They found this to be true. The rangers had hastily hoed and raked out a narrow path. Over this a very small fire could not pa.s.s; but there could be no doubt that the larger conflagration would take the slight obstacle in its stride. Therefore the rangers had themselves ignited the small fire. This would eat away the fuel, and automatically widen the path.
Between the main fire and the back fire were still several hundred yards of good, unburned country. To Bob"s expression of surprise Amy added to the two principles of fire-fighting he had learned from Pollock.
"It doesn"t do to try to stop a fire anywhere and everywhere," said she.
"A good man knows his country, and he takes advantage of it. This fire line probably runs along the line of natural defence."
They followed it down the mountain for a long distance through the eddying smoke. The flames to their right shot up and died and crept. The shadows to their left--their own among the number--leaped and fell.
After a while, down through the mists, they made out a small figure, very busy at something. When they approached, they found this to be Charley Morton. The fire had leaped the cleared path and was greedily eating in all directions through the short, pitchy growth of tarweed. It was as yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get started, the whole forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze. The ranger had started to cut around this a half-circle connected at both ends with the main fire line. With short, quick jabs of his hoe, he was tearing away at the tough tarweed.
"Hullo!" said he without looking up. "You"ll find camp on the bald ridge north the fire line. There"s a little feed there."
Having completed his defence, he straightened his back to look at them.
His face was grimed a dingy black through which rivulets of sweat had made streaks.
"Had it pretty hot all afternoon," he proffered. "Got the fire line done, though. How"re those canteens--full? I"ll trade you my empty one."
He took a long draught. "That tastes good. Went dry about three o"clock, and haven"t had a drop since."
They left him there, leaning on the handle of his hoe. Jack Pollock seemed to know where the place described as the camp-site was located, for after various detours and false starts, he led them over the brow of a knoll to a tiny flat among the pine needles where they were greeted by whinnies from unseen animals. It was here very dark. Jack sc.r.a.ped together and lit some of the pine needles. By the flickering light they saw the four saddles dumped down in a heap.
"There"s a side hill over yander with a few bunches of gra.s.s and some of these blue lupins," said Jack. "It ain"t much in the way of hoss-feed, but it"ll have to do."
He gathered fuel and soon had enough of a fire to furnish light.
"It certainly does seem plumb foolish to be lightin" _more_ fires!" he remarked.
In the meantime Amy had unsaddled her own horse and was busy unpacking one of the pack animals. Bob followed her example.
"There," she said; "now here are the canteens, all full; and here"s six lunches already tied together that I put up before we started. You can get them to the other boys. Take your tools and run along. I"ll straighten up, and be ready for you when you can come back."
"What if the fire gets over to you?" asked Bob.
"I"ll turn the horses loose and ride away," she said gaily.
"It won"t get clost to there," put in Jack. "This little ridge is rock all round it. That"s why they put the camp here."
"Where"s water?" asked Amy.
"I don"t rightly remember," confessed Pollock. "I"ve only been in here once."
"I"ll find out in the morning. Good luck!"
Jack handed Bob three of the canteens, a hoe and rake and one of the flat files.
"What"s this for?" asked Bob.
"To keep the edge of your hoe sharp," replied Jack.
They shouldered their implements and felt their way in the darkness over the tumbled rock outcrop. As they surmounted the shoulder of the hill, they saw once more flickering before them the fire line.
V
Charley Morton received the lunch with joy.
"Ain"t had time to get together grub since we came," said he, "and didn"t know when I would."
"What do you want us to do?" asked Bob.
"The fire line"s drawn right across from Granite Creek down there in the canon over to a bald dome. We got her done an hour ago, and pretty well back-fired. All we got to do now is to keep her from crossing anywheres; and if she does cross, to corral her before she can get away from us."
"I wish we could have got here sooner!" cried Bob, disappointed that the little adventure seemed to be flattening out.
