Helen repeated the question, then looked blankly at Janet.
“See if you can hear him,” she urged and Janet took the receiver.
“Hello, Mr. Thorne,” she said. But there was no answer. She repeated the question and this time when there was no answer mechanically hung up the receiver.
“The line’s dead,” she told Helen. “The fire must have brought down the poles.”
The girls stared hard at each other through smoke-rimmed eyes. The telephone had given them a sense of security, a feeling of contact with the outside world. Now they were cut off with the flames behind them and only the rugged hills ahead.
THE FIRE SWEEPS ON
When Janet and Helen returned to the spacious ranch yard, they found the men in the company gathered in a council of war near the bus. They were debating whether to risk remaining at the ranch or attempt to push on into the hills and onto higher ground.
Billy Fenstow felt the ranch would be safe and was loath to attempt to go any further, but Curt Newsom, who had been watching the shifting clouds of crimson, was wary.