“Yes, and, Harvey, here’s just the spot to build our fire.  This straight bank back of the beach will make a good chimney for the smoke to go up.”

Harvey looked at the spot a little critically.  Scrub palmettoes and grass overhung the bank above, which made him wonder if there was any danger of their catching fire.  A little breeze was springing up, but he decided that it was not strong enough to carry the sparks to the undergrowth above.

So Beth gathered dry leaves and sticks of wood while Harvey cleaned the fish.  Then he applied a match to the bonfire, and it blazed up and crackled noisily.  He next placed the butter and fish in the frying-pan and set it on the fire.

At that moment, a little rabbit darted past the children, running up the bank towards the woods.

Harvey started after it calling: 

“Come on, Beth.  Maybe it will lead us to some young rabbits.”

“But the fish.”

“They don’t need watching for awhile.  Hurry on.”

It was quite a climb up the bank for Beth, but she succeeded in following close after Harvey.

The rabbit, however, had quite a start of the children, and soon they acknowledged the uselessness of pursuit, and sat down on a log under a tree to rest.

Harvey started to tell Beth of his experience in trying to tame rabbits.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve had all kinds, from young ones that had to be fed milk out of a spoon to old ones that were so wild that they never could be tamed.  I never could raise the young ones.  If they didn’t die a natural death, a cat or a dog or something would eat them up.  For a long time, I never wakened up mornings without finding a dead rabbit.  I have rows and rows of rabbit graves over on our place.  You must come over and see——­”

He was interrupted by a bird that flew screeching from the tree under which they sat.  At the same instant a crackling sound caused them to spring to their feet in terror.  The woods around them were on fire.  The breeze had grown stronger, and had carried the sparks upward to the palmettoes and pines, so full of oil.  Then it was but a question of seconds before the awful fire sped with lightning speed over the dry undergrowth.  Again, it swelled upwards on the scrub palmettoes, and with a flash leaped skywards to the taller trees as if demons were lifting the flames to the very heavens.  It was at this point that the children discovered their danger.

Only a person who has seen a fire in the open among shrubs and trees already parched for lack of water, and fanned by a wind each moment growing stronger, can realize with what rapidity the fire spread.  To Harvey and Beth, it seemed as if from the moment of discovery, the fire hemmed them in.

The air was sultry, notwithstanding the wind, and with the spread of the fire it grew more so.  The sky was marked with fantastic clouds which turned from gray to flaming red.