Title:  The Flaming Forest

Author:  James Oliver Curwood

Release Date:  December, 2003 [Etext #4702] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 3, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE FLAMING FOREST

BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

Author of the valley of silent men, the country beyond, the
ALASKAN, etc.

THE FLAMING FOREST

I

An hour ago, under the marvelous canopy of the blue northern sky, David Carrigan, Sergeant in His Most Excellent Majesty’s Royal Northwest Mounted Police, had hummed softly to himself, and had thanked God that he was alive.  He had blessed McVane, superintendent of “N” Division at Athabasca Landing, for detailing him to the mission on which he was bent.  He was glad that he was traveling alone, and in the deep forest, and that for many weeks his adventure would carry him deeper and deeper into his beloved north.  Making his noonday tea over a fire at the edge of the river, with the green forest crowding like an inundation on three sides of him, he had come to the conclusion—­for the hundredth time, perhaps—­that it was a nice thing to be alone in the world, for he was on what his comrades at the Landing called a “bad assignment.”

“If anything happens to me,” Carrigan had said to McVane, “there isn’t anybody in particular to notify.  I lost out in the matter of family a long time ago.”

He was not a man who talked much about himself, even to the superintendent of “N” Division, yet there were a thousand who loved Dave Carrigan, and many who placed their confidences in him.  Superintendent Me Vane had one story which he might have told, but he kept it to himself, instinctively sensing the sacredness of it.  Even Carrigan did not know that the one thing which never passed his lips was known to McVane.