THE MAN AT THE DUG-OUT
We couldn't see any sign, except those hoof-marks, and that fire. Nobody was stirring, the sun shone and the chipmunks scampered and the aspens quivered and the stream tinkled, and the place seemed all uninhabited by anything except nature. We grew tired of waiting.
"I'll go on to that dug-out," whispered Scout Ward. "If the man sees me he won't know me, especially. I can find out if he's there, or who is there."
That sounded good; so he dumped his pack and while Scout Van Sant and I stayed back he walked out, up the trail. We saw him turn in at the dug-out and rap on the door. Nobody came. He hung about and eyed the trail and the ground, and rapped again.
"There's plenty of sign," he called to us; "and there's a loose horse over across the creek."
"Well, what of it?" growled a voice; and he looked, and we looked, and we saw a man sitting beside a bowlder on the little slope behind the dug-out.
The man must have been watching, half hid, without moving. It was the beaver man. He had an automatic pistol in his hand. This was my business, now. So, just saying, "There he is!" I stood up and went right forward. But Scout Van Sant followed.
"I want that message," I said, as soon as I could.
"What message?" he growled back, from over his gun.
"That Scouts' message you took from the fellow who took it from us."
"Oh, hello!" he grinned. "Were you there? They let you go, did they?"
"No; I got away to follow you. I want that message."
"Why, sure," he said. "If that's all you want." And he seemed relieved. "Come and get it." He stuck his free hand behind him and fumbled, and then he held up the package.
I started right up, but Scout Ward sprang ahead of me. "I'll get it. You and Van stay behind," he bade.
He didn't wait for us to say yes, but walked for the rock; and just as he reached it, and was stretching to take the package, the man, with a big oath, jumped for him.
Jumped for him, and grabbed for him, sprawling out like a black cougar. Van Sant and I yelled, sharp; Ward dodged and tripped and went rolling; and as the man jumped for him again I shot my arrow at him. I couldn't help it, I was so mad. The arrow was crooked, where it had been mended (I really didn't try to hurt him), and maybe it went crooked; but anyway it hit him in the calf of the leg and stayed there. I didn't think I had shot so hard.
The man uttered a quick word, and sat down. His face was screwed and he glared about at us, with his pistol muzzle wavering and sweeping like a snake's tongue. That arrow probably hurt. It hadn't gone in very far, but it was stuck.
"I'll kill one of you for that," he snarled.
"No, you won't," answered Scout Ward, scrambling up and facing him. "If you killed one you'd have to kill all three, and then you'd be hanged anyway."
"You got just what was coming to you for acting so mean," added Scout Van Sant. "You grabbed for Ward and we had to protect him."
They weren't afraid, a particle, either of them; but I was the one who had shot the arrow, and all I could say was: "It isn't barbed. You can pull it out."
"Yes, and I'll get blood poisonin', mebbe," snarled the man. He kept us covered with his revolver muzzle. "You git!" he ordered.
With his other hand he worked at the arrow and pulled it out easily. The point was red, but not very far up.
"You'd better cut your trousers open, over that wound," called Scout Van Sant. "Did you have on colored underdrawers?"
"None o' your business," snarled the man. "You git, all of you."
"Wait a minute. Don't use that old handkerchief," spoke Scout Ward. And away he ran for the packs. They were very busy Scouts, those two, and right up to snuff. The arrow wound seemed to interest them. He came back, and I saw what he had. "Here," he called; "if you'll promise not to grab me I'll come and dress that in first-class shape. You're liable to have an infection, from dirt."
"I'll infect you, if I ketch you," snarled the man, fingering his wounded leg and dividing his glances between it and us.
"Well, if you won't promise, I'll lay this on this rock," continued Scout Ward, as cool as you please. "You ought to cut the cloth away from that wound; then you dissolve this bichloride of mercury tablet in a quart of water, and flush that hole out thoroughly; then you moisten a pad of this cloth in the water and bind it on the hole with this surgical bandage. See?" (Note 46.)
