Unexplored! Part 8

"Not when you're all together. Of course if you were alone you might break a leg or something that would leave you helpless, and you'd sure be a long way from anything to eat unless you had it with you.

"But unless we look alive the Big Interests are going to wrest away these beauty spots that we have set aside for our National playgrounds,"

Radcliffe had declared.

"That's just what Dad says!" Ace had remembered.

"And why? Not because they need the irrigation and water power of the big falls, for they can have it after the streams leave the parks, but because it would cost them a good deal less to secure these things of Uncle Sam than it would to build their projects outside Park limits.

There isn't a beauty spot in the West that some commercial interest hasn't designs on."

"That's one thing I mean to fight!" Ace squared his chin as the DeHaviland whisked them to their particular ridge, a table mountain, or b.u.t.te, where half a dozen recruits had already been landed with tools and grub.

"Sure seems as if these fires had been set," mused Long Lester, as Radcliffe bade them good-by,--for he had to be in a dozen places at once, that day.

"But who did it?" demanded Ace fiercely.

"No savvy dat kind feller," said a Canadian half breed, who was just starting off with a pick. "'E's bad feller, dat!"

"Sure is!" agreed Ace. "I don't savvy him either,--any one who would deliberately burn--_that!_" with a wave of his arm toward the forested gorge, up which already rose a noticeable heat. The red tongues, racing through the spruce and cedar tops, shone through the smoke gloom, whence issued a distant roaring which was the wind created by the super-heated stretch of territory.

To the left, a gleaming-eyed cougar crept through the shadows, himself a shadow. To the right, a huge, furry looking shadow ran clumsily, flat-footedly. A tiny shadow hopped from almost under their feet, and above their heads flapped a small covey of lighter shadows. Writhing above the dark tops of the doomed trees rose the yellow-gray smoke that was their departing shades.

The faces of the fire-fighters were grimly blackened with smoke and grime, their shirts clung wet with perspiration to their swelling muscles, and their dry throats clacked when they tried to swallow.

"I'd sure like to find the fellow that started _that!_" muttered Ace.

CHAPTER V

A DARING FEAT

As sunset turned the wind down canyon, all hands made a sally down the mountain side in the hope of establishing a line of back-fire, but the ground soon became too hot for them, while the air was filled chokingly with ash and char-dust. They had to retreat to the ridge. It was a night never to be forgotten.

When the wind turned at dawn,--with their line still intact,--the exhausted party took turn and turn about, s.n.a.t.c.hing a few hours' sleep, wrapped in their blankets on the rocks, or making coffee.

Ace had forgotten all about his wireless message when, shortly after noon, his own ship arrived. It had had a search for him, and had landed, apparently, on the very ledge of basalt where the DeHaviland had picked them up.

The beauty of the Spanish ship was that it was built to land on a s.p.a.ce no bigger than a house roof. It carried two propellers at the top. The pilot had only to start these and it sucked itself straight up into the air. Then he twirled the propeller on the front and sailed away, as easily as you please.

He landed by reversing these operations. He could alight on a shed roof if he had to, (provided, of course, that the roof was flat). The only danger would be if the propellers should go on strike.

"I've been getting a wireless message," said the pilot. "There! Better take it, Mr. King," to Ace.

Ace's eyes grew dark as he interpreted the frantic ticking that his apparatus gave him. "Why--_Rosa's_ sending this!--She's marooned--there at the Red Top fire-outlook!--'Fire on three sides, on fourth, rapids of Kawa River Gorge. Send help--if you can,'" he translated, while the boys waited, breathless. "Three men where first-fire started--silver b.u.t.tons--shining in the sun."

"That sounds like Mexicans!" said Pedro.

"Now what?" asked Norris. "Where's the Ranger, do you suppose?" But just then he saw a flaming branch blown across their line. Like tinder the dried firs burst into a shower of sparks, and with a call to the men, he darted after it. Ace remained behind to wireless, and Ted to quench their cook-fire, while Ace's pilot flung off his coat and ran after the fire fighters.

Ace King did one thing supremely well. He knew his ship. He was born to fly.

