CHAPTER V.

CARRIED TO THE FRONT.

“It’s going to be something of a hike for us, I reckon,” Billy Worth remarked, as they covered the first half mile of ground.

While Billy’s ambition knew no bounds, and he was always ready to attempt any feat which others, who were much more nimble, could accomplish, he was often sadly handicapped by his extra weight. Although the rest of the boys were swinging lightly along, and thinking nothing of the exertion, Billy was puffing like a porpoise. He was also secretly mopping his face with his red bandana handkerchief, which he had knotted loosely around his neck, cowpuncher fashion, a trick most scouts are fond of emulating.

“Yes, and we’re all sorry on your account, Billy,” ventured Buck Winters. “Hiking never was your best hold. If a prize was offered to the longest sitter, you’d come under the wire a victor every time.”

“It’ll be a good thing to cut down your heft some, too, Billy,” another scout told him. “Nothing half so fine as sweating it off. That’s what all the prize fighters do when they have to get into trim.”

“Hugh,” called out Alec, for they were not trying to keep any sort of order now, each tramping along with some comrade he had picked out, though not strung out over more than ten yards of road, “have you been able to learn what sort of a fire it is up here?”

“Only that the woods are ablaze for a long distance,” replied the scout master. “Some accounts say the fire front is five miles long, and growing every hour.”

“I asked,” continued Alec, “because there are two kinds of forest fires. One, and the most terrible, is where the trees themselves are burning, and that means the utter ruination of the whole tract. I’ve seen miles and miles up in Michigan where only stumps stand up like fingers. I certainly hope that isn’t going to be the case here, for we’d miss those woods the worst way in summertime.”

“But you spoke of another sort of fire, Alec; tell us about it?” asked Shorty McNeil, whose hobby lay in collecting strange plants, and who on that account would be very sorry to see the forest ruined, since he spent much of his spare time under the trees, searching for new varieties of wild flowers.

“Why, at this time of the year,” Alec went on to explain, “when most of the leaves have fallen, if a spark drops among them and a fire follows it runs along the ground, eating up all the dead stuff. It makes a terrible smoke, and lights up the sky nights, but it isn’t so dangerous as the other sort of fire.”

“Which kind would you think this one will turn out to be, Alec?” asked Billy.

“I’d rather believe it was the bush sort, though it may turn out some of the trees are ablaze, too. You see, all sorts of logs lying on the ground, dead stumps, piles of wood cut for fence rails and that sort of stuff gets to going with the rest, so it makes a fierce blaze.”

“And with this strong wind blowing it must travel pretty fast at that, I take it,” remarked Bud Morgan.

“Look out back there!” shouted Ralph Kenyon, “some sort of car coming along in a big hurry; don’t block the road. Perhaps it’s the Oakvale fire department starting on to lend a hand at putting the blaze down!”

Ralph had once upon a time spent much of his time in the woods. In summer he had hunted for places where patches of wild ginseng or golden rod grew, the roots of which he dug up in season, dried, and sold at a good profit.

Then, too, in the winter, he had been wont to trap all sorts of small fur-bearing animals for the sake of their pelts, which brought him in a fair price when sent to a dealer in the city.

Ralph had seen a great light after he joined the scouts. Nothing could tempt him nowadays to injure an innocent little animal, merely in order that he might increase his savings bank account. He had even grown to enjoy watching them frolic in their native haunts which he knew so well.

While others were thinking wholly of human misery apt to follow this sweep of the fire, Ralph had an aching heart for the wood’s denizens who, caught in the trap, were apt to perish miserably.

The tooting of an automobile horn told that the car coming behind them was close to the bend they had just recently turned. Warned in time, the scouts crowded to the side of the road and left an open space for it to pass through.

No sooner did they glimpse the car than the boys started shouting.

“Why, it’s Mr. Lewis, the liveryman!” one called out.

“And he’s got his big rubberneck twenty-passenger car, too!” cried a second.

“Hey! it’s empty, don’t you notice, fellows!” came from a third keen-eyed boy. The sight-seeing tourist car came to a stop alongside the waiting boys. The man at the wheel gave them a smile.

“Pile aboard every one of you, like hot cakes!” he told them.

“What’s this mean, Mr. Lewis?” asked Hugh. “Have you come after us with your rig to help get us up to the fire lines?”

“Just what I’ve done,” replied the other, heartily. “You boys have done so many fine things for Oakvale that we’re all proud of you. We want to do what little we can to help you along. I thought of my car too late to get you in town, but that didn’t stop me. Find seats all who can, and the rest hang on like grim death. We’re going to start now. All aboard.”

“Those that can’t get aboard get a rail!” called Billy, who being one of the first to clamber up on the “rubberneck” or sight-seeing car had managed to install himself in a comfortable seat in the middle, where he could not be crowded off.

They were soon going along at a fast clip, the boys giving a shout every time one of the “thank-you-mums” in the road, intended to throw off the water in heavy rain storms, caused them to jolt up and down.

