A quarter of a mile up the trail the smell of smoke was plain. Over a knoll they dashed, and they saw smoke in the forest ahead. A moment later they heard the crackle, and then they were on the fire. It was a small one as yet, evidently just under way, but it was licking savagely into the small trees and the dead stuff, all dry as tinder or else full of inflammable pitch. And the flames were moving toward them!
Norman wheeled. “Go back!” he yelled. “Stop the train where it is, and tell Joe to stay with the horses while the rest bring up all the axes, and that camp spade in my pack. Then you go back as fast as you can to the Ranger Station and tell the ranger. If he isn’t there, find him!”
Bennie wheeled his horse, and dashed back. He gave the message to the rest, and kept on. Both he and his horse were panting, drenched with sweat and thick with dust, when he reached the Ranger Station again. The ranger was there, as good luck would have it. While Bennie watered his horse, he telephoned for help; then he saddled and galloped up the trail, with Bennie behind him, but some way behind, for Bennie’s horse was getting weary.
When Bennie reached the pack train, Joe, the cook, had all the horses lined up facing back toward the station, ready to retreat if the fire came nearer. Everybody else had gone to fight the flames. So Bennie left his horse, too, and with stiff, aching legs, ran up the trail. As he drew near the scene, he could see, between him and the flames that were still confined to the smaller trees and the stuff on the forest floor, five men and two boys working like mad. Norman was digging a little ditch, while the rest, with axes and scout hatchets, were chopping down the small trees to make an open lane several feet wide. They had this lane and ditch cut across the direct path of the fire, and were swinging it around on each end, as if they were going to enclose the flames in a big ring. Bennie grabbed a hatchet, and went madly to work with the rest.
Nobody was wasting any breath talking. The fire was coming nearer all the time, and the nearer it came the hotter they grew. But when, in the centre, it reached the lane and ditch—and stopped, they gave a loud cheer, and worked all the harder to get around the two sides before it could spread out.
“If only the wind won’t change!” the ranger did say, breathlessly, and then stooped to his work.
It is doubtful if they could have outflanked the fire, however, with only eight pairs of hands, if help had not arrived. Half a dozen men came galloping up, their horses rearing and snorting at sight of the flames, and leaped off with spades and axes. With this new, fresh help, the fire was outflanked on the two sides, and as it moved more slowly back against the slight wind, they were able to get it under control.
When the danger was over, they paused, wiped their hot, dripping, dirty faces, and looked at the burned area.
It was hardly more than an acre in extent, but an acre, as Bennie said, is quite enough to dig a ditch around in a hurry, without proper tools.
“Thank the Lord it’s no more,” the ranger declared. “If you hadn’t spotted it when you did, it would have worked down into those thicker pines over the knoll, and then we’d have been in for a real overhead fire, and no mistake. Once in there it would jump up into the big fellows.”