In the green spruce and cedar timber, heavy with the pitch that made their thick tops spurt into flame like a sea of explosive, the fire rushed on with a tremendous roar. From it—in a straight race—there was no escape for man or beast. Out of that world of conflagration there might have risen one great, yearning cry to heaven: WATER—WATER—WATER! Wherever there was water there was also hope—and life. Breed and blood and wilderness feuds were forgotten in the great hour of peril. Every lake became a haven of refuge.
To such a lake came Neewa, guided by an unerring instinct and sense of smell sharpened by the rumble and roar of the storm of fire behind him. Miki had "lost" himself; his senses were dulled; his nostrils caught no scent but that of a world in flames—so, blindly, he followed his comrade. The fire was enveloping the lake along its western shore, and its water was already thickly tenanted. It was not a large lake, and almost round. Its diameter was not more than two hundred yards. Farther out—a few of them swimming, but most of them standing on bottom with only their heads out of water—were a score of caribou and moose. Many other shorter-legged creatures were swimming aimlessly, turning this way and that, paddling their feet only enough to keep afloat. On the shore where Neewa and Miki paused was a huge porcupine, chattering and chuckling foolishly, as if scolding all things in general for having disturbed him at dinner. Then he took to the water. A little farther up the shore a fisher-cat and a fox hugged close to the water line, hesitating to wet their precious fur until death itself snapped at their heels; and as if to bring fresh news of this death a second fox dragged himself wearily out on the shore, as limp as a wet rag after his swim from the opposite shore, where the fire was already leaping in a wall of flame. And as this fox swam in, hoping to find safety, an old bear twice as big as Neewa, crashed panting from the undergrowth, plunged into the water, and swam OUT. Smaller things were creeping and crawling and slinking along the shore; little red-eyed ermine, marten, and mink, rabbits, squirrels, and squeaking gophers, and a horde of mice. And at last, with these things which he would have devoured so greedily running about him, Neewa waded slowly out into the water. Miki followed until he was submerged to his shoulders. Then he stopped. The fire was close now, advancing like a race-horse. Over the protecting barrier of thick timber drove the clouds of smoke and ash. Swiftly the lake became obliterated, and now out of that awful chaos of blackness and smoke and heat there rose strange and thrilling cries; the bleating of a moose calf that was doomed to die and the bellowing, terror-filled response of its mother; the agonized howling of a wolf; the terrified barking of a fox, and over all else the horrible screaming of a pair of loons whose home had been transformed into a sea of flame.
Through the thickening smoke and increasing heat Neewa gave his call to Miki as he began to swim, and with an answering whine Miki plunged after him, swimming so close to his big black brother that his muzzle touched the other's flank. In mid-lake Neewa did as the other swimming creatures were doing—paddled only enough to keep himself afloat; but for Miki, big of bone and unassisted by a life-preserver of fat, the struggle was not so easy. He was forced to swim to keep afloat. A dozen times he circled around Neewa, and then, with something of the situation driven upon him, he came up close to the bear and rested his forepaws on his shoulders.
The lake was now encircled by a solid wall of fire. Blasts of flame shot up the pitch-laden trees and leapt for fifty feet into the blistering air. The roar of the conflagration was deafening. It drowned all sound that brute agony and death may have made. And its heat was terrific. For a few terrible minutes the air which Miki drew into his lungs was like fire itself. Neewa plunged his head under water every few seconds, but it was not Miki's instinct to do this. Like the wolf and the fox and the fisher-cat and the lynx it was his nature to die before completely submerging himself.
Swift as it had come the fire passed; and the walls of timber that had been green a few moments before were black and shrivelled and dead; and sound swept on with the flame until it became once more only a low and rumbling murmur.
To the black and smouldering shores the live things slowly made their way. Of all the creatures that had taken refuge in the lake many had died. Chief of those were the porcupines. All had drowned.
Close to the shore the heat was still intense, and for hours the earth was hot with smouldering fire. All the rest of that day and the night that followed no living thing moved out of the shallow water. And yet no living thing thought to prey upon its neighbour. The great peril had made of all beasts kin.
A little before dawn of the day following the fire relief came. A deluge of rain fell, and when day broke and the sun shone through a murky heaven there was left no sign of what the lake had been, except for the dead bodies that floated on its surface or lined its shores. The living things had returned into their desolated wilderness—and among them Neewa and Miki.