Pluck on the Long Trail Part 21

"So long," said the Ranger. "Don't let it get past you. It won't. Work hard, and if you're really in danger run for the creek. But Boy Scouts of America don't run till they have to. You can save lives and a heap of timber, by licking the fire at this point. I'll see you later." And off he spurred, through the timber, across the front of the fire.

He wasn't afraid--and so we weren't, either.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CAPTURE OF THE BEAVER MAN

The fire line looked like some old wood-road, where trees had been cut out and brush cleared away. It extended through the timber, striking the thin places and the rocky bare places, and the highest places, and wound on, half a mile, over a point. This point, with a long slope from the ridge to the valley there, was open and fire-proof. The lower end of the line was that willow bog, which lay in a basin right in a split of the timber. Away across from our ridge was another gravelly ridge, and beyond that was the snowy range. (Note 53.)

The smoke was growing thick and strong, so that we could smell it plain.

The fire was coming right along, making for us. There were the three of us to cover a half-mile or more of fire line, so we got busy. We divided the line into three patrols, and set to work tramping down the brush on the fire side of it and making ready.

Pretty soon wild animals began to pa.s.s, routed out by the fire. That was fun, to watch deer and coyotes and rabbits and other things scoot by, among the trees, as if they were moving pictures. Once I saw a wolf, and little Jed Smith called that he had seen a bear. Kit Carson reported that some of the animals seemed to be heading into the willow bog beyond his end of the line.

It was kind of nervous work, getting ready and waiting for the fire. It was worse than actual fighting, and we'd rather meet the fire halfway than wait for it to come to us. But we were here to wait.

The fire did not arrive all at once, with a jump. Not where I was. A thin blue smoke, lazy and harmless, drifted through among the trees, and a crackling sounded louder and louder. Then there were breaths of hot air, as if a dragon was foraging about. Birds flew over, calling and excited, and squirrels raced along, and porcupines and skunks, and even worms and ants crawled and ran, trying to escape the dragon. A wind blew, and the timber moaned as if hurt and frightened. I felt sorry for the pines and spruces and cedars. They could not run away, and they were doomed to be burnt alive.

The birds all had gone, worms and ants and bugs were still hurrying, and the timber was quiet except for the crackling. Now I glimpsed the dragon himself. He was digging around, up the slope a little way, extending his claws further and further like a cat as he explored new ground and gathered in every morsel.

This is the way the fire came--not roaring and leaping, but sneaking along the ground and among the bushes, with little advance squads like dragon's claws or like the scouts of an army, reconnoitering. The crackling increased, the hot gusts blew oftener, I could see back into the dragon's great mouth where bushes and trees were flaming and disappearing--and suddenly he gave a roar and leaped for our fire line, and ate a bush near it.

Then I leaped for him and struck a paw down with my stick. So we began to fight.

It wasn't a crown fire, where the flames travel through the tops of the timber; it traveled along the ground, and climbed the low trees and then reached for the big ones. But when it came near the fire line, it stopped and felt about sort of blindly, and that was our chance to jump on it and stamp it out and beat it out and kill it.

The smoke was awful, and so was the heat, but the wind helped me and carried most of it past. And now the old dragon was right in front of me, raging and snapping. The fore part of him must be approaching Jed Smith, further along the line. I whistled the Scout whistle, loud, and gave the Scout halloo--and from Jed echoed back the signal to show that all was well.

This was hot work, for Sunday or any day. The smoke choked and blinded, and the air fairly scorched. Pine makes a bad blaze. What I had to do was to run back and forth along the fire line, crushing the dragon's claws. My shoes felt burned through and my face felt blistered, and jiminy, how I sweat! But that dragon never got across my part of the fire line.

The s.p.a.ce inside my part was burnt out and smoldering, and I could join with Jed. There were two of us to lick the fire, here; but the dragon was raging worse and the two of us were needed. He kept us busy. I suppose that there was more brush. And when we would follow him down, and help Kit, he was worse than ever. How he roared!

