Long before he could do this the threatening billow of fire must have reached the spot, and passed over him, so, in despair, he rushed along, his eyes now even scanning the ground for some log behind which he might crawl.
"Oh!" cried Bob suddenly, as his glance caught a dark opening in a half-dead tree trunk.
It was some little distance from the ground, possibly ten feet or more, but as a few limbs remained on the decayed forest monarch, once blasted by a wind-storm while in its prime, he believed he might readily reach the friendly crevice ere the flames took hold upon his buckskin garments.
Bob was almost exhausted from his violent exertions; but he certainly gave no evidence of the fact, to judge from the way in which he ran to that tree and commenced to clamber into the lower branches.
Burning leaves were already being swept past him on the breath of the wind, to drop into new magazines of dry tinder, and start additional fires ahead of the main blaze.
Madly did he climb upward, and never would he forget the sight that met his eyes while making for that promised haven of refuge. As far as he could see, both to the east and to the west, that bank of leaping roaring flame held sway. Once Bob had been taken down to the sea by his father, and he had never forgotten how the great waves came sweeping resistlessly on, to break with a crash on the shore. So, in his mind, appeared those onrolling billows of fire.
He could hardly breathe now. That was because of the heat and smoke combined. A great fear possessed him that perhaps after he had reached this dark cleft in the tree he might find it utterly impossible to push his way past the guarding portals. In that case all was lost, and he need not even mind dropping back to the ground, for the end would find him where he was.
But at least that fear was quickly laid to rest.
"It's plenty big enough!" he cried aloud in his new delight, for the opening was now only a couple of feet away from his hands.
After that all he had to do was to cram his body through the hole, and find the shelter he craved.