Now the smoke was so heavy and sharp that we coughed and choked. The air was scorching. We could hear a great crackling and snapping and the breeze withered the leaves about us. We burrowed. The animals around us cringed and burrowed. The fire was upon us--and a forest fire in the evergreen country is terrible.
There was a constant dull roar; our willows swayed and writhed; the rabbit crept right against me and lay shivering, and the coyotes whimpered. I flattened myself, and so did the Red Fox Scouts; and with my face in the ooze I tried to find cool air.
The roaring was steady; and the crackling and snapping was worse than any Fourth of July. Sparks came whisking down through the willows and sizzled in the wetness. One lit on a coyote and I smelled burning hair; and then one lit on me and I had to turn over and wallow on my back to put it out. "Ouch!" exclaimed Van Sant; and one must have lit on him, too.
But that was not bad. If we could stand the heat, and not swallow it and burn our lungs, we needn"t mind the sparks; and maybe in ten or fifteen minutes the worst would be over, when the branches and the brush had burned.
Of course the first few moments were the ticklish ones. We didn"t know what might happen. But we never said a word. Like the animals we just waited, and hoped for the best. When I found that we weren"t being burned, and that the roaring and the crackling weren"t harming us, I lifted my head. I sat up; and the Red Fox Scouts sat up, cautiously. We were still all right. The air was smoky, but the _fire_ hadn"t got at us--and now it probably wouldn"t. But this was not at all like Sunday!
The Red Fox Scouts were pale, under their mud; and so was I, I suppose.
I felt pale, and I felt weak and shaky--and I felt thankful. That had been a mighty narrow escape for us. If we had not found the willows and the wet, we would have died, it seemed to me.
"How about it?" asked Scout Ward, huskily, and his voice trembled, but I didn"t blame him for that. "It"s gone past, hasn"t it?"
"Yes," said I. And--
"We"re still here," said Scout Van Sant.
"Well," said Ward, soberly--and smiling, too, with cracked lips, "I know how I feel, and I guess you fellows feel the same way. G.o.d was good to us, and I want to thank Him."
And we kept silent a moment, and did.
The roaring had about quit and the crackling was not nearly so bad. The air was not fiery hot, any more; it was merely warm. The attack had pa.s.sed, and we were safe. The rabbit beside me hopped a few feet and squatted again, and the fat bear sat up and blinked about him with his piggish eyes. It seemed to me that the animals were growing uneasy and that perhaps the truce was over with. In that case, unpleasant things were likely to happen, so we had better move out.
"Shall we try it?" asked Van Sant.
We picked up the packs and sticking close together moved on--dodging another gray wolf and a coyote, and an animal that looked like a carcajou or wolverine, which snarled at us and wouldn"t budge.
Of course, it was a little doubtful whether we could travel through burned timber so soon after the fire had swept it. The ground would be thick with coals and hot ashes, and trees would still be blazing. But when we came out at the opposite edge of the willows and could see through the aspens, the timber beyond did not look bad, after all. There were a few burned places, but the fire had skirted the aspens on this side only in spots, where cinders had lodged.
So if we had kept going instead of having stopped in the willows we might have reached the place beyond all right; but it would have been taking an awful risk, and we decided that we had done the correct thing.
Smoke still hung heavy and the smell of burning pine was strong, as we threaded our way among the hot spots, making for the ridge beyond. That bare place would be a good lookout, and we rather hankered for it, anyway. We had crossed the valley, and as we climbed the slope we could look back. The fire had covered both sides of the first ridge, and the top, and if we had stayed there we would have been goners, sure, the way matters turned out. It was a dismal sight, and ought to make anybody feel sorry. Thousands of acres of fine timber had been killed--just wasted.
"What do you suppose started it?" asked Scout Ward.
A camp-fire, probably. Lots of people, camping in the timber, either don"t know anything or else are out-and-out careless, like that gang from town, or those two recruits who had not made good. And I more than half believed that the fire might have started from their camps.
