“Well, look, sir, if you think you can make it, take Tony with you.”
“Tony? The little girl? Her name’s Marilyn. She may be glad to know it someday.”
He looked down fondly at the little girl, and no one could mistake the pure devotion in his eyes.
“Then take her,” Bob urged, but the hermit shook his head.
“No, I’m not that sure.”
Then the danger was worse than the hermit had hinted. He knew the course he must take, and how slim was his chance of getting through. Now Bob and Ted knew it, too.
Starlight had been pawing the ground nervously, and Bob attempted to soothe her with a few whispered words.
“Easy there, big girl. There’s a lot depending on you. You’ve got to get through. You’ve got to run like you’ve never run before.”
She flicked her ears as though she understood, and wanted to assure them that every muscle in her powerful body would be straining to do what he had asked of her.
“Stay by the stream as long as you can,” advised the hermit in a low voice. “You’ll be easier to find. But if you see you’re in danger of getting trapped here, go straight east. That will be the safest place for the next few hours. Stay off the plateau to the west. The fire will race across the grass once it reaches there.”
He patted Tony on the head, sprang upon Starlight’s back and they were off down the gulch. As the pair disappeared about the turn, the boys had only a moment to marvel at the miracle that had brought the hermit to his senses in their hour of need, before turning to their own danger.
Tony tugged at Bob’s sleeve. “Is Marilyn really my name, Bob?”
“I don’t know, Tony. Maybe it is.”
She seemed to be saying it over and over to herself. “I hope it is. That’s a pretty name. It doesn’t sound at all like a boy’s name, does it, Ted?”
“No, it’s not a boy’s name,” he agreed.
They were busy watching the columns of smoke announce the advance of the forest fire upon them. There seemed no question but that it was now closer and heavier. To the east, where the hermit must ride, the black clouds were threatening, and they knew he was going to have tough going. To the west, over the plateau above the gulch, the sky seemed lighter, but this was the opposite direction from that the hermit had advised them to take.
“Where did that man go?” Tony questioned.
“Oh, he went to tell the rangers about the fire,” Ted answered.
“Well, when is he coming back?”
“I don’t think he’s coming back, Tony. He’ll send the rangers back, and then we’ll help them fight the forest fire. Won’t that be fun?”
Somewhat dubiously, Tony agreed that it might be fun, but there was a further question in her mind. “Is this fire like the other one?”
“What other one, Tony? What do you mean?”
But the gossamer thread of memory was too fragile, and she was unable to answer.
Bob spoke to Ted in a soft voice. “The fire’s advancing up the gulch. I think it’s still two turns away. I don’t know whether it can make the turns. If it makes the second-to-last one, we’ll have to be ready, and if it makes the last one we’ll go.”
“All right, Bob, whatever you say.”
“Awfully sorry I got you into this, Ted. I had to look for Tony, of course, but there was no reason to drag you into it.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything. I came because I wanted to.”
“Anyway, thanks. And you’re doing the right thing with Tony. Let’s make her think it’s a game, just as long as we can.”
To the east the clouds of smoke were closing in. No one could have gotten through on foot, and even a man on horseback would be unable to make it now. Whether the hermit and Starlight had been able to get through before the fire closed in was uncertain, but all they could do was to hope fervently that they had. But even if they did, it was too late for the rangers to fight their way back along the same path. They would have to come another way.
Tony was watching the advancing smoke with interest. She didn’t appear to be frightened, but they knew that she was taking her cue from them. As long as they didn’t seem alarmed, she wouldn’t be frightened either. This thought steadied them down for the job they had to do, and they did their best to appear matter-of-fact and unconcerned.
“This is a big fire, isn’t it, Ted?” asked Tony with wide eyes.
“Yes, pretty big, but not as big as some of them.”
“Will all the big trees get burned up?”
“I’m afraid so, Tony, most of them.”
“Will the rabbits get burned up, too?” she asked with deep concern.
“No, I don’t think so. I believe the rabbits can tell when the fire is coming, and they run away before it gets to them.”
“But don’t their houses get burned up?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter very much to rabbits. They just start new homes somewhere else.”
“Oh.” She seemed satisfied that the rabbits were safe, and so this principle worry was off her mind, never dreaming that their own situation was more critical than the rabbits’.
“Will the rangers bring a fire engine with them?”
“Hm, no, I don’t think so. I guess a fire engine isn’t of much use in fighting a fire like this.”
It appeared that the fire had made the second-to-last turn successfully. The rising columns of smoke were even closer, and Bob no longer had confidence that the final turn could halt the steady advance. Even among the rocky ledges trees and bushes were too numerous. They must get ready to leave.
CHAPTER 14.
TONY’S GAME
Reluctant though the boys were to leave the little stream, they knew it wasn’t wide enough to offer them much protection from the flames advancing up the gulch. Even should they crouch in the middle of the stream, the heat from the fire and the heavy smoke overhead would be too much for them. Yet they knew that once the smoke came close to them, they would feel a pressing need for water.
