CHAPTER ELEVEN

Last-Ditch Stand

When they reached the main road, Sandy pulled the jeep up in front of fire headquarters. Prince came bounding out to meet them, leaping up on Sandy and barking happily. Then Russ Steele appeared in the entrance. His face was lined with weariness and worry.

“Well, hello there,” he said. “Back from the wars?”

“We’ve just about had it,” Jerry said. “So have the other fellows on the line.”

Russ threw one arm across his nephew’s shoulder. “I understand you boys are real hot-shot smoke-eaters.”

Sandy grinned. “We don’t feel like hot shots at the moment.”

“Tired, eh?”

“And hungry!” Jerry and Quiz added simultaneously.

Russ laughed. “I don’t doubt it. I was just on my way to chow. Come along.”

They walked slowly in the direction of the mess tent, with Prince trotting at their heels. “What kind of a night did you have, Uncle Russ?” Sandy inquired.

“Spent most of it on the phone and radio. I’m hoarse. Not as rough as you had it, however.”

“How’s Mr. Landers?” Quiz asked.

“Great! He thrives on this kind of excitement. What a dynamo that man is. He can talk on six different phones at once, and play checkers at the same time. And what he doesn’t know about forest fires wouldn’t fill up the eye of a needle.”

“He sure fooled Macauley,” Sandy said. “He was certain that last line at the end of the ridge wouldn’t stop the fire.”

Russ frowned. “Well, the chief wasn’t sure it would, either. He just had a hunch that that wind would blow itself out come daylight. He’s still not convinced that they’ve stopped her for good.”

“Gee,” Sandy said moodily. “Even the fire boss. This must be a nerve-racking way to earn a living.”

“They don’t get any money for fighting fires. Not these boys anyway. There are exceptions, of course. Gigantic fires where they can’t raise enough men by the volunteer system. Then they have to hire them.”

At the mess table, their tin plates were heaped with scrambled eggs, bacon and buttered toast. It was obvious from their dirty, disheveled appearance that they had just come off the fire line, and the cooks besieged them with questions. The boys talked freely—and not without pride, Sandy had to admit to himself. It was a good feeling being treated as equals by these hard-bitten old smoke-eaters.

When they were seated cross-legged under a shady tree, wolfing the food and washing it down with gulps of hot coffee, Sandy changed the subject.

“Any news on that bomb?” he asked his uncle in a low voice.

Russ shook his head somberly and swallowed a mouthful of egg. “Nothing. I was in touch with the Pentagon last night, and again this morning. As you can imagine, they’re pretty concerned about this fire. They offered to send in troops to help out if it becomes necessary.”

“Do they think there’s any danger?” Quiz asked. “Of the bomb exploding, I mean.”

Russ put down his plate and massaged the thick stubble on his chin. Then he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. It startled Sandy, for he knew that his uncle never smoked cigarettes, except when he was under extreme tension.

“They don’t _think_ so,” he replied, emphasizing the verb. “But there are so many things we still don’t know about atomic energy. And of course, there’s always the chance the casing was damaged in some unpredictable way so that—oh, it’s only a billion-in-one chance.”

Jerry suddenly lost his appetite. “That’s just what they said in the papers that time a comet landed right in some lady’s bed.”

“Not a comet, you dope,” Quiz said disgustedly. “It must have been a meteorite.”

Jerry glowered at him. “So what? It happened.”

Russ offered Prince the rest of the food in his plate and the dog gobbled it up eagerly. “Well, speculation won’t get us anywhere. The important thing is to get that fire under control first.”

Quiz stretched out flat on his back in the dry, soft grass. “The most important thing to me is sleep. I wouldn’t care if an A-bomb went off right under my nose.”

Jerry snorted. “I kept expecting that to happen all night.”

Russ smiled. “I tell you what. There’s a small brook down the hill a ways. Why don’t you go down there and wash up? Then stretch out on the pine needles and take a snooze.”

“Good idea,” Sandy agreed. He looked at his watch. “It’s eight o’clock now. Wake us up at two—that will give us six hours’ sleep. Unless you need us for anything, of course.”

“I’m sure the worst is over,” his uncle assured him. “I think I’ll grab some rest myself after I discuss a few things with the chief.” He pushed himself to his feet and waved to them. “See you later.”

Prince trotted off faithfully behind him.

The boys came upon the stream in a shallow gully about a hundred yards behind the camp. Like all of the streams they had seen in the drought-racked forest, it had shrunk to a mere inch of water gurgling over a pebbly bed. But by scooping out a basin where the flow was heaviest, they were able to take a sponge bath. Clean and refreshed, they stretched out under the small pines along the bank and fell asleep at once.

