CHAPTER VII.

AS BUSY AS BEAVERS.

“Leave it to us, Mrs. Heffner,” Hugh told the woman as he reached her side. “You are all tired out with working. Get your children back to the house, and keep them out of harm’s way. We’ll save your property if it can be done!”

She was wringing her hands and very much excited.

“Oh! I am glad you have come, Hugh, you and your brave friends. Save the place if you can; it is everything I own in the world. The children would starve if it went. But I must keep on working, for every little bit helps!”

Hugh did not waste another second of time. There was need of haste, for already the fire was creeping along through the dead grass in the orchard, heading straight for the outbuildings, and those stacks of hay. The latter must have caught fire before now only that they were covered by a board shield intended to shed rain.

The scout master began to give his orders as though he had been accustomed to running a fire engine all his life, and also commanding a squad of fire-fighters.

“Get any sort of buckets or other things to carry water. Start that pump to going as lively as you can. Jack, you begin, and someone spell you when you slacken up. Don’t let a fire get started, whatever happens. As soon as you see it smoking, pour water on the place. We’ve just _got_ to fight it off, you hear, fellows!”

“That’s the kind of talk, Hugh,” said Billy, as he picked up a wash boiler and appropriated it to his own individual use.

Each boy hunted high and low for any kind of vessel that could be used to convey water to the exposed sides of the outbuildings. At another time many a hearty laugh would have greeted the queer appearance of some of the things they managed to scare up. Several even dashed into the farm-house and came out carrying pitchers, kitchen tins and even coal buckets!

Of course, one fellow at the pump, no matter how hard he worked, could never supply such a string of constantly going and coming carriers. Hugh looked around to see whether there might not be other means for securing a supply of the greatly needed fluid.

“Here, Monkey, you and some of the rest run over to the duck pond there and fill your buckets that way. It’s not much further than to come to the pump; and the supply of water isn’t going to give out either.”

Just then the woman came staggering along with a bucket that she had filled at the pump. She was almost exhausted, and seeing this, Hugh deliberately took her burden away from her.

“I’m going to take your place, Mrs. Heffner,” he told her, and when she made a feeble resistance, he continued: “There’s a shortage of buckets, and I can’t stand around idle while a woman works. Go back and sit down and watch us.”

One thing Hugh noticed with more or less satisfaction. The children had ceased their wild, hysterical screaming as soon as they saw the stream of boys swarming over the place. They had fallen back, and were observing all that went on with wide-open eyes. Confidence had apparently taken the place of fright. With such a small army of willing workers on hand it was quite patent to their childish minds that the fire must surely be beaten back.

Hugh wished he had a little more of that confidence himself, as he saw how the encroaching flames were nearing the outbuildings. He knew that some of them must immediately snatch up old brooms, branches off the trees, or any other sort of smothering article they could secure, and proceed to beat out the flames before they reached the threatened buildings.

Accordingly, he handed his bucket over to one of the other boys, and began to designate those whom he wanted to accompany him in his foray. He was careful to select those who were handicapped in their work by not having the right sort of water carrier. Any with buckets might keep on doing just what now occupied their attention.

In this way Hugh picked out six boys, counting himself.

“Get an old broom or any sort of thing that will be useful in beating out the burning grass!” he told them, and that was the first intimation the boys had as to what the nature of their new occupation was to be.

There was not an idle scout to be seen anywhere. Every fellow worked like a beaver. The lone man, whom Hugh had supposed was a farm hand, stopped in his work once or twice to stare at the rushing squads of boys. His face was blackened with the smoke, and while it had struck Hugh that there was something familiar about the other, he had really never taken a second glance at him.

Hugh did not even wait until all of his bunch had armed themselves with such smothering devices as they could find about the stable. He was already at work at the line of creeping, jumping fire, having selected his point of attack near the straw stack. He pounded, whipped and beat at the fire with all the vim he could muster, even jumping on what obstinately remained, and stamping it out. That stack must not be allowed to come in contact with the fire if it could be prevented through any effort on his part.

Billy was close beside him, having found carrying that wash boiler, even half filled with water, no child’s play. He, too, had discovered an old stable broom, with which he was belaboring the fire with savage fury, pounding it as though he might have a special grievance against its further encroachment.

When all of the squad became busy, they began to make a noticeable impression on the flames. Baffled, the fiery tongues darted out a few times at the fighters, and then seemed to give up the unequal combat.

It was just as Hugh knew would be the case. Hardly would they turn to another section than the smoldering fire was sure to spring up again. So it kept them busy going back again and again to repeat the whipping, only to have the wind play the same trick on them.

Alone, Hugh could never have managed to keep the fire in restraint, but with such able assistance it was finally subdued in that particular quarter.

