Chapter XVIII
The First Clue to the Incendiary
Slowly Charley and his friend made their way along the fire trail toward the highway and safety, Charley assisting the ranger as much as possible. The latter began to suffer great pain in his arm and the limb started to swell. Meantime, the forester, with a physician and a helper, was racing at top speed to reach the ranger. At a pace utterly reckless he drove his car over the forest road, and the instant the rescue party arrived at the point where Charley and Mr. Morton would reach the highway, they plunged into the forest. Faster than he had ever raced to a forest fire, the forester sped along the trail, his companions striving doggedly to keep up with him. He was deep in the woods before he met Charley and the ranger.
With hand extended, the forester ran to his ranger. Their hands met in a tight clasp. "How is it, Jim?" asked the forester, with anxious eyes.
"I'm all right," rejoined the ranger. "I'll pull out of this all O.K. That snake got me right, though. If it hadn't been for Charley here, I don't know how I would have made out. He's as good as a doctor."
By this time the doctor himself had come up, puffing too hard for words. He nodded his head, clasped the ranger's hand, and with a single word of greeting quickly began an examination of the injured arm. "How long ago did this happen?" he puffed.
"More than two hours ago," said the ranger.
"You haven't kept these tight all that time, have you?" and the doctor laid his finger on one of the cords around the ranger's arm.
"No, sir. Charley had me loosen them, one at a time, every twenty minutes or so."
"That was quite right. What else have you done?"
When the ranger had told him in detail exactly how Charley had treated him, the doctor grunted, "Confound it! Then what did you hustle me out here this way for? I thought you were at the point of death."
Charley was amazed and offended at what he considered the heartlessness of the physician. "You don't understand," he protested. "Mr. Morton was badly bitten, sir."
Charley was still more astonished when both the ranger and the forester burst out laughing. He looked from one to the other questioningly. It did not occur to him that this was merely the doctor's way of saying that Charley had handled the situation about as well as he could have done it himself. Evidently the forester did not propose to enlighten Charley, for all he said was, "Don't let him worry you, Charley. He's just naturally lazy and a grouch. He doesn't like it because I made him hustle for once, and he's disappointed not to find Jim at the point of death. These doctors are strange animals, Charley. But with all their faults we love them still." And he slapped the physician affectionately on the shoulder.
Charley looked puzzled. But concluding that silence was the best course, he said no more. All this time the doctor was continuing his labors, and Charley was amazed at the dexterous way he did things.
For a moment he listened to the beating of the ranger's heart. Then, seemingly with a single motion of his knife, he slit the sleeve of the ranger's shirt. Another motion laid open the undershirt sleeve, disclosing the arm to the shoulder. The physician examined it closely. The arm was swelling fast. The physician opened his case and gave the ranger some medicine. "Now we'll get to bed as soon as possible," he said, "and rest for a few days."
Assisted by a man on either side of him, the ranger started for the waiting motor-car.
"Mr. Marlin," said Charley, after the party had gone a few rods, "this morning Mr. Morton brought out a little wireless set that Lew made for him, as well as my big battery. It's back where Mr. Morton was bitten. May I get it and set it up in the ranger's house? It will be a good opportunity for him to practice while he's at home. Mrs. Morton is learning to operate the wireless, too. It would mean so much to both of them and to the forest as well, if they could talk to each other by wireless."
"How long will it take you to put it up, Charley?"
"Not very long, sir. Perhaps an hour or two."
"I don't like to leave the forest unprotected for a single minute at this season, Charley, but I guess we'll take a chance on it. Get your stuff to the road as quick as you can. I'll take Jim home and return for you."
The forester hastened after the ranger's party and Charley darted off into the forest. At the fastest pace he could maintain he jogged along the fire trail. In a very little time he was back at the instruments. He took down the aerial, threw away the spreaders, uncoupled the amplifier which he needed for use himself, and replaced the little outfit in the pasteboard box. Then he hurried back to the road, where the forester was already waiting to whirl him away to the ranger's house.
If Charley had had any doubts whatever about his liking the ranger's wife (though he hadn't), they would have vanished the instant he came in sight of the ranger's home. It was a small, weather-beaten cottage set in the shoulder of a hill, with the forest all around it. About the house itself was a clearing of a few acres, with a little orchard on the slope behind the house. The home itself was enclosed by an unpainted picket fence. Lovely old trees shaded it. Vines clambered riotously over its soft, gray clapboards. Well arranged shrubs and bushes had been planted here and there. There were flowers about the base of the house and along the borders. The grass was trimmed as neatly as a city lawn. Even now before plant growth had started, the yard was attractive. With pleasure Charley noted that the ranger had set out two European larches, evidently brought in from a forest plantation, at his gateway. One glance at the inviting and neatly kept yard told Charley what he would find within the house itself.
