Again, his smoke-stung
eyes explored the winding trail down the mountain. No longer was
the trail so distinguishable as before. Not only by reason of
darkness, but because from that direction came the bulk of the
eddying gusts of wind-driven smoke.
The fire's mounting course was paralleling the trail; checked
from crossing it only by a streambed and an outcrop of granite
which zigzagged upward from the valley. The darkness served also
to tinge the lowering sky to south and to westward with a
steadily brightening lurid glare. The Master had been right in
his glum prophecy that a strong and sudden shift of wind would
carry the conflagration through the tinder-dry undergrowth and
dead trees of that side of the mountain, far faster than any body
of fire-fighters could hope to check it.
The flame-reflection began to light the open spaces below the
knoll, with increasing vividness. The chill of early evening was
counteracted waves of sullen heat, which the wind sent swirling
before it.
Lad panted; from warmth as much as from nervousness. He had gone
all day without water.
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