“Hold your breath, Billy; you’ll have need of it all,” the other warned him further, and accordingly Billy subsided.
All of them knew they must soon arrive at the Heffner farm. Some, who had been up there before, could picture the place in their minds, and remembered how close the woods came to the buildings on at least two sides. Unfortunately these were the north and west, for the farmer when clearing the land had concluded that the big woods might serve as a sort of wind-breaker in winter, a shield against the extreme cold.
That made it doubly bad under the present conditions. It brought the danger closer to the door of the widow. Between the woods and her outbuildings there lay only a strip of ground which bore an orchard; and it was possible that, as usual, heavy grass had been allowed to die there under the apple trees in the fall.
Hugh was considering all these things as he ran ahead, picturing them in his mind, and trying to figure out just what he should set his force to doing first.
As a rule it is the one who can plan ahead who has the better chance of success. Sometimes his schemes may go amiss, but often he saves a vast amount of time by the process. This was Hugh’s invariable method of doing things, when the chance offered.
Suddenly Hugh felt a thrill pass over him.
“Wasn’t that some one shrieking, and a kid at that?” demanded Arthur, who kept close to the side of the scout master while they ran.
“It sounded like it to me,” Hugh replied, “though it may have been a pig squealing for all we know. Let’s hit it up faster, boys; everybody let out a kink!”
Of course it was hard on Billy, but he was bound to “keep up with the procession,” as he called it, even if he burst off every button on his coat trying.
If the road had not been so very crooked they could easily have seen before this what lay ahead of them. True, the smoke was very dense, and the air seemed to be charged with a myriad of sparks that kept raining down upon them; but at that it was possible to see some distance away.