"I'll bind you on a hole, if I ketch you," snarled the man. That hole ached, I reckon.
But Scout Ward advanced and laid the first-aid stuff on a stone about ten feet from the man, so that he could crawl and get it.
"Now hadn't you better give us that message? It's no good to you, and it's done you harm enough," said Scout Van Sant.
"Give you nothin', except a dose of lead, if you don't git out pronto," snarled the man. "You git! Hear me? GIT! If you weren't kids, you'd git something else beside jes' git. But I'm not goin' to tell you many more times. GIT!"
The Red Fox Patrol Scouts looked at me and I looked at them, and we agreed—for the man was growing angrier and angrier. There was no sense in badgering him. A fellow must use discretion, you know.
"All right; we'll 'git,'" answered Scout Ward. "But we'll keep on your trail till you turn over that message. You've no business with it."
The man just growled, and as we turned away he began to pull his trouser-leg up further and to fuss with his dirty sock and his pink underdrawers there. Those were no things to have about an open wound.
"You'd better use that first-aid wash and bandage," called back Scout Ward.
We went to the packs and the Red Fox Patrol Scouts slung them on. They wouldn't let me carry one. We didn't know exactly what to do, now: whether to go on and wait, or wait here, while we watched. Only—
"You Scouts take the trail for your rendezvous," I said. Rendezvous, you know, is the place where Scouts come together; and these two boys were on their way to meet the rest of their party, for Salt Lake and the Yellowstone, when I had come in on them.
"No," they said; "your trail is our trail. Scouts help each other. We can meet our party somewhere later, and still be in time."
Scouts mean what they say, so I didn't argue, and I was mighty glad to have them along. We decided to follow the trail we were on for a little way, and then to climb the side of the gulch and make Sunday camp where we could watch the man's movements.
We passed the dug-out; up back of it the beaver man was tying his bandanna handkerchief around his leg! He didn't look at us, and he hadn't touched the first-aid stuff on the rock.
As we hiked on, I kept noticing that smell of smoke—a piny smoke; and it did not come from the dug-out, surely. Now I remembered that I had been smelling that piny smoke all day, and I laid it to the two camp-fires, but I must have been mistaken. Or else there was another fire, still—or I had the smell in my nose and couldn't get it out. When you are in the habit of smelling for something, you keep thinking that it is there, all the time. A Scout must watch his imagination, and not be fooled by it.
We climbed the side of the gulch, through the trees; the Red Fox boys carried their packs right along, without resting any more than I did. They were toughened to the long trail. The sun began to be clouded and hazy. When we halted halfway up, and looked back and down, at the dug-out, the man had hobbled across from the dug-out and was leading back his horse.
Just then Scout Ward spoke up. "It is smoke!" he exclaimed, puffing and sniffing. "Boys, it's a forest fire somewhere."
So they had been smelling it, too.
I looked at the sun. The haze clouding it was the smoke!
"Climb on top, so we can see," I said; and away we went.
The timber was thick with spruces and pines. Up we went, among them, for the top of the ridge. We came out into an open space; beyond, the ridge fell away in a long slope of the timber, for the snowy range; and old Pilot Peak was right before us, to the west. The sun was getting low, and was veiled by smoke drifting across it. And on the right, distant a couple of miles, up welled a great brownish-black mass from the fire itself.
A forest fire, and a big one! The smell was very strong.
The Red Fox Scouts looked at me. "What ought we to do?" asked Scout Van Sant. "Maybe you know more about these forest fires than we do."
Maybe I did. The Rockies are places for big forest fires, all right, and I'd heard the Guards and Rangers talk, in our town. The timber was dry as a bone, at this time of year. The smoke certainly was drifting our way. And fire travels up-hill faster than it travels down-hill. So this ridge, surrounded by the timber, was a bad spot to be caught in, especially if that fire should split and come along both sides. No timber ridge for us!
"Turn back and make for the creek; shall we?" proposed Scout Ward.
