CHAPTER XIV

RACING THE FLAMES

Hester's car jarred down to a complete stop. The smoke stung her eyes and it began to be difficult for her to breathe. She knew that she had come too far on this road. She should have heeded Chet Belding's warning.

But now she needed all her courage and coolness to get her out of the hot corner into which she had so heedlessly driven the automobile. The road was not more than thirty feet wide and the thick woods bordered it on either hand. Out of the covert dashed a flash of rusty brown that was gone in an instant. Hester knew it to be a fox. Already she had seen the rabbits running, and not a bird was in sight.

The fire was coming--and coming by leaps and bounds!

It smote upon Hester Grimes's mind that not alone were she and the innocent animals of the wood in peril; but there were lonely farms, deep in the forest, where the houses were so near the woods that the fire was sure to destroy them.

Who would warn those squatters and small farmers of the danger down here in the cut? When once the flames rose over the ridge, with the wind behind them, they would descend the other side with the swiftness of an express train.

Crops, orchards, outbuildings, and dwellings would all be sacrificed to the demon of flame. And some of the families along that far road on which the Sitz farm lay would scarcely have time to flee.

But Hester, as she often said herself, "was no namby-pamby girl." She made a deal of fun of her chum, Lily, because the latter was always so helpless--or appeared to be--in time of trouble.

She was alone, at the edge of this burning forest, with this big car. It had to be turned around, and then she must run it out of the line of the fire. Her father would have something to say--and that to much purpose--if she lost this brand new car, which he had not even paid for as yet.

She started the car on the reverse, and twisted the wheel. The car backed, and shook, and she stopped it just as a rear tire collided with a stump. She must go ahead, and back, and go ahead again, and reverse once more, and repeat the operation half a dozen times before the car would be headed in the proper direction.

The smoke grew thicker and thicker--and more choking. Her eyes were half blinded by tears, for the smoke stung them sadly. But soon she was free. The car could fly back over the road which it had lately descended, and once out of the cut her peril would be past.

But on the very moment of starting ahead again Hester heard a great crashing in the bushes. Out into the road ahead of the car sprawled on hands and knees a man--or the semblance of one. For the instant Hester scarcely knew what to make of the figure sprawling there before the car. But she shut down again so as not to run over it.

Then the individual arose to his knees and waved his arms weakly. His clothing was in rags. Indeed, he had only half a shirt and the remains of his overalls left upon his body, besides his shoes. His hair had been singed from his head. A great angry burn disfigured one side of his face, while the beard was crisped to cinders on the other side. He was without eyebrows and eyelashes, and his eyes stared from deep hollows in his face--or so it seemed.

"For heaven's sake, help me!" he gasped. "Take me aboard! Take me away from here!"

He struggled to his feet and fell again. He had come as far as he could. Had the road not been right where it was, the man must have fallen in the woods and been swept again by the flames.

Hester sprang up, caught him around the waist and half dragged him to the car. She was thoroughly scared now; but she was courageous enough to aid this man who was more unfortunate than herself.

"Get in! Get in!" she cried, flinging open the door of the tonneau. "We must hurry."

"You bet we gotter hurry!" gasped the man, as he crawled into the car and she banged to the door so that he would not fall out.

Into her own seat Hester sprang. The car was jarring with the throb of the engine. If it should balk now, what would become of them?

The frightened girl turned the switch carefully. The car rolled on. It moved faster and faster along the narrow road. The smoke was now so thick that she was running the car blindly. At any moment the wheels might hit a stump at the side of the road, for she could not be sure that she was keeping in the main-traveled path.

While they were in the cut she heard nothing from the man behind. But when the car shot up the hill out of the cut to the ridge-ground, and left the smoke behind, the man struggled up into the seat and leaned over to speak to her.

"You air a brave gal!" he gasped. "Woof! my lungs is burnt to a crisp--I swallered so much smoke. Ye jest erbout saved my life, Miss."

Hester made no reply. She was winking the tears out of her eyes, and the pressure in her own lungs hurt.

"But there air a lot of folks goin' to be caught similar over the ridge, if we can't warn 'em."

"What's that?" she demanded, quickly, but without looking around at him.

"My name's Billson. I live back in the bottoms yonder. I got an acre or two cleared around my cabin; but the bresh warn't burned up. It is now, by jinks!" added Mr. Billson, with a grim cackle.