"Hey, Ted," he brought a certain line of reasoning to a head, "the Ranger can't _land_ with that DeHaviland, if he does go after Rosa. You know the layout on Red Top." (The boys had pa.s.sed that way.)

"Yeh,--Caesar!--That's right. No place there half large enough for the bombing-plane!--That poor kid!" He shuddered. "What's the answer?" for he saw that Ace had some plan. "I'm with you!"

"Just this. We can't leave her there to be burned alive. Radcliffe can't do any more than we can about it. Besides, he's got his hands full, wherever he is. But a forest guard was _killed_ last year directing fire fighters from a plane. Went into a tail spin and fell into the flames."

"I know. It's mighty dangerous flying over a fire. Isn't there anything Rosa can do?"

"That's just what----" Ace hesitated, deep in thought.

"I've heard of people taking refuge in caves, but where would she find the cave?--'N' I've heard of 'em going to a rock-slide and piling up a barricade of stone and lying behind it while the fire swept that way. It cuts off some of the heat and flying sparks----"

"Look here!" Ace vociferated with the suddenness of a machine gun. "I'm going for her."

"What----!"

"Yes, sir! I can land there, anyway. Then if it queers the machine, I'll take Rosa down to the rapids. I know a fellow that was in a big fire in Montana. When it cut them off, each man soaked his blanket and got under it in midstream while the fire jumped to the other bank. They made a sort of tepee around their heads, got clear under water, and just came up for an occasional breath. Gee! He says it roared like a thousand trains as it swept over them. So that's what we'll do--that is, unless we can get back in the ship."

Unconsciously he patted his machine, and Ted knew what it would mean to him to lose it.

"Perhaps--perhaps you _can_ bring it back," he ventured.

"Sure thing!" Ace gave his spirits a toss. "Anyway, here goes!--Good-by."

"What's the idea?" yelled Ted aggrievedly. "Going to leave your side-kick behind?" and he climbed into the observer's place.

"Coming!" Ace wirelessed the girl. "Be on meadow--we'll pick you up."

"If our propellers don't go on strike," he added to himself. Still he knew he could slow to 80 miles an hour and pancake down. He would first circle well away from the fire, with its super-heated air column, till they came to the gorge of the Kawa. There would be a narrow zone, he figured, of less destructive atmosphere, the air channel over the 2,000-foot canyon.

With a peek at castor oil and gasoline, they started, looping and curving straight to 15,000 feet, then Westward, away from the fire zone. Though the day was fair, the spiral of hot air rising above the flaming forest kept them pitching and lurching in a short chop that made Ted look green, and gave even Ace a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach.

The sea of snow-clad peaks slid by beneath them, the sun flashing from the granite slopes. Rising and falling, rising and falling in the rough, upper air, they felt as if they were in a swift elevator. A cloud to the West looked like a fleecy carpet beneath them. The West wind kept swinging the machine till Ace had continually to bring it back in line with the rapids of the Kawa which was his objective point.

It took but instants, though it seemed ages to both boys. Now it was time to race quivering down the gorge of canyon-cooled air. Would they make it against the devastating breath of the flames!--Now they were looking straight down into that picture of red and--black. Rosa, watching frantically from the wee patch of green which was her mountain meadow, looked like a dot with waving arms. The air became a stretch of dizzy rapids. The combined roar of the flames and the river beneath nearly drowned the nearer sound of the descending 'plane.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Raced quivering down the gorge of canyon-cooled air.]

With heart that fluttered near to bursting, Ace accomplished the quick swoop, Ted s.n.a.t.c.hed the girl aboard, and they were up again.

The miracle had been accomplished!--The mountains lay like a relief map beneath them, greenest down the canyons that branches Westward from the gleaming crest of the main divide, the snow-capped peaks gleaming silver in the sunlight. The fire zone lay like a small inferno behind them.

Back at fire-fighting headquarters, Ace's nerves took toll of him in trembling knees. He had been all steel. Now he literally dropped in his tracks, and in ten minutes was fast asleep.

Rosa, now that the danger was all over, broke down and wept hysterically, to Ted's infinite embarra.s.sment.