He was determined to get across and go around that willow bog. Once he did get across, and we chased him and fought him back with feet and hands and even rolled on him. A bad wind had sprung up, and we didn't know but that we were to have a crown fire. The heat would have baked bread; the cinders were flying and we must watch those, to catch them when they landed. We had to be everywhere at once--in the smoke and the cinders and the flames, and if I hadn't been a Scout, stationed with orders, I for one would have been willing to sit and rest, just for a minute, and let the blamed fire go. But I didn't, and Kit and Jed didn't; all of a sudden the dragon quit, and with roar and crackle went plunging on, along the ridge inside the willow bog. We had held the fire line--and we didn't know that Jim Bridger and the Red Fox Scouts were in those willows which we had saved because we had been ordered to!

Then, when just a few little blazes remained to be trampled and beaten out, but while the timber further in was still aflame, Jed cried: "Look!" and we saw a man coming, staggering and coughing, down through a rocky little canyon which cut the black, smoking slope.

He fell, and we rushed to get him.

Blazing branches were falling, all about; the air was two hundred in the shade; and in that little canyon the rocks seemed red-hot. But the fire hadn't got into the canyon, much, because it was narrow and bare; and the man must have been following it and have made it save his life. He was in bad shape, though. Before we reached him he had stood up and tumbled several times, trying to feel his way along.

"Wait! We're coming," I called. He heard, and tried to see.

"All right," he answered hoa.r.s.ely. "Come ahead."

We reached him. Kit Carson and I held him up by putting his arms over our shoulders, and with Jed walking behind we helped him through the canyon and out to the fire line. He groaned and grunted. His eyebrows were crisped and his hair was singed and his shoes were cinders and his hands and face were scarred, and his eyes were all bloodshot, and he had holes through his clothes.

"Fire out?" he asked. "I can't see."

"It isn't out, but it's past," said Jed.

"Well, it mighty near got _me_," he groaned. "It corralled me on that ridge. If I hadn't cached myself in that little canyon, I'd have been burned to a crisp. It burned my hoss, I reckon. He jerked loose from me and left me to go it alone with my wounded leg. Water! Ain't there a creek ahead? Gimme some water."

While he was mumbling we set him down, beyond the fire line. It didn't seem as though we could get him any further. Kit hustled for water, Jed skipped to get first-aid stuff from a blanket-roll, and I made an examination.

His face and hands were blistered--maybe his eyes were scorched--there was a b.l.o.o.d.y place wrapped about with a dirty red handkerchief, on the calf of his left leg. But I couldn't do much until I had scissors or a sharp knife, and water.

"Who are you kids?" he asked. "Fishin'?" He was lying with his eyes closed.

"No. We're some Boy Scouts."

He didn't seem to like this. "Great Scott!" he complained. "Ain't there n.o.body but Boy Scouts in these mountains?"

Just then Kit came back with a hat of water from a boggy place. It was muddy water, but it looked wet and good, and the man gulped it down, except what I used to soak our handkerchiefs in. Kit went for more. Jed arrived with first-aid stuff, and I set to work, Jed helping.

We let the man wipe his own face, while we cut open his shirt where it had stuck to the flesh.

"Here!" he said suddenly. "Quit that. What's the matter with you?"

But he was too late. When I got inside his undershirt, there on a buckskin cord was hanging something that we had seen before. At least, it either was the message of the Elk Patrol or else a package exactly like it.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

"Maybe yes, and maybe no. Why?" he growled.

"Because if it isn't, we'd like to know where you got it."

"And if you don't tell, we'll go on and let you be," snapped little Jed.

"Shut up," I ordered--which wasn't the right way, but I said it before I thought. Jed had made me angry. "No, we won't." And we wouldn't. Our duty was to fix him the best we could. "But that looks like something belonging to us Scouts, and it has our private mark on it. We'd like to have you explain where you got it."

"He's _got_ to explain, too," said little Jed, excited.

"Have I?" grinned the man, hurting his face. "Why so?"

"There are three of us kids. We can keep sight of you till that Ranger comes back. He'll make you."

"Who?"

"That Forest Ranger. He's a Government officer."

Kit Carson arrived, staring, with more water.

"I know you!" he panted. He signed to us, pointing at the man's feet.

"You were at that other camp!" And Jed and I looked and saw the hole in the left sole--although both soles were badly burned, now. By that mark he was the beaver man! He wriggled uneasily as if he had a notion to sit up.