It appeared advisable to set about the latter task at once, for the conflagration was by this time uncomfortably close to them.
"Hand me the big flour-bag," he said.
Saunders hoisted it on his shoulders, and he stumbled away with it, coughing in the smoke, until he could deposit it in the cleared track where the fire had passed the previous afternoon.

Then he went back for another load, and had some difficulty in reaching the shack, for the vapor filled his eyes and almost suffocated him.

He fell down once or twice among the half-burned branches as he retraced his steps with his burden; but pork and flour and picks and drills were precious commodities in the bush, and he made a third journey, upsetting Saunders as he plunged into the shack.

In the meanwhile, the other also had been busy, and at length they sat down gasping beside the pile of blankets, clothing, tools and provisions, with several other men who had hastily removed their possessions from adjacent claims.
"Where are the rest of the boys ?" Saunders asked one of them.
"Some of them are in the workings, some of them on the range, but I guess it was for Vancouver the Fraser crowd started out.

Seemed to me they meant to get there before they stopped." Just then a shower of sparks fell about them and charred a hole or two in Devine's clothes, while they had a momentary vision of the front of the conflagration.