They went into the cabin in search of a container for water. But search though they would, the cabin offered nothing in the way of a closed container that they could carry with them. The next best thing was rags which could be soaked in water. The found a number of these and took them back to the stream.
Bob could see the danger was coming closer from another direction. Even faster than the advance of the flames up the gulch was their march along the crest of the hill to the west. It was apparent to Bob that if they waited much longer, they stood a chance of being cut off from that direction and hopelessly trapped in the gulch. He explained matters in a low voice to Ted.
“That hill where we came down the other day is our only chance for getting out of here with Tony. If the fire reaches the top, we’re out of luck.”
“Then let’s go.” Ted was decisive, in the absence of an alternative.
They soaked the rags in the stream until they had absorbed as much moisture as they could hold. Then Bob made them up into a knapsack which he strapped to Ted’s back.
“Tony,” he said casually, “I guess it’s about time for us to leave.”
“Where are we going? Are we going home?”
“No, not just yet. We’re going up the hill and see how the fire’s coming, so we can tell the rangers when they get here. You’d better take a good long drink first.”
“I’m not thirsty, Bob.”
“Take a drink anyway. We may not be near any water for a while, so it’ll have to last.”
Under his urging she drank as much as she could. Then the boys drank, too, and splashed water on their faces and hair. Without being told, Tony did the same.
“All right, Tony, let’s go.”
“If my name’s Marilyn, when are you going to start calling me that?”
“I don’t know, Tony,” Bob responded. “We’ll figure that out after the fire’s over.”
Though the three boys had climbed up this hill quite easily when they were alon
e, it wasn’t going to be easy with Tony clinging to them. Bob had thought of taking Tony on his back and creeping up on hands, feet, and knees, but Ted thought it would be better if they each took one of her hands. In this manner they began the climb. They soon discovered another factor which made this climb more difficult. The other day they had worn outdoor shoes which gave better traction. The dress shoes the boys had worn to town were slippery on the soles, and the ground seemed to be sliding beneath their feet.
They would have made poor progress on their feet alone. But they looked for shrubs, tufts of grass, and roots of trees to cling to, and in this way they inched their way slowly upward. And yet, with victory almost in sight, they came near to failure after all. The top of the hill was a sandy bank without rocks or vegetation of any kind. The previous time the boys had given each other a little boost and a helping hand over this obstacle, and made it without difficulty. But today the situation was different.
Tony’s feet began to slip, and she had no free hands to help herself. Bob, in trying to help her, lost his balance as well. If they all went sprawling, they were due for a nasty tumble, perhaps all the way down to the foot of the hill. How much more time did they have to reach the top of the hill, how many more attempts could they make before their strength gave out? Tony was a lovable but heavy lodestone upon them. Even she had sensed something of the tenseness of the moment, and without saying a word was holding as still as possible, so as not to jiggle Bob further.
Fortunately Ted had a firmer footing. His free right hand dug in the dirt, and to his great surprise and relief, he found a tree root, completely hidden but only lightly covered with dirt. With this to help him, he kept his balance until the others had recovered, and then they scrambled up the rest of the way. Coming so soon after the hermit’s recovery, they could only look upon it as another miracle, something to be accepted without being understood.
They stood up and brushed the dirt off their clothes. For the first time the flames themselves were now within view—closer than the boys had hoped—and Tony gave a gasp of surprise. She looked from one to the other. Bob was watching the fire with close interest, and didn’t look at all concerned, so she decided that everything must be all right.
“That was a pretty big hill, wasn’t it?” she remarked.
“Oh, pretty big,” Ted answered casually, “but there are some a lot bigger.”
They still were not certain how pressing their danger was. A little rise lay some distance ahead of that. From there they would be able to see the whole plateau, and could gain a much better idea of their situation. Slowly the trio made their way upward to the edge of the plateau.
It was Bob’s responsibility to keep their bearings clearly in mind, for Ted was much less certain about directions and the lay of the land. Bob tried his best to explain matters to him.
“It’s sweeping in from the southwest. Across this plateau to the west, there’s that trail leading down and across to Sandy Hill. There’s no closer passage down the steep cliffs stretching across to the north. And to the east are those series of gulches, with their heavily wooded ridges, which we will have to cross to get back to the valley and its farms. That’s the way the hermit went—and got through, we hope.”
Far across the plateau a finger of flame was racing, threatening to cut off their only escape by way of Sandy Hill.
“Do we run for it?” asked Ted quietly.
“That’s the panic road, Ted, and it means disaster. We’d be running into the fire instead of away from it, and fire travels fast through this dry grassland. The hermit was right. This plateau is no place for us. We’ll have to circle back around the head of the gulch until we’re on the eastern side—away from the grass and back to the trees—but always with those impassable cliffs at our backs. I was hoping one of the rangers’ planes could land on the plateau and take us off, but it can’t be done. One of those small planes might crash-land here, but it could never take off again.”
“What about a helicopter?”
“I haven’t seen a helicopter around here since a year or two back, and with the smoke cover closing in it will soon be difficult to find us, even if it does get here.”
