Mr. Bentley had said that they needed men, men and more men. And they knew that what he had said was nothing to what he had left unsaid. Hardened veteran as he was of many forest fires, a blaze such as this promised to be would try even his tested courage. Well, they’d show him what Radio Boys could do!
They paused for a moment outside the lodge to get their bearings. No need to ask in which direction the blaze was now. No longer need to hunt for evidences of the terror. For plainly visible now was the curtain of red, broken and torn by darting tongues of flame that shot heavenward, painting a dull reflection on the sky.
They could hear the hoarse shouts of the men who risked their lives in battle with the terrible enemy, the crackling of burning trees, could smell the pungent acrid smell of burning wood.
“Come on, fellows!” cried Herb excitedly. “We don’t have to ask the way, do we?”
“Couldn’t miss it,” shouted Joe, giving the gasping Jimmy a lift over the tangled branches of a fallen tree.
“Look out for that hole, fellows,” warned Bob, for, with their eyes upon that wavering, changing curtain of red, the boys had come very near pitching headlong into a hole made by the torn-up roots of a tree. “Wouldn’t do to break a leg just now.”
It was deceitful—that fire line. It had seemed just ahead of them, but, although they ran as fast as they could, it seemed always to be just as far ahead of them.
“Maybe it’s going the other way,” panted Jimmy, his lungs feeling as though they would burst.
“Couldn’t,” Bob shouted back. “The wind’s blowing right toward us. I think it’s just the other side of the hill.”
For a long time they had been climbing steadily, and as they neared the top of the hill they seemed at last to be approaching the fire. Or was it approaching them? With that wind——