To The West Part 58

"But suppose he came again?"

"Gunson is watching. There is no fear."

"But I'm sure I can't sleep. It's too horrid to be woke up and find wild beasts swarming all over you."

"Yes, it was startling," I said, as I listened to the noise he made rolling himself in his blanket, and making the fir-boughs crackle as he turned about. "I was horribly scared at first, but I don't think I mind now."

"I do," said Esau, with a groan, "and I never pretended to be as brave as you. It's of no use, I can't go to sleep."

"Why, you haven't tried yet," I said, as I began to feel satisfied that his injuries were all fancy.

"No use to try," he said, gloomily. "Fellow can't go to sleep expecting every moment to be seized by some savage thing and torn to bits."

"Nonsense!" I said. "Don't make so much fuss."

"That's right; jump on me. You don't behave half so well to me as I do to you, Mayne Gordon."

I made no reply to this reproach, but lay gazing out into the gloom, where after a few minutes I heard a faint scratch, saw a line of light, and then the blaze of a match sheltered in Gunson's hands, and a flash made as he lit his pipe and threw the match away, after which at regular intervals I saw the dull glow of the tobacco in the bowl as our sentry kept patient watch over us.

"Esau," I said at last, "do you feel any pain?"

There was no reply.

"Esau, can you feel anything now?" I said.

Still no reply, and I began to be startled there in that intense darkness where it took so little to excite one's imagination. Had he after all been seriously hurt by the bear, and now sunk into a state of insensibility?

"Esau!" I whispered again, but still there was no reply; so half rising I reached over to touch his face, which was comfortably warm, and I heard now his regular hard breathing. For a few minutes I could not feel satisfied, but by degrees I grew convinced Esau was sleeping heavily, and at last I lay down too, and dropped off soundly asleep as he. How long I had been in the land of dreams I did not know till next day, when I found from Gunson that it must have been about a couple of hours, and then I awoke with a start, and the idea that the bear had come back and seized me, till the voice of our companion bidding me get up relieved me of that dread.

"What is the matter?"

"Look," he cried.

I was already looking at a blaze of light, and listening to a fierce crackling noise. There before me was one of the great pine-trees with the lower part burning, and clouds of smoke rolling up. "But how--what was it set it on fire?"

"Ask Quong," said Gunson gruffly, as he stood by me with the glow from the fire lighting him up from top to toe, and bringing the trees and rocks about us into view.

"Me only put fire light when bear go, leady for make water velly hot,"

said the little Chinaman, dolefully; "fire lun along and set alight."

"Yes, you couldn't help it," said Gunson. "The dry fir-needles must have caught, and gone on smouldering till they reached a branch which touched the ground, and then the fire ran along it like a flash."

"But can't we put it out?" I cried, excitedly, as the boughs of the huge green pyramid began to catch one after the other.

"Put it out!" he said, with a half laugh. "Yes; send Dean there for the nearest fire-engine. There's plenty of water. I did try at first while you were asleep, and burned myself."

"But--"

"Oh, let it burn," he said, carelessly. "It stands alone, and a tree more or less does not signify in these regions. A hundred more will spring up from the ashes."

I stood silently gazing at the wondrous sight, as the huge fire began more and more to resemble a cone of flame. High up above the smoke which rolled like clouds of gold, and the tongues of fire which kept leaping up and up to the high branches, there was still a green spire dark and dimly seen as it rose to some two hundred and fifty feet above where we stood. But that upper portion was catching alight fast now, and the hissing crackle of the burning was accompanied by sharp reports and flashes, the heat growing so intense that one had to back away, while quite a sharp current of cold air began to rush past our ears to sweep out and fan the flames.

"What a pity!" I said at last, as I turned to Esau, who stood there with his eyes glowing in the light, Quong being seated on a stone holding his knees, as he crouched together, his yellow forehead wrinkled, and little black eyes sparkling the while.

"Yes, I s'pose it's a pity," said Esau, thoughtfully. "My! how it burns. I s'pose there's tar and turpentine and rosin in that big tree?"

"Why, Esau," I said suddenly, as a thought struck me, "how about the bear?"

"Bear? Where?" he cried, grasping my arm. "Not here," I said with a laugh. "No wild beast would come near that fire. I mean how about your hurts?"

"My hurts?" he said, beginning to feel his arms. "Oh, I'd forgotten all about them."

"No fear of its catching any other tree," said Gunson, returning to where we stood after being away, though I had not missed him. "I've been all round it, and there isn't another for twenty yards."

"But it will set light to them when it falls," I said.

"No, my lad. That tree's enormous at the bottom, but the boughs grow smaller and smaller till the top is like a point. Look, the fire is reaching it now, and it will go on burning till the trunk stands up half burned down, and then gradually go out, leaving a great pointed stick of charred wood. No fear of its falling either upon us. I should have been sorry for us to have started a forest fire, that might have burned for weeks."

He ceased speaking, and we all stood gazing in awe at the magnificent spectacle as the flames rushed higher and higher, till from top to bottom there before us was a magnificent cone of roaring fire, which fluttered and scintillated, and sent up golden clouds of tiny sparks far away into the air, while a thin canopy of smoke spread over us, and reflected back the glow till the valley far around looked almost as light as day, and the green pines stood out gilded, though sombre in their shades, and the water flashed and sparkled where it rushed along.

It was a wonderful sight, impressing even Quong, and for a long time no one spoke.

It was Gunson who broke the silence.

"Well, Quong," he cried, "what do you think of your work?"

"Velly solly," said the little fellow, dolefully.

"Ah," said Gunson, "it is a bad job. All the King of China's horses and men could not build that up again--eh, Gordon?"

"No," I said, sadly; for there seemed to me to be something pitiful in that grand forest monarch, at whose feet we had supped the past night, being destroyed.

"But one of the seeds out of a cone hidden under the ground will produce another," he said, "in a hundred or two years. And we shan't wait to see it, Gordon."

I looked at him wonderingly.

"And that's how the world goes on, boy; fresh growth makes up for the destruction, and perhaps, after all, we have done some future settler a good turn by helping to clear the ground for him, ready for his home.

Now then, will you lie down and have another nap?"

"What, with that tree burning?" I cried; and Esau uttered a grumbling sound expressing dissent, in which I fancied I detected words which sounded like fire and bears.

"Well, it is hardly worth while," said Gunson. "Look sharp, Quong--tea.

We'll get breakfast over, and make a fresh start."

"What, so soon?" I cried.

"Soon? Yes--look!"

He pointed upward, and to my astonishment I saw what seemed to be another huge pine-tree on fire far away in the distance; but realised directly after that it was the icy point of a mountain touched by the first rays of the rising sun, long before it illumined the lower earth.