“Lack of oxygen,” Quiz theorized. “The fire steals it out of the air.”
Sandy remembered a dreadful story he had heard about a dozen men who had taken shelter in a cave in the midst of a forest fire. The fire hadn’t touched them, but they had all died nevertheless. The fire had exhausted all the oxygen in the cave in the same way that a candle will when it burns under a glass bell in a laboratory experiment. He was glad that this was an open pit high on the side of a hill.
“We had better get started,” he said. “Quiz has a bad leg, Jerry, so you and I will do the heavy work. Quiz do you think you can follow us up with a hoe?”
“Sure thing,” Quiz said promptly. “I think the old ankle will hold up.”
They worked in a frenzy, fear and desperation lending them strength and endurance that Sandy had never realized they had. Only minutes before, he had felt he was too weary to lift an ax, much less swing one in such tireless fashion. In less than twenty minutes, they had cleared a broad ribbon around the rim of the crater.
The hill was ringed in flames now. Below them the fire swept through the grass from the wood line and started up the slope. The sparse growth on the crest was ablaze, and on either side a dozen little spot fires, ignited by flying embers, spread and merged.
Sandy jumped down into the loose sand and gravel of the crater. “C’mon, you guys! Let’s shovel this stuff up all around the edges to form a barricade.”
Grabbing a shovel, he plunged it into the sand. There was a dull clank of metal jarring against metal, about two inches below the surface.
“Wow!” he exclaimed, feeling the impact vibrate through the handle into his hands. “What did I hit?”
“Maybe a chest of pirate gold,” Jerry suggested, leaping into the hole after Sandy.