"So?" commented Charley drily. "Well, there"s plenty yet. If she gets out in one single, lonesome place, this fire line of ours won"t be worth a cent. She"s inside now--if we can hold her there." He gazed contemplatively aloft at a big dead pine blazing merrily to its very top. Every once in a while a chunk of bark or a piece of limb came flaring down to hit the ground with a thump. "There"s the trouble," said he. "What"s to keep a spark or a coal from that old c.o.o.n from falling or rolling on the wrong side of the line? If it happens when none of us are around, why the fire gets a start. And maybe a coal will roll down hill from somewhere; or a breeze come up and carry sparks. One spark over here," he stamped his foot on the brushed line, "and it"s all to do over again. There"s six of us," added the ranger, "and a hundred of these trees near the line. By rights there ought to be a man camped down near every one of them."
"Give us our orders," repeated Bob.
"The orders are to patrol the fire line," said Morton. "If you find the fire has broken across, corral it. If it gets too strong for you, shoot your six-shooter twice. Keep a-moving, but take it easy and save yourself for to-morrow. About two o"clock, or so, I"ll shoot three times. Then you can come to camp and get a little sleep. You got to be in shape for to-morrow."
"Why especially to-morrow?" asked Bob.
"Fire dies in the cool of night; it comes up in the middle of the day,"
explained Morton succinctly.
Bob took to the right, while Jack went in the opposite direction. His way led down hill. He crossed a ravine, surmounted a little ridge. Now he was in the worse than total darkness of the almost extinct area.
Embers and coals burned all over the side hill like so many evil winking eyes. Far ahead, down the mountain, the rising smoke glowed incandescent with the light of an invisible fire beneath, Bob, blinded by this glow, had great difficulty in making his way. Once he found that he had somehow crept out on the great bald roundness of a granite dome, and had to retrace his steps. Twice he lost his footing utterly, but fortunately fell but a short distance. At last he found himself in the V of a narrow ravine.
All this time he had, with one exception, kept close track of the fire line. The exception was when he strayed out over the dome; but that was natural, for the dome had been adopted bodily as part of the system of defence. Everywhere the edge of the path proved to be black and dead. No living fire glowed within striking distance of the inflammable material on the hither side the path.
But here, in the bottom of the ravine, a single coal had lodged, and had already started into flame the dry small brush. It had fallen originally from an oak fully a hundred feet away; and in some mysterious manner had found a path to this hidden pocket. The circ.u.mstances somewhat shook Bob"s faith in the apparent safety of the country he had just traversed.
However, there were the tiny flames, licking here and there, insignificant, but nevertheless dangerous. Bob carefully laid his canteens and the rake on a boulder, and set to work with his sharpened hoe. It looked to be a very easy task to dig out a path around this little fire.
In the course of the miniature fight he learned considerable of the ways of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly difficult. It would not stand up to the force of his stroke, but bent away. The tarweed, especially, was stubborn under even the most vigorous wielding of his sharpened hoe.
He made an initial mistake by starting to hoe out his path too near the blaze, forgetting that in the time necessary to complete his half-circle the flames would have spread. Discovering this, he abandoned his beginning and fell back twenty feet. This naturally considerably lengthened the line he would have to cut. When it was about half done, Bob discovered that he would have to hustle to prevent the fire breaking by him before he could complete his half-circle. It became a race. He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face and hands, so that it was with difficulty he could face his work.
Irrelevantly enough there arose before his mind the image of Jack Pollock popping corn before the fireplace at headquarters. Continual wielding of the hoe tired a certain set of muscles to the aching point.
His mouth became dry and sticky, but he could not spare time to hunt up his canteen. The thought flashed across his mind that the fire was probably breaking across elsewhere, just like this. The other men must be in the same fix. There were six of them. Suppose the fire should break across simultaneously in seven places? The little licking flames had at last, by dint of a malignant persistence, become a personal enemy. He fought them absorbedly, throwing his line farther and farther as the necessity arose, running to beat down with green brush the first feeble upstartings of the fire as it leaped here and there his barrier, keeping a vigilant eye on every part of his defences.
"Well," drawled Charley Morton"s voice behind him, "what you think you"re doing?"
"Corralling this fire, of course," Bob panted, dashing at a marauding little flame.
"What for?" demanded Charley.
Bob looked up in sheer amazement.
"See that rock dike just up the hill behind you?" explained Morton.