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I HEARD DUSY NELSON GROWL, saw him churn his head. He coughed and spit, hawked and spit again - another gnat lodged in his throat or buzzing in a nostril.

His face was fogged by bugs, a swarming mist of biting gnats or "sand flies," that stalked us across the cutover, blitzing every square inch of bare skin. I'd inhaled three or four, swallowed a half-dozen. My forehead and forearms were peppered with fiery welts.

I reached into my tree bag for another white spruce seedling, my hands rough on this third day of planting, scratched and abraded by dirt, bristling needles, and the gritty steel of the dibble bar. A few minutes earlier I'd paused for a swig from my canteen, and gulped down a couple of cookies garnished with gnats. I plucked two wood ticks from my neck.

At least it wasn't raining. On the first day we'd worked in a relentless, cold drizzle - congenial weather for the seedlings - wreathed in the exhaust of our lungs. By the bottom of the first bag we were soaked and moody, but at least there were no gnats.

I glanced at Dusty again, noted the grim set of his mouth. As we began our toil three hours before, edging along a half-burned windrow of fir and spruce slash, we'd chatted and joked. Now we were numbed by the rhythm of our rows and the remorseless assault of the bugs. It was a fine day. It's good to plant trees, rewarding to sweat while laboring in soil amid deep forest. It's fitting to suffer for a worthy mission. Hefting a thousand seedlings and our tools, we'd packed in a quarter-mile off a lonely backwoods road, locking our fire truck as a formality. No wildfires that day; too wet. So we firefighters planted trees.

I worked along an old, water-filled skidder rut, methodically thrusting the bar. I rocked it to open a wet gash in the earth, bent to slip in a seedling (roots straight), then shoved the bar behind it and forced the gash closed. I yanked out the bar, heavy with caked clay, and stomped the opening with the heel of my boot. No air must reach the roots. It's a crude, almost violent dance, and I'm invariably surprised to see that years later most of the trees are healthy and growing. It's that easy, that difficult.

A southerly breeze gusts up for several seconds and the gnats are blown away from my face. I laugh out loud. Dusty grins and shouts at the sky, "Keep it up!"

But no. I see the swirling horde reappear around his head, as if conjured out of thin air. It's a wonder they don't lift away his cap and scalp him for more blood. A steady wind would be an astounding gift, a blessing beyond all counting. But no.

Dusty shrugs back in the dance and I muse upon his character. He's 20 years old, a logger's kid, and in his second season as a wildland firefighter. I trained him last spring and he seems promising. Today is another test. Whiners don't last. Over the past 18 years, some of the toughest days of my life - both physically and emotionally - have been endured on the fireground. A certain fortitude is mandatory. And even blackened trees and choking smoke sport a thin aura of romance, of tarnished glory. The planting ground is pure drudgery. Seedlings are crueler than fire. If Dusty sucks gnats on this third day without complaint, my respect will be confirmed. At this point, he may not give a damn for my regard. Or maybe he does.

An hour later we're done. We "made the trees go away." Our faces are smeared with mud from swatting at particularly vicious gnats, the ones that lust for your eyes. I'm weary but feeling the familiar surge of happy energy at the prospect of hiking out to the truck. We heft our tools and the gloriously empty tree bags and start walking.

I check my watch. It's 2 1/2 hours until the end of our shift, and I feel a pang. We have time to pick up another 500 trees and "slam them in." This site will easily accommodate that many more. True, we have other necessary duties to fill the day, but the planting is important. Should we go for it? Despite the pain?

Dusty is a step behind and he coughs. I can hear vast relief - almost joy - in his voice when he says, "You know, it took real determination to stay here and work."

OK, then - the final test. I clear my throat and reply, "Yes, it did. But you know what would really take determination?"

He hesitates. "What?"

"To plant another 500." There's a long pause. I keep walking, don't turn to look at his face. Are we on our way to snag another box of trees? I am, after all, the boss.

Finally, in a careful, measured tone, he says: "Yes. I suppose it would."

I laugh and turn, grinning into his dirty, bitten face. Good answer.

"We're out of here, Dusty. Enough for today."

He grins back. It is joy, and we fairly skip back to the road. MM

When veteran wildland firefighter Peter Leschak isn't helping educate people about fire and safety, he writes from a cabin in Side Lake, Minnesota. His book, Trials by Wildfire, was released earlier this year.