CHAPTER XVII.
FIGHTING THE FLAMES.
Out of the tent crawled Thad, utterly regardless of the fact that he wasnot altogether warmly clad for a cold night. And what met his eyes whenhe reached the open was enough to excite him still further.
The wind was blowing pretty stiffly, and the fire had already jumpedinto the brush surrounding the camp. If given its head for even a shorttime it seemed bound to get started in the dead pine needles; and onceit spread there, all the desperate efforts of a dozen fire-fighterswould be wasted.
Several figures could be seen, bounding here and there, and slashing atthe red flames with anything they could get hold of that would answer tobring about a halt in their spread.
Of course these must be the late guardians of the sleeping camp, whowere now shouting so strenuously, and begging the rest of the campers tocome to their aid--Step Hen and Davy Jones; besides, there were theguides, hard at work, having been aroused with the first cries; for theystill persisted in sleeping under a rude shelter they had made out ofbranches and weeds.
Thad rushed into the fray, and began to do his very utmost to keep thedreaded fire in check. He saw that the others were also crawling forth,Bumpus, Giraffe and Allan, all occupants of the first tent. Andrealizing the importance of concerted action, they lost not a second ingetting busy.
Bumpus, in particular, was a sight to behold, and had he been less busyThad felt that he must have doubled up with laughter to see him. Hepersisted in donning a most stunning red-checked suit of pajamas; forbeing so stout he did not suffer from the cold as much as some of theothers. And as his simple heart was wrapped up in the business that justthen engaged his full attention, Bumpus was prancing around, lookingmore like a clown from the circus than anything Thad could think of. Butall the same the fat boy fought, tooth and nail, at the spreading fire.He had on his shoes, as had the others, so that he could jump on thecreeping flames when all else failed; and using an extra piece of canvasthat sometimes had done duty as a tent floor, Bumpus sailed into thefray like a hurricane.
Indeed, they were all as busy as beavers for a short time. Every scoutseemed to feel that it would be a lasting disgrace on the name of theSilver Fox Patrol if that fire got away into the woods. They had assumedthe responsibilities of assistant fire wardens; and it would be a sorryjoke indeed if, instead of putting out a conflagration they themselveswere the cause of one that swept the whole adjacent territory.
"Give it thunder!" shouted Giraffe, as he threshed wildly at every headof fire he could see near his boundary of action.
"Hit him again, boys!" shrilled Bumpus, as he continued to do his greatact of working with both hands and feet at the same time, all serving toquench the threatening flames.
But Step Hen and Davy were strangely silent, though they worked as hardas any one. They knew that they were to blame for all the trouble; forthey had slept on their post, and with this sad result.
Finally success came to the hard working scouts, and their allies, thetwo guides. The fire was completely routed, bag and baggage, before itmanaged to get a good foothold in the dry woods. And perspiring asthough it were the good old summer time, the boys hastened to get moreclothes on them, for fear of catching cold.
The fire was resurrected, and they sat down to have a powwow.
"Oh! you needn't all look at us that way," grunted Step Hen. "We'reguilty, all right. Knock us all you want to, because I just guess now wedeserve it. But we never meant to go to sleep there by the fire, did we,Davy?"
"Well, I should say not," replied the other culprit, looking quitedejected. "We kept atellin' each other that we mustn't sleep rightalong; and then to think that after all we did drop off, and bothtogether."
"First thing I remember," said Step Hen, as if resolved, after pleadingguilty, to open up, and throw himself on the mercy of the court; "Iheard a queer crackling noise, and openin' my eyes, my stars! the wholeworld seemed like it was afire. I gave Davy a punch in the side, andthen jumped for it. We thought at first we could get her under control;then I saw it was no go, for the old fire kept extendin' all the while.So I started to wake you all, and Davy, he joined in. After that Eli andJim joined us, and then the rest of you came. And believe me, fellers,Davy and me'll never forget it. You did handsome by us, and we've beensaved from disgrace that would have sent us into an early grave, hey,Davy?"
"Just so," grunted the other, who was licking several burns he hadreceived on his bare hands during the fierce little engagement justended, though he made no complaint, seeming to think he had gotten offpretty easily, considering the serious offense of which he had beenguilty, that of sleeping on his post, and which might have cost him hislife in war times, had he been a soldier.
Thad noticed this fact, and quietly getting out some salve he carriedfor just such occasions forced Davy to let him attend to his hurts,though the other insisted that they "did not amount to much, anyway."
"How do you think it started?" Giraffe asked, and in so doing he reallyvoiced the thoughts of everybody.
