“Perhaps that’s your son returning?” suggested Spike.
“No, it ain’t him,” declared Mrs. Walsh, putting her hand to her ear. “Tom took ther heavy farm waggin, and it would make a louder noise than that. Besides, Polly always whinnies when she’s nearin’ home, an’ ther ol’ mare answers her.”
“It’s a horse and buggy,” Hugh announced from his look-out. “There comes another, with three men in it. Hand me one more bucket-full, Spike, old scout. Now! I guess we’ve soused the stack enough.”
He slid down the slippery side of the straw-stack, and the three workers awaited the coming of the first arrivals from the village.
“I’m goin’ back to see how my ol’ man’s gettin’ on; he’s like to be fussin’ an’ frettin’,” said Mrs. Walsh. “If Tom’s come back in thet buggy, leavin’ the waggin ter be fetched later, he’ll know what ter do now.”
So saying, she walked slowly away to the warm, dry cellar where her husband directed the proceedings like a general on a battlefield.
In a few minutes the buggy rattled into the farmyard, and Tom Walsh and his two companions sprang from it to pour a volley of questions and thanks upon the two boys. It was not long before the farmyard became the scene of a motley gathering of Oakvale’s livelier inhabitants, men, women, and children, who drove up in all sorts of vehicles, including automobiles, and brought every conceivable implement for fighting a forest fire. Most of them did not linger there long, but set out for the woods.
Billy Worth arrived on horseback.
“’Twasn’t possible to fetch the hosecart all this way up here,” explained Tom, “but we got everything else we could lay hands on.”
Presently, in a large touring-car owned by a resident of Oakvale, came Lieutenant Denmead, Walter, Arthur, and Cooper, and they brought with them Alec and Blake, whom they had picked up on the way. By unanimous wish, the scouts lost no time in hurrying to the woods after the other fire-fighters, and all did yeoman service in putting out the blaze.