“Sit down,” Russ invited him. “How’s the fire?”
“Looks as if she’ll lay waste the entire area due east and due north of the end of the ridge between the two roads. All we can do now is concentrate on the flanks. If that wind should reverse itself, she might burn clear back to the river before we could stop her.”
The boys let out a long groan. “Oh, no!” Sandy said with disbelief. “That couldn’t happen!”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Dick said pessimistically. “Fire in Idaho played tag with the fire fighters for three days. Burned off thirty thousand acres before it was controlled by—” In the middle of the sentence, he stopped and cocked his head to one side. “Say, do you hear what I hear?”
Sandy became aware of a loud rustling in the heavy foliage overhead. “Sounds as if the wind is picking up again.”
“Wind nothing!” To the amazement of Russ Steele and the three boys, Dick Fellows unexpectedly threw his mess tin high into the air and let out an ear-splitting Indian yell.
“Holy smokes!” Jerry said, edging back from the ranger. “He’s blown his stack.”
Sandy heard the deep rumble of thunder, and then he felt the splat of a raindrop on the top of his head, followed by another and another. Soon they were falling all around him, making little pockmarks in the dry dust.
“Rain!” Jerry said in an awed voice.
Dick Fellows was nearly hysterical. “Rain!” he repeated. And before Jerry could stop him, he had snatched his plate away and tossed it into the air.