The roar and crackle and all the dreadful noise of the ocean of flame that, as far as eye could see, flooded the woods to the west seemed quite to drown the boy's loud shout.
CHAPTER X
THE LAST RUN OF THE BELOVED THIRTY
A second time Phil loudly called and now an answer showed Nels Anderson and the golfing man to be near the edge of the woods. They had completed the burning of a wide strip of the dry grass completely around the clearing, only to find their work useless. All hope of thus stopping the spread of the fire toward the buildings was destroyed by the falling embers. The wind carried them everywhere.
There was no time to lose. The danger of death from suffocation, even if the flames could be escaped, was very great. Now the roof of the house was on fire. There was not a barrel of water within miles. Further fighting, further loss of time, would be folly. Giants of the forest were flaming up from roots to topmost branch not twenty yards within the woods. The whole roadway would be ablaze, on both sides, in a few minutes.
A most pitiable object was Anderson's poor cow. Her head to the ground as if to escape the smoke, a low, frightened bellowing told of her realization of the danger. Forgetful of herself the child was saying, "Oh, poor, good bossy! Oh, poor bossy!"
The small haystack along side the crude, log barn suddenly blazed up. The dull red glow gave place to a white light all through the clearing. It was impossible now that any part of the property could be saved. Anderson and the other man came running to the car.
"It will be a close shave! Can you make it, boys?" cried the one in the golf cap, above the roar of the flames.
"You bet! Be at the lake in no time! We've often carried more'n six," yelled Paul excitedly. "Right in here!" and he held the tonneau door open wide. "You in front with Phil, Mr. Anderson!"
Even as Jones followed Mrs. Anderson, the little girl and the golfing man into the tonneau, and slammed the door behind him, the Thirty was under way. Its staunch gears were never before so quickly shifted from low to high. What mattered it if Paul did sit down hard in the strange man's lap? What mattered it if poor Nels, unused to automobiles, was jerked nearly from his seat before he got his great, clumsy legs quite inside? The raging sea of fire was bordering the trail ahead, and hundreds of little tongues of flames leaped here and there in the parched, dry grass and weeds in the road itself.