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 rushing 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 Washin"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.
Up through the blazing woods he started with the leaden weight of this dripping winding sheet upon him and catching in the hubbly obstructions in his path. The water streamed down his face and he felt the chill of it as it permeated his clothes, but that was well--it was his only friend and ally now.
Like some ghostly bride he stumbled up through the lurid night, dragging the unwieldly train behind him. Apparently no one saw this strange apparition as it disappeared amid the enveloping flames.
"Tom--whar"s Tom?" called Jeb Rushmore again.
Up the hill he went, tearing his dripping armor when it caught, and pausing at last to lift the soaking train and wind that about him also.
The crackling flames gathering about him like a pack of hungry wolves hissed as they lapped against his wet shroud, and drew back, baffled, only to a.s.sail him again. The trail was narrow and the flames close on either side.
Once, twice, the drying fabric was aflame, but he wrapped it under wetter folds. His face was burning hot; he strove with might and main against the dreadful faintness caused by the heat, and the smoke all but suffocated him.
On and up he pressed, stooping and sometimes almost creeping, for it was easier near the ground. Now he held the drying canvas with his teeth and beat with his hands to extinguish the persistent flames. His power of resistance was all but gone and as he realized it his heart sank within him. At last, stooping like some sneaking thing, he reached the spa.r.s.er growth near the cut.
Two boys who had been driven to the verge of the precipice and lingered there in dread of the alternative they must take, saw a strange sight. A dull gray ma.s.s, with two ghostly hands reaching out and slapping at it, and a wild-eyed face completely framed by its charred and blackening shroud, emerged from amid the fire and smoke and came straight toward them.
"What is it?" whispered the younger boy, drawing closer to Garry in momentary fright at the sight of this spectral thing.
"Don"t jump--it"s me--Tom Slade! Here, take this rope, quick. I guess it isn"t burned any. I meant to wet it, too," he gasped. "Is that tree solid? I can"t seem to see. All right, quick! I can"t do it. Make a loop and put it under his arms and let him down."
There was not a minute to spare, and no time for explanations or questions. Garry lowered the boy into the cut.
"Now you"ll have to let me down, I"m afraid," said Tom. "My hands are funny and I can"t--I can"t go hand over hand."
"That"s easy," said Garry.
But it was not so easy as it had been to lower the smaller boy. He had to encircle the tree twice with the rope to guard against a too rapid descent, and to smooth the precipice where the rope went over the edge to keep it from cutting. When Tom had been lowered into the cut, Garry himself went down hand over hand.
It was cool down there, but they could hear the wild flames raging above and many sparks descended and died on the already burned surface. The air blew in a strong, refreshing draught through the deep gully, and the three boys, hardly realizing their hair-breadth escape, seemed to be in a different world, or rather, in the cellar of the world above, which was being swept by that heartless roistering wind and fire.
Along through the cut they came, a dozen or more scarred and weary scouts, their clothing in tatters, anxious and breathing heavily. They had come by the long way around the edge of the woods and got into the cut where the hill was low and the gully shallow.
"Is anyone there?" a scout called, as they neared the point above which Hero Cabin had stood. They knew well enough that no one could be left alive above.
"We"re here," called Garry.
"Hurt? Did you jump--both of you?"
"Three, the kid and I and Tom Slade."
"Tom Slade? How did _he_ get here?"
"Came up through the woods and brought us a rope. _We"re_ all right, but he"s played out. Got a stretcher?"
"Sure."
They came up, swinging their lanterns, to where Tom lay on the ground with Garry"s jacket folded under his head for a pillow, and they listened soberly to Garry"s simple tale of the strange, shrouded apparition that had emerged from the flames with the precious life line coiled about its neck.
It was hard to believe, but there were the cold facts, and they could only stand about, silent and aghast at what they heard.