“Poor chap,” Dan murmured, looking after the fleeing deer, “he’s safe now, but the wolves will be eating many a roast partridge and quill pig back in there about next week.”
The rush of the fire died as suddenly as it had started. Only for a few minutes the flames raged furiously along the brow of the hill, then it dropped down to the ground and became a mere brush fire, crawling slowly down the slope to meet the backfire which was already creeping close to the foot of the hill. Ominous crackling, snapping and booming told of the destructive work going on beyond the ridge, but the mighty initial rush of the flames was over. The blast of hot air made the sting of the smoke almost unbearable, and it hastened the burning of the backfire. It swept up the hill with a speed and roar which would, a few minutes before, have seemed marvelous but now in comparison with that fury of the main fire driven by that furnace heat seemed but a paltry bonfire. The fronts of the two fires met, consumed whatever was within their reach and died away to a few smoldering logs.
Sturgis appeared once more, this time from the direction of the road where he had been scouting to the eastward to see what progress the fire was making outside of the park. He addressed himself to Dan.
“That fire that just came up over the hill crossed the road from the eastward just north of Alcohol Lake away ahead of the fire we saw in the Park. Good thing we did not try to head it farther down. The fire on the other side of the road is still a half-mile south.”
“What made her go so much faster inside?” Dan objected.
“Don’t you remember that tangle of dead brush and slashings between here and Alcohol?” Sturgis asked. “That’s what did it. They have been burned up on the outside. You take Pat and Phil and see that the fire does not cross the road behind us. Let Phil take the teams up to the Lodge. I think maybe you can stop that outside fire at the turn of the road. It’s four o’clock and she’ll begin to run a little slower before long.”
“Leave that to us,” Dan answered confidently; “she’ll never get in behind you.”
“All right,” said Sturgis, “I’ll get the boys together over there at the lake for lunch and by that time Franklin ought to be back.”
Scott went out with Sturgis to the wagons to get the lunch and they carried it over to the little lakes, collecting the fellows as they went. It was a tired, hungry crew that sat around the campfire and swapped adventures.
“When I saw that fire this morning,” Bill Price said, “I thought those fellows last year were telling us some fairy stories, but when I heard them feeding the lions over back of that ridge and saw the fireworks on top of the hill I concluded they had never been to a forest fire. How did you fellows feel over there in the brush when that little inferno stunt was pulled off?”