Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West

by William MacLeod Raine

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  FIGHTING FIRE

  Sanders was in the office of the Jackpot Company looking over someblue-prints when Joyce Crawford came in and inquired where her fatherwas.

  "He went out with Bob Hart to the oil field this morning. Some troublewith the casing."

  "Thought Dad wasn't giving any of his time to oil these days," she said."He told me you and Bob were running the company."

  "Every once in a while he takes an interest. I prod him up to go out andlook things over occasionally. He's president of the company, and I tellhim he ought to know what's going on. So to-day he's out there."

  "Oh!" Miss Joyce, having learned what she had come in to find out, mightreasonably have departed. She declined a chair, said she must be going,yet did not go. Her eyes appeared to study without seeing a field map onthe desk. "Dad told me something last night, Mr. Sanders. He said I mightpass it on to you and Bob, though it isn't to go farther. It's about thatten thousand dollars he paid the bank when it called his loan. He got themoney from Buck Byington."

  "Buck!" exclaimed the young man. He was thinking that the Buck he used toknow never had ten dollars saved, let alone ten thousand.

  "I know," she explained. "That's it. The money wasn't his. He's executoror something for the children of his dead brother. This money had come infrom the sale of a farm back in Iowa and he was waiting for an order ofthe court for permission to invest it in a mortgage. When he heard Dadwas so desperately hard up for cash he let him have the money. He knewDad would pay it back, but it seems what he did was against the law, eventhough Dad gave him his note and a chattel mortgage on some cattle whichBuck wasn't to record. Now it has been straightened out. That's why Dadcouldn't tell where he got the money. Buck would have been in trouble."

  "I see."

  "But now it's all right." Joyce changed the subject. There were teasingpinpoints of mischief in her eyes. "My school physiology used to say thatsleep was restful. It builds up worn-out tissue and all. One of thesenights, when you can find time, give it a trial and see whether that'strue."

  Dave laughed. The mother in this young woman would persistently out. "Iget plenty of sleep, Miss Joyce. Most people sleep too much."

  "How much do you sleep?"

  "Sometimes more, sometimes less. I average six or seven hours, maybe."

  "Maybe," she scoffed.

  "Hard work doesn't hurt men. Not when they're young and strong."

  "I hear you're trying to work yourself to death, sir," the girl charged,smiling.

  "Not so bad as that." He answered her smile with another for no reasonexcept that the world was a sunshiny one when he looked at this trim anddainty young woman. "The work gets fascinating. A fellow likes to getthings done. There's a satisfaction in turning out a full day and infeeling you get results."

  She nodded sagely, in a brisk, business-like way. "I know. Felt it myselfoften, but we have to remember that there are other days and other peopleto lend a hand. None of us can do it all. Dad thinks you overdo. So hetold me to ask you to supper for to-morrow night. Bob will be there too."

  "I say thanks, Miss Joyce, to your father and his daughter."

  "Which means you'll be with us to-morrow."

  "I'll be with you."

  But he was not. Even as he made the promise a shadow darkened thedoorsill and Bob Hart stepped into the office.

  His first words were ominous, but before he spoke both of those lookingat him knew he was the bearer of bad news. There was in his boyish facean unwonted gravity.

  "Fire in the chaparral, Dave, and going strong."

  Sanders spoke one word. "Where?"

  "Started in Bear Canon, but it's jumped out into the hills."

  "The wind must be driving it down toward the Jackpot!"

  "Yep. Like a scared rabbit. Crawford's trying to hold the mouth of thecanon. He's got a man's job down there. Can't spare a soul to keep itfrom scootin' over the hills."

  Dave rose. "I'll gather a bunch of men and ride right out. On what sideof the canon is the fire running?"

  "East side. Stop at the wells and get tools. I got to rustle dynamite andmen. Be out soon as I can."

  They spoke quietly, quickly, decisively, as men of action do in a crisis.

  Joyce guessed the situation was a desperate one. "Is Dad in danger?" sheasked.

  Hart answered. "No--not now, anyhow."

  "What can I do to help?"

