Newport daily independent., 1903-05-20
CAUGHT IN A FOREST FIRE.
Dreadful Experience of Explorers In Burning Timber in Hudson
 Bay ReEfon.

A geologist who explored with two companions a region on the western shore of Hudson bay had an experi- ence in a forest fire which could hardly be equaled in scope and fierce ness farther south, where the woods are broken by settlement, The men had pushed far to the north of Port Nelson into land inhabited by tribes of Indians, where no white man had left trace, relates Youths Com panion.
 We had crossed the mouth of stream, he says, which forked twice some distance from where it opens into the bay, making two long, nar- dow deltas. By sundown we had gone a mile or so north of the upper branch The air grew hot and dry' The light in the western sky was more dense and solid than that of the sunset. and it extended round to the north beyond the range of the set ting sun. We knew that it was ire, and halted on a rising slope, where we. could get broad view of the sky.
 "The wind was from the northwest, and the fire must be coming straight toward us. In the hope of reaching one of the deltas of the stream which we had crossed about a mile to the south, we turned back and walked for our lives.
 I've reached the upper branch of the stream before the fire overlook us, crossed it, and sat panting on the southern shore. The sun had set, and the fire marked it's limits in wide sweep covering the northwest.
 'As we sat waiting, the bush across the stream cracked, and five or six deer broke from the woods and stood on the bank, shifting.
 .srhe air grew dense. A dull roar like a distant surf was blown to us from the north. I climbed halfway up a small tree, and then 1 saw sight. Perhaps five miles away came a fire, sea of red flame under wall of smoke that rolled on in advance.
 Before I descended from the tree the smoke was on us. One of my companions, noting that the trees on the delta were of smaller growth, thought we were safer on the lower delta with two strips of water and an island between us and the fire. So we moved on a few hundred yards to the next mouth of the stream.
 We were wrapped in smoke. The roar of the fire grew like a storm. We waded into the water, took off our coats, and wrapped them wet about our heads. Then we noticed that we were not alone. Round us, .aonly a few yards away, stood groups Nx~horned creatures. Behind us n black shape lay in the water, evident ly bear. The danger had made the whole world kin, and fear of the com mon enemy had made all the driven animals tame to each other.
 "Ashes and cinders settled over us. and we bowed our heads close to the water. The heat grew intense. Then with a stride the fire burst over the, northern bank. We waded to the south shore and waited. Cur coats grew hot on aIR~ heads and we 'dug&eA-again and again. l turned -~snd looked at 'he fire. It mounted, I should say, more than hundred feet and leapea across the stream, which was fully 200 feet wide. Un- der that leaning bank of flame we crouched in the water, which grew tepid, and was foul with the count less animals that for miles up were seeking shelter in it.
 sl,1 e., fs I, on to the next stream. We were dazed and parched, and if the fire leaped this stream it would have caught lis in the woods.
 Suddenly I raised my head, and saw the flames like clouds of fire leap over our heads and seize the tops of the trees on the southern bank. The fire had jumped the stream.
 For an hour we stayed in the wa ter, waiting for the fire to burn out on the northern shore, A great weariness and stupor weighed us down. Presently we felt the air grow clearer and cooler. It was rain ing, and we dragged ourselves to the northern bank where we lay with our noses close to the baked earth and slept.
 "Afterward we learned that the fire had ruined a stretch of timber 800 miles long and 75 miles wide, a tract as long as from Boston to Buff falo, and half IS wide again as the north-and-south breadth of Massa- ' chusetts."