CHAPTER XIII

WINNING THEIR SPURS

For a moment the Radio Boys stared in the direction of Bob’s pointing finger. They could see nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, even while they told themselves this, the acrid smell of burning leaves and wood wafted to them.

Then suddenly Joe saw what Bob’s still keener eyes had seen. A thin column of smoke, drifting lazily upward.

“Fire!” cried Herb, under his breath, and at the word the boys seemed suddenly stirred to action.

With one accord they dashed from the house and started running in the direction of the smoke. After a moment they realized that they were heading straight for the railroad tracks.

“Probably only a little barn fire,” panted Bob, as the odor of burning wood became more pungent and they knew they were nearing the flames.

“Maybe they’re burning the leaves on purpose,” added Jimmy, but Herb grunted scornfully.

“It isn’t being done—not at this time in the year. Guess again, Doughnuts, old boy.”

Then they could see the flames through the trees and could hear the excited exclamations of people running back and forth. They redoubled their pace and in a moment more found themselves on the outskirts of the crowd.

Men and women, some swinging shovels, some brooms, others pails of water that slopped as they ran, jostled the boys as they elbowed their way to the front, anxious to see the extent of the fire.

A couple of women dropped the brooms they had been wildly waving, and Bob and Joe captured the weapons, approaching the blaze. At the same moment there was the sound of running footsteps behind them and in a moment more a dozen rangers broke through the crowd.

At sight of the lean, sun-burned men, the excited, hysterical men and women fell back, leaving the work of fighting the fire to the newcomers.

The grim faces of the rangers relaxed when they saw that the blaze was a small one and comparatively easy to control. Some fell to work with pick and shovel, digging a narrow ditch some twenty feet from the fire and back of it, while others turned streams of water upon the flames.

One of the men, recognizing the Radio Boys, pushed shovels toward them and eagerly the boys fell to work. They were having their first experience of a forest fire, and although this was a small one, they meant to make the most of the experience, just the same.

It was a short fight, but a brisk one while it lasted. The fire had started near the railroad tracks, as the boys had at first supposed. And though several times, driven by a capricious breeze, the flames had darted away from the fire fighters and toward the tracks, they were not able to leap across the bared space to the trees on the other side.

Then suddenly, as though the elements had decided to come to the aid of the fire fighters, the wind died down, and the fire, already well in hand, gave up the struggle. Gradually the leaping flames subsided until there was nothing left but a wide bed of glowing embers.

The boys, thinking all danger past, rested from their labors, only to find that the rangers were still busy, beating out sinister, creeping ribbons of flame that wound snake-like through the underbrush.

As soon as one small thread was extinguished it seemed to the fascinated boys as though another sprang up. And always they seemed to come from nowhere—from the air above or the ground underneath.

“That’s the worst of it,” said a panting ranger, speaking to Bob as he leaned on his shovel. “You think you have the fire under your thumb, turn away, and before you know it, it’s started all over again. It’s uncanny how the spirit of the flames persists.”

“I’ve noticed it,” agreed Bob, adding suddenly: “There’s another. Look out, it’s almost under your feet.”

Together they put out the snake-like creeping flame and then the ranger turned again to Bob. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with a grimy hand.

“There’s more than one bad fire that has started just that way,” he said. “Fire’s out apparently, everything’s peaceful and grand, people go home contented, even the rangers are satisfied there’s nothing left to do. But in spite of that we stick around and the chances are ten to one that sooner or later that fire will start up again—some distance maybe from the original place—and if we hadn’t been on the spot, there’s no telling but what a million dollars’ worth of good lumber would have gone up in smoke. Yes, sir, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

“Do you think this one’s over?” asked Joe. He and the other boys had come up in time to hear the last part of the ranger’s discourse. Now the latter grinned.

“Never can tell,” he said, adding whimsically: “It doesn’t pay to think in this business.”

In spite of the ranger’s pessimism, the fire did really prove to be over, and when the rangers themselves decided it was safe to leave the spot the boys turned back with them. Reluctantly they parted company with the rangers and slowly made their way toward the lodge.

“Gee, the fun was over too soon,” mourned Herb. “That fire was only a teaser.”