  "We'll have hundreds of men in the field probably, if this fire has areal start," Dave told her. "We'll need food and coffee--lots of it.Organize the women. Make meat sandwiches--hundreds of them. And sendout to the Jackpot dozens of coffee-pots. Your job is to keep the workerswell fed. Better send out bandages and salve, in case some get burnt."

  Her eyes were shining. "I'll see to all that. Don't worry, boys. Youfight this fire, and we women will 'tend to feeding you."

  Dave nodded and strode out of the room. During the fierce and dreadfuldays that followed one memory more than once came to him in the fury ofthe battle. It was a slim, straight girl looking at him, the call toservice stamped on her brave, uplifted face.

  Sanders was on the road inside of twenty minutes, a group of horsemengalloping at his heels. At the Jackpot locations the fire-fightersequipped themselves with shovels, sacks, axes, and brush-hooks. Theparty, still on horseback, rode up to the mouth of Bear Canon. Throughthe smoke the sun was blood-red. The air was heavy and heated.

  From the fire line Crawford came to meet these new allies. "We're holdin'her here. It's been nip an' tuck. Once I thought sure she'd breakthrough, but we beat out the blaze. I hadn't time to go look, but Iexpect she's just a-r'arin' over the hills. I've had some teams andscrapers taken up there, Dave. It's yore job. Go to it."

  The old cattleman showed that he had been through a fight. His eyes werered and inflamed, his face streaked with black, one arm of his shirt halftorn from the shoulder. But he wore the grim look of a man who has justbegun to set himself for a struggle.

  The horsemen swung to the east and rode up to the mesa which lies betweenBear and Cattle Canons. It was impossible to get near Bear, since theimprisoned fury had burst from its walls and was sweeping the chaparral.The line of fire was running along the level in an irregular, raggedfront, red tongues leaping ahead with short, furious rushes.

  Even before he could spend time to determine the extent of the fire, Daveselected his line of defense, a ridge of rocky, higher ground cuttingacross from one gulch to the other. Here he set teams to work scrapinga fire-break, while men assisted with shovels and brush-hooks to cleara wide path.

  Dave swung still farther east and rode along the edge of Cattle Canon.Narrow and rock-lined, the gorge was like a boiler flue to suck theflames down it. From where he sat he saw it caging with inconceivablefury. The earth rift seemed to be roofed with flame. Great billowsof black smoke poured out laden with sparks and live coals carried by thewind. It was plain at the first glance that the fire was bound to leapfrom the canon to the brush-covered hills beyond. His business now wasto hold the ridge he had chosen and fight back the flames to keep themfrom pouring down upon the Jackpot property. Later the battle would haveto be fought to hold the line at San Jacinto Canon and the hills runningdown from it to the plains.

  The surface fire on the hills licked up the brush, mesquite, and youngcedars with amazing rapidity. If his trail-break was built in time, Davemeant to back-fire above it. Steve Russell was one of his party. Sandersappointed him lieutenant and went over the ground with him to decideexactly where the clearing should run, after which he galloped back tothe mouth of Bear.

  "She's running wild on the hills and in Cattle Canon," Dave toldCrawford. "She'll sure jump Cattle and reach San Jacinto. We've got tohold the mouth of Cattle, build a trail between Bear and Cattle, anotherbetween Cattle and San Jacinto, cork her up in San Jacinto, and keep herfrom jumping to the hills beyond."

  "Can we back-fire, do you reckon?"

  "Not with the wind there is above, unless we have ch
eck-trails builtfirst. We need several hundred more men, and we need them right away. Inever saw such a fire before."

  "Well, get yore trail built. Bob oughtta be out soon. I'll put him overbetween Cattle and San Jacinto. Three-four men can hold her here now.I'll move my outfit over to the mouth of Cattle."

  The cattleman spoke crisply and decisively. He had been fighting fire forsix hours without a moment's rest, swallowing smoke-filled air, enduringthe blistering heat that poured steadily at them down the gorge. At leasttwo of his men were lying down completely exhausted, but he contemplatedanother such desperate battle without turning a hair. All his days he hadbeen a good fighter, and it never occurred to him to quit now.

