Part 24 (1/2)

For a minute he stood near his place, then strode off up the hill a little way, among the trees, where he paused, listening, like an animal at bay. They could see his dark form dimly outlined in the darker night.

”J. R.'s on the scent,” remarked Doc. Carson.

Several fellows rose to join him and just at that minute Westy Martin, of the Silver Foxes, and a scout from a Maryland troop who had been stalking, came rus.h.i.+ng pell-mell into camp.

”The woods are on fire!” gasped Westy. ”Up the hill! Look!”

”I seed it,” said Jeb. ”The wind's bringin' it.”

”You can't get through up there,” Westy panted. ”We had to go around.”

”Ye couldn't get round by now. B'ys, we're a-goin' ter git it for sure.

It's goin' ter blow fire.”

For a moment he stood looking up into the woods, with the boys about him, straining their eyes to see the patches of fire which were visible here and there. Suddenly these patches seemed to merge and make the night lurid with a red glare, a perfect pandemonium of crackling and roaring a.s.sailed the silent night and clouds of suffocating smoke enveloped them.

The fire, like some heartless savage beast, had stolen upon them unawares and was ready to spring.

Jeb Rushmore was calm and self-contained and so were most of the boys as they stood ready to do his bidding.

”Naow, ye see what I meant when I said a leopard's as sneaky as a fire,”

said Jeb. ”Here, you Bridgeboro troop and them two Maryland troops and the troop from Was.h.i.+n't'n,” he called, ”you make a bucket line like we practiced. Tom--whar's Tom? And you Oakwood b'ys, git the buckets out'n the provish'n camp. Line up thar ri' down t' the water's edge and come up through here. You fellers from Pennsylvany 'n' you others thar, git the axes 'n' come 'long o' me. Don't git rattled, now.”

Like clockwork they formed a line from the lake up around the camp, completely encircling it. The fire crept nearer every second, stifling them with its pungent smoke. Other scouts, some with long axes, others with belt axes, followed Jeb Rushmore, chopping down the small trees which he indicated along the path made by this human line. In less than a minute fifty or more scouts were working desperately felling trees along the path. Fortunately, the trees were small, and fortunately, too, the scouts knew how to fell them so that they fell in each case away from the path, leaving an open way behind the camp.

Along this open way the line stood, and thus the full buckets pa.s.sing from hand to hand with almost the precision of machinery, were emptied along this open area, soaking it.

”The rest o' you b'ys,” called Jeb, ”climb up on the cabins--one on each cabin, and three or four uv ye on the pavilion. Some o' ye stay below to pa.s.s the buckets up. Keep the roofs wet--that's whar the sparks'll light. Hey, Tom!”

As the hurried work went on one of Garry's troop grasped Jeb by the arm.

”How about our cabin?” said he, fearfully. ”There are two fellows up there.”

Jeb paused a moment, but shook his head. ”They'll hev ter risk jumpin'

int' th' cut,” said he. ”No mortal man c'u'd git to 'em through them woods naow.”

The boy fell back, sick at heart as he thought of those two on the lonely hill surrounded by flame and with a leap from the precipice as their only alternative. It was simply a choice between two forms of awful death.

The fire had now swept to within a few yards of the outer edge of the camp, but an open way had been cleared and saturated to check its advance and the roofs of the shacks were kept soaked by a score or more of alert workers as a precaution against the blowing sparks.

Tom Slade had not answered any of Jeb's calls for him. At the time of his chief's last summons he was a couple of hundred feet from the buildings, tearing and tugging at one of the overflow tents. Like a madman and with a strength born of desperation he dragged the pole down and, wrenching the stakes out of the ground by main force, never stopping to untie the ropes, he hauled the whole dishevelled ma.s.s free of the paraphernalia which had been beneath it, down to the lake. Duffel bags rolled out from under it, the uprooted stakes which came along with it caught among trees and were torn away, the long clumsy canvas trail rebelled and clung to many an obstruction, only to be torn and ripped as it was hauled w.i.l.l.y-nilly to the sh.o.r.e of the lake.

In he strode, tugging, wrenching, dragging it after him. Part of it floated because of the air imprisoned beneath it, but gradually sank as it became soaked. Standing knee-deep, he held fast to one corner of it and waited during one precious minute while it absorbed as much of the water as it could hold.

It was twice as heavy now, but he was twice as strong, for he was twice as desperate and had the strength of an unconquerable purpose. The lips of his big mouth were drawn tight, his shock of hair hung about his stolid face as with bulldog strength and tenacity he dragged the dead weight of dripping canvas after him up onto the sh.o.r.e. The water trickled out of its clinging folds as he raised one side of the soaking fabric, and dragged the whole ma.s.s up to the provision cabin.

He seized the coil of la.s.so rope and hung it around his neck, then raising the canvas, he pulled it over his head like a shawl and pinned it about him with the steel clutch of his fingers, one hand at neck and one below.