Nor was he disappointed when he entered the door and found the house as clean as a whistle, plainly but neatly and attractively furnished, and beautiful with a wealth of flowers and plants that, had quite evidently received loving and intelligent care. On the wall Charley instantly noted the telephone, and hanging on a nail beside it was the leather case with the ranger's portable telephone instrument.
There was not the slightest doubt in Charley's mind that he was going to like the ranger's wife. And when, a moment later, she came quietly into the room and took his hand in hers and, with moist eyes, thanked him for saving her husband's life, she won Charley's heart completely. She was slight and girlish and good to look at, and made Charley think of some of his nice girl friends at high school. Yet Mrs. Morton had been married a good many years, for just behind her stood her daughter, Julia, a girl of twelve, waiting her turn to thank Charley.
But girlish though the ranger's wife appeared, Charley did not need to be told that she was not of the weeping, hysterical sort. On every hand were evidences of efficiency and foresight. A fire was evidently burning briskly in the stove, and kettles of water, presumably heated in case of need, were steaming on the range, easily seen through the open kitchen door. In the sick-room were evidences of the same sort of forethought. Everything that the house possessed that could possibly be useful in treating the ranger had been assembled in handy little piles. This must have been done before the ranger reached home, for most of the piles were untouched.
The ranger was resting comfortably in bed, though his arm was badly swollen and his face was distorted with pain. At sight of Charley his countenance lighted up. He reached out his left arm and wrung Charley's hand until the lad winced.
"The doctor says I'll pull through this all right, though I'll have a painful time of it," said the ranger, "and he told the truth, at least as far as the pain is concerned. But the pain's nothing. The thing that counts is the fact that I am safe at home. I owe it to you, Charley, and you may be sure I'll never forget."
That was as much as the ranger, reticent, hating any display of emotion, quiet like most men of the woods, could bring himself to say. But Charley knew that it meant volumes. He tried to reply, but found himself also suffering from a strange embarrassment. So Charley said good-bye to the ranger, assured him that he would take good care of the forest, and set about fixing the wireless outfit. The forester helped him. Quickly they got up the aerial, brought the lead-in wire into the living-room, and set up the instruments on a board table close beside the telephone instrument.
"Now everything is complete except for the battery," Charley said to the forester when they had finished wiring up the outfit. "Half a dozen dry cells will supply all the current needed."
"I'll send them out by the doctor in the morning," said the forester.
Charley showed Mrs. Morton how to wire the cells and couple them to the instruments. Then he told her how to adjust her spark-gap and tune the instrument to any given wave-length. He compared his watch with the clock on the wall.
"At eight o'clock every night," he said, "I will call you up. Suppose you take Mr. Morton's initials as your call signal. What are they?"
"J. V. M.," replied Mrs. Morton.
"Very well. Then at eight o'clock every night I will call J. V. M. slowly a number of times. Then I will tick off the alphabet slowly and the numerals one to ten. You listen in, and if the sounds are blurred or not sharp, tune your instrument as I have shown you until you can hear distinctly. If you make the letters with a pencil as you read them, it may help you. I'm sure you will soon learn to read. I'll repeat the alphabet and the numbers three times slowly. Then I'll listen in for five or ten minutes. If you want to try to call me, give my signal and follow it with your own, thus: 'CBC--CBC--CBC--JVM.' That means 'Charley Russell--James Morton calling.' If I hear you, I will send the letters 'JVM--JVM--JVM--I--I--I.' That means 'James Morton--I am here.' Then you can begin to send your message. I hope we'll be able to talk to each other very soon."
"It won't be my fault if we don't," smiled the ranger's wife.
"Now I must be off," said Charley. "I've no doubt Mr. Marlin is getting impatient. We'll just clean up this mess and then I'll go."
"I'll clean things up," insisted Mrs. Morton.
"No; I made the mess and I'll clean it up," protested Charley.
He began to pile the torn pieces of pasteboard together so he could thrust them into the stove. The bottom of the pasteboard box had been built up with several layers of pasteboard, evidently cut from other boxes. Charley took them out one at a time, preparatory to crumpling up the box itself. As he lifted the last layer of pasteboard he stopped in blank amazement. Then he called excitedly for Mr. Marlin. Before him lay a piece of green pasteboard exactly like the charred fragment taken from the ash heap in the burned forest.