Yes, Sir, “while there is life there is hope!” But things certainly looked bad for Bobby Lynx and Twinkly Eyes and Red Fox and his family as the flames licked nearer and nearer through the circling trees.

The heat fairly seared their eyeballs, the smoke set them gasping every time the wind turned their way, and the huge sparks that now began to drop on their fur added pain to their terror.

Yet there was no way out, save the River which here ran wide and deep.

But if the larger animals were terror-stricken, imagine the feelings of Mother Red Squirrel’s family, and the brown bunnies, and Fleet Foot the Fawn, and Writho the Black Snake, and Timothy Field Mouse! For would they not escape the red flames and the cutting smoke but to furnish luncheon for their enemies, at whose very feet they crouched?

Of a sudden, as a blazing brand fell hissing beside Red Fox, he took a good grip on his resolution and plunged into the stream, and yelped to his family to follow. It was, after all, the only thing to do, as he had known for some time. His hesitation had lain in the fact of the puppies’ inexperience in the water. But after all, the youngsters of the wilderness could nearly always swim, once they were forced to it. And there was Mother Red Fox and himself to help the pups along, should they become too tired to make the entire distance.

Young Frisky Fox splashed in like any healthy puppy, his fat legs paddling so energetically that he had little difficulty in keeping up with his father. There did come a moment, however, when he felt as if he would have to rest or sink, and with one of these sudden bright ideas that make the foxes the cleverest creatures in all the wilderness, he grabbed the tip of his father’s plumy tail in his teeth and clung. The wiry fellow, from whom Frisky had inherited both strength and cunning, cut across the current and towed him to the shallow waters of the opposite bank.

Seeing Frisky, Mother Red Fox gave a sharp command to the youngest pup, while she towed him the same way. Then both parents swam back to aid the remaining youngsters, one by a timely word of encouragement, another by holding to his ear, and the third as they had aided the first two.

Seeing the Fox family making so valiantly for safety, Twinkly Eyes flung himself into their wake, and began gasping and snorting in his fight with the current. Bobby Lynx, half blinded by the smoke, peered vaguely at the sounds beneath his tree, then, with the courage of desperation, leaped far out into the unknown element.

But so ill do the great cats take to water that his head went under, and he felt that now surely it must be all up with him. Then, suddenly, he clutched at the little Bear’s haunches and was half towed to shore.—Thus ended their quarrel!