THE CAPTURE OF THE BEAVER MAN
The fire line looked like some old wood-road, where trees had been cut out and brush cleared away. It extended through the timber, striking the thin places and the rocky bare places, and the highest places, and wound on, half a mile, over a point. This point, with a long slope from the ridge to the valley there, was open and fire-proof. The lower end of the line was that willow bog, which lay in a basin right in a split of the timber. Away across from our ridge was another gravelly ridge, and beyond that was the snowy range. (Note 53.)
The smoke was growing thick and strong, so that we could smell it plain. The fire was coming right along, making for us. There were the three of us to cover a half-mile or more of fire line, so we got busy. We divided the line into three patrols, and set to work tramping down the brush on the fire side of it and making ready.
Pretty soon wild animals began to pass, routed out by the fire. That was fun, to watch deer and coyotes and rabbits and other things scoot by, among the trees, as if they were moving pictures. Once I saw a wolf, and little Jed Smith called that he had seen a bear. Kit Carson reported that some of the animals seemed to be heading into the willow bog beyond his end of the line.
It was kind of nervous work, getting ready and waiting for the fire. It was worse than actual fighting, and we'd rather meet the fire halfway than wait for it to come to us. But we were here to wait.
The fire did not arrive all at once, with a jump. Not where I was. A thin blue smoke, lazy and harmless, drifted through among the trees, and a crackling sounded louder and louder. Then there were breaths of hot air, as if a dragon was foraging about. Birds flew over, calling and excited, and squirrels raced along, and porcupines and skunks, and even worms and ants crawled and ran, trying to escape the dragon. A wind blew, and the timber moaned as if hurt and frightened. I felt sorry for the pines and spruces and cedars. They could not run away, and they were doomed to be burnt alive.
The birds all had gone, worms and ants and bugs were still hurrying, and the timber was quiet except for the crackling. Now I glimpsed the dragon himself. He was digging around, up the slope a little way, extending his claws further and further like a cat as he explored new ground and gathered in every morsel.
This is the way the fire came—not roaring and leaping, but sneaking along the ground and among the bushes, with little advance squads like dragon's claws or like the scouts of an army, reconnoitering. The crackling increased, the hot gusts blew oftener, I could see back into the dragon's great mouth where bushes and trees were flaming and disappearing—and suddenly he gave a roar and leaped for our fire line, and ate a bush near it.
Then I leaped for him and struck a paw down with my stick. So we began to fight.
It wasn't a crown fire, where the flames travel through the tops of the timber; it traveled along the ground, and climbed the low trees and then reached for the big ones. But when it came near the fire line, it stopped and felt about sort of blindly, and that was our chance to jump on it and stamp it out and beat it out and kill it.
The smoke was awful, and so was the heat, but the wind helped me and carried most of it past. And now the old dragon was right in front of me, raging and snapping. The fore part of him must be approaching Jed Smith, further along the line. I whistled the Scout whistle, loud, and gave the Scout halloo—and from Jed echoed back the signal to show that all was well.
This was hot work, for Sunday or any day. The smoke choked and blinded, and the air fairly scorched. Pine makes a bad blaze. What I had to do was to run back and forth along the fire line, crushing the dragon's claws. My shoes felt burned through and my face felt blistered, and jiminy, how I sweat! But that dragon never got across my part of the fire line.
The space inside my part was burnt out and smoldering, and I could join with Jed. There were two of us to lick the fire, here; but the dragon was raging worse and the two of us were needed. He kept us busy. I suppose that there was more brush. And when we would follow him down, and help Kit, he was worse than ever. How he roared!
He was determined to get across and go around that willow bog. Once he did get across, and we chased him and fought him back with feet and hands and even rolled on him. A bad wind had sprung up, and we didn't know but that we were to have a crown fire. The heat would have baked bread; the cinders were flying and we must watch those, to catch them when they landed. We had to be everywhere at once—in the smoke and the cinders and the flames, and if I hadn't been a Scout, stationed with orders, I for one would have been willing to sit and rest, just for a minute, and let the blamed fire go. But I didn't, and Kit and Jed didn't; all of a sudden the dragon quit, and with roar and crackle went plunging on, along the ridge inside the willow bog. We had held the fire line—and we didn't know that Jim Bridger and the Red Fox Scouts were in those willows which we had saved because we had been ordered to!
Then, when just a few little blazes remained to be trampled and beaten out, but while the timber further in was still aflame, Jed cried: "Look!" and we saw a man coming, staggering and coughing, down through a rocky little canyon which cut the black, smoking slope.
He fell, and we rushed to get him.
