Foxes, Badgers, Coyotes, Ground Hogs, Chipmunks, Wolverines, Porcupines, take refuge in their holes underground where the smoke, curling lazily down and down, eventually reaches them and smothers them with their young.
Lynx, Marten, Squirrels, Wild Cats, seek safety in the trees, hiding either in their holes or on the highest branch they can find until the flames find them in their lair, or the unbearable heat, scorching them, unloosens their mad grip and precipitates them into the furnace below.
Wolves, Bears, Caribou, Deer and Moose take to flight. But the great tragedy is that, in this season, all animals have their young. The little ones get exhausted in the mad scramble through dense bush and stifling smoke. They cannot keep pace with the flames. Little by little they fall back. Then the parents return to them and remain at their side until it is too late.
A few animals, through sheer luck or by keeping their wits, manage to escape. Now and then one may find on a sandy point, reaching far out in a lake, a motley crowd of animals of all breeds, huddled together on the edge of the water or in the water itself. Perfectly indifferent to one another, their only thought is to keep away from the flames. The nearer the latter comes, the further the animals crawl and the deeper they crouch in the water.
In such cases it is a common occurrence to see a dozen rabbits sitting solemnly in the water, their heads alone showing. A little further out, two bear cubs may be grovelling on their bellies like two children at play on the seashore. While the mother swims about angrily, taking no notice of a cow-moose and her calf, both motionless in the water ... the little one standing, the mother lying down, their shoulders completely covered. A little to one side a Red Fox, a vixen, has carried her young, one by one, to the edge of the lake. The pups are too young yet to have sense to crawl in. So the mother has dropped them in the water and, crouching between them and the shore, keeps them huddled, whimpering and frightened, safe from the heat and the sparks.
Tale XV: An Indian Wake
One evening a few years ago, I was sitting alone at a small trading station on the edge of a lake in North Saskatchewan. A northeast wind was blowing and the grey water was lashed into angry white caps that raced madly one after the other.
I was watching an 18-foot canvas canoe manned by two Indians who were paddling straight for me. They were having a hard time in making the shore and seemed worried by the load they were freighting.
From where I sat I could not make out what sort of cargo they carried, but I could see that it was placed amidship and stuck out on each side well over the gunwales. I thought at first it was a log, although I was at a loss to understand why they had not placed it lengthwise under the thwarts. I finally realized, with a certain amount of astonishment, that the two men were freighting in a large coffin, the weight and the dimensions of which prevented them placing it anywhere else than above deck, so to speak, and crosswise.