Wild Fire Poem

The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides never in the dog’s experience had it know a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained silent. Later the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where there were other food provides and fire providers. He knew it

Traveling around four miles an hour for about six long, boring, monotonous hours, with a variation of long and short breaks in between, they finally made it to a shanty of some sort. Walking to the front door, they were immediately greeted by an old man. They were offered warm food and coffee and then they were asked where had come from. Both of the boys were still shaken up about what happened. After they told him everything from start to finish, the old man stood quietly filled with remorse for them. The old man told them that the man had come by a day earlier and he did not listen to his advice. He tried not to get into very deep detail about how the man was ignorant and doltish the man was for not listening to him. An offer to stay the night and rest was offered to the boys but they declined it. The town, Dawson, was only forty-six miles away, they could make it there in a day or so. Before they left they only had one request for the man, to go back and get their father so he would not lay their in the