“I’d hate to think what it might have been, just the same, if the rangers hadn’t shown up on the spot,” said Bob, thoughtfully. “Suppose, for instance, the fire had started in a deserted part of the woodland where no one would have noticed it until it had gathered headway——”

“But someone would have noticed it,” Joe broke in eagerly. “That’s what the ranger service is for, especially the air patrol part of it.”

“Of course,” admitted Bob. “But even at that the chances are that it would have gathered considerable headway before even the airplanes caught on to the danger.”

“Too bad it didn’t,” returned Herb flippantly. “Then we’d have had that much more fun. I’d like to see a real fire before we go back to Clintonia.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Bob, regarding his soot-blackened hands, “if one really big forest fire cured your liking for them. I reckon they’re not all fun. However,” he added, with a laugh, “I guess there’s not much danger of our being in on a regular blaze unless we start one ourselves.”

“But did you notice,” asked Jimmy, as they came within sight of the lodge, “how everybody else melted away when the rangers hove in view? The people around here certainly have some respect for those fellows, all right.”

“I see,” said Herb with a grin, “that Doughnuts has fully decided to be a forest ranger—when he grows up.”

“Huh,” grunted Jimmy, aggrieved. “Where do you get that stuff?”

The days following the fire at the railroad tracks were quiet, as far as any new fire scare was concerned, and the boys sallied into the woods in search of adventure.

They found many things of interest, but the most interesting of all to them was the discovery of the mouth of a cave some distance from the lodge where they were staying.

The cave could be reached by means of a narrow, tortuous path through the woods, the path so overgrown in spots with weeds and tangled underbrush that the boys were forced to mark trees and stones in order to find their way to the spot.

But the aggravating part of this discovery was that the mouth of the cave was not big enough to allow of their passing through it even though, by the throwing of the light from a flash into the black interior, they could see that, a little further along, there was ample room for them to stand almost upright.

Of course they thought of enlarging the mouth of the cave, for they became the prey of an insatiable curiosity to see what was inside this mysterious hole in the mountainside. But to do this was almost impossible. The mouth of the cave was flanked by heavy rocks and it would take many hours of work to remove these, if, indeed, the feat were possible at all. And they were too lazy—or perhaps not quite curious enough—to take the trouble.

However, they thought of the cave often and gradually it became surrounded, in their own minds at least, by an air of mystery.

Herb thought it might have been the retreat of smugglers in olden days, Jimmy had it a counterfeiters’ den and Joe even went so far as to say that it might be in use now as a hiding place for contraband liquors. And so they got a great deal of fun from the discovery of the cave, even if they could not go any further in their explorations.

When they were not wandering about the woods, they were either at the ranger station, hobnobbing with the good-natured fellows there and discussing radio with the red-headed operator, or they were at home in the lodge, sending out messages from their own radio set. They received messages also, for there was a broadcasting station not so far away but what they might catch an occasional concert and some of the talks.

They had set up their apparatus soon after arriving and not until they had the set “ready for business” did they begin to feel really “at home.”

“Never lonesome these days—even in the backwoods!” cried Joe, as he joyfully clapped on a pair of head phones. “All you have to do is listen in on a concert or two to imagine you are back in dear old Clintonia again.”

“Far be it from us to imagine any such thing,” retorted Bob quickly, at which the boys had chuckled appreciatively. As a matter of fact, they were having far too good a time to wish themselves in Clintonia or anywhere but where they were.

Then one day, wandering in the woods, they came across their second great discovery. This was a quiet pool deep and still, surrounded by low-bending trees whose foliage fairly swept the placid surface of it.

The boys were quiet, lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene, then suddenly Jimmy was struck by an idea.

“I bet you anything, fellows,” he cried, his round face fairly radiating joy, “that there’s as fine fishing in this pool as any you’ve ever seen. I’m going back for my tackle.” And he had actually turned and headed back for the lodge before the boys fully grasped the meaning of what he was saying. Then, with a whoop, they followed him.

Luckily they had thought far enough to pack in their rods at the last moment and they knew exactly where to put their hands upon them. So it happened that they were back at that pool again in record time, equipped for fishing.

They caught fish too—numbers of them—beyond their wildest dreams, and they were just in the act of noisily proclaiming the proud Jimmy a hero when Bob’s gaze, traveling upward, froze suddenly with horror.

“For the love of Pete, Doughnuts,” he cried hoarsely, “don’t move!”