  Sanders rode up as close to the west edge of Bear Canon as he couldendure. In two or three places the flames had jumped the wall and weretrying to make headway in the scant underbrush of the rocky slopethat led to a hogback surmounted by a bare rimrock running to the summit.This natural barrier would block the fire on the west, just as theburnt-over area would protect the north. For the present at least thefire-fighters could confine their efforts to the south and east, wherethe spread of the blaze would involve the Jackpot. A shift in the windwould change the situation, and if it came in time would probably savethe oil property.

  Dave put his horse to a lope and rode back to the trench and trail hismen were building. He found a shovel and joined them.

  From out of Cattle Canon billows of smoke rolled across the hill andsettled into a black blanket above the men. This was acrid from theresinous pitch of the pines. The wind caught the dark pall, drove it low,and held it there till the workers could hardly breathe. The sun wasunder entire eclipse behind the smoke screen.

  The heat of the flames tortured Dave's face and hands, just as thesmoke-filled air inflamed his nostrils and throat. Coals of fire peltedhim from the river of flame, carried by the strong breeze blowing down.From the canons on either side of the workers came a steady roar of aworld afire. Occasionally, at some slight shift of the wind, the smokelifted and they could see the moving wall of fire bearing down upon them,wedges of it far ahead of the main line.

  The movements of the workers became automatic. The teams had to beremoved because the horses had become unmanageable under the torture ofthe heat. When any one spoke it was in a hoarse whisper because of aswollen larynx. Mechanically they dug, shoveled, grubbed, handkerchiefsover their faces to protect from the furnace glow.

  A deer with two fawns emerged from the smoke and flew past on the way tosafety. Mice, snakes, rabbits, birds, and other desert denizens appearedin mad flight. They paid no attention whatever to their natural foe, man.The terror of the red monster at their heels wholly obsessed them.

  The fire-break was from fifteen to twenty feet wide. The men retreatedback of it, driven by the heat, and fought with wet sacks to hold theenemy. A flash of lightning was hurled against Dave. It was a red-hotlimb of a pine, tossed out of the gorge by the stiff wind. He flung itfrom him and tore the burning shirt from his chest. An agony of pain shotthrough his shoulder, seared for half a foot by the blazing branch.

  He had no time to attend to the burn then. The fire had leaped thecheck-trail at a dozen points. With his men he tried to smother theflames in the grass by using saddle blankets and gunnysacks, as wellas by shoveling sand upon it. Sometimes they cut down the smoulderingbrush and flung it back across the break into the inferno on the otherside. Blinded and strangling from the smoke, the fire-fighters would makeshort rushes into the clearer air, swallow a breath or two of it, andplunge once more into the line to do battle with the foe.

  For hours the desperate battle went on. Dave lost count of time. Oneafter another of his men retreated to rest. After a time they driftedback to help make the defense good against the plunging fire devil.Sanders alone refused to retire. His parched eyebrows were half gone.His clothes hung about him in shredded rags. He was so exhausted that hecould hardly wield a flail. His legs dragged and his arms hung heavy. Buthe would not give up even for an hour. Through the confused, shiftingdarkness of the night he led his band, silhouetted on the ridge likegnomes of the nether world, to attack after attack on the tireless,creeping, plunging flames that leaped the trench in a hundred desperateassaults, that howled and hissed and roared like ravenous beasts of prey.

  Before the light of day broke he knew that he had won. His men had madegood the check-trail that held back the fire in the terrain between Bearand Cattle Canons. The fire, worn out and beaten, fell back for lack offuel upon which to feed.

  Reinforcements came from town. Dave left the trail in charge of a deputyand staggered down with his men to the camp that had been improvisedbelow. He sat down with them and swallowed coffee and ate sandwiches.Steve Russell dressed his burn with salve and bandages sent out by Joyce.

  "Me for the hay, Dave," the cowpuncher said when he had finished. Hestretched himself in a long, tired, luxurious yawn. "I've rid out ablizzard and I've gathered cattle after a stampede till I 'most thoughtI'd drop outa the saddle. But I give it to this here li'l' fire. It'ssure enough a stemwinder. I'm beat. So long, pardner."

  Russell went off to roll himself up in his blanket.

