CHAPTER XII 

FIRE 

The light had got dim, and Carrie put down her sewing and looked about. A belt of yellow sky glimmered above the distant snow, but the valley was dark and the pines rolled in blurred masses up the hill. Thin mist crept out of the deep hollow and Carrie shivered when a cold wind shook the trees. She was beginning to know the wilds, and now and then their austerity daunted her. By and by a red twinkle in the distance drew her glance and she turned to Jim. 

"What is that?" 

Jim looked and frowned. "Ah," he said, "I'd begun to think our luck was too good!" 

"But what is the light?" 

"A bush fire." 

Jake indicated the drift of the smoke from their cooking fire. As a rule, the valleys of British Columbia that open to the west form channels for the Chinook wind from the Pacific, but now and then a dry, cold current flows down them to the coast. 

"It won't bother us unless the wind changes," he remarked. "In this country, however, the wind generally does change when you'd sooner it did not, and it's not safe to trust your luck much. Looks as if Nature had put up her shingle on the mountains, warning the white man off." 

"But white men do live in the mountains," Carrie objected. 

"Men who are strong enough. They must fight for a footing and then use the best tools other men can make to hold the ground they've won. We're scouts, carrying axes, saws, and giant-powder, but the main body must coöperate to defend its settlements with civilization's heavy machines. It's sure a hard country, and sometimes it gets me scared!" 
Despite those tools, what was required for survival?
but the main body must coöperate