THE new Forest Ranger for the Big Sur District and Elmer Bunty, his
Scout, rode rapidly away from the doctor’s camp on the night of the
fire alarm. They spoke sharply and concisely to each other and were
immensely cool and collected about it all, but each of them was high
keyed with excitement. To the boy, it was a vivid drama, staged for his
especial benefit, and to Dean Wolcott it was the final stage of his
proving. Hotly as he had exulted when Ginger yielded for that instant
and keenly as he had wanted that moment with her by the creek, away
from the gay and strident music and the gay and friendly people, he
was glad, now, for its postponement. When he had conquered his first
fire he would go to her with another decoration, another evidence of
his citizenship in her vigorous world: he smiled at his heroics but he
continued to be satisfied that things had worked out as they had.
Snort was making for the cottage at Post’s at an eager pace and the
Mabel horse galloped earnestly and clumsily after them, and sometimes
the rhythm of the hurrying hoofs was like the lilt and swing of the
music, back at the Lodge ... when Ginger was in his arms.
There was an hour of swift and sure preparation and then a snatch of
sleep; and at the first graying light of dawn they were on their way.
Rusty, the Airedale, was left at Post’s, but before they had ridden an
hour he had overtaken them, panting with a violence which seemed almost
to rend him asunder, a bit of torn rope hanging to his collar.
“He _has_ to be with me,” said Elmer Bunty, proudly. “I’ll take care of
him, Ranger.” So the shabby little dog went on with them, and rested
thankfully while they made a brief stop at the Golinda ranch; Mateo
Golinda had left an hour earlier for the fire, and his wife would ride
after them with food and coffee late in the afternoon.
“It’s your first fire, isn’t it?” she said, regarding him thoughtfully
with her bright and friendly eyes. “It’s hard, heart-breaking work, but
I think you’ll enjoy fighting--and winning. Mateo is wonderful; he
will be at your right hand.”
She had cleverly calculated the time they would be passing and had
stirrup cups of hot chocolate for them; she set them off as blithely
as if they had been going to a barbecue. A heartening person, Margaret
Golinda; across a continent and an ocean, down the long corridor of the
years, her house would always be “King’s X!” to Dean Wolcott.
They rode on together, the Ranger and the Scout on Snort and the Mabel
horse with the Airedale plodding sturdily behind, and soon there
was tangible evidence of the red demon in the distance. The boy was
stout-heartedly ready for action and the young man considered him with
warm and possessive pride. Air and exercise and good food had nourished
his meager little body and comradely appreciation had fed his starved
soul. A very different creature, this, from the one who had come into
Pfeiffer’s on the stage that day, clinging and timid, and yet the old
wise women of the ranches told Dean Wolcott--“that boy’ll never make
old bones,” and the doctor shook his head. “If you’d gotten hold of
him two years ago--” he said once.
But the Ranger refused to accept these dark forebodings; young Elmer
Bunty had wriggled his way deep into his reserved affections and he had
no intention of leaving a stone unturned to save him, body and brain.
For a week, now, he had been revolving schemes in his mind. His San
Francisco friend had written him, acknowledging receipt of the Scout’s
salary for delivery to the aunt.
Your Scout’s relative appeared to-day with her usual punctuality
to collect the reckless wage which you are lavishing upon him, but
after bestowing it in what I think she would call her safety pocket
she remarked that it would be her last collecting call; she was, she
stated, taking Edna and going “back east to her husband’s folks.” She
has long contemplated such a step, it appears, but has been deterred
by her tender consideration for the son of her sister, deceased--said
Scout above mentioned. Now, however, that he is self-supporting and
has found a protector--my impression is that she thinks you are not
quite all there, old son--she is about to fold her tents like the
Arabs. Elmer may in future keep his entire wage, she says, and saying
which, departs--so thoroughly that the places which knew her, know
her no more. The Edna must have been waiting for her outside my
office, I gather, booted and spurred and ready to ride. Thus, in a
word, you are now the only known human being to whom my measliest
Scout can turn, and I earnestly urge that you continue to be as human
as is Bostonly possible!
Dean Wolcott had made up his mind to leave Elmer Bunty in the best
California outdoor school he could find--somewhere near Santa Barbara,
perhaps, or in the Santa Cruz mountains--whichever climate was best
for him, and at holiday time--but his mind refused to function coolly
on plans for the future. That instant’s yielding of Ginger to his
insistent arms--who could say where he would be himself at holiday
time? He dragged his thoughts resolutely back to the subject of his
Scout. The time had come, he thought, to tell the youngster that he was
going to be his guardian--he would go thoroughly into the matter with
his San Francisco friend, of course.
