“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.