The last cinder died, the earth cooled, and the forest creatures began to stir in the woodland aisles where the fire had passed.

The disaster had come and gone, and perhaps it was already out of their memories forever.
Rabbits timidly sought their old nests.

A wild cat climbed a tree, scarcely yet cool beneath his claws, and looked with red and staring eyes at the ring of fire that formed a core of light in the forest, and the two extraordinary beings that slept within its shelter.

A deer came down to the brook to drink, snorted at the sight of the red gleam among the trees, and then, when the strange odor came on the wind to its nostrils, fled in wild fright through the forest.
The news, in some way unknown to man, was carried to all the forest creatures.

A new species, strange, unexplainable, had come among them, and they were filled with curiosity.