Blazing branches were falling, all about; the air was two hundred in the shade; and in that little canyon the rocks seemed red-hot. But the fire hadn't got into the canyon, much, because it was narrow and bare; and the man must have been following it and have made it save his life. He was in bad shape, though. Before we reached him he had stood up and tumbled several times, trying to feel his way along.
"Wait! We're coming," I called. He heard, and tried to see.
"All right," he answered hoarsely. "Come ahead."
We reached him. Kit Carson and I held him up by putting his arms over our shoulders, and with Jed walking behind we helped him through the canyon and out to the fire line. He groaned and grunted. His eyebrows were crisped and his hair was singed and his shoes were cinders and his hands and face were scarred, and his eyes were all bloodshot, and he had holes through his clothes.
"Fire out?" he asked. "I can't see."
"It isn't out, but it's past," said Jed.
"Well, it mighty near got me," he groaned. "It corralled me on that ridge. If I hadn't cached myself in that little canyon, I'd have been burned to a crisp. It burned my hoss, I reckon. He jerked loose from me and left me to go it alone with my wounded leg. Water! Ain't there a creek ahead? Gimme some water."
While he was mumbling we set him down, beyond the fire line. It didn't seem as though we could get him any further. Kit hustled for water, Jed skipped to get first-aid stuff from a blanket-roll, and I made an examination.
His face and hands were blistered—maybe his eyes were scorched—there was a bloody place wrapped about with a dirty red handkerchief, on the calf of his left leg. But I couldn't do much until I had scissors or a sharp knife, and water.
"Who are you kids?" he asked. "Fishin'?" He was lying with his eyes closed.
"No. We're some Boy Scouts."
He didn't seem to like this. "Great Scott!" he complained. "Ain't there nobody but Boy Scouts in these mountains?"
Just then Kit came back with a hat of water from a boggy place. It was muddy water, but it looked wet and good, and the man gulped it down, except what I used to soak our handkerchiefs in. Kit went for more. Jed arrived with first-aid stuff, and I set to work, Jed helping.
We let the man wipe his own face, while we cut open his shirt where it had stuck to the flesh.
"Here!" he said suddenly. "Quit that. What's the matter with you?"
But he was too late. When I got inside his undershirt, there on a buckskin cord was hanging something that we had seen before. At least, it either was the message of the Elk Patrol or else a package exactly like it.
"Is that yours?" I asked.
"Maybe yes, and maybe no. Why?" he growled.
"Because if it isn't, we'd like to know where you got it."
"And if you don't tell, we'll go on and let you be," snapped little Jed.
"Shut up," I ordered—which wasn't the right way, but I said it before I thought. Jed had made me angry. "No, we won't." And we wouldn't. Our duty was to fix him the best we could. "But that looks like something belonging to us Scouts, and it has our private mark on it. We'd like to have you explain where you got it."
"He's got to explain, too," said little Jed, excited.
"Have I?" grinned the man, hurting his face. "Why so?"
"There are three of us kids. We can keep sight of you till that Ranger comes back. He'll make you."
"Who?"
"That Forest Ranger. He's a Government officer."
Kit Carson arrived, staring, with more water.
"I know you!" he panted. He signed to us, pointing at the man's feet. "You were at that other camp!" And Jed and I looked and saw the hole in the left sole—although both soles were badly burned, now. By that mark he was the beaver man! He wriggled uneasily as if he had a notion to sit up.
"Well, if you want it so bad, and it's yours, take it." And in a jiffy I had cut it loose with my knife. "It's been a hoodoo to me. How did you know I was at any other camp? Are you those three kids?"
"We saw your tracks," I answered. "What three kids?"
"The three kids those other fellows had corralled."
"No, but we're their partners. We're looking for them."
He'd had another drink of water and his face squinted at us, as we fussed about him. Kit took off one of the shoes and I the other, to get at the blistered feet.
"Never saw you before, did I?"
"Maybe not."
"Well, I'll tell you some news. One of your partners got away."
That was good.
"How do you know?" we all three asked.
"I met him, back on the trail, with two new kids."
"Which one was he? What did he look like?"
"A young lad, dressed like you. Carried a bow and arrow."
"Brown eyes and big ears?"
"Brown eyes, I reckon. Didn't notice his ears."
That must have been Jim Bridger.
"Who were the two fellows?"
"More of you Scouts, I reckon. Carried packs on their backs. Dressed in khaki and leggins, like soldiers."
They weren't any of us Elks, then. But we were tremendously excited.
"When?"
"This noon."
That sure was news. Hurrah for Jim Bridger!
"Did you see a one-armed boy?"
"Saw him in that camp, where the three of 'em were corralled."
