CHAPTER X.

AT THE DRY SPRING.

“Why the poor boy has fainted!” exclaimed the widow.

Arthur Cameron was quickly bending over Peter.

“I’ll bring him around, Hugh, and look after him,” he said. “Do something for the kids out there in the woods. Let me have that tin cup of cold water, please.”

Knowing that Arthur could be trusted to do the right thing by the exhausted boy, Hugh turned to Mrs. Heffner.

“Did you hear what he said, ma’m?” he demanded.

“Yes, every word of it, Hugh.”

“He must have had the children along with him?”

“Just as I said,” she told him. “Peter thought of us because I’ve been kind to him a few times. He was trying to fetch them here.”

“But they gave out on the way; that’s about what I made out he said?” the scout master remarked, with a note of interrogation in his voice.

“Yes, and I really believe Peter must have done the best he could trying to hide them so the fire wouldn’t injure the poor little darlings.”

“He mentioned a place he called the Dry Spring?”

“We all know that place, and he would have to pass it on the way here from the Bargers’ house,” Mrs. Heffner explained.

“Do you think I could find it?” Hugh asked next.

She considered for a brief space of time.

“The smoke in the forest might bother you, Hugh.”

“Oh! we’d have to stand for that,” was his cheery remark.

“I think I could tell you how to go.”

“Then please do it, Mrs. Heffner,” said the scout master. “Here, Jack, Bud and you, too, Don Miller, stand by and listen, because you’re elected to keep me company on this trip.”

“And how about me?” asked Billy, trying to throw all sorts of entreaty into his voice and look.

“You’re nominated to stay right here and stand guard,” Hugh told him. “Fact is, we’ve got to have athletes on this trip, Billy. Now, Mrs. Heffner, let’s hear the directions, please.”

“First head into the woods where Peter came out,” she explained. “You’ll run across a stone wall. Keep that to your right. About the time you reach the end of the wall you ought to see the dry bed of a creek. Sometimes in the spring, water runs there, but just now it’s as dry as a bone.”

“Do we follow the bed of the dry creek?” asked Hugh.

“Yes, all the way. I should say it was all of half a mile before you’ll strike the Dry Spring. Once it fed the stream that ran there, but now only the rocks lie there. Peter must have left the Barger children among those rocks.”

“We understand, Mrs. Heffner,” said Hugh. “Just tell us on which side we will find the Dry Spring.”

“Keep watch on your right as you go from here,” she told him, “and while you’re gone I shall pray that you find the poor little innocents safe and unharmed.”

“Ready, boys?” called out the scout master.

“On deck, Hugh,” replied Don Miller, “and I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad scheme for each one of us to carry a full canteen of water along.”

“A good idea, Don,” admitted Hugh. “I have one already, you may notice, but several more can do no harm.”

As they were getting these, Hugh noticed that Peter was responding to the treatment of Arthur Cameron. He had come out of his swoon and was eagerly drinking some water from a bucket. No doubt his tongue and throat were parched from his recent experience in the burning forest.

When he realized what Hugh and his several chums meant to attempt, the bound boy started to get upon his feet.

“I’ll go along and show you,” he said, and Arthur had to catch hold of him; he was so extremely weak through exhaustion and excitement.

“No, you’re going to stay just where you are,” Arthur told him, severely. “You’re not in a fit condition to walk twenty feet.”

“But what if they couldn’t find the place?” the boy pleaded.

“We’ll get there, Peter, don’t you fear,” Jack Durham assured him.

“Every time,” added Bud Morgan.

Billy Worth was not the only disappointed one. Every scout who could not accompany Hugh felt as though he were being cheated out of a treat. They would all have been pleased to belong to the rescue party, but at the same time they had learned the value of discipline, so there was no protest.

The hired man had listened to all that went on. He had watched the business-like way in which Arthur revived the fainting Peter. Apparently the help, as Hugh took it for granted he must be, took a lively interest in the venture, for after the boys had actually started he called out in a voice that was husky from the smoke he had swallowed:

“I hope and pray you may get those children, Hugh Hardin.”

Hugh half turned in his tracks as though tempted to reply, but changing his mind hurried along.

“Watch out for the stone wall, boys,” he told the other three.

“She said it lay on the right, didn’t she, Hugh?”

