Before dawn Alice awoke in a fit of coughing. Her bedroom was a blank.
The open window overlooking the torrent had disappeared. She sat up
choking--staring with wide open, stinging eyes, into an acrid haze.
She felt for the matches beside her bed and struck one. Its flame
burned saffron for an instant and went out as if it had been plunged
into a bottle. At this instant she would have shrieked with fright
had not the sound of a man leaping up the stairs leading to her room
reached her ears. Then her door crashed in clear of its hinges. She
remained sitting bolt upright in bed, too terrified to move. A pair of
sinewy arms reached out for her, groping in the strangling haze.
"Who's there?" she gasped.
"Keep your mouth shut!" commanded a voice close to her ear; then the
arms lifted her bodily out of bed and swung her clear of the floor;
a glimmering tongue of flame licking up the stairway revealed the
features of the man in whose arms she struggled.
"Holcomb!" she started to cry out, but the acrid fog closed her
throat.
"Keep your mouth shut--do you hear!" he muttered in her ear; "we'll be
out of this in a minute." He lunged with her headlong over the smashed
door and reached the top of the flight, feeling for the first step
cautiously with his foot. She screamed this time, beating his face
with her clenched hands.
"Keep your mouth shut," he mumbled; "you'll strangle."
Her arm became limp. "Where's Sam?--where's--" she pleaded feebly.
Then a dull roar rang in her ears; she lay unconscious, a dead weight
in his arms.
Holcomb began to stagger on the bottom step, reeling like a drunkard;
again he proceeded, stumbling on through the passageway leading to
Blakeman's pantry. The ceiling of varnished yellow pine above him
rained down sputtering drippings of flame; they burned his neck, his
hands, his hair. He dashed on through a pantry of sizzling blisters,
past a glowing wall in a hot fog of yellow smoke, one burned hand
covering her mouth. Then he turned sharply to the left, striking his
shoulder heavily against a corner beam!
The blow made him conscious of a man crawling on his hands and knees
toward them. The man rose--groped blindly like an animal driven to bay
and rushed straight at him.
"Give her to me, Billy," he hissed in his ear, "Quick--save yourself!"
Then a burned fist struck straight out and missed--struck again and
Holcomb fell senseless.
With the quickness of a cat the man caught the woman in his arms,
groped his way to the open, laid her prostrate body on the charred
grass--sprang back into the swirl and choke of the deadly gas
and smoke, and the next instant reappeared with the stunned and
half-conscious Holcomb on his back, his hair singed, his clothes on
fire; then he tripped and fell headlong.
The shock brought Holcomb to his senses. The man was stooping over
him, his ear close to his cheek.
"It's me, Billy--Bob Dinsmore. I didn't want to hurt ye, but I see
ye couldn't manage her and yerself and thar warn't no other way; ye'd
both been smothered. She's all right--they're tendin' to her."
Holcomb clutched at the hide-out's sleeve.
"No--I dassent stay--nobody seen me but you"--and he was swallowed up
in the shadows.
Two men and a girl now swept past the half-dazed man, halted for a
moment, and with a cry of joy from the girl, aided by the trapper and
the Clown, dragged him clear of the rain of burning embers.
When Holcomb regained consciousness Margaret was bending over him.
"No, Billy--don't move, dear. Please, oh, please--" and she kissed
his cheek--two soft little kisses--the kisses he had remembered in his
dream. Then she left him.
He forgot the pain racking his arm; his brain grew clearer. He reached
his feet, lurching unsteadily toward Thayor, who sat by Alice who was
sobbing hysterically. The banker put out his left hand and covered
Holcomb's burned fist tenderly, his gaze still fixed on the leaping
flames, but neither spoke. The situation was too intense for words.
* * * * *
During this utter destruction not a man among the gang employed had
put in an appearance. This fact, in itself, was alarming; nor had one
outside of these come to the rescue. There was no doubt now that the
general desertion had been as premeditated as the fire. Who were the
prime movers of this dastardly revenge remained still a mystery.
