Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-29
minutes they left the sight and sound Of

minutes they left the sight and sound Of
the fire behind them.
Judith was tall and nimble, Ellen was
little and 1.-THE. But only by the help of
the fieet-footed boy who led them, could
they have kept up that swift fight
through the woods. Thorns tore their
clothes, brush scratched their faces,
they stumbled over logs and rocks, but
never stopped, for soon the roaring fire
was heard behind them, the scortohing
air from the burning trees swept their
faces. Now swift flame flashed past
and caught at limb overhead. Burn
ing leaves fluttered to the ground. A
shower of sparks drove through the air.
wellington caught a burning fold of
Ellen s dress and crushed out the fire
with his hands. On and on they hur-
ried. The air grew hotter and hotter,
the flames drew nearer.
Then q little patch of open ground
gave them moments relief. They
stopped to catch their breath, and then
struggled on. They must hurry through
the trees beyond and round the bluff be-
fore the fire could dart around the glade.
Blinded By smoke, half fainting with the
heat, they pass through the last thioket,
gained the bluff where that arm of the
wood ended, and, trembling with ex-
haustIoE entered its sheItering shadow.
They could hear the fire still roaring
through the wood as they crouched by
the rock and bathed their blistered hands
and faces in the brook that erept through
the gully. The steep wall of earth and
rock was barrier of safety, and the
fire could come no further.
When the cold water had little al
layed the pain of their smarting eyes and
scorched hands and faces the children
began to make their way slowly between
the brook and the foot of the bluff on
line with the highway at the top. They
could not go back through the fiery path
of the wood, though after a little while a
lull in the roar of the fire told that the
flames had spent their fury at the ravIne,
having nothing more to feed upon. Yet
for hours there must be dense smoke and
heat along the hillside and hollow,
where the woods had burned, and the
ground would be pathway of hot Goals.
So they orept along as best they could by
the precipIce which rose almost perpen-
dicularly more than 200 feet above them.
Limping, tired and blistered, Ellen
could not keep back the tears of suffer-
ing and WEAKNESS, and Judith's usual
f-possession was all gone.
1--WE never could have got out of the
woods, Wellington, if you hadn't come
back and helped u.s. she said, trem-
ulously. ''But how are we going to get
homer"
Wellington IS hands were smarting and
his face was pale with pain, but he an
swered bravely:
81 shall have to climb the bluff and
call the folks to help you and Ellen up
"But you can't, Wellington, can
you, - returned Judith in tone that
was-for her-strangely gentle and timid.
SIT is so high and Steep
81 think so,' said Wellington.
anyway 1 can try. We can't stay
down here. Besides, the folks don't
know where we are, and they'll be
dreadfully frightened when they know
about the fire.
They had reached the part of the bluff
where, in the morning, Judith had step
pea over the sloping edge at the top and
picked the red flower. She now looked
fearfully up the steep side.
at is as good place as any, said
Wellington. "There are some bushes
here that / can catch hold of, in places,
and it is no sleeper than the rest. -
He carefully began to climb. Bits of
1uLtlnR rock now ana then gave him n
little foothOld, sometimes a branch of O
shrub or q barred root proved strong
enough for him to trust for hold. Foot
by foot, yard by yard, he drew himself
slowly up the steep side. He was thirty
feet above the ground when branch to
which he was clinging pulled lose and he
went sliding backward. Only for a few
feet, however, his foot found lodging
place on bit of rock, he grasped at an
other shrub and patiently resumed the
ascent.
About half way up the bluff a lodge
projected for foot or more, and when
his feet rested securely on this, Yelling
ton stopped for a few minutes to rest
and gain his breath. The hardest,
most dangerous part of the climbing
was to come. He must cling tightly to
the face of the bluff, crawl slowly, try
every object most carefully before trust
ing his hold to it, and avoid looking
down. The temptation to measure the
distance which he had climbed with that
still to be covered was almost irresistible,
but he knew that to keep his head steady
and free from dizziness ne must not
glance downward for an instant. How
anxiously the girls watched the climbing
boy, forgetting the pain of their burns