“What’s matter?” he muttered, as he scrambled sleepily to his feet. “Time get up?”
“You bet it is—high time,” replied Tom, and the excitement in his voice effectually aroused the faithful giant. “The woods to the north of the oil well are on fire, and the flames are coming toward us fast. We’ve got to put that fire out, Koku.”
“I do that,” declared Koku confidently.
“Get a shovel and follow me,” ordered Tom. “You might take an axe along too,” he added. “The only chance we’ve got is to clear a space ahead of the flames that they can’t jump over. If we can do that, we may save the well yet,” and he and Koku started at a fast run toward the oncoming flames.
The fire had not yet reached the oil belt, but it was not over a mile from it when the young inventor and his faithful giant arrived on the scene. Everybody that could handle a shovel or an axe was there, but they were working without leadership until Tom arrived. He took control at once, and in a few minutes everybody knew just what he was expected to do.
By this time the heat of the fire was intense, and the smoke enveloped those fighting it in a stifling cloud. Hot sparks and embers floated over their heads, and threatened at any moment to kindle new fires nearer the oil well. Tom detailed three of the drillers to watch for these incipient fires and smother them or beat them out before they got serious. Ned and Mr. Damon, together with the rest of the drilling gang and such of the neighbors as had come to help, he put to work digging ditches and clearing the ground in the path of the approaching flames of its dried underbrush, while he and Koku set about chopping down some of the trees that grew on the hillside.
They were not large trees, scarcely more than saplings in fact, but there were a great many of them.
“Now, Koku,” shouted Tom, “work as you’ve never worked before.”
“Me do,” answered the giant, as he tightened his hold on the axe.
Tom himself was an expert at wielding an axe, and he swung with a tireless stroke that soon showed results, but for every sapling that he brought down Koku felled two. In the red glare of the oncoming fire the giant worked like a demon, his great muscles swelling and knotting as he swung the blade of his axe in gleaming circles. The heat increased until it became so unbearable that everybody else had to fall back, but he hardly seemed to feel it. He kept at work until the fire was almost on top of him, and Tom yelled to him to come back. But by that time they had cut a long swath along the side of the hill between the fire and the well. Other workers had pretty well cleared up the underbrush and drawn the bulk of it back, apparently out of the reach of the oncoming flames.