It was a short fight, but a brisk one while it lasted. The fire had started near the railroad tracks, as the boys had at first supposed. And though several times, driven by a capricious breeze, the flames had darted away from the fire fighters and toward the tracks, they were not able to leap across the bared space to the trees on the other side.
Then suddenly, as though the elements had decided to come to the aid of the fire fighters, the wind died down, and the fire, already well in hand, gave up the struggle. Gradually the leaping flames subsided until there was nothing left but a wide bed of glowing embers.
The boys, thinking all danger past, rested from their labors, only to find that the rangers were still busy, beating out sinister, creeping ribbons of flame that wound snake-like through the underbrush.
As soon as one small thread was extinguished it seemed to the fascinated boys as though another sprang up. And always they seemed to come from nowhere—from the air above or the ground underneath.
“That’s the worst of it,” said a panting ranger, speaking to Bob as he leaned on his shovel. “You think you have the fire under your thumb, turn away, and before you know it, it’s started all over again. It’s uncanny how the spirit of the flames persists.”
“I’ve noticed it,” agreed Bob, adding suddenly: “There’s another. Look out, it’s almost under your feet.”
Together they put out the snake-like creeping flame and then the ranger turned again to Bob. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with a grimy hand.
“There’s more than one bad fire that has started just that way,” he said. “Fire’s out apparently, everything’s peaceful and grand, people go home contented, even the rangers are satisfied there’s nothing left to do. But in spite of that we stick around and the chances are ten to one that sooner or later that fire will start up again—some distance maybe from the original place—and if we hadn’t been on the spot, there’s no telling but what a million dollars’ worth of good lumber would have gone up in smoke. Yes, sir, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”
“Do you think this one’s over?” asked Joe. He and the other boys had come up in time to hear the last part of the ranger’s discourse. Now the latter grinned.
“Never can tell,” he said, adding whimsically: “It doesn’t pay to think in this business.”