Northwest! by Harold Bindloss

Smoke rolled about the clearing and dry branches snapped in the flames. A keen wind fanned the blaze and in places the fire leaped up the trees and resinous needles fell in sparkling showers. Okanagan Bob went about with a coal-oil can, and Jimmy drove the red oxen that hauled loads of brush. Jimmy's face was black, his hand was burned, and his shirt was marked by dark-edged holes, but his mood was buoyant. The fire had got firm hold and advanced steadily across the belt of chopped trunks and branches bushmen call the _slashing_. When it burned out Jimmy thought only half-consumed logs would be left. A good _burn_ ought to save him much labor.

Perhaps his keenness was strange. To clear a ranch is a long and arduous job that he was not forced to undertake; but he was keen. His occupation, so to speak, had got hold of him. Moreover he felt, rather vaguely, it was a test of his endurance and pluck. Since he left the cotton mill he had loafed and squandered; now he had got a man's job, and when the job was carried out he would know himself a man.