. “If any thing happens before I get there, I shall never forgive myself for my prolonged absence, to the last day of my life. You will join me in going there, will you not?” “Yes, and outstrip you by half a mile. But that won’t be the best way. Throw your anchor into the stern of my canoe, and fall in behind. There; now keep the anchor-line slack between us, if you can,” rapidly said the hunter, bending his sinewy form to the work, with a power that sent his canoe half out of the water at every stroke of his swiftly-falling oar. Leaving them to bound over the billowy waters of the lake towards their destination, with all the speed which strong arms and nerves made tense with excitement could impart, let us anticipate their arrival, to note what befell the objects of their anxieties, whom we so abruptly left in their perils from the fire, to bring up the other incidents of the day having an equal bearing on the story, with which we have thus far occupied the present somewhat extended chapter.