“Wake up!” The urgent cry penetrated Sandy’s consciousness as a rough hand shook him out of a deep slumber. He opened his eyes and stared up into the harried face of his uncle.

“The fire,” Russ Steele said tersely. “It’s broken out again. You’ll probably be needed. Come up to headquarters right away.” With that, he turned abruptly and trotted up the slope.

His mind still foggy from sleep, Sandy woke Jerry and Quiz. And for several minutes the three boys stared blankly at each other.

“How did it happen?” Jerry mumbled.

Sandy was vaguely aware of the wind whistling through the pines. “Sounds like it’s blowing up again—I guess that’s it. Well, let’s get going.”

“What time is it?” Quiz asked.

Sandy looked at his watch. “A little after one o’clock.”

Dragging their feet like zombies, they walked up the hill to the big tent. Paul Landers and Russ Steele were bent over the map with three other men whom Sandy had not seen before.

Russ Steele looked up as the boys entered the tent. He indicated the three strangers. “Fellows, I’d like you to meet Paul Ames, Bill Lukas and Tom Fenning. They’ve come down from Canada to help us fight this fire. And brought their own crews with them.”

“Just in time, too,” Landers said gratefully. “If only I had been able to send in a fresh crew this morning, we might have been able to avert this new flare-up. Those poor devils had been working for seventeen hours without letup; they just didn’t have anything left.”

Sandy leaned over the map. “How did it happen?”

Russ ran his finger along a red line running out from the north end of the ridge. “It jumped the emergency line you boys helped to build last night. Shortly after noon that southwest wind picked up again and there wasn’t any stopping her this time. It happened so fast, a half dozen of the men were severely burned.”

Sandy could see that the fire was already advancing on a narrow front past the end of the ridge.

“The fact is, it’s really a brand-new fire,” one of the Canadians said.

“Exactly,” Fire Boss Landers agreed. He drew a circle around the burned-out area southwest of the ridge. “We’ve got it licked in this sector.”

The Canadian studied the map with intense concentration. “As I understand it, this region north of the ridge is rocky and not too heavily forested.” He touched his index finger to a small oval representing a hill. “Any vegetation growing on this hill?”

Landers shook his head. “Scrub and grass. The same as on the ridge.”

“Then I don’t see any reason why we can’t stop her there.” He took a pencil and drew a short line connecting the hill with the end of the ridge. “We’ll build one line here. And another on the opposite side.” He traced a second line running east of the hill.

“You can try,” Landers said without much enthusiasm. “And if it fails, we’ll just have to fall back and let her burn herself out between the two big firebreaks.” He indicated the intersecting roads.

The Canadian looked up at his two partners. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

Russ put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder. “I thought you boys could ride down there with them and help out however you can.”

“Sure thing,” Sandy said, and the other two boys nodded in agreement.

Bill Lukas, the tall, blond Canadian who seemed to be in charge, flashed his white teeth in a broad smile. “Glad to have you aboard, gentlemen. We’re on our way.”

The Canadians climbed into the front seat of a small, squat truck parked outside the tent, while the boys boosted themselves up on the rear end and let their legs dangle over the tail gate. As they started off, Sandy saw his uncle standing in the entrance with Prince; Russ bent over, spoke to the dog and gave him a pat on the back. Like a shot, Prince took off after them. He caught up with the slow-moving vehicle easily, and with a graceful leap landed between Sandy and Quiz.

“He’ll see that you stay out of trouble!” Russ yelled to them.

Tom Fenning turned around in the front seat and grinned. “Hello, what’s this? More reinforcements? He doesn’t look much like a firedog to me.”

“He’s a Doberman pinscher,” Sandy said.

Jerry snickered. “He’s also a confirmed coward.” The dog cocked his head to one side and regarded Jerry with plaintive eyes.

“See, you hurt his feelings,” Quiz said.

Jerry patted Prince’s head. “That’s all right, feller. So am I.”

“That’s not what we hear,” Fenning told him. “Mr. Landers says you boys were right in the thick of it all night. It was pretty rough, I guess.”

“It sure was,” Sandy admitted. “And discouraging. When we came back this morning, we thought it was all over but the shouting.”

The three Canadians nodded sympathetically. “That’s fire for you,” Lukas said.

Quiz asked the men what had brought them all the way down from Canada.

“Good neighbor policy,” Fenning said. “Your boys have helped us out on some tough fires.”

At the cutoff that led to the fire sector, three trucks loaded with men and equipment were parked by the side of the road.

Lukas waved to them as he drove past. “We’re off, boys. Follow us.”

By the time they reached the north end of the ridge, the bulldozers had already started to clear a fire line to the hill about a third of a mile away.

Dick Fellows and Ed Macauley came forward listlessly to greet them; the ranger and the gang boss were too exhausted even to show their gratitude that relief had finally arrived.

