The sun had dried much of the sandstone slab by the time they rolled out of bed and dressed. "The pools will probably not rewarm enough today to be comfortable," David said as he looked across at them "The hail and the snow will have chilled them too much."

Maria and Rachel walked with him to the brink of the slab and looked down to the slopes below. "Still snow on the ground between the trees and on the shaded branches," he said. "It'll be slippery going for a while yet. Even if Fritz had left, it wouldn't make sense for us to continue in these conditions."

"It's started again." Maria pointed up the slopes. "The flying machine's engine has started."

The engine ran slowly for a while, then increased rapidly in both pitch and noise. "It's going back up into the air," Maria said. "They bounce along the field, gradually picking up speed, then their wings lift them off the ground. They seem so terribly fragile."

The three stood listening to the steady racket of the engine, then they heard it stutter, miss a beat, resume for a moment. There was a loud bang, a brief squeal of metal on metal, then silence.

"I know that sound," David said. "That's similar to the one Dad's motorcar made when a connecting rod let go. What a twist of metal we found when we removed the oil pan."

They listened. Heard nothing. They looked at each other, then up past the tops of the cliffs. There was nothing but clear, blue sky and complete silence except for the splash of the waterfall across from them, the gurgle of the stream and the murmur of the cascade below.

"It's going to come back down. Without the engine, there's nothing to hold it up except the air moving past its wings," he said. "The only way to keep the air passing over the wings to keep it flying without power, is to descend."

"Three weeks ago, in early April, I watched one lose its power as it was taking to the air," Maria said. "It started to turn to head back to the field, but fell sideways into..."

She stopped at the sharp snap above them. It was quickly followed by another, some twangs, the sounds of breaking trees, ripping cloth and a loud, dull thud. Then there was silence.

"That sounded rather close." He looked up at the cliffs "Can't be more than a hundred yards across there." He pointed up to the right. "Fritz is going to come back this way again, I'm afraid."

"It's on our safe side, fortunately," Rachel said.

They continued to stare up at the cliff tops. David walked out to the brink and looked from there. "Still can't see anything above the rocks from here except the ends of a few branches." Then he saw a billow of black smoke wafting across in the gentle easterly breeze, and he caught its acrid smell.

"It's afire. Smells like burning gasoline," he said as he moved back in from the brink. "Good thing the forest is wet from last night's storm. It had been dry until that. This would have rapidly spread yesterday."

"Dowsed with gasoline, it'll set trees ablaze," Rachel added. "We're fortunate there's such a light breeze. The mountains are clearly visible from home, and we've watched how quickly a fire spreads up here. Also on the slopes of the Vosges across in Elsass."

They watched the billow of smoke change from black to grey. "Looks as if the trees are now burning," Maria said.

"I wonder how far back it is from the cliff tops. I can see a few sparks now in the smoke." He looked at the oiled canvas. "It might be a good idea to pack up our things, move them to the other side, across the stream. Keep them farther away from falling embers. Let's do that." He turned toward the camp.

"Take everything down. Pack as if we're preparing to leave. We may have to if the fire spreads this way and burning embers, branches, even trees fall into our nook. Let's do it."

They worked as a team, quickly striking the camp and stowing items methodically and carefully into the packs.

"I can hear the crackle of the fire now," Maria said, looking up. "A lot of sparks rising; thankfully, not falling."

David carefully removed the mirror from its supports and slipped it into the left side pocket of his small pack. "Is that everything? A quick look around. Have we missed anything?"

They hefted their packs and moved them the short distance across the slabs and laid them on the exit ledge above the stream, out of the spray. They sat on the ledge side-by-side, leaning against the wall and dangling their feet a short distance above the stream. "Now we wait," he said. "Watch and wait."

"And pray," Maria added.

"I prefer not to pray." David shook his head. "The church ruined that for me with the incessant babbling of Hail Mary and other nonsensical things. I prefer to simply think nice thoughts, think of pleasant things, let my mind wander, then totally clear. It's amazing how much more I can see with a quiet mind."

They watched streams of sparks and an occasional tongue of flame rising above the rock face across from them. The streams of sparks increased, then there were more flames. They heard the loud crack and thud of a tree collapsing and watched a swarm of sparks heading skyward. A fine black grit began settling around them. Nothing glowing; only spent sparks.

The heat of the fire carried the billows of smoke well above them. They began feeling a wind coming up the gully, an increasing wind, pulled up from below by the heat of the inferno above them. The spray from the waterfall looked confused. It wavered in the strengthening updraft, then it began falling up.

"We have a place in eastern Canada called Reversing Falls. I've never been there, but here's another one," he said, pointing to the upward movement of the spray, now increasingly some of the bigger droplets.