"Huh! I reckon that's an easy one to answer," replied Step Hen,promptly. "Anybody c'n see at just a single look that the wind must havepicked up a live coal from the fire, and carried it into a bunch ofstuff to leeward. After that it was fanned, till it spread wider andwider. That was going on while Davy and me snoozed away like a pair ofsillies. No use talking, boys, I'm ashamed of myself; and let me tellyou, it'll be a long time before I ever go to sleep on duty again--notif I have to keep jabbing a pin into my leg every minute or so, to makeme jump."
"Does that explanation go, Thad?" asked Bumpus, still breathing hardafter his recent violent exertions.
"Well, it looks that way, for the fire was actually to leeward of thecamp when I first saw it," answered the patrol leader; but there musthave been something in his manner rather than his speech that caught theattention of Giraffe.
"But you ain't _quite_ satisfied, are you, Thad?" he remarked,pointedly. "You just keep athinkin' that perhaps it _wasn't_ anaccident after all? Am I right, now?"
"Wow! what does that kind of talk stand for?" burst out Bumpus. "Are youhinting that it was all a part of a dark scheme to burn us out of camp?"
"Wait till Eli and Jim come back," Thad went on. "You've noticed thatthey're not with us right now. Fact is, they took the lantern, and wentoff about the time we were finishing our dressing. But before they went,Jim gave me to understand what they had some reason to suspect."
"The work of big Cale Martin and his crowd? Is that what you're aimingto tell us, Thad?" demanded Giraffe.
"Here they come!" was all Thad said.
"Oh! my, I thought you meant the game poachers!" exclaimed Bumpus, whohad made a half movement in the direction of his gun, standingconveniently near.
The two guides joined the circle around the fire. Eli held his hands outto the blaze, as though they felt cold in that nipping night air. Jimsimply caught the inquiring eye of the scoutmaster, and immediatelynodded his head in the affirmative. And Thad knew from that they hadsurely made some sort of important discovery.
"What is it, Jim?" he asked.
"They've been around here; we found ther tracks lots o' places," camethe reply.
"Do you mean Cale and Si and Ed?" asked the other.
"On'y Si and Ed," answered Jim. "Cale he wa'n't thar 'tall. We'd sizedup his big tracks ef he'd be'n. They was two men in thet canoe larstnight, ye seen; wall them must a be'n ther lot as fired the brush. Iguess as haow Cale, he muster gone back tew his shack by naow."
"But what on earth could they expect to get by burning us out?" demandedBumpus.
"Fust place they never oxpected tew burn ther camp," observed Jim; "efthey hed, doan't yew believe they'd agone tew windward tew start thetblaze? Wall, they hed a game wuth tew o' thet up ther sleeve."
"Tell us what it was, Jim," urged Thad, though he himself had alreadyjumped to a conclusion in the matter.
"I guess as haow they thort we'd hev tew make off a long distance awayfrum the camp tew
fight the fire; an' then they'd hev plenty o' time tewclean her aout; but yeou see, we didn't get fur away 'tall, so they hedall ther work fur nawthin'. But them tracks was as plain as anything,wa'n't they, Eli?" Jim went on.
"They be," was the conclusive testimony of the older guide; and everyone of the scouts understood that Eli had set the seal of his approvalon all that Jim had said.
It was certainly very unpleasant to realize that they were objects ofdesire on the part of even a pair of unscrupulous scamps, granting thatbig Cale Martin had retired from the combination. The boys seemed to getmore indignant the longer they discussed the situation.
There was Bumpus, usually so mild and peaceful, fairly palpitating witha desire to draw a bead upon those two unprincipled rascals.
"We don't stand for much nonsense from outsiders, do we fellers?" heappealed to the other five. "Once before on this trip some bad menthought to get fresh with the Silver Fox Patrol. You all know whathappened to Charley Barnes, the leader of that bunch of yeggs that brokeinto the bank. Didn't we make the capture though, and astonish SheriffGreen? And ain't we going to get ever so much money for recovering thestolen stuff? Well, that's what's going to happen to those husky chapsif they get too gay with us. They'd better go slow. If they can read,they'll see we're marked 'dangerous, handle with care!'"
"Yes," said Giraffe, "we'll just have to get busy, and hand thesesillies over to the head game warden. They're trying to interfere withour having the time of our lives up here in Maine; and we don't standfor anything like that."
None of them felt like getting back to their blankets in a hurry, afterall that scare; so they just sat there around the fire, some of themwith the blankets thrown over their shoulders, and compared notes allalong the line; for what the guides had just told concerning the schemeof the unprincipled poachers filled the scouts with both indignation andanger.
And more than one of them resolved that when his time came to watch, hewould make sure to keep a loaded gun close to his hand, to be used togive the prowlers the fright of their lives.
Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods; Or, The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol Page 17