But this was said in such a way that Tony could hear little and understand less.
“Come on, Tony, we’re going this way,” Bob urged her cheerfully, turning her away from the walls of flame advancing in their steady, irresistible march. He glanced anxiously upward toward a burning sun amid a cloudless sky, and Ted, too, followed his example, searching for some sign of a plane—of any plane. But there was none in sight; it was too early to expect them.
From that moment a feeling, not of panic, but of quiet despair settled over the boys. But they were determined they must try to keep Tony from being frightened for as long as they could.
“I’m glad it was the hermit, instead of me, who rode for help,” Bob mused. “I hope Starlight’s going to be all right.”
And Ted understood perfectly: if it came to a choice between safety for himself or danger with Tony, Bob preferred the latter. Somehow Ted felt that he did, too, and his sympathy went out to Nelson, helplessly fuming on the other side of that barrier of flames.
The boys were surprised by their own coolness. They could look upon the advancing flames almost with detachment. The fire seemed to reach from the rocky uplands at one end in a huge crescent to the valley below the cliffs at the other, and they themselves were inside the crescent. Here and there long fingers crept out in advance, like the one they had last seen on the plateau. Later the main line of conflagration would advance and fill out the pockets, reducing trees and grass alike to a charred waste. The grass would recover first, however, and within a year or two there would be little sign of the fire which had swept through. But the forest of Bob’s boyhood would be nothing more than a memory.
The crackling of the fire was becoming audible to them for the first time as the hungry flames advanced relentlessly, with an insatiable appetite. There would be a sudden puff of smoke up into the air as another tree was caught in the advance. Then, for a few minutes it would appear that the greedy flames were satisfied, until another tree ahead would go up with a mighty puff of smoke. And in this manner, a few feet at a time, the flames leaped steadily toward them. The wind, however, was blowing the smoke out ahead of the fire, so that the thick cloud was almost overhead. Their throats were beginning to get a little parched, though fortunately the damp rags helped out until they were dry and Bob discarded them. Pretty soon Tony would realize she was thirsty, and would begin to beg for water, a moment they dreaded.
She could not avoid watching the fire with wide, fascinated eyes. It was something new, of course, but she accepted it without realizing the dangers it held for them. The boys neither encouraged her to look at the fire, nor told her to look away. Meanwhile, without seeming to be in retreat, Bob was slowly leading them away around the end of the gulch to the safer area directly east. The fire moved rather slowly through the forest, but at the edge of the plateau, the fingers of flame would begin racing, like a team of sprinters in a mad dash through the dry grass to the cliffs.
“When will the rangers come?” asked Tony, not quite fearful as yet, but as though seeking reassurance that everything was all right.
“Pretty soon, I hope, Tony.”
“Why don’t we pretend we’re rangers, too, and help them put out the fire?” Ted suggested.
“How will they put out the fire?” she asked, for young as she was she could see that this fire, with flames shooting high into the air, was a big job for a whole army of rangers.
“Oh, they have different ways, don’t they, Bob?”
“Yes,” he answered absently. “Sometimes they set off a big explosion. Sometimes they start another fire in front of this one, so that the two fires sort of fight each other, and put each other out. And sometimes they plow up a long strip of land so that the fire can’t get across.”
“Is that what they’ll do here, Bob?” she asked hop
efully.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Though Bob was glad that he could offer hope of safety, his glance at Ted indicated that he didn’t believe any of these things would be successful. The fire was moving steadily ahead; the unburned area along the rim of the forest was growing smaller. They didn’t know how much longer they had, but it was probably an hour or two at most.
It seemed to Ted also that the rangers were going to have little success in stopping this fire anywhere along the line. This particular section would burn itself out at the cliffs, but along the valley at one end, and past the plateau and on toward Sandy Hill at the other, the fire would race until it reached the next firebreak. There, with good luck and the absence of a high wind, it would be halted. Fortunately, the farms were probably safe, and he was thankful for that.
Tony continued to watch the black smoke and the roaring flames.
“How are the rangers going to get here, Bob?” she demanded.
“I couldn’t say, Tony. They’ll come whichever is the best way. That’s something for them to figure out.”
“Well, I wish they’d get here soon so we could begin to play the game.”
“Why don’t we begin the game right now, Tony?” Ted proposed. “We’ll pretend we’re scouts, and we have to watch how the fire’s going so we can report to the rangers, and they’ll know how to fight it.”
“It’s going this way,” she said with a shaky voice.
“Yes, part of it’s coming this way, but part of it’s going another way. Over there, past the plateau, it’s burning the other way. We’ll have to remember all that so we can tell the rangers.”
It was clear now that the plateau would be the first to be overrun with flames. Fortunately they were now to the east of the gulch, which was probably the safest place in the woods, if anything on the windward side of the fire could be said to be safe. It gave them a little more time, and the trees cut off their view of the plateau, so that Tony did not see what the boys knew was now happening. The fire must have reached the edge of the grassland all along the line, and the plateau would be burned over within a few minutes.
The Mystery of Rainbow Gulch Page 12
