The Rules of the Game Part 75

The next defence was successfully completed before the fire reached it.

Bob felt a sudden rush of most extraordinary and vivifying emotion. A moment ago he had been ready to drop in his tracks, indifferent whether the fire burned him as he lay. Now he felt ready to go on forever. Bert Elliott found energy enough to throw his hat into the air, while Jack shook his fist at the advancing fire.

"We fooled him that time!" cried Elliott.

"Bet you!" growled Pollock.

The other men and the woman stood leaning on the long handles of their implements staring at the advancing flames.

Morton aroused himself with an effort.

"Do your best boys," said he briefly. "There she comes. Another hour will tell whether we've stopped her. Then we've got to hold her.

Scatter!"

The day had pa.s.sed without anybody's being aware of the fact. The cool of the evening was already falling, and the fierceness of the conflagration was falling in accord.

They held the line until the flames had burned themselves out against it. Then they took up their weary patrol. Last night, when Bob was fresh, this part of fire-fighting had seemed the hardest kind of hard work. Now, crippled and weary as he was, in contrast to the day's greater labour, it had become comparatively easy. About eight o'clock Amy, having found a way through, appeared leading all the horses, saddled and packed.

"You boys came a long way," she explained simply, "and I thought I'd bring over camp."

She distributed food, and made trips down the fire line with coffee.

In this manner the night pa.s.sed. The line had been held. No one had slept. Sunrise found Bob and Jack Pollock far down the mountain. They were doggedly beating back some tiny flames. The camp was a thousand feet above, and their canteens had long been empty. Bob raised his weary eyes.

Out on a rock inside the burned area, like a sentinel cast in bronze, stood a horseman. The light was behind him, so only his outline could be seen. For a minute he stood there quite motionless, looking. Then he moved forward, and another came up behind him on the rock. This one advanced, and a third took his place. One after the other, in single file, they came, glittering in the sun, their long rakes and hoes slanted over their shoulders like spears.

"Look!" gasped Bob weakly.

The two stood side by side spellbound. The tiny flames licked past them in the tarweed; they did not heed. The hors.e.m.e.n rode up, twenty strong.

It seemed to Bob that they said things, and shouted. Certainly a half-dozen leaped spryly off their horses and in an instant had confined the escaping fire. Somebody took Bob's hoe from him. A cheery voice shouted in his ear:

"Hop along! You're through. We're on the job. Go back to camp and take a sleep."

He and Pollock turned up the mountain. Bob felt stupid. After he had gone a hundred feet, he realized he was thirsty, and wondered why he had not asked for a drink. Then it came to him that he might have borrowed a horse, but remembered thickly after a long time the impa.s.sable dikes between him and camp.

"That's why I didn't," he said aloud.

By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He did not care.

The excitement and responsibility had drained from him suddenly, leaving him a hollow sh.e.l.l.

They dragged themselves up the dike.

"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said Pollock suddenly.

They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to trip them. Pollock muttered between set teeth, over and over again, his unvarying complaint: "I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!"

Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour cleared for an instant.

"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and maybe some angel will hand you out a gla.s.s."

"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but I bet there's some down in that hollow; and I'm going to see!"

"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said Bob; "I'll sit down and wait for you."

Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled the canteen and staggered back up the steep climb.

"Here you be," said he.

Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took breath, he said:

"Thank you, Jack. That was an awful climb back."

"That's all right," nodded Jack shortly.

"Well, come on," said Bob.

"The h.e.l.l!" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep.

An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently. He stirred and advanced a little way toward the light, then dropped back like a plummet into the abysses of sleep. Afterward he recalled a vague, half-conscious impression of being lifted on a horse. Possibly he managed to hang on; possibly he was held in the saddle--that he never knew.

The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker of a camp-fire, and the soft feel of blankets. It was night, but how it came to be so he could not imagine. He was very stiff and sore and burned, and his hand was very painful. He moved it, and discovered, to his vast surprise, that it was bound tightly. When this bit of surgery had been performed he could not have told.

He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bending over cooking utensils. Five motionless forms reposed in blankets. Bob counted them carefully. After some moments it occurred to his dulled brain that the number represented his companions. Some one on horseback seemed to be arriving. A glitter of silver caught his eye. He recognized finally California John. Then he dozed off again. The sound of voices rumbled through the haze of his half-consciousness.

"Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's sleep!" he caught Thorne's voice saying.

Bob took this statement into himself. He computed painfully over and over. He could not make the figures. He counted the hours one after the other. Finally he saw.

"Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said suddenly; "forty for us."

No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken aloud; though he thought he had done so.

"We found the two of them curled up together," he next heard Thorne say.

"Orde was coiled around a sharp root--and didn't know it, and Pollock was on top of him. They were out in the full sun, and a procession of red ants was disappearing up Orde's pants leg and coming out at his collar. Fact!"

"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best unbroke lot I ever saw."

"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled. Heaven knows when he did it, but he never peeped. Morton says he noticed his hand done up in a handkerchief yesterday morning."

Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught fragments--"Four fire-lines--think of it--only one old-timer in the lot--I'm proud of my boys----"

He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne saying:

"Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's the ranger spirit I like--when as of old the women and children----"

"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I don't give a red cent for all your forests, and your pesky rangering. I've got no use for them. If Charley Morton would quit you and tend to his cattle, I'd be pleased. I didn't fight fire to help you, let me tell you."

"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently amused.