CHAPTER X
“LADDER” LANE’S SOIRÉE
“And down from off the mountains in the shooting sheets of flame
The devils of Katahdin come to play their reg’lar game.
So ’tis: men hold tight! Pray for mornin’ light!
Katahdin’s caves are empty and hell’s broke loose to-night!”
—Ha’nt of Pamola.
As the hours of the day went on, Colin MacLeod, caged, helpless, set high on the bald brow of old Jerusalem, where every phase of the great fire was spread before his eyes, found abundant opportunity to curse himself for a fool. In time, of course, Attean or some other point would realize the extent of the conflagration and call for help. But now, hidden under Jerusalem and confined to the slash under the green trees, it was a racing ground-fire that crouched and ran. It came rapidly, but in a measure secretly. It showed a subtility of selection. It did not waste time on the green forest of beeches and maples. It was hurrying north towards its traditional prey. That prey was waiting for it, rooted on the slopes of Jerusalem and the Umcolcus, on the Attean and the Enchanted—the towering black growth of hemlock, pine, and spruce—the apple of Pulaski Britt’s commercial eye—the hope of his associates. Once there, it would spring from its crouching race on the ground. It would climb the resinous trunks and torch and flare and rage and roar in the tinder-tops—a dreaded “crown-fire” that only the exhaustion of fuel or the rains of God would stop.
Attean would see that fire leaping past Jerusalem, and would swear and wonder and report too late.
Just now hours were as precious as days.
Men could do nothing at mid-day with the wind lashing behind. MacLeod knew well how that fire should be fought. But with men on the way ready to flank it at nightfall and work ahead of it with pick and shovel and beating branches of green—the winds stilled and the dews condensing—it could be conquered—it must be conquered then, if at all.