CHAPTER XVIII
FIRE!
It was a warm July night. The Camp lay quiet and serene, everybody sound asleep. The heat of the day, which had been unusual for the region, had brought out the spicy scent of the woods, and mingled it with the salty fragrance which makes the essence of Maine. But into the natural blend of outdoors came creeping another odor, not exactly unpleasant, but very different; a stinging disquiet for which the forest creatures have no name, only an instinctive fear. For it is no friendly fragrance, but one that spells danger and death. It was the smell of wood smoke.
The young men in their tents further south than Round Robin were the first to get the tang. They turned over uneasily in their sleep. Then Hugh sat up on his cot and sniffed. He was wide awake in a moment, like a true soldier, and jumped out of bed. “Fire!” he thought. And his first fear was that the hearth-blaze at Round Robin had caught the bungalow. With dread at heart he hurried out of the tent and ran up the path to his mother’s camp. But he soon saw that the smoke was not coming from that direction. The slight wind was from the south, and it brought with it a dense cloud of smoke, drifting through the trees. The fire was not far away.
Meantime Victor had wakened and was pulling on his clothes, wondering what had become of his tent-mate, and fearing the worst; when Hugh returned to tell Victor what he had found out. “The camp’s all right,” he said. “But there is a big fire somewhere in the neighborhood; at the Harbor, I think.”
Dick’s tent was empty. But even while they were calling him he came running in, all excitement. “It’s Idlewild!” he cried. “The whole plant is burning. It’s a great show from the hill. Hurry up, fellows!” And he was off again.
“We might do something to help,” said Victor catching up an axe. “Is there a fire company, or anything?”
“There is a little hand-engine,” said Hugh. “But I doubt if it can do much if the fire has got a good headway, since they have a long way to come. Let’s hurry.”
“Oh, Hugh! What is it?” a girl’s voice interrupted him. It was Nancy, disheveled, and dressed in a mackintosh. Behind her came Cicely with a lantern. “We thought at first Round Robin was on fire,” she said breathlessly. “Then we suspected you chaps had set the woods afire down here. So we came to see. But it is further off, isn’t it? The sky is all red. You can see it from the top windows of the bungalow. Tante and the Twins are looking at it.”
“It is Idlewild burning,” said Hugh gravely. “We are going up to help. You two run home and keep Anne from worrying, if you can.”