The Boy With the U. S. Foresters

by Francis Rolt-Wheeler

THE FOREST ABLAZE

As Wilbur broke into a steady, if fast pace, it seemed to him that all his previous experiences in the forest had been directed to this one end. True, once before, he had seen smoke in the distance and had ridden to it, but then he had felt that it was a small fire which he would be able to put out, as indeed it had proved. But now, while there was no greater cloud of smoke visible than there had been before, the boy felt that this was in some measure different.

As his horse's hoofs clattered on the trail, it seemed to his excited fancy that every inch of ground was crying to the valley below, "He's coming," the wind that blew past him seemed filled with purpose, every eddying gust awoke in him a greater desire to reach the place of danger before the wind should rise to higher gusts, and as the needles of the pines whispered overhead it seemed to Wilbur that they murmured, "Hurry, hurry, if you want to be there on time." Over and over again, he found himself on the point of using the whip or spurs to induce a greater burst of speed, but as often as he did so, the old short, curtly-worded counsels of Merritt came back to him, never to press his horse if the ride was to be of any length, and he grew to believe that the animal knew as well as the rider the errand on which he was bound.

He had thought, before starting, of riding back to his camp and telephoning to Rifle-Eye, but the knowledge that after all it might be a little fire kept him back. All the tales that he had ever heard about forest fires rushed through his mind, but he resolutely set them aside to watch his horse's path, to hold him in where he would be apt to stumble, to give him his head on rising ground, and to bring him to speed where the trail was easy to follow. Two hours he rode, his horse well in hand, until he came to the place where he had decided from his lookout point that he would have to leave the trail and plunge through the forest itself.

This was a very different matter, and Wilbur found himself wondering how his horse kept his footing. He was not riding Kit, for which he was glad, as in leaving the trail and plunging downhill he had struck some parts of the forest where undergrowth was present, and his favorite mare's slender legs would have been badly scratched. Also the footing grew dangerous and uncertain. There had been many windfalls in the forest, and now was no time to take them quietly; a flying leap, not knowing what might be on the other side, a stumble, perhaps, which sent the boy's heart into his mouth, a quick recovery, and they were off again, only to find, perhaps, a few yards further on, a bowlder-strewn gully which it would have been madness to take at other than a walk. But the boy chafed terribly at each and every stay to his ride, and he had to hold himself in hand as much as he had his horse.

Little by little the exhilaration of the ride stole into his veins. He was alone in the forest, he and his horse, the world was all before, and he must ride and ride. He shouted as he rode under the towering pines, raced across a clearing with a whoop that roused the echoes, and yelled for sheer delight in the mad ride through the untraveled forest, where, as the knights of old, he rode forth to conquer and to do.

But a sudden, sharp, acrid whiff of vapor in his nostrils checked his riotous impulses. It was one thing to ride out to meet the foe, it was another matter when the foe was known to be near. A half mile nearer and the acrid taste in the air turned to a defined veil of smoke, intangible and unreal, at first, which merely seemed to hang about the trunks of the mighty trees and make them seem dim and far away. Nearer yet, and the air grew hard to breathe, the smoke was billowing through the foliage of the pines, which sighed wearily and moaned in a vague fear of the enemy they dreaded most.

A curving gully, too wide to leap, too deep to cross readily, had deflected the boy in his ride until he found himself to the lee of the fire, and the heat of it, oppressive and menacing, assailed him.

Remembering the lay of the land, as he had seen it from his lookout point, Wilbur recalled the fact that no peak or rise was in the vicinity up which he could ride to gain a nearer view of the fire, and he did not dare to ride on and find himself on the windward side of the fire, for then his efforts to hold it back would be unavailing. He rode slowly till he came to the highest tree near. Then, dismounting, Wilbur tied his horse to the foot of the tree, tied him as securely as he knew how, for the animal was snorting in fear at being thus fastened up when the smoke was over his head and the smell of the fire was in his nostrils. Then, buckling on his climbing irons, which he had carried with him that morning because he had thought, if he had time, he might do a little repairing to his telephone line, he started up the side of the great tree. Up and up he went, fifty, sixty, one hundred feet, and still he was not at the top; another twenty feet, and there far above the ground, he rested at last upon a branch whence he could command an outlook upon the forest below.

The fire was near, much nearer than he had imagined, and had he ridden on another ten or fifteen minutes, he might have taken his horse in danger. The blaze was larger than he thought. For half a mile's length, at least, the smoke was rising, and what was beyond he could not rightly see, because the branches of a large tree obscured his sight.