"It is no use! We must fight fire with fire!"
The men ran back some distance, Mr. Pertell taking his camera back the same s.p.a.ce. Then the prairie was set ablaze in a number of places, at points nearer the slab cabin which was, as yet, untouched.
The scene of starting a counter-fire was a short one, for it was quickly discovered, in reality as well as in the play, as planned, that the wind was in the wrong direction. It simply advanced the flames nearer the cabin.
"It"s of no use, boys!" cried Mr. DeVere. "We must plow a bare strip."
"Bring up the horses and plows!" ordered Baldy. A number of these had been held in reserve, out of sight of the camera, and they now came up on the rush. The idea was that neighboring settlers, having sighted the prairie fire, had come to the aid of their friends in the slab cabin.
Horses were quickly hitched to the plows, and the work of making a number of furrows of damp earth, to act as a barrier to the flames, was started.
While Mr. Pertell was filming this, Russ was busy getting views of the on-rushing wagon containing the refugees. Several times the team was stopped to enable the operator to go on ahead, and show it coming across the prairie. This gave a different background each time.
It was after one of these halts, and just when the team was started up again that Alice, who was on the front seat with Paul, the driver, cried out:
"See! There is smoke and fire ahead of us, too! What does it mean?"
For an instant they were all startled, and then, as Ruth looked behind them, and saw the fiercer flames, and the blacker smoke there, she gasped:
"We are hemmed in! Hemmed in by the prairie fire!"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ESCAPE
Paul pulled up the rushing horses with a jerk that set them back on their haunches. There were cries of alarm from the interior of the wagon, and from the front and rear peered out anxious faces.
"What is it? Oh, what is it?" cried Miss Dixon.
"There"s a fire ahead of us," replied Alice, and her voice was calmer now. She realized that their situation might be desperate, and that there would be need of all the presence of mind each one possessed.
"A fire ahead of us!" repeated Miss Pennington. "Then let"s turn back.
Probably Mr. Pertell wanted this to happen. It"s all in the play. I don"t see anything to get excited about."
For once in her life she was more self-possessed than any of the others, but it was due to the bliss of ignorance.
"Let"s turn back," she suggested. "That seems the most reasonable thing to do. And I wonder if you would mind if I rode on the seat next to your friend Paul," she went on to Alice. "I"d like to have the center of the stage just for once, as sort of a change," and her tone was a bit malicious.
"I"m sure you"re welcome to sit here," responded Alice, quietly. "But, as for turning back, it is impossible. Look!" and she waved her hand toward the rear. There the black clouds of smoke were thicker and heavier, and the shooting flames went higher toward the heavens.
"Oh!" gasped Miss Pennington, and then she realized as she had not done before--the import of Ruth"s words:
"We are hemmed in!"
"Can"t--can"t we go back?" gasped Miss Dixon.
"The fire behind us is worse than that before us," said Paul, in a low voice. "Perhaps, after all, we can make a rush for it."
"No, don"t try dot!" spoke Mr. Switzer, and somehow, in this emergency, he seemed very calm and collected. "Der horses vould shy und balk at der flames," went on the German, who seemed far from being funny now. He was deadly in earnest. "Ve can not drive dem past der flames," he added.
"But what are we to do?" asked Paul. "We can"t stay here to be----"
He did not finish the sentence, but they all knew what he meant.
"Vait vun minute," suggested the German. He stood up on the seat so as to bring his head above the canvas top of the wagon. Those in it, save Paul, who remained holding the reins to quiet the very restive horses, had jumped to the ground.
"The wind is driving on der flames dot are back of us," said Mr. Switzer in a low voice. "It is driving dem on."
He turned in the opposite direction, where the flames and smoke were less marked, but still dangerously in evidence.
"Und dere, too," the German murmured. "Der vind dere, too, is driving dem on--driving dem on! I don"t understand it. Dere must be a vacuum caused by der two fires."
"Well, what"s to be done?" asked Mr. Towne, who formed one of the fleeing party. "We can"t stay here forever--between two fires, you know."
"Yah! I know," remarked Mr. Switzer, slowly. "Ve must get avay. We cannot go back, ve cannot go forvarts. Den ve must----"
"Oh, if we can"t go back, what has become of those whom we left behind?" cried Ruth. "My father--and the others?"
Her tearful face was turned toward Alice.
"They--they may be all right," said the younger girl, but her voice was not very certain.
"The--the fire must be at the cabin by now," went on Ruth. "If--if anything has happened that they were not able to get the flames under control----"
She, too, did not finish her portentous sentence.
"Ve cannot go forvarts," murmured Mr. Switzer, "und ve cannot go back.
Den de only oder t"ing to do iss to go to der left or right. Iss dot not so Paul, my boy?"
"It certainly is, and the sooner the better!" cried the young actor.
"Get into the wagon again and I"ll try the left. It looks more open there. And hurry, please, it"s getting hard to hold the horses. They want to bolt."
There were four animals. .h.i.tched to the wagon, and it was all Paul could do to manage them. Every moment they were getting more and more excited by the sight and smell of the smoke and flames.
Into the wagon piled the refugees, and Paul gave the horses their heads, guiding them over the prairie in a direction to the left, for the smoke seemed less thick there. It was a desperate chance, but one that had to be taken.
Ruth and Alice, going to the rear of the vehicle, looked out of the opening for a sight of their father and the others coming up on the gallop, possibly to report that the fire had gotten beyond their control.
But there was no sight of them.
"Oh, what can have happened?" murmured Ruth with clasped hands, while tears came into her eyes.
"Don"t worry, dear," begged Alice.
"But I can"t help it."