He swung and spun in diminishing circles until finally the ladder was still. Then he began to climb as fast as he dared, praying that the wind wouldn’t play any more tricks on him. At last, strong arms reached down to pull him through the hatch into the plane, and he collapsed on the floor, temporarily speechless. The most he could manage was a weak smile of assurance for his uncle.
Russ Steele had aged ten years since Sandy had seen him earlier that afternoon. He put both hands on Sandy’s shoulders and squeezed so hard the boy winced. “Thank God you’re safe,” he said gratefully. “When I read that note—” His voice choked. “Prince was nagging at me for over an hour before I spotted that paper in his collar. Look, we’ll talk about it later. I’ve got to get those other boys up here.”
Within a few minutes, Sandy had recovered sufficiently to crawl over to the hatch and watch Jerry make the precarious ascent. This time the ’copter behaved itself, but Jerry had a great deal of difficulty mastering the Jacob’s ladder. Every time he raised a foot and placed it on another rung, foot and ladder would swing out and up and Jerry would find himself hanging parallel to the ground. Russ Steele yelled to him through the loud-speaker.
“Jerry, use your arms! Lift with your arms and push with your feet at the same time. They’ve got to work together.”
“Lucky thing I’ve been on those ladders before,” Sandy observed sympathetically. “Poor Jerry.”
But Jerry was eventually pulled aboard without any accident and lay puffing and wheezing on the floorboards like a beached whale.
Quiz had the easiest ascent of all, standing on the bottom rung of the ladder while it was hauled up to the plane.
Then the ’copter’s engines roared and it went leaping into the sky like a big grasshopper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Rains Came
Because of this latest emergency, Fire Boss Landers had moved his headquarters about two miles down the road to the junction of the two big firebreaks. Over four hundred smoke-eaters were strung out along this line. Twice they had fought the fire on its own terms in the thick forest and had had victory within their grasp—only to see it get away from them. Now, tired and discouraged, they had retreated to strong defensive positions established years before for just such an emergency. They would wait until the fire came to them, hurling itself against the firebreaks as a wild beast throws itself against the bars of its cage. They would watch its struggles become weaker and weaker until, at last, it would burn itself out. But in some vague, intangible way, they felt that the fire had really won the battle. For it would be hundreds of years before man and nature could rebuild what the fire had destroyed.