Читать книгу Camping in the Winter Woods: Adventures of Two Boys in the Maine Woods онлайн

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Ed and George were sent to the lake for pails of water, while Ben and the trapper cut a supply of white-pine boughs for use as beaters. When the boys returned they were each given one of these pine branches and told to wet them and beat out any encroaching patch of flame. Ed was then detailed to the roof to beat out any sparks that might light there. George was ordered to follow along the line of fire started by the men, and told to keep it away from the dry log walls.

FIGHTING A FOREST FIRE

By this time the smoke was so dense that they could not see one another, and Ben cautioned George against wandering away. Great black cinders and bits of charred wood were flying through the woods and dropping all about them. Birds and animals, fleeing from the fire, went by within easy reach. A deer, in its wild panic, almost ran into the cabin, and they heard the frightened creature jump into the lake a few seconds later. Grouse whizzed past close to their heads, and rabbits and smaller things scurried by almost beneath their feet.