Apart from a smarting of the eyes
and a recurrent series of heat waves, they made the climb with no
great discomfort;--until the final turn brought them to an abrupt
halt at the spot where the wide swath of red coals and flaming
ashes marked the burning of the hillock foot bushes.
The Master jumped to earth and stood confronting the lurid
stretch of ash and ember with, here and there, a bush stump still
crackling merrily. It was not a safe barrier to cross; this
twenty-foot-wide fiery stretch. Nor, for many rods in either
direction, was there any way around it.
"There's one comfort," the Master was saying, as he began to
explore for an opening in the red scarf of coals, "the fire
hasn't gotten up to the camp-site. He--"
"But the smoke has," said the Mistress, who had been peering
vainly through the hazecurtain toward the summit. "And so has the
heat. If only--"
She broke off, with a catch in her sweet voice. And, scarce
realizing what she did, she put the silver whistle to her lips
and blew a piercingly loud blast.
"What's that for?" asked the Master, crankily, worry over his
beloved dog making his nerves raw.
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