  Dave envied him, but he could not do the same. His responsibilities werenot ended yet. He found his horse in the remuda, saddled, and rode overto the entrance to Cattle Canon.

  Emerson Crawford was holding his ground, though barely holding it. He toowas grimy, fire-blackened, exhausted, but he was still fighting to throwback the fire that swept down the canon at him.

  "How are things up above?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  "Good. We held the check-line."

  "Same here so far. It's been hell. Several of my boys fainted."

  "I'll take charge awhile. You go and get some sleep," urged Sanders.

  The cattleman shook his head. "No. See it through. Say, son, look who'shere!" His thumb hitched toward his right shoulder.

  Dave looked down the line of blackened, grimy fire-fighters and his eyefell on Shorty. He was still wearing chaps, but his Chihuahua hat hadsuccumbed long ago. Manifestly the man had been on the fighting line forsome hours.

  "Doesn't he know about the reward?"

  "Yes. He was hidin' in Malapi when the call came for men. Says he's noquitter, whatever else he is. You bet he ain't. He's worth two of mostmen at this work. Soon as we get through he'll be on the dodge again, Ireckon, unless Applegate gets him first. He's a good sport, anyhow. I'llsay that for him."

  "I reckon I'm a bad citizen, sir, but I hope he makes his getaway beforeApplegate shows up."

  "Well, he's one tough scalawag, but I don't aim to give him away rightnow. Shorty is a whole lot better proposition than Dug Doble."

  Dave came back to the order of the day. "What do you want me to do now?"

  The cattleman looked him over. "You damaged much?"

  "No."

  "Burnt in the shoulder, I see."

  "Won't keep me from swinging a sack and bossing a gang."

  "Wore out, I reckon?"

  "I feel fine since breakfast--took two cups of strong coffee."

  Again Crawford's eyes traveled over his ally. They saw a ragged, red-eyedtramp, face and hands and arms blackened with char and grimed with smoke.Outside, he was such a specimen of humanity as the police would havearrested promptly on suspicion. But the shrewd eyes of the cattleman sawmore--a spirit indomitable that would drive the weary, tormented bodytill it dropped in its tracks, a quality of leadership that was a trumpetcall to the men who served with him, a soul master of its infirmities.His heart went out to the young fellow. Wherefore he grinned and gave himanother job. Strong men to-day were at a premium with Emerson Crawford.

  "Ride over and see how Bob's comin' out. We'll make it here."

  Sanders swung to the saddle and moved forward to the next fire front,the one between Cattle and San Jacinto Canons. Hart himself was not here.There had come a call for help from the man in charge of the gang tryingto hold the fire in San Jacinto. He had answered tha
t summons long beforedaybreak and had not yet returned.

  The situation on the Cattle-San Jacinto front was not encouraging. Thedistance to be protected was nearly a mile. Part of the way was along aridge fairly easy to defend, but a good deal of it lay in lower land oftimber and heavy brush.

  Dave rode along the front, studying the contour of the country and thechance of defending it. His judgment was that it could not be done withthe men on hand. He was not sure that the line could be held even withreinforcements. But there was nothing for it but to try. He sent a man toCrawford, urging him to get help to him as soon as possible.

  Then he took command of the crew already in the field, rearranged the menso as to put the larger part of his force in the most dangerous locality,and in default of a sack seized a spreading branch as a flail to beat outfire in the high grass close to San Jacinto.

  An hour later half a dozen straggling men reported for duty. Shorty wasone of them.

  "The ol' man cayn't spare any more," the rustler explained. "He had tohustle Steve and his gang outa their blankets to go help Bob Hart. Theysay Hart's in a heluva bad way. The fire's jumped the trail-check andis spreadin' over the country. He's runnin' another trail farther back."

  It occurred to Dave that if the wind changed suddenly and heightened, itwould sweep a back-fire round him and cut off the retreat of his crew. Hesent a weary lad back to keep watch on it and report any change ofdirection in that vicinity.

  After which he forgot all about chances of danger from the rear. Hishands and mind were more than busy trying to drive back the snarling,ravenous beast in front of him. He might have found time to take otherprecautions if he had known that the exhausted boy sent to watch againsta back-fire had, with the coming of night, fallen asleep in a draw.