This gave them a minute to get their breath and look around at the stirring picture which often returned to their minds in future days. Over to the north it was a fearful sight, with the fire leaping up among some of the trees. Pines were blazing like great torches, but oaks, beeches and other forest trees did not seem to be affected, the fire being confined to the trash at their bases, such as windrows of dead leaves, stumps, logs and anything else in the way of fuel.

Those farmers who had their winter supply of wood stacked in the forest waiting for the first snow so as to haul it on sleds to the house, stood to lose the entire crop, and would have to cut anew. Others who had heaps of fence rails laid by for winter work would also meet with a complete loss, for the ground fire hunted all of these things out and made quick work of them.

Leaving some of the boys to keep watch over that treacherous grass fire, Hugh hurried back to see how the rest were getting along with their work. He stopped at a shed and made a discovery that pleased him.

“Here, Jack, come and help me get this spraying machine out!” he called to the nearest scout. “We can fill the barrel at the pond and drag it over to the house. I’ll cut the nozzle off the hose so a good stream of water can be forced to the roof, and smother any spark that drops. It’s going to insure a home for those poor kids anyway, even if everything else goes up in smoke.”

Jack Durham was only too willing to take hold. He was strongly built, and able to work like an ox. Together they ran the wheeled spraying machine down to the duck pond, and utilizing the first bucket that came along Hugh started to scoop up the water, throwing it into the barrel that was mounted on the two wheels.

When it was two-thirds full, he and Jack seized hold, and with considerable straining and dragging, managed to get it over to the farm-house.

Just as Hugh had said, when he used his sharp pocket knife blade to sever the nozzle at the end of the hose, it was possible to reach any part of the roof with a small stream of water once the pump was set going.

“We’ll try it, to make sure first before I leave you in charge, Jack,” said Hugh.

A few plunges of the easily worked pump satisfied the scout master that it was all right. He saw a large spark drop on the dry roof of the house near the ridge-pole, and had no difficulty whatever in drowning it out with the stream he turned in that direction, squeezing the end of the severed hose in order to make the water carry further.

“You see how it’s done, don’t you, Jack?” he asked, holding up the hose to display his manner of making the opening smaller, and thus increasing the force of the discharge. “Use it that way when you have to reach the further end of the roof. And step around occasionally to the other side to make sure a fire isn’t stealing a march on you. That’s all. The house is going to be saved at all events.”

“You just make your mind easy on that score, Hugh,” Jack told him. “If my muscles don’t go back on me, which they never have as yet, I can pump this thing all day, and stand up under it.”

Leaving the other on guard, Hugh once more turned back to other parts of the exciting fire line. He noticed that the hired man was still carrying buckets of water methodically, and it struck Hugh he had been standing by Mrs. Heffner in a way that was worthy of praise. Still, Hugh paid little or no attention to him, for a dozen different things were passing through his brain then, all of which had to do with the saving of the farm buildings.

“How long do you reckon this is going to keep up, Hugh?” asked Arthur, as he stopped near the scout master, to mop his face with his big red bandana handkerchief.

“I don’t know,” replied Hugh. “I hope that another hour at the most will see the worst over with. If we can keep things from going that long it’s likely we’ll come out all right.”

“Whew! but the air’s getting mighty torrid, I tell you!”

“That’s because the fire’s passed us and is moving along on both sides, as well as from the north. We’re in the midst of a big burning, and soon even escape to the south will be cut off, unless we feel like running the gantlet. The danger now isn’t so much from the flames as from the sparks.”

“Yes, they’re thicker than ever, it strikes me,” assented the other, making several quick slashes at his shoulders, and then snatching off his campaign hat to beat out a smouldering fire in the crown.

“It’ll be worth something to us to save the place for Mrs. Heffner,” said Hugh. “I’m sure every scout is ready to work till he drops, so as to make her mind easy. Think of those poor kids without a home!”

“We can stand it for another hour, if we have to!” Arthur declared, and with that he ran off to make up for lost time, rejoining the string that was heading for the pond with their buckets.

Many times did those sharp-eyed boys discover a fire just starting, where a live coal had managed to settle in some snug nook, and the dry wood soon began to smoulder. The dash of a bucket always put an end to these ambitious beginnings, and so the buildings had up to now been kept intact.

Hugh put his hand on the side of the barn. He was worried when he felt how hot the wood seemed to be.

“It wouldn’t take much to start things so they’d go with a rush,” he told himself, “and a hundred buckets wouldn’t hinder the flames.”

Just then he heard the children start to screaming again, and the sound gave him a nasty feeling, for he felt that it meant new trouble. As Hugh turned he was dismayed to see the straw stack was on fire, a spark having managed to lodge in some exposed part of it, and being unnoticed, had finally communicated its fiery touch to the inflammable material of which the stack was composed.

“That settles it for us, I guess!” one of the scouts was heard to shout, when this new disaster was discovered.