“This is a thousand per cent. better than walking, let me tell you, everybody!” asserted Billy Worth.

“It was a fine idea for you to think of us as you did, Mr. Lewis,” said Hugh.

“Save us some hours of hard work, which would leave us in a poor shape to fight fires, I should say,” Bud Morgan declared.

“After I drop you as near the fire as I care to venture with my car,” the liveryman said, “I expect to turn around somehow, and run back for another load. There will be plenty of men volunteers to come up and work. With Oakvale threatened with total destruction, none of the mills or factories will think of keeping their employees on duty, so I ought to pick up a number of loads of fire-fighters.”

“Can’t be too many,” asserted Alec, as though his past experience told him that.

“Whew! but this smoke is no joke, let me tell you!” complained Monkey Stallings, digging his knuckles into his smarting eyes, from which the tears were springing.

“How about it, Hugh,” Alec now asked, “are we going to try and beat out the fire or will we put in our time saving some of the threatened farm buildings? We ought to know all this country up around Pioneer Lake like a book; and once we get our bearings it’ll be easy for us to tell whose place is most in danger.”

“In most cases,” said Hugh, “as far as I know, when a forest fire gets fully started, and with a wind to drive it on, all the men that could be got together can’t stop the spread of the flames. They’re bound to keep on jumping ahead with all the sparks blowing until it rains and puts the fire out.”

“Then we’ll devote our time to helping farmers, will we?” asked one of the boys, a little note of disappointment discernible in his tone, for he had evidently pictured himself as a heroic figure forcing the fire demon to obey his will.

“The chances are,” Hugh told him, “that we’ll get all the work we want in trying to protect the sheds, hay-stacks, barns, and houses that are in danger of being devoured by the fire.”

“That’s correct, Hugh,” assented Alec. “Mr. Lewis, I think you’re wrong in believing any fire could reach Oakvale. There happens to be a pretty wide open stretch to the north of the town, where we play ball, you remember. It couldn’t cross that, as the grass is short, and even boys could beat it out.”

“I was thinking of the sparks that would be blown over the houses,” said the livery-stable owner. “Look up right now and you’ll see signs of them. If it was a dark night you’d never forget the sight.”

“Then let’s hope those clouds that have come up mean business, and it’ll rain before many hours,” said Billy, fervently.

They had made rapid progress and must now be in the region of the fire. The smoke was worse than at any previous time, and others besides Monkey Stallings had commenced to rub their eyes.

“I’ll go a little further,” remarked Mr. Lewis, who had slowed down somewhat; “and when I find a good place to turn I’ll have to ask you boys to vacate.”

Hugh was doubtless figuring on his plan of campaign. Yes, they did know this region pretty well, which would prove a good thing in this emergency. Had it chanced to be strange to them they would not know which way to go in order to render any assistance; and in consequence their coming would be next to useless.

On the way they had passed a number of houses, and found the women folks the only ones at home, besides the children, when there were any. The men had evidently been drafted to fight the fire raging in so many places in the forests around the foot of the mountain.

Even these women were doing what little they could to save their possessions in case the fire came their way. They were drawing water in all sorts of tubs and other receptacles, some even digging ditches on the north side of the farm buildings as though in that Western way they hoped to keep the enemy at a distance.

“Oh! look there!” suddenly exclaimed “Whistling” Smith, a boy whose recognized ability as an imitator of birds had long ago given him this nickname.

“Our first glimpse of the fire line!” said Hugh, as all of them stared hard at what they could see through an opening in the timber bordering the road.

It was true enough. They could watch the play of the flames as they climbed up a tree that may have been dead, for it certainly burned like a torch.

“That looks like business, I’m telling you!” remarked Tom Sherwood, the water athlete of the troop, and who could do almost anything well, since he had both the physique and the quickness of action that are so necessary to success.

“And here’s a wider place in the road where by crowding I may be able to make a turn about,” remarked the driver of the “rubberneck” car.

“Jump off, fellows!” ordered Hugh, suiting the action to the words himself, and making a safe landing.

There was a hasty getaway, Billy turning out to be the only clumsy member of the lot; a slip of his foot just at the instant he sprang causing him to roll over after he alighted. He was seized and dragged to a place of safety by his comrades before the car could back, and run over him.

Mr. Lewis knew how to manage, it proved. He made a couple of turns back and forward, and then had his car facing toward Oakvale.

“Good-by, boys!” he called out to them.

“We’ll surely remember this kindness, Mr. Lewis,” shouted Alec Sands.

“It was only a pleasure to haul such a fine lot of fire-fighters to the work they mean to tackle,” the liveryman replied over his shoulder. “Good luck to you, boys, and mind your eye! Do all the good you can for these poor folks up here, but remember, too, you’ve got mothers at home, and don’t be rash. Avoid the fire-traps, boys!”