“Done,” yelled a half-dozen voices at once.
“Better sleep while you can,” the voice called back, “you won’t get much at the fire. Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Sort of a poor bet,” Bill mused, “because he is the man who can order us out; but I’m willing to pay up all right for the chance, if we have to go ten miles to find the fire.”
“Well,” Morris yawned, “I guess he’s right about the sleep, anyway, and I’m going to turn in.”
Everyone else seemed to be of the same opinion and they filed off to bed. In half an hour the chorus of snores rolling up from the upper porches bore witness to the fatigues of the day’s hike and complete loss of interest in the fire situation. The stillness of the forest—really made up of the countless small noises of the insects, birds, and roaming night-walkers of the animal world—settled over everything. Not a leaf stirred. Even the columns of black smoke which rolled up incessantly on the horizon thinned out to a wavering gray streak as the dampness of the night cooled the ferocity of the fires.
In spite of the stillness and the favorable prospects of a peaceful night a faint light still glowed in the office and the foreman, ready dressed, slept on a couch beside the telephone. About midnight the lonely call of a timber wolf brought an answering hoot from an old owl in a neighboring swamp, and as though in recognition of these gruesome sounds of life a shiver passed through the leaves of the aspen trees. It must have penetrated to the marrow of their limbs for they continued to shiver more and more violently long after the reverberating echoes of the night calls had died away. Here and there little ripples appeared on the surface of the glassy lake. A dull roar to the southward, like the groan of a mighty monster would have caused the city man to murmur “Thunder,” and roll over for another nap, but to the foreman who sat up wide-eyed in his couch at the first rumble, it spoke of the winds in the pines and no gentle breeze at that.
“If there are any fires in the south, Jones will have his hands full. And so will we,” he added, “if this wind keeps up and they don’t get her blocked before morning. Well, I’m glad that it’s not from the north or west.” And with that, after a long look out of the window behind him he went back to sleep.
Already those menacing columns of smoke were answering to the call of the wind. They no longer wandered hesitatingly upward in hazy fashion, but bent sharply to the northward, stretching their covetous arms over the doomed forest. The smoke rapidly increased in volume and blackened the whole sky, while here and there a dull red glowed fretfully on the horizon. The dew was keeping down the flames, but the wind was fanning the glowing coals to a fury which needed only the help of the drying morning sun to cause them to leap away like a cyclone over the whole ill-fated woods. Under ordinary conditions such a wind storm could only precede a rainstorm, but the drought had lasted so long that every particle of moisture seemed to have dried from the atmosphere and the dry wind seemed only to evaporate the dew and make the ground more dry.
Scarcely had the foreman picked up the lost thread of his dream when the telephone bell rang long and violently. He was on his feet in an instant.