"What kind of a crowd had they? Was one wearing a big revolver?"
"Yes. 'Bout as big as he was. They looked like some tough town bunch."
"How many?"
"Eight or ten."
Oho!
"Did you hear anybody called Bill?"
"Yes; also Bat and Mike and Walt and et cetery."
We'd fired these questions at him as fast as we could get them in edgewise, and now we knew a heap. The signs had told us true. Those two recruits had joined with the town gang, and our Scouts had been captured; but escape had been attempted and Jim Bridger had got away.
"How did you get that packet?" asked Kit.
"Found it."
He spoke short as if he was done talking. It seemed that he had told us the truth, so far; but if we kept questioning him much more he might get tired or cross, and lie. We might ask foolish questions, too; and foolish questions are worse than no questions.
We had done a good job on this man, as appeared to us. We had bathed his face, and had exposed the worst burns on his body and arms and legs and had covered them with carbolized vaseline and gauze held on with adhesive plaster, and had cleaned the wound in his leg. It was a regular hole, but we didn't ask him how he got it. 'Twas in mighty bad shape, for it hadn't been attended to right and was dirty and swollen. Cold clear water dripped into it to flush it and clean it and reduce the inflammation would have been fine, but we didn't have that kind of water handy; so we sifted some boric powder into it and over it and bound on it a pad of dry sterilized gauze, but not too tight. I asked him if there was a bullet or anything else in it, and he said no. He had run against a stick. This was about all that we could do to it, and play safe by not poking into it too much. (Note 54.)
He seemed to feel pretty good, now, and sat up.
"Well," he said, "now I've given you boys your message and told you what I know, and you've fixed me up, so I'll be movin' on. Where are those things I used to call shoes?"
We exchanged glances. He was the beaver man.
"We aren't through yet," I said.
"Oh, I reckon you are," he answered. "I'm much obliged. Pass me the shoes, will you?"
"No; wait," said Kit Carson.
"What for?" He was beginning to growl.
"Till you're all fixed."
"I'm fixed enough."
"We'll dress some of those wounds over again."
"No, you won't. Pass me those shoes."
They were hidden behind a tree.
"Can't you wait a little?"
"No, I can't wait a little." He was growling in earnest. "Will you pass me those shoes?"
"No, we won't," announced Kit. He was getting angry, too.
"You pass me those shoes or something is liable to happen to you mighty sudden. I'll break you in two."
"I'll get the rifle," said Jed, and started; but I called him back. We didn't need a rifle.
"He can't do anything in bare feet like that," I said. And he couldn't. His feet were too soft and burned. That is why we kept the shoes, of course.
"I can't, eh?"
"No. We aren't afraid."
He started to stand, and then he sat back again.
"I'll put a hole in some of you," he muttered; and felt at the side of his chest. But if he had carried a gun in a Texas holster there, it was gone. "Say, you, what's the matter with you?" he queried. "What do you want to keep me here for?"
"You'd better wait. We'll stay, too."
He glared at us. Then he began to wheedle.
"Say, what'd I ever do to you? Didn't I give you back that message, and tell you all I knew? Didn't I help you out as much as I could?"
"Then what have you got it in for me for?"
"We'd rather you'd wait till the Ranger or somebody comes along," I explained.
He fumbled in a pants pocket.
"Lookee here," he offered. And he held it out. "Here's a twenty-dollar gold piece. Take it and divvy it among you; and I'll go along and nobody'll be the wiser."
"No, thanks," we said.
"I'll make it twenty apiece for each," he insisted. "Here they are. See? Give me those shoes, and take these yellow bucks and go and have a good time."
But we shook our heads, and had to laugh. He couldn't bluff us Scouts, and he couldn't bribe us, either. He twisted and stood up, and we jumped away, and Kit was ready to grab up the shoes and carry them across into the burned timber where the ground was still hot.
The man swore and threatened frightfully.
"I'd like to get my fingers on one of you, once," he stormed. "You'd sing a different tune."
So we would. But we had the advantage now and we didn't propose to lose it. He couldn't travel far in bare, blistered feet. I wished that he'd sit down again. We didn't want to torment him or nag him, just because we had him. He did sit down.
"What do you think I am, anyhow?" he asked.
"Well, you've been killing beaver," I told him.
"Who said so?"
"We saw you at the beaver-pond, when we were camping opposite. And just after you left the game warden came along, looking for you."
"You saw some other man."
"No, we didn't. We know your tracks. And if you aren't the man, then you'll be let go."
"You kids make me tired," he grumbled, and tried to laugh it off. "Supposin' a man does trap a beaver or two. They're made to be trapped. They have to be trapped or else they dam up streams and overflow good land. Nobody misses a few beaver, anyhow, in the timber. This is a free land, ain't it?"