All of a sudden we found that we were hungry. I had been hungry before the fire, because I hadn"t had much to eat for twenty-four hours; but during the fire I had forgotten about it; and now we all were hungry.
However, after that fire we were nervous, in the timber, and we knew that if we camped there we wouldn"t sleep. So we pushed on through, to camp on top, in the bare region, where we would be out of danger and could see around. The Red Fox canteens would give us water enough.
We came out on the bare spot. Away off to the right, along the side of the ridge, figures were moving. They were human figures, not more wild animals: two men and a pack burro. They were moving toward us, so we obliqued toward them, with our shadows cast long by the low sun. The gra.s.s was short and the footing was hard gravel, so that we could hurry; and soon I was certain that I knew who those three figures were. One was riding.
The side of the ridge was cut by a deep gulch, like a canyon, with rocky walls and stream rolling through along the bottom. We halted on our edge, and the three figures came on and halted on their edge. They were General Ashley and Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand, and Apache the black burro.
The general was riding Apache. I was glad to see them.
"They"re the two Elk Scouts who were captured," I said, to the Red Fox Scouts; and I waved and grinned, and they waved back, and we all exchanged the Scout sign.
But that gorge lay between, and the water made such a noise that we couldn"t exchange a word.
"Can they read Army and Navy wigwags?" asked Scout Ward.
"Sure," I said. "Can you?"
"Pretty good," he answered. "Shall I make a talk, or will you?"
But I wasn"t very well practiced in wigwags, yet; I was only a Second-cla.s.s Scout.
"You," I said. "Do you want a flag?"
But he said he"d use his hat. (Note 48.)
He made the "attention" signal; and Fitzpatrick answered. Then he went ahead, while Scout Van Sant spelled it out for me:
"R--e--d F--o--x."
And Fitz answered, like lightning:
"E--l--k."
"What shall I say?" asked Scout Ward of me, over his shoulder.
"Say we"re all right, and ask them how they are."
He did. Scout Van Sant spelled the answer:
"O. K. B--u--t c--a--n--t c--r--o--s--s. C--a--m--p t--i--l--l m--o--r--n--i--n--g. A--s--h h--u--r--t."
When we learned that General Ashley was hurt, and knew that he and Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand were going to camp on the other side for the night, the two Red Fox Scouts, packs and all, and I got through that gulch somehow and up and out, where they were. It would have been a shame to let a one-armed boy tend to the camp and to a wounded companion, and do everything, if we could possibly help. Of course, Fitz would have managed. He was that kind. He didn"t ask for help.
They were waiting; Fitz had unpacked the burro and was making camp.
General Ashley was sitting with his back against a rock. He looked pale and worn. He had sprained his ankle, back there when we had all tried to escape, yesterday, and it was swollen horribly because he had had to step on it some and hadn"t been able to give it the proper treatment.
(Note 49.) Fitz looked worn, too, and of course we three others (especially I) showed travel, ourselves.
After I had introduced the Red Fox Scouts to him and Fitz, then before anything else was told I must report. So I did. But I hated to say it. I saluted, and blurted it out:
"I followed the beaver man and sighted him, sir, but he got away again, with the message."
The general did not frown, or show that he was disappointed or vexed. He tried to smile, and he said: "Did he? That surely was hard luck then, Jim. Where did he go?"
"We were with Bridger, and it seems to us that he did the best he could.
The fire interrupted," put in Red Fox Scout Van Sant, hesitatingly.
He spoke as if he knew that he had not been asked for an opinion, but as a friend and as a First-cla.s.s Scout he felt as though he ought to say something.
"The best is all that any Scout can do," agreed the general. "Go ahead, Jim, and tell what happened."
So I did. The general nodded. I hadn"t made any excuses; I tried to tell just the plain facts, and ended with our escape in the willows, from that fire.