“Where does all this smoke come from?” “The camp is on fire, boys!” “We must get out or we’ll be burnt to death!” There was a wild scramble for the doorway, but Jack held every one of them back. “You can’t get out that way!” he exclaimed. “The fire is all around there. See there, now!” A fierce gust of wind at that moment caused the flames to shift about, and the doorway, which had been almost black before, now became a sheet of living fire! “We are penned in!” groaned Andy. “What in the world shall we do?” “We’ll be roasted like so many pigs, suah!” howled Pickles. “Heaben have mussy on us!” “We must cut a way through one of the sides!” cried Harry. “Where is the ax?” In a trice he had the implement in his hands and was working madly to cut away enough of the matted branches and twigs to afford them an opening sufficient to allow of the passage of their bodies. In the meantime, the smoke kept growing thicker and thicker. The wood was all damp from the quantity of snow upon it, and smoked much more than it burned. “Hurry, or I’ll--be--choked!” gasped Boxy. “I--I can’t--breathe--any longer!” “Lie down on the ground and you’ll breathe easier!” returned Jack. He threw himself down, and all the others but Harry followed his example. In a minute more Harry had a small opening. This he enlarged as rapidly as possible. Soon he was able to crawl through, and he did so, calling on the others to follow. “That was a narrow escape!” cried Andy, as he took a deep breath of the cold, pure air that was sweeping up the creek and through the woods. “The hut’s a regular smokehouse, isn’t it?” “We must do something to save it,” put in Jack, hurriedly. “All our things are in there, and we can’t afford to lose them.” “What shall we do, we have no water?” returned Boxy. “I kin cut a hole in de ice an’ fill de bucket,” said Pickles. “You do that, Pickles, and we’ll do what we can with snow,” said Harry. “Come on, boys, snow is as good as water, if we use enough of it.” Spurred on by the necessity of the occasion, and also by the novelty, the members of the Zero Club set to work with a will. Standing as close as they dared, they shoveled and threw great lumps of snow on the hissing flames, working first upon that portion of the fire nearest to the door of the hut. They were pleased to see that the flames were confined principally to the large fuel pile leaning against the hut, not to the hut itself. “I think we are getting the best of it,” cried Jack, after five minutes of hard work. “We are,” returned Harry. “But it is by no means out yet. Keep up the good work, all hands!” Pickles had succeeded in chopping a hole in the ice on the creek, and now came back with a bucket of water. “Give it to me, and I’ll run through the doorway and plant it on any blaze inside!” cried Jack, and bucket in hand, he disappeared into the hut. “It’s all right in there, so far,” he said, on reappearing. “Go on with the snow.”