Carrie laughed. "You're romantic when you talk about the North. Could the fire bother us?"
"That depends. It couldn't burn the line, though it might burn the posts. If it spread and rolled up the valley, it might put us off the ground and stop the job."
"While we waited the boys would have to be fed and wages would run on," Carrie said in a thoughtful voice. "How do the fires start?"
"Nobody knows. I allow it looks ridiculous, but my notion is some fires start themselves; you'll find them burning in belts of woods the Indians and prospectors leave alone. Some are probably started by cooking fires. The man who knows the bush is careful; the tenderfoot is not."
"Then you don't think somebody may have had an object for lighting this fire?"
"On the whole, I reckon not. The chances against its bothering us are too steep. For all that, I'd like it better if the blaze went out."
Carrie said nothing, and for a time they watched the light. Sometimes it leaped up and sometimes it faded, but it got larger, and when they went to bed a red reflection played about the sky. In the morning there was no wind and a heavy trail of smoke stretched across the hills. In places, a bright flicker pierced the dark trail, and Carrie noted a smell of burning when she filled the kettle. Then she saw Jim watching the smoke.
"It's nearer and bigger, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," said Jim, quietly. "It's bigger than I like. We'll go along and look at it after breakfast."
They ate quickly and when the meal was over Jim and Carrie set off while Jake went to work. It was not easy to push through the tangled bush, and now and then Jim was forced to clear a path with his ax. After a time he stopped behind a trunk and touched Carrie, who saw an animal leap out from the gloom. It cleared a big fallen branch with a flying bound, vanished almost silently in a brake of tall fern, and shooting out with forelegs bent sprang across a thicket. Carrie thought it hardly touched the ground. It was wonderfully swift and graceful, and although the forest was choked with undergrowth and rotting logs all was very quiet when the animal vanished.