Flow the Spark of Fire was Saved. 81

-Soon the race must end]

But Puma, the monstrous cat, was watching, and
leaped up just in time to save the brand.

Each animal was in its place and the good fire
passed on.

Itcame at last to the Cahroc nation, and was
afterwards free to all people under the sun.

There were only two mishaps in all the race.

As the squirrel turned a corner of stumps and
bowlders, his beautiful tail caught fire, and a brown
track was burned up over his back to his shoulders,
and the curl has remained in his tail to this day.

The frog had a harder fate.

He was the last one in the line of beasts. When
the brand reached him it was smaller than the
smallest coal in the grate.

He seized it carefully and jumped onward as fast
as he could, but the hand of the foremost beldam
caught him and held him fast.

How his heart beat!

His eyeballs bulged out of his head, and he has
looked ever since much in the same scared way.

He did not lose his courage, however. He
swallowed the coal and sprang into the water.

- Sad to tell, the beldam still held in her hand his
special pride and care, his tail.

Henceforth only the tadpoles could wear tails.

The frog sought a log and sat down upon it to
think. :