But Elmer Bunty broke the silence, before he had formulated his plan of
announcement. “Ranger--say, I don’t guess Edna could call me ’Fraid-Cat
now, could she?-- Riding to a forest fire’n everything?”
“She could not, Scout,” said Dean, cordially. This was an excellent
opening. “And speaking of Edna----”
The boy appeared not to have heard him. “Ranger,” he said shyly, “do
you think I--oh, not yet, but _some_time--do you think I’ll be--not
just a good Scout, but--but like men call each other--‘_a good scout_’?
You know how they say, ‘He’s a good scout’? Do you guess I ever will,
Ranger?”
“I guess you _will_,” said Dean Wolcott, roundly. “I consider you a
‘good scout’ now.”
“Honest-to-goodness, Ranger?” He flushed so riotously that even his
flanging ears grew rosy. “Cross-your-heart-hope-never-to-see-the-back-
of-your-neck?”
The Ranger nodded gravely. “In speaking of you to a friend I feel I
should be certain to use that term. ‘Who is this fellow Bunty you’re
always talking about?’ some one might say to me, and I would say, ‘Oh,
he’s a great friend of mine,’ and then if the other fellow said, ‘What
sort of a person is he?’-- I should without hesitation reply, ‘He’s a
good scout; he’s--a _good scout_!’”
Elmer Bunty was silent from pure pleasure; it fairly pulsated from him.
He leaned forward and put his arms warmly about the neck of the lady
horse, and then he leaned down out of the saddle (much as the Indians
did, he firmly believed) and petted Rusty.
“And, feeling that way,” said Dean Wolcott, “it’s going to be pretty
hard for me just to shake hands with you and let you go, when your
vacation is over, and my time here in the Big Sur.”
“I know,” said the boy, soberly. “But we can write each other postcards
and maybe letters, can’t we, Ranger? And maybe, next summer----”
“How would you like to--well, belong to me, Scout? If it can be
arranged-- I mean, not go back to your aunt and cousin, but stay
with me, and go to one of those mountain schools and have a horse to
ride--all that sort of thing? Take a trip east with me, and see the
Grand Cañon on the way, and perhaps Niagara”--he turned to look at him.
Elmer Bunty’s face was white under its hasty coat of tan, and his eyes
were wide. “Oh, gee!” he breathed, “Oh, gee--_golly_!” Then the light
went swiftly out of him. “It would be great, Ranger, but I don’t guess
I could. I don’t guess I could leave my Aunt Lizzie and Edna.”
“But if they--”
He shook his head. He was very regretful, but very firm about it. “You
see, I’m the only male person there is in the family, and they depend
on me an awful lot. Even if we asked them, and they said they would
let me go with you, I don’t guess I could; I’d know they were just
_pretending_ they didn’t need me!” His flat chest swelled visibly at
the thought. Then he thought hungrily of the glories that might be his.
“Do they honest-to-goodness let you have a _horse_ at those schools,
Ranger?”
“They honest-to-goodness do, Scout.”
“Oh, gee--_golly_....” His pale eyes visioned it for a dreaming
instant, and then he squared his narrow shoulders. “But it isn’t as if
I didn’t have my fam’ly, Ranger. Of course, I’ll be with you just as
much as I can, and we’ll write each other shads of letters, won’t we?
But--”
And Dean Wolcott perceived that there was before him a task of extreme
delicacy which must wait for a less crowded hour. It was going to be a
difficult thing to save his Scout’s self-esteem alive for him, and to
make his joy in the new world opening up before him outweigh his bleak
sense of uselessness; the Ranger’s rage rose in him at the thought of
Aunt Lizzie and Edna ... crossing the continent smugly in a tourist
sleeper with food in a greasy shoebox and complacency in their hearts.
But presently they arrived at the fire’s first trench and found Mateo
Golinda already at work, and all lesser concerns gave way. The Spaniard
was cool and capable and tireless, and almost at once he paid Dean
Wolcott the supreme compliment of leaving him to work alone with the
boy while he took charge of another spur of the mountain.
Long before noon the heat was almost unbearable; the August sun bored
down through the canopy of smoke and the smoke folded the heat about
them, close and stifling, and their eyes stung and watered and their
throats were parched in spite of frequent sips at the canteens. They
chopped; they beat the creeping fire with wet sacks; they chopped
again; then, for a while, they worked with spades; then it was time
to chop once more, and then the wet sacks. They settled down into a
steady, unhurried routine--digging, chopping, beating, resting for a
moment or two, snatching a gulp of water; digging, chopping, beating.
The boy worked gamely and the shabby Airedale stayed at his heels,
yelping now and then when a spark fell on his thinly upholstered hide.
