Colin’s mind was telegraphing back to the moment when he lay on the salt-marshes that morning, hungry for the woods. If any one had told him that, before night, he would assist at a forest drama like this!
“Hush! Don’t speak for fear you’d hoodoo it! We haven’t got it yet—the fire! Perhaps—perhaps—I can’t make it burn.” It was the most wonderful moment of his life for the boy scout as he now took a pinch of the cedar-wood tinder, half-enclosed in a piece of paper-like birch-bark and held it down upon the red fire-germ—in all following the teaching of the great Chief Scout.
Then he lifted the slab of wood that served as tray, bearing the ruddy fire-embryo and tinder, and blew upon it evenly, gently. It blazed. The miracle was complete.
“Wonderful stunt!” murmured Starrie Chase again. His hand in its restless uneasiness had been plucking large flakes of moss from the gray rock behind him and turning them over, revealing the medicinal gold thread that embroidered the earthy underside of the sod; he was sucking that bitter fibre—supposed to be good for a sore mouth, but no panacea for a sprained ankle—while a like gold thread of fascinated speculation embroidered the ruddy mask of his face.
“Hurrah! we’ll have a fire right away now, that will talk to us all night long.” The triumphant scout lowered the flame-bud to the ground, piled over it some of the resinous pine-splinters and strips of inflammatory bark, fanning it steadily with his hat. In a few minutes a rollicking camp-fire was roaring in front of the old Bear’s Den.
“Now! we must gather some big chunks, dry roots and stumps, to keep the fire going through the night, cut sods to put round it and prevent its spreading into the woods, and break up some pine-tips to strew in the cave for a bed. There’s lots of work ahead still, fellows, before we can be snug for the night!”
The scout, having got his second breath with his great achievement, was working hard as he spoke; Marcoo and Colin followed his example in renewed spirits. Leon, chafing at his own inactivity, tried to stand and sank down with a groan.
“How’s the thunderstorm sprain?” they asked him.
“Worse—ugh-h! And I’m parched with thirst—still!”