"Killing beaver is against the law, just the same," said Jed.
"You kids didn't make the law, did you? You aren't judge of the law, are you?"
"No," I said. "But we know what it is and we don't think it ought to be broken. If people go ahead breaking the game laws, then there won't be any game left for the people who keep the laws to see or hunt. And the less game there is, the more laws there'll be." I knew that by heart. It was what Scouts are taught.
This sounded like preaching. But it was true. And while he was fuming and growling and figuring on what to do, we were mighty glad to hear a horse's hoofs. The Ranger came galloping down the fire line.
"Hello," he said. He was streaked with ashes and soot and sweat, and so was his horse, and they both looked worn to a frazzle. "Well, we've licked the fire. Who's that? Somebody hurt?" Then he gave another quick look. "Why, how are you, Jack? You must have run against something unexpected."
The beaver man only growled, as if mad and disgusted.
I saluted.
"We have held the fire line, sir," I reported.
"You bet!" answered the Ranger. "You did well. And now you're holding Jack, are you? You needn't explain. I know all about him. Since that fire drove him out along with other animals, we'll hang on to him. The game warden spoke to me about him a long time ago."
"You fellows think you're mighty smart. Do I get my shoes, or not?" growled the beaver man.
"Not," answered the Ranger, cheerfully. "We'll wrap your feet up with a few handkerchiefs and let you ride this horse." He got down. "What's the matter? Burns? Bad leg? Say! These kids are some class on first-aid, aren't they! You're lucky. Did you thank them? Now you can ride nicely and the game warden will sure be glad to see you." Then he spoke to us. "I'm going over to my cabin, boys, where there's a telephone. Better come along and spend the night."
We hustled for our blanket-rolls. The beaver man gruntingly climbed aboard the Ranger's horse, and we all set out. The Ranger led the horse, and carried his rifle.
"Is the fire out?" asked Kit Carson.
"Not out, but it's under control. It'll burn itself out, where it's confined. I've left a squad to guard it and I'll telephone in to headquarters and report. But if it had got across this fire line and around those willows, we'd have been fighting it for a week."
"How did it start?"
"Somebody's camp-fire."
The trail we were making led through the timber and on, across a little creek and up the opposite slope. The sun was just setting as we came out beyond the timber, and made diagonally up a bare ridge. On top it looked like one end of that plateau we had crossed when we were trailing the gang and we had first seen the fire.
The Ranger had come up here because traveling was better and he could take a good look around. We halted, puffing, while he looked. Off to the west was the snowy range, and old Pilot Peak again, with the sun setting right beside him, in a crack. The range didn't seem far, but it seemed cold and bleak—and over it we were bound. Only, although now we had the message, we didn't have the other Scouts. If they were burned—oh, jiminy!
"Great Cæsar! More smoke!" groaned the Ranger. "If that's another fire started—!"
His words made us jump and gaze about. Yes, there was smoke, plenty of it, over where the forest fire we had fought was still alive. But he was looking in another direction, down along the top of the plateau.
"See it?" he asked.
Yes, we saw it. But—! And then our hearts gave a great leap.
"That's not a forest fire!" we cried. "That's a smoke signal!"
"A what?"
"A smoke signal! And—"
"Wait a second. We'll read it, if we can. Scouts must be over there," I exclaimed.
"More Scouts!" grunted the beaver man. "These here hills are plumb full of 'em."
The air was quiet, and the smoke rose straight up, with the sun tinting the top. It was a pretty sight, to us. Then we saw two puffs and a pause, and two puffs and a pause, and two puffs and a pause. It was our private Elk Patrol code, and it was beautiful. We cheered.
"It's from our partners, and it says 'Come to council,'" I reported. "They're hunting for us. We'll have to go over there."
"Think they're in trouble?"
"They don't say so, but we ought to signal back and go right over."
"I'll go, too, for luck, and see you through, then," said the Ranger.
"Do I have to make that extra ride?" complained the beaver man, angry again.
"Sure," answered the Ranger. "That's only a mile or so and then it's only a few more miles to the cabin, and we aren't afraid of the dark."
They watched us curiously while we hustled and scraped a pile of dead sage and grass and rubbish, and set it to smoking and made the Elks' "O. K." signal. The other Scouts must have been sweeping the horizon and hoping, for back came the "O. K." signal from them.
And traveling our fastest, with the beaver man grumbling, we all headed across the plateau for the place of the smoke. Sunday was turning out good, after all.
"IT WAS OUR PRIVATE ELK PATROL CODE."