MYSTERY IN THE FALL OF A TREE
"Run to the river!" It was Hippy's voice, this time raised in warning. He feared that the wide-spreading branches of the falling tree might hit some of the party of Overlanders.
A branch from a smaller tree, knocked down by the larger one in its fall, gave Hippy a sidewipe and sent him flying down the bank.
"Jump inter the river!" screamed the forest woman. "It ain't deep." Joe led the way, shouting as she leaped for the water. Had there been light, it would have been easy to see which way the tree was falling, but in the darkness one could only guess from the sound the direction in which the tree was falling. It landed with a mighty crash just as the Overland Riders leaped into the river, and for a few seconds it sounded as if the forest itself were going down. The girls listened to the crashings and the reports in awesome silence.
"All over!" announced Tom, in a tone of relief.
"I—I don't see anything about a falling tree that necessitates scaring a person out of a year's growth," complained Emma.
"You don't, eh? Then you have something to learn," answered Tom rather shortly.
"At least there is nothing to prevent our going back and getting to sleep, is there?" questioned Nora.
"There is!" said Tom.
"Wha—what do you mean?" demanded Hippy, but Tom made no reply.
Grace found herself wondering what had caused the tree to fall. There was no wind, other than a gentle zephyr; the ground was dry and the tree was not a dead tree, as she discovered when she found that its foliage had blotted out the campfire. Either she had not heard the explosion as the tree burst from the ground, or else she had forgotten that circumstance altogether in the excitement of the moment.
"All right. We can go back now," said Tom.
"And to bed for mine," promised Elfreda.
"If my eyes serve me right, you have no bed," answered Grace laughingly.
"I don't understand," wondered Miss Briggs.
"From its position, I should say that the fallen tree pretty well covers our camp," replied Grace.
"Yes, it fell on the lean-tos," Tom informed them.
"The voices of nature seem to be trying to tell us something. Perhaps they are inviting us to get out," suggested Hippy whimsically. "What is your interpretation of the tree's fall, you Nature-Cult Person?" he questioned teasingly, nodding at Emma.
"I think they are seeking to advise us to rid ourselves of one Lieutenant Wingate if we expect to be permitted to proceed in peace," answered Emma. "Why don't you go home?" teased the little Overland girl.
"My wife won't let me. Of course you are not bound by any such restrictions," reminded Hippy.
Tom suddenly broke into a run. The others followed, calling to him to know what was wrong, but the forester did not at first answer, as he sped towards their camp, leaping logs and other obstructions in his path.
"Hurry!" he shouted, upon reaching the scene.
"What is it?" called Hippy.
"We have set the woods on fire!" answered Tom.
What the party had supposed to be only the campfire blazing under the tree that had fallen across it, in reality was a forest fire in the making. In falling, the tree had scattered the burning embers of the campfire, and set fire to the leaves and pine boughs that covered the ground. By the time Tom Gray reached the scene the fire was running up the little saplings, tracing out their limbs until they resembled decorated Christmas trees, and leaping from tree to tree.
"Isn't it beautiful!" exclaimed Emma enthusiastically, as the spectacle burst into view.
"You won't think so before many hours have passed," answered Grace, who, as well as her husband, fully understood what this blaze with so good a start might mean.
"Grab those spruce boughs near the lean-tos and follow me!" shouted Tom. "Every one of you get to work. Stamp out what is left of the campfire, Hippy, so that it doesn't spread towards the river and get away from us along the bank. Stir yourselves!"
Through the smoke, the flying sparks and the pungent, almost overpowering odors, the Overland Riders ran with their arms full of spruce boughs.
"What are we to do?" cried Elfreda. "I feel as helpless as a child."
After they had hurried around the outer edge of the fire, which was rapidly reaching towards them in little wriggling, snake-like streams of fire, Tom directed the girls to spread out, each taking several rods of front to protect.
"Beat it out as fast as you can. When you see a wriggler reaching for a tree, beat it out with your spruce boughs," he ordered. "Don't try to put out a tree on fire. You can't do it, and may set yourselves on fire. Grace, you take the lower end of the line and keep the girls at work. I will look after this end. Should assistance be needed at any one point, shout and we will all concentrate on it. All of you be careful that you don't get burned."
