with heat and smoke, and holding much doubt as to their ultimate safety. As they gazed around they could see the wild birds dropping dead from the forest trees, the kangaroos leaping past with singed and burning fur, while cattle, bellowing with fear and astonishment, dashed wildly to the river-bank, to plunge into the deeper pools.
At Dunmore a better look-out had been kept. By the united efforts of the establishment the flames were arrested on the very verge of the homestead; but so close and desperate was the contest that the garden gate was burned, and Mr. Macknight was carried indoors insensible, having fainted from the severity of the protracted struggle. Had he died it would not have been the only instance on record of the danger of over-exertion with the thermometer at more than a hundred and fifty degrees of Fahrenheit in the sun.
We at Squattlesea Mere were more lucky than our neighbours, inasmuch as the fire took a turn southward, behind Dunmore, and continued its devastating progress through the heaths and scrubs which lay on the north bank of the Shaw. It was in a manner shunted away from our homestead by the region of marsh country which stretched around and beyond it.
