CHAPTER VI.

THE BURNING FOREST.

When the car was lost sight of in the pall of smoke that had settled down over that section of the county, Hugh took it upon himself to explain the plan of campaign which he had mentally mapped out while on the road.

“Whatever we do, fellows,” he told the scouts clustering around him, all with eager faces, and perhaps streaming eyes, for that smoke did smart tremendously, “we know there’s no use going behind the line of fire. When it’s once passed over a place either the damage has been done, or else the farm has had a narrow escape. What we want to do is to keep moving along in front of the fire, so as to try to keep it from ruining some of these people.”

“Tell us our duty, Hugh, and you’ll find every scout on the job,” said Alec.

“I know that without you telling me, Alec,” the scout master replied. “Now, to the left lies the Heffner farm. I don’t think the fire can have reached there so far, though it’s heading that way fast. I’m going to take half of your number and strike through the woods here to help Mrs. Heffner. You know she’s been trying to make a living for her little family of children since her husband died two years ago. If anybody needs assistance they do.”

“Only half did you say, Hugh?” exclaimed Shorty McNeil, in a panic lest some of them be left out of the lively game.

“Yes, because I want Alec with the rest to turn off to the right of us. You know how the land lies, and what course to take to get to old Zeke Ballinger’s poultry farm, where he raises squabs, and broilers for the city market. If the fire puts him out of business it’s going to ruin the old man, for he barely makes a living now. Do your level best to save his buildings, Alec.”

“We certainly will, Hugh, and thank you for trusting me with the job. How shall we divide the troop?” asked the leader of the Otters.

“I’ll pick one, and then you do the same,” said Hugh. “We’ll keep it up till all have been selected. Billy, step over here with me.”

Billy felt proud of having been the first choice of the scout master; but he knew very well it was pure personal affection that brought this about, and not any belief that he could render better service than any of the other fellows; indeed, the more agile scouts were apt to discount all of Billy’s efforts, no matter how strenuously he tried to excel.

“I’ll take Tom Sherwood,” said the leader of the Otters, promptly.

Hugh’s second choice proved to be Arthur Cameron, for he knew what a useful member of a rescue party the student of surgery was likely to prove. After that they picked their followers rapidly. It was amusing to notice how each patrol leader made sure to get those of his own command first of all, before turning to others. Still, this was only natural, since they were supposed to know the particular virtues of those with whom they came in frequent contact.

The division was quickly accomplished. Fourteen boys stood back of Hugh and an equal number waited to obey the orders of Alec.

The two leaders only halted to make an arrangement looking to a possible combination of their forces later on. If it was found that their assistance was no longer needed at the place to which they had gone, the party thus set at liberty was to hasten to join the other. After that further plans could be arranged; for evidently there would be plenty of work to do all along the line.

“Is that all, Hugh?” asked Alec, who was plainly impatient to be moving.

“Yes, good-by, and hope you have luck!” the scout master told him.

“Same to you; come along, fellows, we’re off!”

One party plunged into the woods on the right of the road, while the other vanished in the opposite direction. Of course neither knew what obstacles they might encounter on their way, or which mission would prove to be the more difficult.

Hugh had chosen to go to the farm of Mrs. Heffner because his sympathies were more strongly aroused in her case. True, old Zeke Ballinger was to be pitied, for he had every dollar he possessed invested in that little poultry and squab ranch, and would be utterly ruined if the fire took it. Still, he was a man, after all. A lone widow, fighting to make a living off a small farm for her children, should be considered first of all, Hugh thought.

“Sure you’ve got your points of the compass right, are you, Hugh?” asked Billy, with the familiarity that years of friendship for the scout master gave him. When there was need of displaying the spirit of a private in the ranks toward his commanding officer, Billy could do it all right; but as a rule he met Hugh as one chum would another.

“I think I have, to the fraction of a dot,” replied the other. “I know what a bad job it would be to make a mistake.”

“I should say it would,” Billy asserted. “If we happened to get mixed up in the woods, and wandered around, first thing we knew we might find ourselves trapped by the old fire, and beautifully singed in the bargain.”

“We’re heading straight for the Heffner farm,” Hugh assured him. “A little further on we ought to strike the zigzag trail she uses to come out on the main road. If Mr. Lewis had carried us on a little further we’d have struck the junction.”

The other boys were also talking among themselves, but in a subdued sort of way. Glimpses of the fire, which they could catch at irregular intervals, inspired them with considerable respect regarding the conflagration. In fact, they felt somewhat awed, to tell the truth.

In the past some of them had passed through queer experiences with Hugh Hardin as their leader, but never one like this, with the woods on fire, and people to be rescued, as well as property to be saved.

“What’s that strange humming noise we can hear every little while, Hugh?” asked Jack Durham.

“It’s the roar of the fire, as sure as anything,” Ralph Kenyon told him before the scout master could say a word.

“But why does it come and go like that?” insisted Jack. Some of the other boys shrugged their shoulders, and listened to once again catch the peculiar sound mentioned.

“The wind changes, or else drops down to a lull,” Ralph explained. As he was reckoned a clever woodsman, Jack accepted the theory without a protest.

“Ralph is quite right there,” Hugh added. “If that miserable breeze would only die down, the fires might be gotten under control; but so long as it keeps going it is bound to whip a spark into a flame. If an army of men put the fire out in one place they’d hardly turn their backs before the wind would make it spring up again like magic.”

“Hang the wind, anyway!” said Billy energetically. “It blows billions of sparks ahead and starts new blazes by the dozen.”

“It’s only a good thing when you’re sailing a boat, flying a kite, or something like that,” asserted Harold Tremaine, the newest member of the Wolf Patrol, he having taken the place of a boy whose folks had moved away from town some months before.