“Yes, and the Dry Spring lies in the same direction from the bed of the creek,” the scout master explained.

“This smoke is sure enough tough,” remarked Jack. “It grips your eyes—and how it makes ’em smart.”

“There’s a lively bunch of fire ahead of us,” observed Bud.

“We’ll pass around it,” suggested the leader.

“No use wasting our time fighting fire in spots,” Don Miller told them.

“We’ll keep all our strength for the job we’ve got before us,” Hugh explained.

“I only hope we find the place,” said Jack.

“With the poor, frightened kids safe and sound,” Don added, for he was almost as tender-hearted as Billy Worth.

They were now deep in the woods. All around them lay the smoke clouds. It arose from smoldering beds of leaves or stumps that were slowly giving up their substance to the hungry flames.

The low stone wall lay close beside them on the right. Hugh wondered what it had ever been built for, though there were traces of a long-abandoned road to be seen in places.

All of them were constantly on the watch for signs of the dry creek bed which Mrs. Heffner had explained was to be their guide all of the way to where the dry spring was located.

“I think I see it ahead there, Hugh,” announced Jack, presently.

“Yes, you’re right about that,” Don Miller echoed, proving that he, too, had made the discovery.

“It’s about time we struck it,” said Hugh, “because here’s where the wall ends. She described things exactly as they are. It’s a pleasure to follow up such a trail.”

The creek bed was plainly in evidence. Years before there must have been quite a lovely little stream of clear ice-cold water gurgling between those moss-covered stones. That was before the spring had stopped, owing to some interior convulsion of Nature or rock “slip.”

It was very hot and almost suffocating in the midst of the forest through which the devastating fire had so recently passed. It would have been much more so had the trees been included in the general conflagration.

Frequently one of the scouts would feel the necessity for taking a mouthful of cold water, because he believed himself to be perilously near the choking stage. One and all were glad they had been wise enough to carry those canteens along with them.

There was no sign of animal or bird life anywhere about them. Perhaps many of these perished in the fire. Most of them, however, must have found some means for escaping through flight, or failing that, taken refuge among the rocks, perhaps in hiding places under the roots of trees.

“Must be pretty near there I should say, Hugh?” ventured Jack.

“We’ve certainly covered half a mile of territory since starting out,” Bud Morgan asserted, using his bandana freely in order to mop his streaming face.

“Not quite that much yet,” Hugh told them. “You know, in a case of this kind, it’s easy to think you’ve gone further than you really have. But we are coming close to where the spring ought to be located, and we’ll all be on the watch for the signs.”

“It’ll never give us the slip,” ventured Don Miller confidently.

“I don’t see how it could very well,” the scout master told them, “because when the spring was working it fed the creek, so we should easily tell where they joined forces.”

“Unless I miss my guess,” ventured Bud, “we’re going to strike that junction right away.”

“Looks so to me,” Jack hastened to add.

Through the eddying wreaths of pungent blue wood smoke they could see a pile of stones. It lay on their right, and that was where the widow had told them to search.

“Looks almost as if someone had piled those rocks up, doesn’t it?” said Don Miller, as they stumbled along, and constantly drew nearer the spot that all of them had decided must be the place they were aiming for.

“Perhaps that’s what has been done, partly,” Hugh observed.

“You mean Peter heaped ’em up like that, don’t you?” asked Jack.

“I think that’s about the kind of fellow Peter is,” the scout master replied. “Think of him doing his level best to save those children when their father, who ought to have been at home to look after them, was having a lark in town over night.”

“Peter is a faithful fellow,” remarked Don, “and I’m afraid he leads a pretty hard life of it there with Farmer Barger. When I get back home again, I’m going to see if something can be done for him. He deserves a kinder master, poor chap.”

They were now close to the rocks, and all of them felt thrilled with eagerness to know what the result of their mission was going to be. Would they find the three frightened and weary little Barger children where Peter had entrenched them; or was it possible they had since wandered off into the blackened and smoking forest to meet some dreadful fate?

The piled-up rocks made Hugh shiver to look at them; he thought they seemed so like a cairn or a burial place.

So, raising his voice, the scout master gave a loud shout, his object being to learn the truth, one way or the other. Immediately all of them felt greatly relieved, for above the rocks there suddenly popped into view several tousled heads as the children stared around in search of the one who had brought them new hope.