generations leapt through their brains and bodies.  Their world was in the grip of Iskootao (the Fire Devil).  To the south and the east and the west it was buried in a pall like the darkness of night, and out of the far edge of the swamp through which they had come they caught the first livid spurts of flame.  From that direction, now that they were out of the “pocket,” they felt a hot wind, and with that wind came a dull and rumbling roar that was like the distant moaning of a cataract.  They waited, and watched, struggling to get their bearings, their minds fighting for a few moments in the gigantic process of changing instinct into reasoning and understanding.  Neewa, being a bear, was afflicted with the near-sightedness of his breed, and he could see neither the black tornado of smoke bearing down upon them nor the flames leaping out of the swamp.  But he could smell, and his nose was twisted into a hundred wrinkles, and even ahead of Miki he was ready for flight.  But Miki, whose vision was like a hawk’s, stood as if fascinated.

The roaring grew more distinct.  It seemed on all sides of them.  But it was from the south that there came the first storm of ash rushing noiselessly ahead of the fire, and after that the smoke.  It was then that Miki turned with a strange whine but it was Neewa now who took the lead—­Neewa, whose forebears had ten thousand times run this same wild race with death in the centuries since their world was born.  He did not need the keenness of far vision now.  He knew.  He knew what was behind, and what was on either side, and where the one trail to safety lay; and in the air he felt and smelled the thing that was death.  Twice Miki made efforts to swing their course into the east, but Neewa would have none of it.  With flattened ears he went on north.  Three times Miki stopped to turn and face the galloping menace behind them, but never for an instant did Neewa pause.  Straight on—­north, north, north—­ north to the higher lands, the big waters, the open plains.

They were not alone.  A caribou sped past them with the swiftness of the wind itself.  “Fast, fast, fast!”—­Neewa’s instinct cried; “but—­endure!  For the caribou, speeding even faster than the fire, will fall of exhaustion shortly and be eaten up by the flames.  Fast—­but endure!”

And steadily, stoically, at his loping gait Neewa led on.

A bull moose swung half across their trail from the west, wind-gone and panting as though his throat were cut.  He was badly burned, and running blindly into the eastern wall of fire.