seemed to swell and surge as if urged on by a
rough rising blast. The heat was fierce and
suffocating. The young squatter's clothes
clung to him with streaming perspiration.
The horse and cattle steamed and smoked
with boiling heat. Yet onward, onward
they dashed with lolling tongues. Sorcerer,
specked with patches of foam on his dark
shining body, seemed to grow furiously
impatient of the obstruction offered by the
bullocks in his path. As his master's whip
exploded on their flanks, he laid back his
ears; and, with flaming eyeballs and bared
teeth, strove to tear them in his rage.

Robert Patterson knew that the
extraordinary heat and drought of the summer
had scorched up the grass; the very ground;
had licked up the water from crab-hole, pool,
and many a creek; had withered the herbage
into crisp hay, and so withered the foliage,
that you might crumble it between your
fingers. The country seemed thoroughly
prepared for a conflagration, and only
required this fiery wind to send a blaze of
extermination over the whole land. For
weeks, nay months, the shepherds and sawyers
had spoken of fires burning in the hills;
and, in the fern-tree breaks of this very
forest he had been recently told that flames
had been observed in various directions burning
redly by night.

If the fire had reached him and his herd
before they escaped into the open plains,
they must be consumed like stubble. The
cattle began to show signs of exhaustion,
hanging out their parched tongues, and panting
heavily; the perspiration on himself and
horse was dried up by the awful heat, and
the dogs ran silently, or only whining lowly
to themselves, as they hunted every hollow
on their way for water. Suddenly, they
were out in an open plain, yet with the
forest on either hand, but at a considerable
distance.

What a scene! The woods were flaming
and crackling in one illimitable conflagration.
The wind, dashing from the north in gusts
of inconceivable heat, seemed to sear the
very face and shrivel up the lungs. The fire
leaped from tree to tree, flashing and roaring
along, with the speed and the destructiveness
of lightning. The sere foliage seemed to
snatch the fire, and to perish in it in a riot
of demoniacal revelry. On it flew, fast as the
fleetest horse could gallop; and consuming acres
of leaves in a moment, still remained to rage
and roar amongst the branches and in the
hollow stems of ancient trees. The whole
wood on the left was an enormous region of
intensest flame; and that on the right, sent
forth the sounds of the same ravaging fires;
but, being to windward, the flames could not be
seen for the vast clouds of smoke, mingled
with fiery sparks, which were rolled on the
air. There was a sound as of thunder, mingled
with the crash of falling trees, and the wild
cries of legions of birds of all kinds; which
fell scorched and blackened and dead to the
ground.

Once out on this open plain, the cattle
were speedily lost in the blinding ocean of
smoke, and the young settler, obliged to
abandon them, made a dash onward for his
life. Now the flames came racing along the
grass with the speed of the wind, and
mowing all smooth as a pavement; now it
tore furiously through some near point of the
forest, and flung burning ashes and tangles of
blazing bark upon the galloping rider. But
Sorcerer, with an instinct more infallible
than human sagacity, sped on, over thicket,
and stone, and fallen tree, snorting in the
thick masses of smoke, and stretching
forward his gaping jaws as to catch every breath
of air to sustain impeded respiration.

When the wind veered, the reek driven
backward, revealed a most amazing scene. The
blazing skirts of the forests; huge isolated
trees, glaring red—standing columns of fire;
here a vast troop of wild horses with flying
manes and tails, rushing with thundering
hoofs over the plain; there herds of cattle
running with bloodshot eyes and hanging
tongues, they knew not whither, from the
fires; troops of kangaroos leaping frantically
across the rider's path, their hair singed and
giving out strongly the stench of fire; birds
of all kinds and colours shrieking piteously
as they drove wildly by, and yet saw no
spot of safety; thousands of sheep standing
huddled in terror on the scorched flats, with
singed wool, deserted by their shepherds, who
had fled for their lives.

But onward flew the intrepid Sorcerer,
onward stretched his rider, thinking lightning-
winged thoughts of home, and of his helpless,
paralysed mother there.

With a caution inspired by former
outbreaks of bush-fires, he had made at some
distance round his homestead a bare circle.
He had felled the forest trees, leaving only
one here and there, at such distances that
there was little fear of ignition. As the
summer dried the grass, he had set fire to
it on days when the wind was gentle enough
to leave the flame at command; watching,
branch in hand to beat out any blaze that
might have travelled into the forest. By
this means he had hitherto prevented the
fire from reaching his homestead; and he
had strongly recommended the same plan to
his neighbours, though generally with little
effect. Now, the fire was so terrible, and
sparks flew so wide on the wind, that he
feared they might kindle the grass round his
homestead, and that he might find everything
and every person there consumed.

But, behold! the gleaming, welcome waters
of Lake Colae! Sorcerer rushed headlong
towards it; and wading hastily up to his
sides in its cooling flood, thrust his head
to the eyes into it and drank, as if he
could never be satisfied with less than the
whole lake. Englishmen, new to the scene,