Stopped at the granite-outcrop to the
right, it had rolled faster through the herbage to the left.
Thus, by the time the morass was dry enough for the flame to pass
it, there was a great sickle of crawling red fire to the left;
which encircled a whole flank of the mountain and which was
moving straight upward.
Lad knew nothing of this; nor why the advance of the fire's
direct line had been so long checked. Nor did he know,
presumably, that this sickle of flame was girdling the
mountain-flank; like a murderous net; hemming in all live things
within the flaming arc and forcing them on in panic, ahead of its
advance. Perhaps he did not even note the mad scurryings in
undergrowth and bramble, in front of the oncoming blaze. But one
thing, very speedily, became apparent to him:--
From out a screen of hazel and witch-elm (almost directly in
front of the place where the truck, that morning, had been
loaded) crashed a right hideous object. By sight and by scent Lad
knew the creature for his olden foe, the giant black bear.
Growling, squealing, a dozen stinging fiery sparks sizzling
through his bushy coat, the bear tore his way from the hedge of
thicket and out into the open.
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