noon
In ten seconds he was fast asleep . For another day , a day of brilliant sunshine and roaring west wind , the fire marched up over the southern slope . Its flaming head , with a towering crest of smoke , went over a high ridge , and its lower flank smoldered threateningly a little above the valley . The second night the wind fell to a whisper , shifting freakishly into the northeast , and day dawned with a mass formation of clouds spitting rain , which by noon grew to a downpour . The fire sizzled and sputtered and died . Twenty hours of rain cleared the sky of clouds , the woods of smoke . The sun lifted his beaming face over the eastern sky line .