He kept his tail between his legs and at intervals he put his nose in
the air and howled dismally but he refused to stay behind with the
horses; Dean Wolcott sent the Scout back from time to time to make sure
they were safely tethered and more especially to give him a breathing
space, and the dog went thankfully with him, and disapprovingly back
again to the battle line.
A party of deer hunters had promised to come before twelve o’clock
but they did not appear. Mateo thought some one might come up from
Tassajara the next day, and Dean had gotten a message through to the
Chief Ranger at King’s City, but there were other bad fires in the
vicinity; he might not be able to send help to them at once.
They stopped at dark for a short night’s sleep, Mateo Golinda and
the Ranger standing watch, turn about, and at dawn they were fighting
again--digging, chopping, beating at the red tongues with their wet
sacks. The fire was not getting away from them, but they were not
getting it under; it was an even break between them and the red demon.
By a miracle of mercy the spring, an eighth of a mile below, was on
the untouched side, and the men took turns in carrying water for their
sacks, and in filling the canteens.
Margaret Golinda had ridden up to them, late on the first day, with
coffee and food, and they had sent the Scout far down the trail to meet
her.
Dr. Mayfield came on the afternoon of the second day, tired and
dauntless and full of optimism: he admitted that it was a nasty
fire--the way the wind kept veering about--harder to fight than as if
it had been concentrated; too bad those deer hunters had failed them,
but they were holding their own in every section; a good, stiff fight
(the doctor clearly liked a good, stiff fight whether it was to save a
man or a forest of shining _madroña_) but they were going to win.
His own crowd from the camp had come across nobly and the women
were working like beavers to keep them fed; the boys and Ginger were
constantly in the saddle.
“But--look here, Dean--you ought to have somebody with you beside your
boy. Mateo’s almost too far away in case of anything sudden, I’ve told
you how fast it travels when it starts in the bottom of a cañon; it’s
as if it were sucked through a funnel--simply races up--_up_, roaring.”
“I think I can swing it,” said Dean Wolcott. He looked uncommonly fit
and eager and fresh.
“It means working like two men instead of one,” said the doctor,
doubtfully.
“Well, can’t you figure the satisfaction it is to me to be able--at
last--to work like two men?” He swung his arms and pulled in a deep
contented breath. “I’m enormously happy, Doctor. Please don’t give me a
thought.”
The doctor gave him a great many thoughts and they were singularly
proud and pleasant ones. He stayed an hour with them so that his Ted
might have a little rest, tethered down the trail by Snort and Mabel
with his saddle and bridle off, but he himself did not require any
rest, apparently, for he used a shovel and a hatchet and swung a sack
all the time he was with them.
They allowed themselves more sleep that night, and at dawn Mateo
Golinda decided to leave them. “I think you will not have more
trouble,” he said in his careful English, warmed still with accent and
intonation. “I go home for a day; I return to-morrow to make sure all
is finished.”
The Scout sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was intensely sleepy and very
tired but a little loath to have the adventure ended. He made a tour of
inspection while Dean Wolcott heated their coffee, and came importantly
back to report that everything was quiet--a sullen smoldering here and
there in the charred blackness, that was all.
“Fine, Scout. But”--he consulted him gravely--“I don’t believe we ought
to leave yet, do you?”
“No; I don’t guess we ought to leave, Ranger. We ought to stay on
the job to-day and to-night; you never can tell.” He wagged his head
owlishly.
“That’s the way I feel about it, Scout.” This would be a good time, he
thought--the long and lazy day of patroling--to tell Elmer Bunty of
his aunt’s defection and to spread before him the happy plans he had
made. Directly they had eaten their scanty breakfast they walked down
the trail to the horses and saddled them and rode two miles to a place
where there was lush and lavish feed for them--they had been on short
rations for three days now. It was a gently sloping hillside covered
with white pines and carpeted with fresh and hardy green. The Mabel
horse whinnied with pleasure at sight of it. They removed the saddles
and bridles and Snort was staked out with a generous length of rope;
the lady horse would be canny enough to remain without being tied.
Dean Wolcott meant to have his talk with Elmer Bunty as they walked
back up the trail but they found themselves a little spent and languid;
the mere business of climbing, afoot, was sufficiently engrossing. They
would rest, when they got back to their station, and talk in the warm,
still afternoon.
But there was to be no rest for the Ranger and his Scout that day. A
slim snake of fire had crawled over from the floor of one cañon to
another, coaxed on by a treacherous wind, whispering close to the
ground; by seven in the morning it had grown to be a dragon in size
and strength and it was roaring up the side of the mountain which had
been inviolate before; in half an hour it would be upon the spot which
harbored the spring.
Their tired bodies and their weary wills grew taut again. “Water,
first,” said Dean Wolcott, curtly. They filled their canteens and
soaked their sacks and staggered up the slope three times with slopping
buckets, and then they worked fast and furiously on their firebreak.