The ranger pointed to the walkie-talkie sitting on the ground. “Landers radioed the new battle plan to us. We’ve got it under way.”

“Fine,” Lukas said. “We’ll take over from here. Your men must be ready to drop in their tracks.”

Macauley sighed. “They’re working strictly on nerve.”

Lukas accompanied the ranger up to the top of the ridge, while the other two Canadians mobilized their crews to go into action. From this vantage point, it was possible to trace the course of the fire since its beginning. With the heavy screen of foliage destroyed, the boundaries of the burned-out area were clearly defined. There was a long narrow strip parallel to the ridge, swelling out into a sector of more than 300 acres to the southwest. Only a feeble surface fire was burning around the fringes of this area now; the stiff gale was turning the flames back on ground that had already been burned over.

Sandy’s first impression was that this latest peril had been exaggerated. Compared to the awe-inspiring spectacle of the previous night, the fire as it appeared now, in broad daylight, didn’t seem very threatening. After it had jumped the line at the end of the ridge, it had taken an unusual shape and direction. It had been slowed down in the center by the thinning timber and brush on the approaches to the hill beyond the ridge. As a result, the fire front had flattened out and then assumed a crescent shape as the flames went racing through the heavier growth that flanked the hill on both sides. Sandy estimated that the area it was burning over was less than fifty acres. When he pointed this out to Dick Fellows, the ranger shook his head.

“The way she’s crowning, we’d have trouble confining her on ten acres.” He turned to Lukas. “You’re not going to have time to be too particular with those lines. She’s moving in too fast.”

Lukas agreed. “We’ll have to get our backfires started as soon as possible, and just pray that the tank trucks can put out enough water to keep _them_ from jumping back at us. That infernal wind! Why doesn’t it let up!”

Quiz called their attention to a great dark mass building up low on the western horizon. “Aren’t those nimbus clouds?” he asked.

The ranger studied them uncertainly. “They look like it all right. But don’t count on their doing us any good. I’ve spotted nimbus formations a dozen times this month, but they always drifted off somewhere else.”

“What gives with this nimbus business?” Jerry demanded.

“Rain clouds,” Quiz translated. “And they do seem to be coming in this direction.”

Lukas winked at the ranger. “The whole forest could burn down while we’re waiting for rain. I better get to work.” He waved and started down the slope toward the fire line.

“What can we do, Dick?” Sandy asked the ranger. “We had about five hours’ sleep, so we’re ready for action.”

“Sleep,” Dick muttered, almost reverently. “I’ve forgotten what the word means.” His eyes were sunken and bloodshot with enormous circles around them.

“Why couldn’t I take over for you for a while on the walkie-talkie?” Sandy asked. “Even if you only grab a half-hour nap it would help.”

“It sure would.” The idea seemed to appeal to him. “I could stretch out here on the ground, and if anything important comes up you could wake me.... The radio is a cinch to operate. All you have to do is keep headquarters up to date on what’s happening at our end.”

“You want us to scout again?” Jerry asked.

“Yes. You take the line on one side of the hill; Quiz can scout the line on the other side. Check back with Sandy every quarter of an hour or so in case any new instructions come in from the chief.”

“What I can’t understand,” Sandy said, examining the walkie-talkie radio, “is why you don’t have a whole flock of these things all along the fire line. If every gang boss had one, you’d know exactly what was going on in every sector.”

The ranger yawned. “Tell it to the taxpayers, my boy. It’s always the things that are most important to their own safety and welfare that they gripe most about paying for.... Well, I’m going to rest my tired bones.” He stretched out on the hard, rocky ground and fell asleep immediately.

“Come on, Quiz,” Jerry said. “Let’s get on the ball. I’ll give you a break and take the line across the hill, so you won’t have to walk so far.”

Quiz snorted. “Big deal! Then I’m the guy who has to climb this hill every fifteen minutes to check in. Unh-uh! I’ll flip you for it.”

“Okay,” Jerry conceded grudgingly. “Sandy, you flip the coin.”

Sandy grinned as he took a quarter from his pocket and spun it high in the air. “You call, Quiz.”

“Heads!” Quiz snapped.

Sandy caught the coin deftly in one hand and slapped it down on the back of his other hand. Slowly he uncovered it as Quiz and Jerry bent over to look.

“It’s tails,” he announced blandly.

“I win!” Jerry exclaimed. “So I pick the far side of the hill. Don’t take it so hard, pal. A little climbing will help to reduce that spare tire of yours.”

Quiz shook his head solemnly as he and Jerry started down the ridge. “Just my luck. I always call them wrong.”

As it turned out, it was one of the unluckiest calls Quiz had ever made in his life.