At this spot the fire had spent its fury in the first mad rush, but a heavy smoke welled up from the charred ground. Terror possessed the horse, but the calm voice of his mistress urged him on. Crimson embers showered about her. Scorching heat fanned her face as if the doors of a blast furnace had been opened. A blazing branch fell with a rushing sound, barely missing the horse’s head. Sharp reports from the tree-tops made the plucky cayuse shy in a panic of fear.
Filled with apprehension, the crowd of fire-fighters stared with tense anxiety into the drifting smoke. Then a glad cheer burst from them as horse and rider emerged: Andy clinging to Connie’s stirrup, and Donald swaying drunkenly in the rear. Ready hands held water to Andy’s parched lips and bathed his hot face as he lay panting on the ground. He sat up with an effort and looked about him. “Where’s Connie?” he asked. But Connie had stolen quietly from the scene.
By mid-afternoon the main body of the fire was apparently under control, but the persistent spot-fires kept the entire crew engaged. A huge cottonwood, standing just within the fire-breaks, was the chief offender. Sparks from its lofty blazing top were floated by the breeze to land on the dry ground, starting innumerable fires.
“That tree will have to come down or we will be fighting spot-fires indefinitely,” said Wilkinson.
Silence fell. Everyone of those lumber-jacks knew the danger attached to the falling of a rotten, blazing tree. In sound timber the skilled “faller” can cut the scarf and drive the falling-wedge to lay the tree within six inches of the desired spot. With a hollow tree the task is much more difficult, as in the soft, decayed pulp the wedge may not provide sufficient leverage to swing the enormous weight, and the tree may crash from any angle.
Men working at the butt of a burning tree, too, are exposed to the fall of branches. Even a small bough, hurtling from the dizzy height of lordly cottonwood or fir, will break a man’s limbs.
Wilkinson picked up a falling saw. “Who will go with me?” he called.
Gillis stepped forward with wedge and hammer.
“Nothin’ doin’,” said little Blackie; “Wilkinson here has a wife and kid, an’ Jack has brains enough to be our boss. Me and Hoop-la ain’t got neither, we’re just a coupla roughnecks. Whadda you say, Hoop-la?”
“Ye betcha,” came vigorously from Blackie’s pal.