loud enough for his nephew to hear. As soon as the rescue plane had
landed them back at headquarters, Sandy had pulled his uncle aside for a
private conversation. Minutes later a carefully worded telegram was on
its way to the Pentagon:
FIRE STILL RAGING UNCHECKED HERE AT RED LAKE BUT WE PLUCKED OUR HOT
POTATO OUT BEFORE IT WAS TOO BADLY BURNED
“The local telegrapher must be really scratching his head over that
one,” Russ said with a laugh, as he and the boys sat around in a circle
on the ground eating supper.
“What happens now?” Jerry asked.
“The Air Force will fly a top-security demolition team up here pronto.
Probably tomorrow morning. The bomb will be dismantled and that will be
the end of it.... I don’t have to tell you boys that the government owes
you a debt of enormous gratitude for finding its ‘hot potato.’”
Sandy grinned. “We didn’t exactly find it. More accurately, we stumbled
over it.”
“_I_ stumbled over it,” Quiz corrected, patting his ankle, now tightly
strapped with elastic bandage. “But as I pointed out to Sandy and Jerry
before, General Steele, we owe our lives to the fact that the bomb fell
where it did. If we hadn’t had that hole to crawl into, there might have
been three well-done potatoes on that hill.”
Ranger Dick Fellows approached them with his plate and coffee mug. “Mind
if I join you fellows?”
“Sit down,” Russ invited him. “How’s the fire?”
“Looks as if she’ll lay waste the entire area due east and due north of
the end of the ridge between the two roads. All we can do now is
concentrate on the flanks. If that wind should reverse itself, she might
burn clear back to the river before we could stop her.”
The boys let out a long groan. “Oh, no!” Sandy said with disbelief.
“That couldn’t happen!”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Dick said pessimistically. “Fire in
Idaho played tag with the fire fighters for three days. Burned off
thirty thousand acres before it was controlled by—” In the middle of the
sentence, he stopped and cocked his head to one side. “Say, do you hear
what I hear?”
Sandy became aware of a loud rustling in the heavy foliage overhead.
“Sounds as if the wind is picking up again.”
“Wind nothing!” To the amazement of Russ Steele and the three boys, Dick
Fellows unexpectedly threw his mess tin high into the air and let out an
ear-splitting Indian yell.
“Holy smokes!” Jerry said, edging back from the ranger. “He’s blown his
stack.”
Sandy heard the deep rumble of thunder, and then he felt the _splat_ of
a raindrop on the top of his head, followed by another and another. Soon
they were falling all around him, making little pockmarks in the dry
dust.
“Rain!” Jerry said in an awed voice.
Dick Fellows was nearly hysterical. “Rain!” he repeated. And before
Jerry could stop him, he had snatched _his_ plate away and tossed it
into the air.
“Who’s hungry?” Sandy cried gleefully and sent his meat loaf and mashed
potatoes soaring. As if at a signal, the other fire fighters who were
eating in the grove followed suit.
“I can’t tell which it’s raining harder,” Quiz said, “gravy or water.”
Prince and a few other stray dogs who had attached themselves to the
camp were having a field day, scampering around gobbling up the
discarded food. The road was crowding up fast with men leaping about
with their faces turned to the sky. This was a rain to end all rain. It
was almost as if the sky had been filling up during all the weeks of the
drought and finally had burst open like a balloon, dumping its whole
reservoir onto the parched earth in one big splash.
Sandy saw men dancing together in a knee-deep rivulet running down a
culvert at the side of the road. He saw one man scoop up a handful of
mud and throw it at another man like a kid with a snowball.
Fire Boss Landers was standing by himself very quietly, his face turned
up to the sky, and Sandy had a feeling that tears were running down his
cheeks along with the raindrops.
Dick Fellows grabbed Sandy by the arm and pointed to a gigantic cloud
almost a mile wide that was rising and spreading across the forest to
the west.
“Smoke?” Sandy asked fearfully.
“Steam!” the ranger bawled happily. “What we couldn’t do in two days,
nature has done in a matter of minutes. The fire’s done for.”
Sandy saw his uncle walking slowly in the direction of the headquarters
tent. “Where are you going?” he called after him.
Russ turned and grinned back at them. “Don’t you guys know enough to
come in out of the rain?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
End of the Trail
Sleeping in a pup tent was out of the question that night. Ankle-deep
mud covered the ground as the rain continued unabated. Russ Steele
bunked in with Paul Landers and the boys were invited to use three empty
cots in one of the Canadian squad tents. It was pleasant sitting around
in a circle on the cots by the dim light of an oil lamp, hearing the
drops pelt and drum on the canvas sides of the tent. They shared these
quarters with two older men who were veterans of a thousand outdoor
adventures, and their stories held the boys spellbound.
But by ten o’clock none of them could keep their eyes open, and they put
out the light and rolled up in their blankets. For nine hours, Sandy
slept the deep, untroubled sleep of exhaustion until his uncle shook him
gently awake the next morning.