That didn't sound good to me, somehow. The creek was beginning to pinch out, this high up the gulch, and a fire would jump it in a twinkling. And if anything should happen to us, down there,—one of us hurt himself, you know, in hurrying,—we should be in a trap as the fire swept across. Out of the timber was the place for us.
But away across, an opposite slope rose to bareness, where were just grass and rocks; and between was a long patch of aspens or willows, down in the hollow. If we couldn't make the bareness, those aspens or willows would be better than the pines and evergreens. They wouldn't burn so; and if they were willows, they might be growing in a bog.
"No," I said. "Let's strike across," and I explained.
"But the man. Wait a minute. Maybe he doesn't know," said Scout Van Sant; and away he raced, down and back for the dug-out.
We followed, for of course we wouldn't let him go alone. As we ran we all shouted, and at the dug-out we shouted, looking; but all that we saw was the beaver man far off across the creek, riding through the timber. He did not glance back; he kept on, riding slowly, headed for the fire. That seemed bad. He was so angry that perhaps his judgment wasn't working right, and he didn't pay much attention to the smell of smoke. So all we could do was to race up the ridge again, get the packs, and plunge down over for sanctuary.
The wind was blowing toward the fire, as if sucked in. But I knew that this would not hold the fire, because there would be another breeze, low, carrying it along. With a big fire there always is a wind, sucked in from all sides, as the hot air rises.
Those Red Fox Scouts hiked well, loaded with their packs. I set the pace, in a bee-line for the willows and aspens, and I was traveling light, but they hung close behind. The altitude made them puff; they fairly wheezed as we zigzagged down, among the trees; but we must get out of this brush into the open.
"Will we make it?" puffed Ward.
"Sure," I said. But I was mighty anxious. It seemed to me that the distance lengthened and lengthened and that I could feel the air getting warm in puffs. This was imagination.
"Look!" cried Van Sant. "What's that?" He stopped and panted and pointed.
"Bunch of deer!" cried Ward.
It was. Not a bunch, exactly, but two does and three fawns, scampering through the timber below, fleeing from the fire. They were bounding over brush and over logs, their tails lifted showing the white—and next they were out of sight in a hollow. They made a pretty sight, but—
"Frightened by the fire, aren't they?" asked Scout Van Sant, quietly, as we jogged on.
"Yes," I had to say.
This looked serious. The fire might not be coming, and again it might. Animals are wise.
The smoke certainly was worse. The air certainly was warmer. The breeze was changing, or else we were down into another breeze. Next I saw a black, shaggy creature lumbering past, before, and I pointed without stopping. They nodded.
"Bear?" panted Ward.
I nodded. The bear was getting out of the way, too.
"Will we make it?" again asked Ward.
"Sure," I answered. We had to.
On we plowed. We were almost at the bottom of the slope and we ought to be reaching those willows and aspens. The brush was not so bad, now; but the brush does not figure much in a forest fire when the flames leap from tree-top to tree-top and make a crown fire. That is the worst of all. This was hot enough to be a crown fire, if a breeze helped it.
We saw lots of animals—rabbits and squirrels and porcupines and more deer, and the birds were calling and fluttering. The smoke rasped our throats; the air was thick with it and with the smell of burning pine. And how we sweat.
Then, hurrah! We were into the aspens. I tell you, their white trunks and their green leaves looked good to me; but ahead of us was that other slope to climb, before we were into the bareness.
"Shall we go on?" asked Scout Van Sant.
He coughed; we all coughed, as we wheezed. That had been a hard hike. The air was hot, we could feel the fire as the wind came in strong puffs; everywhere animals were running and flying, and the aspens were full of wild things, panicky. We had to decide quickly, for the fire was much closer.
"Are you good for another pull?" I asked.
They grinned, out of streaming faces and white lips.
"We'll make it if you can."
But I didn't believe that we could. Up I went into an aspen, to reconnoiter.
"Be looking for wetness, or willows," I called down. They dropped their packs and scurried.