"What's causing the strong wind?" Maria asked.

"Fires generate their own winds." He looked at her and rolled his hands like a paddle wheel. "They feed themselves in a continuing cycle. The hot air from the fire rises more quickly as the fire grows, and its rising sucks fresh air in from around the fire. This fresh supply of oxygen increases the flames, the winds intensify them further, the increasing heat creates higher winds to build the fire further still. The fire keeps building, accelerating."

He looked up at the sound of another crashing tree. "I've seen forest fires back home in the Kootenays and the Columbia Valley as they danced across the tops of the trees, setting them ablaze from a distance simply from the intense heat. Trees suddenly burst into flame a long distance from the fire. We're not going to have that here; the forest is too wet, and the trees and the air are too cold for that to happen."

He saw the concern in her eyes. "We're safe here. The fire can't come into here; there's nothing to feed on, no fuel for it to burn. It's above us, and its heat will pass above us. So will the smoke." He leaned over and kissed her and watched as her face relaxed.

They sat for a long quiet time, mesmerised by the inferno as it reached the lip of the steep treed slope above the cliffs. The updraft pushed the flames up; the advancing fire was running out of access to fuel. The fresh fuel was now all upwind below it.

"Appears the rapid advance of the fire is stalled by the steep slope into the gully, starved by its own wind. It'll keep burning for a long time yet, though. Many trees are afire and likely also the underground, but it seems to have stopped moving."

He glanced at his watch. "Nearly half past noon, let's wait another half hour, until 13:00, watch what it does, stay here by the water in case anything falls into our spa."

"You're very familiar with fires, David," Rachel said. "It sounds like you've been around them a lot."

"Conrad and I helped fight two big ones up the Columbia Valley when we were climbing. Amazing how much one learns about fires being surrounded by them and trying to survive. I wish we could learn more about Fritz. We're surrounded by them and trying to survive."

Within a few minutes, the flames disappeared back out of sight over the steep slope. The wind up the gully decreased and then died; the waterfall lost its confusion. There was still a large billowing of light grey smoke, and a light ash began falling into the gully, almost like snow, slowly turning the dark sandstone a paler grey. A thin skim grew on the small pools furthest from the spray of the waterfall.

David carefully surveyed the tops of the cliffs opposite. He stood up on the ledge in an attempt to assess the nature of the slopes above them. "Not high enough," he said, mostly to himself, "I've got to get a bit higher."

He looked up behind their stance. "This is too steep and slippery to safely climb. I'm going to poke around the corner and climb for a better view." He leaned and kissed Maria and chuckled. "Don't go away; I'll be right back."

He sidled along and around the bulge, stopped before the corner and peeked around it to make sure the ledge was clear. Patches of snow were still on the ground.

So much warmer in the nook.

A few yards along the ledge, he turned and headed up a steep, narrow ramp sloping toward their nook. He quickly gained twenty feet, then worked across a ledge to the edge of the gully.

Above him, about ten feet higher was the top of the cascade. Across the gully, above the cliffs, he saw a slab laid back at a steep angle, nearly treeless, but for adventurous clingers in crevices and scattered small bushes, similarly adventurous.

Beyond the steep slab were smouldering trees, a few with small licks of flames. Farther back was a charred scar in the forest with many trees still burning, most still standing, but some of them fallen. The fire was slowly putting itself out.

Beyond the burnt scar, he saw movement in the trees. A squad of soldiers standing beyond the edge of the fire. He couldn't see the aeroplane.

Probably completely burned in the inferno.

He looked back at the fire and studied it for a while, confirming it was diminishing. His eyes moved back to Fritz when they caught additional movement.

Two squads. Looks like they can't do anything about the aeroplane, nor for whoever was in it. They're doing nothing but standing and looking.

He carefully retraced his route, moving backwards to ensure he remained hidden until he was below the sight line over the top of the slab. Once there, he turned and picked his way back down the diagonal, glancing along the ramp at the base of the bluffs to look for Fritz.

Back with the girls, he explained what he had seen, and he told them there appeared to be no danger of anything from the fire falling into their spa, "Nothing but ashes, that is," he said as he concluded his assessment.

"The ash fall has slowed, almost stopped now," Maria said.

David glanced at his watch again. "We're packed and ready to go, but it's well past midday. Should we risk sneaking past Fritz now and hope we'll find a safe hideaway before nightfall? Let's quietly think. Do we go or do we stay?"

A minute later, he asked, "Go?" He saw their heads shake. "Also, my thoughts. The going would be slippery, and we don't know where they've spread up there. Here, we know what we're dealing with. Let's set up camp where we are, get sheltered and out of sight for another night."