“Time to break camp,” Russ told him. “The helicopter pilot is going to
give us a free ride back to Red Lake. I don’t imagine Quiz will be able
to do much walking on that bad leg for a while.”
“He’s not the only one,” Sandy groaned. “I feel about ninety years old.
Every muscle in my body aches.”
“You’ll loosen up once you start moving around.”
In the next cot, Jerry pushed himself up drowsily on one elbow. “I’ll
_never_ be the same again.”
Russ Steele laughed. “Hey now, that’s no way to talk. You boys have
almost three weeks of your vacation to go.”
“What!” Jerry squawked. “It feels as though we’ve been living in the
woods all our lives.”
“Too much for you, eh?”
“Heck, no!” Jerry said hastily. “I wouldn’t have traded a minute of it
for anything.”
“Even the couple of hours we camped on the hill with that bomb?” Sandy
asked slyly.
“Absolutely not,” Jerry maintained. “Only if it’s all the same to you
guys. I’d just as soon spend the next couple of weeks camped smack in
the middle of Red Lake aboard that nifty power launch—with plenty of
water all around me.”
“I’ll buy that,” Sandy agreed.
Russ Steele nodded. “You can swim, fish and go water skiing. And explore
the lake. It’s pretty big, you know. Some day, we can cruise down to the
lower lake and visit the Indian Reservation.”
“Great!” Sandy looked around to make sure that their Canadian tent-mates
were not around. “What about the bomb? Are we just going to take off and
leave it?”
“Everything’s under control,” Russ assured him. “A special military
detail arrived at dawn to expedite that matter. You’ll be relieved to
learn that there is no trace of radioactivity in the area whatsoever.
Evidently, the casing was not shattered by the impact.”
Quiz woke up just in time to hear the last part of the conversation.
“That’s good. Last night I dreamed that I glowed in the dark like the
radium numbers on a watch face. What a nightmare!”
“So what?” Jerry said brightly. “Just think, you could read in the dark
by the light of your nose.”
Sandy swung his feet around to give Jerry’s cot a hard shove. “You
didn’t think it was so funny yesterday, old buddy.”
Russ Steele stood up. “Get a move on, boys. We don’t want to miss that
plane ride back to the lodge. I’ll meet you over at the mess tent.”
While they were dressing, Quiz began to speak self-consciously. “You
know, I never did get a chance to thank you guys.”
Sandy and Jerry exchanged puzzled looks. “Thank us for what?”
“Oh, you know,” Quiz said gruffly. “I mean you two wouldn’t have been
trapped by the fire if you hadn’t come back to look for me. Well, you
risked your lives to save me. I don’t know quite how to say it, but—”
“Don’t say it,” Sandy cut in, bending over quickly to tie his shoelace.
“Have it engraved on a medal.”
“Solid gold,” Jerry added. “None of this cheap gold-plated stuff.”
“Aw, wait a minute!” Quiz roared. “I’m trying to be serious.”
“On second thought,” Jerry said, “the town of Valley View might have
given us a gold _cup_ if we hadn’t bothered.” He ducked as Quiz heaved a
shoe at him.
“Oafs!” Quiz fumed.
Sandy laughed. “Old buddy, you know perfectly well that we couldn’t have
deserted anybody in a spot like that—not even Pepper March.”
“Good old Pepper,” Jerry mused. “He sure will feel bad that _you_ got
off that hill, Sandy. Just imagine, that would have left the quarterback
slot on the school team wide open for him this fall.”
“Good night!” Sandy sat up straight. “That’s right, summer is
practically over. In less than three weeks, the new term starts.”
Jerry slumped forward sadly on the edge of his cot. “You know what I
just did? I just went and ruined the rest of my vacation.” He sniffed as
the smell of frying bacon drifted into the tent. “But not my appetite.
Come on, you guys, let’s go to chow.”
SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES
1. BLACK TREASURE
Sandy Steele and Quiz spend an action-filled summer in the oil fields of
the Southwest. In their search for oil and uranium, they unmask a
dangerous masquerader.
2. DANGER AT MORMON CROSSING
On a hunting trip in the Lost River section of Idaho, Sandy and Mike
ride the rapids, bag a mountain lion, and stumble onto the answer to a
hundred-year-old mystery.
3. STORMY VOYAGE
Sandy and Jerry James ship as deck hands on one of the “long boats” of
the Great Lakes. They are plunged into a series of adventures and find
themselves involved in a treacherous plot.
4. FIRE AT RED LAKE
Sandy and his friends pitch in to fight a forest fire in Minnesota. Only
they and Sandy’s uncle know that there is an unexploded A-bomb in the
area to add to the danger.
5. SECRET MISSION TO ALASKA
A pleasant Christmas trip turns into a startling adventure. Sandy and
Jerry participate in a perilous dog-sled race, encounter a wounded bear,
and are taken as hostages by a ruthless enemy.
6. TROUBLED WATERS
When Sandy and Jerry mistakenly sail off in a stranger’s sloop instead
of their own, they land in a sea of trouble. Their attempts to
outmaneuver a desperate crew are intertwined with fascinating sailing
lore.
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)