Bill Bruce on Forest Patrol

by Henry Harley Arnold

“Go over to that pile of tools and get another shovel,” said Sam. “One axe ought to do for both of you.”

They started out down the side of the ridge. Sam Crouch had a shovel, some gunny-sacks and an axe; Bill was carrying the same load. Bob followed along with a shovel. Bill was rather put out that he had been called a tenderfoot. He was determined that he would show them that he had the strength and endurance of any of these so-called woodsmen. He would show them when they started to work on the fire.

Crouch soon left the trail and struck directly through the woods. He walked with a long swinging stride that covered ground rapidly. Bill found that it took everything that he had to keep up. The bushes were up to their necks. The branches caught the shovels and axes, but Sam never slowed down a bit.

The footing was none too good. They were going down hill and the pine needles were slippery. When they were not traveling on the needles, they were forcing their way through dense underbrush with tangled vines and ferns which caught in their feet and tripped them. At times Bill had difficulty in keeping Sam Crouch in sight. When Bill stopped to release his feet from a vine, Sam disappeared ahead, and then Bill had to hurry to catch up. Sam never showed the slightest indications of slowing down. It was always on, on, down the mountain side.

Occasionally they would encounter a tree trunk which extended across their line of march. If it was comparatively small, Sam would jump over it. If it was too large to climb over, he would turn along the trunk and go around the end. Bill had to admit that he was getting tired.

The mountain side seemed endless. Bill was sure that Sam had lost his way and was wandering about through the forest aimlessly. He could not see the direction that they were following, for the underbrush and trees overhead limited his view to the immediate surroundings. He saw Sam stop a short distance ahead. Now they were certainly going to have a rest. When he came up to the woodsman he found out his mistake. They had reached an extra large tree trunk bordering on a steep, rocky cliff which took some maneuvering to pass.

The sun was completely hidden by the smoke, but the heat was stifling. The crackling of the burning timber sounded as if it were a few feet distant. Bill jumped backward when he heard the first falling tree. The tree dropped with a crash which resounded throughout the valley. He could not imagine what had caused the noise at first, for it had come so unexpectedly. It reminded him of the first bomb that he had heard when the Germans bombed the airdrome from which he was flying in France—no advance warning, nothing to herald its approach, just the crash and “wham” of the exploding bomb. After thinking it over, he was sure that it was a falling tree which had caused the noise. There was nothing else around which could have caused the same shattering roar. It must have been a large tree, too.

They came out into the open and Bill obtained a view of the valley below and the opposite ridge Crouch stopped to study the fire and make up his plan for fighting it. He stood awestruck, watching the terrible sight across the small valley. Bob came up and joined him. Both were tired, but the sight held them spellbound.

The fire seemed to reach from the bottom of the valley to the top of the ridge, and from one end of the mountain to the other. The exact limits were not discernible on account of the thick foliage. Smoke was boiling up with a rush over an area of about eight hundred acres. Down along the McKenzie there had not been much wind, but here around the fire a strong east wind was driving the smoke and fire before it. At times the flames shot up into the air at least a hundred feet and then died down and disappeared below the foliage. The smoke poured up incessantly.

Although they were still at least a quarter of a mile away from the near edge of the fire, the noise was deafening. Bill was watching a large tree in the midst of the fire. The fire had evidently been burning around it for some time, and it must have weathered prior fires which weakened its trunk, for it suddenly fell with a crash that sent a cloud of smoke and fire upwards with a roar. He could not tell which was the louder, the shattering crash of the tree or the roar of the flames. When the wind struck that column of smoke and fire, it scattered sparks in all directions and new fires seemed to start in parts of the forest hitherto untouched.