The girls quickly took up the positions assigned to them, and began beating and whipping the "golden serpents," as Nora characterized them. In a few moments each member of the party was coughing and choking, their arms were aching and tears were running from their eyes. In spite of their efforts, however, the advancing fire drove them steadily back.
The big trees soon began to char, and, within an hour, were glowing pillars of fire, as one after another broke into flames that mounted higher and higher. Had there been leisure to view it as a spectacle, the sight would have been a magnificent one, but the Overlanders had other things to occupy their attention. While in no way to blame for the fire, they felt that this was their responsibility, theirs the duty to stop it, and so they worked and fought, gasping for breath, now and then retreating for fresh air.
"Lie down every little while!" shouted Tom. "The air is better near the ground. Pass the word along."
His orders were shouted from one to the other and so reached the extreme end of the fighting front.
What at first had seemed an easy task had grown to an almost insurmountable one. Now they would check the fire at one point, only to discover that it had leaped over the line at another. By the time they had conquered the second one, the first blaze generally would be found to have taken a new start.
A canopy of fire and smoke covered the scene high overhead. Tom hoped that a forest lookout might discover the blaze and send assistance to them, though he knew that much territory might be burned over before help could reach them.
Leaving his own position for a survey of conditions, Tom ran along the line of fire-fighters, giving an encouraging word here and there while his experienced eyes sized up the situation.
"How is it?" gasped Grace when he reached her end of the line.
"Serious! We must fight as long as we have an ounce of strength or a breath left in our bodies," he added, starting back towards his position.
"Keep it up! It's getting the best of you!" he shouted to each Overlander in turn as he passed.
"Can't we send to Forty-three for assistance?" called Hippy.
"No. You or I would have to go. Neither of us can be spared."
"We'll have to be spared if this keeps up much longer. Do you think the horses are safe?"
"Yes. They are on the river side of the fire. The breeze is carrying the fire the other way," answered Tom.
Three hours after the discovery of the fire found the Overland Riders still fighting, to all appearances, just as stubbornly as when they began. Their faces were almost unrecognizable, blackened as they were with smoke and streaked with perspiration. In places, their clothing showed black where it had been seared or scorched. Emma Dean had, for the time being, forgotten to listen to the voices of nature, even though they were sizzling and roaring at her from the far-flung tops of the giant pines.
At the end of the fourth hour, a great tree came crashing down with a ripping, rending roar. Another followed it soon after, and at intervals still other trees lost their foothold and surrendered to their implacable enemy, fire!
It was an awesome sight and the air was full of thrilling sounds. There was not one of that party of fire fighters that did not feel the awe. Henry disappeared, and his mistress had no thought for him. She had been through other forest fires, and, though she worked desperately, she did so without emotion so far as external appearances indicated. Hindenburg, on the contrary, was very much in evidence, running up and down the line, barking at each individual fire fighter and sneezing as he breathed in the pungent smoke.
The graying dawn found the Overlanders still beating at the flames that still kept them on the retreat, driving them deeper and deeper into the forest.
About this time Tom Gray made his second survey. What he found raised his hopes and his spirits.
"We've flanked it!" he cried. "That old cutting to the left has saved us on that side."
"Thank Heaven!" answered Grace in a choking voice. "Te—ell the others!"
"We aren't through yet," reminded Tom, hurrying back to give the others the encouraging news and to urge them to continue their efforts.
Shouts, choking, gasping shouts, greeted the announcement. Then how they did work, the girls with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths, and Hippy Wingate with a piece of his khaki shirt gripped between his teeth and partly covering his nostrils as an aid in keeping the smoke out of his lungs. The throats of all were parched and aching for water, but there was none to be had near at hand, and no time to go to the river for it.
At nine o'clock in the morning the forest fire was conquered, after having burned over several acres of timber. Here and there little blazes were fanned into life by the morning breeze, but alert eyes discovered, and ready hands quickly whipped them out.
"Done! But it will have to be watched. You girls go back to camp and make some coffee. I don't believe that much of our belongings have been destroyed," said Tom.
