When a tree became wreathed in smoke they felled it at
once, threw it down and put out the flames. Where the fire crept along
the heather, they beat it with the wet pine branches and smothered it.
The smoke was so dense that it enveloped everything. One could not
possibly see how the battle was going, but it was easy enough to
understand that it was a hard fight, and that several times the fire
came near penetrating farther.
But think! After a while the loud roar of the flames decreased, and the
smoke cleared. By that time the leaf trees had lost all their foliage,
the ground under them was charred, the faces of the men were blackened
by smoke and dripping with sweat; but the forest fire was conquered. It
had ceased to flame up. Soft white smoke crept along the ground, and
from it peeped out a lot of black stumps. This was all there was left of
the beautiful forest!
The boy scrambled up on a rock, so that he might see how the fire had
been quenched. But now that the forest was saved, his peril began. The
owl and the hawk simultaneously turned their eyes toward him. Just then
he heard a familiar voice calling to him.
Gorgo, the golden eagle, came sweeping through the forest, and soon the
boy was soaring among the clouds--rescued from every peril.
WESTBOTTOM AND LAPLAND
THE FIVE SCOUTS
Once, at Skansen, the boy had sat under the steps at Bollnaes cottage and
had overheard Clement Larsson and the old Laplander talk about Norrland.
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