Almost without pause birds flew past them, coming up from below,
uttering strange cries, and presently small, shy beasts began to run up
to them and past them.
“Look, Scout,” said Dean, softly. “I’ve heard about it and read of it,
but I’ve never seen it before--wild things fleeing before a forest
fire. Let’s stand aside here and watch for a moment. Come over here,
where you can see down.”
They came swiftly and silently, panting with haste, their soft eyes
wild--squirrels and little bush rabbits scurrying by the dozen; now a
pair of small foxes running low; a wildcat, crouching, slinking, belly
to the ground; coyotes, gaunt and gray and furtive; does and fawns, and
four or five great bucks driven out of cover at last, and at the end
of the hurrying horde a mountain lion and his mate. There was something
primeval about it; something simple, and far away; Dean Wolcott held
his breath.
“Oh, gee--_golly_, Ranger,” the boy whispered, pressing against him,
“get your gun! Get your gun! _Get your gun!_”
“No, Scout,” he whispered back. “It’s against the law--written and
unwritten; wild things fleeing from a forest fire are protected. Look
at their eyes as they go past. Could you?--”
“No, I don’t guess I could, Ranger.” His chin quivered a little.
“What does it make you think of, Scout?”
“A circus?” His face fell. “I saw a moving picture once--”
“It’s like creation; it’s the first chapter of Genesis.... Boy, it
isn’t given to many to see a thing like this; we must remember it all
the days of our life. We are watching _the earth bring forth the living
creature ... cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth_....”
“Yes, sir,” said the Scout, earnestly.
All the animals for miles about must have been congregated in that
cañon; it had been, until now, scatheless, and there was water, but
their sanctuary had betrayed them and they were fleeing for their lives
from the red terror, passing the lesser enemy with hardly a conscious
look. They came on for an incredible time but there was an end of them
at last. Small stragglers came gasping at the heels of the procession
and scurried by; then the slope was empty of movement.
Dean Wolcott drew a long breath. “Now, we’ll get to work, Scout; plenty
of time to stop it.”
But the boy pointed excitedly. “Look--there’s one more lion, all alone!”
It was far below them, standing still, a beautiful great beast, and it
lifted its head and called, a long, seeking, mournful cry.
“It’s lost its mate, Scout; it doesn’t want to go without it. That’s
pretty fine, isn’t it, with the fire just three jumps behind?”
Elmer Bunty nodded solemnly and they set to work. They already had
a firebreak of sorts in that direction and now they widened it as
fast as they could, plying hatchets and shovels. The fire came up the
mountainside just as the doctor had said it did, as if sucked through a
funnel, roaring, unbearably hot. The lone lion fled before it at last,
loping forlornly and calling as it came; it passed between the two
human beings heedlessly, engulfed in its private woe.
Their break held; the fire stopped when it came up to it, hissing and
snarling; burning twigs snapped with a sharp, incisive sound. “We’ve
got it,” said the Ranger, exulting. “It’s just like a football game,
Scout!--” He chanted hoarsely a slogan of old gridiron days--“‘Hold
that line! Hold that line! Hold that line--_hard_!’” But it appeared
immediately that they would have to hold a great deal harder yet and in
a great many more places, for a whirling dervish of a wind sprang up,
whisked here, whisked there, twisted and turned unexpectedly, caught
up a flaming leaf and carried it carefully to a distant patch of dried
grass, ran impishly back and forth, whistling, whining, making hot
havoc.
Again they went about their dogged routine; they chopped with their
hatchets, they spaded, they beat upon the fire with their wet
sacks--until there was no water left to make the sacks wet with. Dean
Wolcott thought with worshipful longing of summer rains in the east;
why did they never come to this parched land of summer? A downpour now
... the sound of rushing rain....
They worked, the young man and the thin Boy Scout, until it seemed
certain that they could not work any longer, and then they worked
on. They dug frantically into the sun-baked earth; they chopped
frantically with their hatchets into the singeing chaparral; they
slapped frantically at the flames with their dry sacks; and sometimes
the sacks caught on fire. Then the witch-wind went away as suddenly
as it had come, and up from the ocean--as if impelled by the Ranger’s
rain-prayer--rose a dense gray fog, blessédly cool, blessédly wet,
blessédly enveloping.
At the end of another hour they were able to stop; a charred world was
smudging sullenly into a soft, gray curtain. They went a few yards back
on the trail and dropped thankfully to the ground. They were utterly
spent; their hair was singed, and their eyebrows, and they could
hardly see out of their bleared and smarting eyes, and they had both
burned their hands again and again. They were too weary to speak, but
somewhere in the great gray space they heard the lone lion, calling ...
calling....