How can you tell that this is part of the story's climax? And how slowly the fuse burned! Why had I not made it shorter? Every moment I expected to feel the
sudden jolt which told that the wolves had pulled down one of the horses and that the end had come!
At last the dull red glow had almost reached the end of the cap. A few seconds more and it would explode.
Thrusting the bundle hastily into another sack, forgetting even the wolves in my terror lest it should
explode in my hands, I threw it with all my force into the midst of the moving
forms abreast of the horses.
-Adapted from "On a Mountain Trail" by Harry Perry Robinson
the conflict of the story is revealed
the action begins to slow down
the reader learns what happens to all of the characters
the action reaches its peak