“I waded down the stream, till I found a place where the water was up to my arm-pits, and the bank of the river rose about six feet over my head.  There I took my stand, and awaited the event in breathless anxiety.  I had no time to look around me.  The few minutes which had elapsed, had greatly added to the terrors of the scene.

“As the wall of fire advanced, fresh trees in succession were enveloped by the flames.  A bright glare crimsoned the clouds with a lurid glow, while the air was filled with a terrible noise.  The heat now became intense.  I looked up once more; the trees above me caught fire at that instant, the next, I was holding my breath a foot beneath the surface of the running stream.  Every few seconds I was compelled to raise my head to breathe, which I accomplished with great difficulty.  In a few minutes, which seemed ages to me, I was enabled to stand upright, and look around me.  What desolation a short half hour had effected!  In front, the conflagration was still raging with unabated fury, while in the rear the fire had consumed all the under-brush and limbs of the trees, leaving a forest of blackened poles still blazing fiercely, though not with the intense heat caused by the balsam and pine-brushwood.

“It was several hours before I durst quit my sanctuary to search for my companions, the blackened remains of whom I found not a quarter of a mile from the river.

“Our shanty,* and all that it contained, was utterly consumed.  I, however, succeeded in finding in the cellar beneath its ruins, as much provisions uninjured as served to carry me through to the settlements, which I ultimately reached, though not without great difficulty.”

[* A shanty is a building made with logs, higher in the front than the back, making a fall to the roof, which is generally covered with troughs made of pine or bass-wood logs; the logs are first split fair in the middle, and hollowed out with the axe and adze.  A row of these troughs is then laid from the front or upper wall-plate, sloping down to the back plate, the hollowed side uppermost.  The covering-troughs is then placed with the hollow reversed, either edge resting in the centre of the under trough.  A door in the front and one window complete the building.  Such is commonly the first dwelling of the settler.  The lumber-shanty differs both in shape and size, being much larger, and the roof sloping both ways, with a raised hearth in the centre of the floor, with an aperture directly above for the escape of the smoke.  It has no window.  One door at the end, and two tier of bed berths, one above the other, complete the tout ensemble.  These shanties are generally constructed to accommodate from two to three gangs of lumber men, with shed-room for twelve or fourteen span of oxen or horses span being the Canadian term for pair.]

CHAPTER III

Inexperience of my friend. —­ Bad state of his land. —­ Fall wheat. —­ Fencing. —­ Grasses. —­ Invitation to A “Bee.” —­ United labour. —­ Canadian sports. —­ Degeneracy of bees.