“Work on the windward side first!” ordered Hugh, with the sagacity that leadership in an energetic scout organization is apt to bestow upon any wideawake youth. “Here, snatch up these old lap-robes, and souse them in the water. If you beat at the flames just as we did when the woods on fire that time, you’ll find they can be mastered. Everybody get busy!”
“Whoop! watch my smoke, will you!” cried Bud, starting off with a rush.
There chanced to be some old lap-robes in the car that Bud had managed to secure, not of any great value, to be sure, so far as things of beauty went, but bound to be of great value in an emergency like the present. Each of the three scouts managed to secure possession of one of these, and it required but a brief time to submerge the same in the swift flowing and deep stream.
With this soaking cloth in hand the energetic boys started to fight the fire, slapping at the running flames as they curled along the side of the bridge in long spirals that resembled creeping snakes.
When three lively fellows get started at a task of this sort it is wonderful what remarkable progress they can attain. With each stout blow it seemed as though the fire that was threatening to demolish the entire wooden structure received a serious setback. The boys fought their way completely across the bridge, which was not of any great length.
“Good enough for us!” cried the panting Bud. “We’ve licked that line of skirmishers; do we tackle the other side now, Hugh?”
“One good turn deserves another, so go for it!” advised the leader, setting a pace himself that kept the others hustling to continue in the same class.
Success is always encouraging, and, having found that they could get the better of those creeping flames, the three boys fought all the harder, determined to crush the fire completely.
“A little more elbow grease, boys, and victory is going to perch on our banner!” Bud was crying, while he slapped that scorched laprobe again and again on the railing of the bridge, even mopping up the floor with it when occasion demanded.
The boys were past masters at this sort of thing. They had served their time at it on another occasion, when the woods, catching fire not many miles from Oakvale, they had been called upon to help save certain isolated farmhouses and crops that were threatened with destruction.[2]