Instead of starting for camp, the girls sank down in their tracks, and dropped instantly into a sleep of exhaustion. Neither man made an effort to arouse them.
"I wish I might do that too. What do you say if we take just one little cat-nap, Tom?" urged Hippy.
"Can't be done. The fire might start again."
"Oh, hang the fire!" growled Lieutenant Wingate.
"It might 'hang' you; in other words, we should be in danger of being burned, for we surely would sleep all day, once we permitted ourselves to drop off!"
"All right. Carry on! If I could have a nip of sleep I know I should dream of food, which would fix me up all right. How long are we going to let them sleep?" asked Hippy, pointing to the sleeping Overland girls.
"Until we make certain that the fire isn't going to break out afresh. We will then shake the girls up and go back to camp. It doesn't look as though I should get away to-day, does it?" grinned Tom.
"We can sit down, can't we?"
"Not yet! Not for another two hours."
The men separated and began a steady patrol of the fire-line, dragging themselves along wearily until the two hours had lengthened into three. Hippy then declared himself and announced his intention of going straight back to camp for something to eat and a sleep.
Tom, after a final look about, agreed. It took some little time to get the girls sufficiently awake to enable them to stand on their feet, but finally the men had marshalled them all and the journey to camp began.
It was blackened and cheerless acres of bare and fallen trees that their swollen eyes gazed upon on the way back to camp. Thousands of feet of virgin timber had been burned. Tom Gray, whose love of the forest was almost a passion with him, gazed on the wreckage sadly.
"Let this be a lesson to all of you. Always be careful with your campfires," he warned.
The girls were too tired to eat when they reached camp. All they desired was sleep and rest. Hippy's crying need was food, and that was what he proposed to get first, but Tom would not hear to either of them sitting down until the horses had been looked after and watered.
While they were doing that, the forest woman made coffee and fried bacon, which was ready for Tom and Hippy upon their return. The Overland girls had found their blankets, and, rolled tightly in them, lay sound asleep on the bare ground.
"Poor kids! Aren't you proud of each and every one of them, Hippy?" glowed Tom.
"Oh, I suppose so. That is, I presume I should be if I weren't famished."
Henry came ambling in at this juncture and, sitting down, began washing his face with his paws, giving not the slightest heed to the tirade that Joe Shafto was hurling at him.
"Ye git no breakfast to-day," raged the forest woman.
"Oh, don't be so hard-hearted," begged Hippy. "Give the poor fish a rind of bacon at least. You don't know what it means to have an appetite."
Hippy's urgings bore fruit, and Henry got his breakfast, as did Tom and Hippy, and their appetites fully equalled that of the bear.
"Come along, Hippy," urged Tom after they had finished breakfast.
"Wha—at? Where?"
"Let's have a look at the tree that so mysteriously fell on our camp."
"Have a heart! Have a heart, Tom! I want to lie down and sleep."
"So do I, but I cannot until I have learned why that tree came down as it did, and what caused the report just before it fell. Come! The sooner we start, the quicker we shall be in dreamland."
Hippy followed his companion begrudgingly.
"Look at that, will you?" demanded Captain Gray, pointing to the ground about the hole which had so recently held the roots of the great tree that had fallen on the lean-tos. The ground had been torn up for some yards from the true base of the tree, and dirt and pieces of roots hurled in all directions.
Lieutenant Wingate was instantly galvanized into alertness. The scene reminded him of France where he had seen so many similar holes, the result of the explosion of shells. He was down on his knees in a second, crawling about in the hole, feeling and smelling the ground.
"Smell this, Tom," he said, handing up to his companion a bit of cardboard. "What does it suggest to you?"
"Powder, I should say," answered Tom.
"Exactly. It is my opinion that our tree was dynamited. That's what caused the explosion!" cried Hippy. "I wonder I didn't recognize it at the time. Now what do you make of that?"
"I suspected as much, old man. I knew when I heard it that there had been an explosion, and I suspected the reason," answered Tom gravely. "I am glad the girls are not awake. This is serious, and the end is not yet!"
Tom Gray's prophecy came true before the end of that already eventful day.