CHAPTER XXIV

THE BLESSED RAIN

Through the blazing forest the wind tore its way, gathering up as it went the blazing crowns of trees and throwing them, like a baleful giant at sport, high up in the air, where they separated and fell like thousands of skyrockets at once.

At any other time it would have been a spectacle of such magnificence that it would have held the boys spellbound. But there was nothing in it now but terror and deadly peril to life.

The Radio Boys braced themselves to meet the ordeal, and for the sake of the others held their fears under control. But in their secret hearts they believed that none of them would come out of that fiery furnace alive.

But there was one on the raft who had no hesitation in letting his fears be known, and that was Buck Looker. He crouched down on the raft, his usually red face blanched with fright, whimpering and whining and mumbling incoherently.

It takes an ordeal like that through which the party on the raft were passing to bring each one out in his true colors. There was no question as to Buck’s color. It was undeniably yellow.

A great mass of branches, all aflame, was carried out by the wind and fell in the lake not more than twenty feet from the raft. Had it fallen on it, the party would have been enveloped in flames in a moment. Even at that distance, the heat seared their faces as though with a hot iron, and to save their eyes they covered their heads with their wet coats.

Buck gave a wild shriek as the blazing mass came down.

“It’s got us sure!” he yelled, grabbing at Jimmy and pulling him between him and the blaze to give himself that much protection.

“For the love of Pete, let go of me,” growled Jimmy, as he yanked himself away, in disgust at Buck’s cowardice. “Don’t make a fire screen out of me.”

“Oh, why did I ever come up into these woods?” moaned Buck.

“Chiefly because Bob gave you a licking,” Herb muttered to himself, his sense of humor not wholly subdued even by the peril he was in.

Buck made a grab at Joe.

“Do you think there is any hope?” he whined. “Oh, don’t tell me that there isn’t any hope!”

Joe shrugged his shoulders.

“Search me,” he said curtly. Then, as he looked at the abject creature, he could not help feeling some pity for him despite the contempt he had for him, and added more gently: “Of course there’s hope. Brace up, Buck, and get a grip on yourself. We’re worth a dozen dead men yet.”

“Dead men!” repeated Buck. “Oh, don’t speak of death! I don’t want to die!”

“I guess none of us does,” remarked Bob kindly. “Now, Buck, try to calm down. You see that the water is putting out those blazing branches, and we’re getting out now into the middle of the lake. I guess we’ll pull through all right.”

“I know I haven’t treated you fellows right,” whimpered Buck. “But if you once get me out of this I’ll never do anything against you again.” Bob did not reply, for at that moment he felt upon his face what seemed like drops of rain. At first he thought that it was spray from the rough water on which the raft was tossing. But he held his face upturned and felt several more large drops come pattering down.

“Hurrah, fellows!” he cried, in wild jubilation. “It’s raining!”

“What!” yelled Joe unbelievingly.

“You’re fooling!” cried Herb.

“More likely it’s water from the lake,” asserted Jimmy.

“It’s rain, I tell you!” exclaimed Bob. “Hold your faces up and feel it. Glory, hallelujah!”

A moment more and doubt was impossible, for with a swish and a roar the rain began to come down in torrents.

How they welcomed it! How they gloried in it! In a few minutes they were drenched to the skin with water colder than that of the lake, but it seemed to them that they had never had such a delightful sensation.

For that blessed rain meant salvation, salvation not only for them but perhaps for scores of others who, like themselves, had been trapped in that ring of flame. It meant the conquering of the fire fiend, that red demon who for hours past had been threatening them with a terrible death.

“If it only keeps up, if it only keeps up!” they found themselves repeating again and again.

And the frantic hope that was really a prayer was answered. How it rained! It was like a cloudburst. Down, down it came in torrents that seemed inexhaustible.

And as the floods descended, the boys watched with delight the effect it had upon the fire. At first it was hardly perceptible, and the flames still towered toward the skies. But after a few minutes the blaze began to lower and waver. The heart of the forest was still crimson, but at the outer edges, above and around, little columns of smoke began to dull the red welter. And it stopped spreading. The trees that had not yet caught were now beyond likelihood of catching. The red fingers that reached out for them found not dry timber but dripping, soaking trunks and branches on which the fingers slipped. The fire was beaten. It might be hours before it would admit defeat and slink out of sight, but it was beaten just the same. The beginning of the end had come!