The going was not so very smooth, even in the daytime, for matted bushes often caused them to make little detours, and there were other obstacles which had to be passed over.

“Gee! I’d hate to be trying to run through here at night-time,” said Billy, as he caught his foot in a wild grapevine and measured his length on the ground.

“With a fire racing after you, eh, Billy?” remarked Ralph Kenyon. “It strikes me you’d stand a pretty good chance of being roasted.”

“Don’t mention such a thing, Ralph, if you care for my feelings,” the stout boy begged him. “I was thinking of some ferocious wild animal rather than of a fire. Hugh, how about that little side road you spoke of; hope we haven’t been so unlucky as to miss it?”

“I expect to come on it in another minute or so, unless all my calculations are wrong, and I don’t believe they are,” was the confident reply which the scout master gave him.

“Seems to me I can see something that looks like a woods lane just ahead there by that silver birch, Hugh!” spoke up Monkey Stallings, who was with them.

“Good eyes, Monkey!” exclaimed Jack Durham. “That it is.”

“Thank goodness!” muttered Billy, who was breathing hard with the great exertions he had been forced to make all this while.

It turned out to be as they said. The cut-off road by which the Heffners were accustomed to come from their farm whenever they started for town lay before them.

“This is something like it,” commented Ned Twyford, as they struck out at a considerably faster gait, once they reached the open ground.

“I should say it was,” Billy said, as though his every word might be uttered in a spirit of sincere thanksgiving.

“We’re getting closer to the fire every step we take, Hugh!” announced Ralph, who had been noting all things.

Hugh knew that as well as anybody. It had been giving him considerable anxiety for several minutes past. Not that he believed there was cause to fear for the safety of himself and comrades, because that had not as yet entered into his calculations. He was thinking of the poor woman, who, alone in that burning forest, with her little children, might be striving to fight the onrush of those greedy flames, eager to lick up her scanty property.

The very thought caused Hugh to start off on a jog-trot. He was immediately copied by all the rest, even fat Billy joining in, although the effort made him pant more than ever, so that his tongue seemed to be protruding from between his teeth.

“Better stop that old trick of yours, Billy,” warned Bud Morgan, noticing this. “Remember once before how you took a tumble and bit your tongue just fierce. Some day you’ll nip off the tip entirely, let me tell you.”

“Glad you told me, Bud,” grunted Billy, who did not take offense easily. “I’d sure hate to be tongue-tied when I go to singing school, or to see the girls.”

“Hold your breath, Billy; you’ll have need of it all,” the other warned him further, and accordingly Billy subsided.

All of them knew they must soon arrive at the Heffner farm. Some, who had been up there before, could picture the place in their minds, and remembered how close the woods came to the buildings on at least two sides. Unfortunately these were the north and west, for the farmer when clearing the land had concluded that the big woods might serve as a sort of wind-breaker in winter, a shield against the extreme cold.

That made it doubly bad under the present conditions. It brought the danger closer to the door of the widow. Between the woods and her outbuildings there lay only a strip of ground which bore an orchard; and it was possible that, as usual, heavy grass had been allowed to die there under the apple trees in the fall.

Hugh was considering all these things as he ran ahead, picturing them in his mind, and trying to figure out just what he should set his force to doing first.

As a rule it is the one who can plan ahead who has the better chance of success. Sometimes his schemes may go amiss, but often he saves a vast amount of time by the process. This was Hugh’s invariable method of doing things, when the chance offered.

Suddenly Hugh felt a thrill pass over him.

“Wasn’t that some one shrieking, and a kid at that?” demanded Arthur, who kept close to the side of the scout master while they ran.

“It sounded like it to me,” Hugh replied, “though it may have been a pig squealing for all we know. Let’s hit it up faster, boys; everybody let out a kink!”

Of course it was hard on Billy, but he was bound to “keep up with the procession,” as he called it, even if he burst off every button on his coat trying.

If the road had not been so very crooked they could easily have seen before this what lay ahead of them. True, the smoke was very dense, and the air seemed to be charged with a myriad of sparks that kept raining down upon them; but at that it was possible to see some distance away.

So fast did those sparks come down that the boys were kept busy brushing them off their shoulders. They also kept an eye on one another’s hat, so as to give warning in case any of the head gear began to smoke.

There could no longer be any doubt concerning the nature of those shrill sounds. Every fellow sensed their meaning, and knew that children were screaming, either in sheer fright or under the stress of great excitement as they worked trying to assist their poor mother to save her possessions.

It was fine to see how those lads set their teeth hard together, and endeavored to put on a spurt, as though intent only on coming upon the scene as speedily as possible.

There was no longer any doubt that the fire had reached the Heffner farm. They could see it in several directions, and the roaring sound had grown much louder now. It thrilled them through and through. Other experiences in the past may have seemed exciting while they lasted, but all of them had to take a back seat when compared with this dash through the woods to the imperiled farm of the Widow Heffner.

All at once they came out of the copse, and the scene was before them. On one side lay the small farm-house, and back of it the barn and other outbuildings, together with several stacks, one of them of straw, showing that the fall threshing had all been completed.

Moving figures could be seen flitting back and forth. Hugh instantly made them out to be those of a woman, and one man, together with several partly-grown children. They were bearing pails of water to dash upon the sides of the outbuildings in the hope that in this way they might save them from going.

Even the children had some sort of pans, and were working with all the zeal possible to add their little mite to the soaking process, meanwhile crying at the top of their shrill voices.

Uttering loud shouts of encouragement, Hugh and his fourteen followers ran forward to the assistance of the brave but almost distracted woman farmer.