Soon the little park came to an abrupt end, and great boulders began to loom up on every side.  They came to the edge of the cliff, and could look far down into the valley below.  Away to the west stood Black Mountain, a rounded bluff, so densely covered with young timber that it seemed at a distance to be a mountain of black dirt.  Far below them could be seen the silver thread of a tiny stream as it followed the canyon toward the sandy plains.  They had climbed out onto a great boulder, now, that overlooked the canyon far below on one side and the level plains on the other.  Here they sat down to rest and talk.

“Do you see that hollow spot in the plain there, just at the foot of the mountain?” Mr. Allen was saying.  “It is what has been known for many years as the Big Hollow Ranch.  It was homesteaded in the early days, before the war, by our friend, Daddy Wright.  There is a story that tells of how, in those days, the Indians would lie in wait and steal cattle from the great Texas roundups as they passed, enroute to Kansas City, and would drive large numbers of the cattle into that great hollow.  After the cattle were driven inside, a few men could guard the opening while the other Indians drove the cattle off into lonely ravines.”

“My! what a fire there must have been here sometime,” exclaimed Willis, noting the dead trees.  “I have always wanted to see a forest fire; it must be a grand sight.”

“Yes, if you’re far enough away to be safe,” joined in Chuck.  “I saw one once, but it was several miles away.  It looked fine from there.  It was the year we camped at the old hatcheries up in the Middle Park.  Mount Deception was very much like Black Mountain, then—­very heavily timbered with fine, large trees.  As the years went by a very large slab pile began to accumulate back of the mill.  Some way, no one ever knew just how, those slab piles got afire.  It was on a very windy summer night, when everything was as dry as chips and the hills were covered with heaps of dry toppings and pine slash.  Well, the fire got into a few piles of toppings, and before the men at the mill realized that there was a fire, it was running over the hills like a wild thing.  The dry pine needles are just like turpentine to burn, so in less than two hours there were several square miles of timber land afire.  The mill and hundreds of thousands of feet of sawed lumber were burned, and an area of many square miles stripped of every stick of wood, so far as value was concerned.”

“Did you see them fight it?” asked Phil.

“No, I didn’t see them, but I’ve heard them tell how they did it.”

“I was in a forest fire once,” said Mr. Allen.  “It wasn’t such an awfully big one, but there was plenty of excitement while it did last, I tell you that.”

“Tell us about it,” came in a chorus.

“It’s pretty hard to describe a forest fire, but it was a very exciting experience.  It was up not many miles from Mount Deception, while I was stopping with a friend at Manitou Park.  We were eating our Sunday dinner, when suddenly the door opened and in rushed the man from the adjoining farm.