"When the wind veered thar so suddent, it caught me. I had to run through a wall of fire at one place. Then I got acrost the crick and that saved me for a while. But the fire would have caught me again if it hadn't been for you. I am sure mighty much obleeged to ye."

"I--I'm glad I was there with the car," faltered Hester.

"And we've got to warn those other folks over the hill," cried the man, coughing. "Gee! I guess I'll never get this smoke out o' my lungs."

"But how can we get to those other farms?" gasped Hester.

"I'll show ye. There's a crossroad along here a spell. An automobile can git through it on a pinch. And there's two families live on that road, too."

"Do you s'pose they'll be in danger?" asked Hester, slowly.

"In course they are. Say! you ain't afraid, are you?" demanded the man. "I tell ye the fire is coming. It's going to sweep this whole ridge."

"Won't--won't they see it?"

"Did _I_ see it?" demanded the squatter. "Not soon enough, you bet. Drive on, Miss. Surely you ain't goin' to show a yaller streak now?"

"But my--my chauffeur is waiting for me along the road here toward town."

"Let him wait. He's out of danger. There are plenty of open fields in that direction. _He_ won't get into no trouble. You drive through this side road like I tell you, and we'll get clear around by Sitz's farm ahead of the fire. But drive hard!"

Inspired by the man's excitement, Hester did as she was told. They came to the crossroad, which she remembered, and turned into it. There was little smoke here beyond the ridge. Nobody would have suspected the raging pit of flame down there in the cut to the southeast.

Yet the flames were advancing on the wings of the wind. Hester had seen enough to assure her that the case was serious indeed. Once the fire topped the ridge the whole northern slope would be swept by a billow of flame!

The picture of these farmsteads burning and the people being unable to escape with their livestock and sundry possessions began to take form in Hester's mind. She speeded up the car and it rushed through the gathering twilight like a locomotive of a fast express.

At the first house they stopped for only a moment. Hester turned on the car lamps, for the shadows were gathering in the narrow places along the road now. The squatter did not have to urge the danger upon the farmers. A look at his condition told its own story. A forest fire is a terrible thing, and once it gets under way usual means of fire-fighting are of no avail.

On and on raced the motor car. Along the summit of the wooded ridge behind them the glow of the fire spread to a deep rose--then to a crimson--against the sky. It was an angry light and the smoke that billowed up from it began to canopy the heavens.

From certain heights Hester could see far down into the city of Centerport, with its countless twinkling lights. The forest fire must burn out long before it reached the edge of the city; but detached houses, here and there, were in peril--and many farmers got out their teams and ploughed fresh furrows around their stacks and buildings.

They rushed through Tentorville at a speed that made the dogs howl and the women run to the doors of their houses, leaving their suppers to burn. Beyond this straggling little settlement there were better farms. The village was not endangered by the flames, for there were open fields all around it.

At the next house the occupants had been warned by telephone; for news of the advancing fire had been wired from beyond the ridge, toward Keyport.

The better class of farmers were supplied with 'phones, and they were warned; but the man who had been burned out of his own place was interested in the other poor people--the tenant farmer and squatter class.

"Them fellers can't stand the expense of telephones," he told Hester. "And they work moughty hard and will go to bed airly. If they haven't kalkerlated on the veering of the wind they won't know anything about it till the fire's upon 'em."

Thirty-seven of such farmers and settlers did the rushing auto visit. Hester and her comrade must have startled some of these people dreadfully, for the auto dashed up to the little farmsteads with the noise of an express train, and the scorched man yelled his loudest to the inmates:

"Git up! Git up! The fire's comin'. It'll be over the ridge before midnight and this hull mountainside'll crackle in flames. Git out!"

Then, at the first word in reply from the aroused inmates, the girl and her companion rushed on in their car, and sometimes before the people in the house realized what had passed, the car was out of sight.

For nearly two hours from the time Hester had helped the man into her car did she speed about the country. By that time both he, and the girl--and the gasoline--were about exhausted.

They pulled up at a country store where they sold gasoline, and Hester refilled her tank. There she telephoned home to her family, too. Joseph had come in on another auto and Hester's father was about to send out a general alarm for his absent daughter.

"What in thunder are you doing, riding over the country alone?" her father demanded over the telephone.

"Now, don't you mind. I'm all right," said Hester, tartly. "I'm coming home now--by the way of the Sitz place and Robinson's Woods. We've done all we can to rouse up the farmers."

And she shut her angry father off before he could say more, and ran out to the car--to find her companion senseless in the bottom of the tonneau, and a local doctor bending over him.