The housekeeper, the cook, the two maids and the valet--all but
Blakeman and Annette, who had awakened at the first alarm--had made
their escape in terror down the macadam road; they were just in time;
this road--the only open exit leading out from Big Shanty being now
barred by flame. Worse than all, this barrier of fire had widened so
that now two roaring wings of burning timber extended from the very
edge of the torrent in a vast semi-circle of flame--sinister and
impenetrable--across the compound and far into the woods on the other
side. It was as if the last life boat had been launched from a sinking
ship, leaving those who were too late to die!
Their only way out now lay through that trackless wilderness behind
them.
Here was a situation far graver than the burning of Big Shanty. The
gray-haired man with his back against the hemlock realized this. He
still stood grimly watching the fire--his ashen lips shut tight.
Big Shanty burned briskly; it crackled, blazed, puffed and roared,
driven by a northeast wind. The northeast wind was in league with
the flames. It was on hand; it had begun with the stables--it had now
nearly finished with the main camp. The surrounding buildings--the
innumerable shelters for innumerable things--made a poor display; they
went too quickly. It was the varnish in the main camp that went mad
in flame--rioting flames that swept joyously now in oily waves. The
northeast wind spared nothing. It seemed to howl to the flames: "Keep
on--I'll back you--I'm game until daylight."
Walls, partitions, gables, roofs, ridge-poles, stuff in closets,
furniture, luxuries, rugs, pictures, floors, clapboards, jewels,
shingles, a grand piano, guns, gowns, books, money--in twenty minutes
became a glowing hole in the ground. The destruction was complete; the
heel of the northeast wind had stamped it flat. Big Shanty camp had
vanished.
The man braced against the trunk of the hemlock saw all this with the
old, weary, haggard look in his eyes, yet not a syllable escaped his
lips. He saw the northeast wind drive its friend the fire straight
into the thick timber of the wilderness; trees crackled, flared
and gave up; others ahead of them bent, burst and went under--the
northeast wind had doomed them rods ahead; it swept--it
annihilated--without quarter. It scattered the half-clad group of
refugees to shelter across Big Shanty Brook upon whose opposite shore,
as yet untouched, they re-gathered to watch--out of the way.
It began to drizzle--a drizzle of no importance, but it cooled the
faces of those who were ill.
In an hour Big Shanty Brook had sacrificed three miles of its shore
in self-defence. Its bend above the nodding cedars--where Thayor had
killed his deer--had succeeded in turning the course of the fire. The
shore upon which the refugees stood was untouched. The brook in the
chaos of running fire had saved their lives.
Still the fire roared on and although the torrent kept it at bay
it went wild in the bordering wilderness. The burned camp was now a
forgotten incident in this devilish course of flame. The northeast
wind had not failed. The woods became a fire opal--opaque in smoke,
with the red glint of innumerable trees glowing in gleaming strata,
marking the course of the wind. Many a bird fluttered and dropped in a
vain effort to escape from the heat--the heat of a blast furnace. The
hedgehog being lazy and loath to move--lay dead--simmering in his
fat. The kingfisher jeered in safety--never before had he seen so
many little dead fish. It was a gala day for him. They stuck against
charred branches conveniently in shallow, out-of-the-way pools. He sat
perched on the top of a giant hemlock chattering over his good luck.
The chipmunk, at the first sinister glare, had skittered away to
safety. He had not had a wink of sleep and his little nose was as
black as his hide from running over charred timber. Often it was a
close squeak with him to keep from burning his feet.
Nothing can tear through a forest like a fire. Its speed is
unbelievable; it strikes with the quickness of a cat--slipping out
myriads of snake-like tongues right and left into the dryest places.
It reasons--it decides--rarely it pardons. It is more dangerous than
an incoming sea; the sea gives warning--the fire gives none. Your
death is only one of many--a burned detail. The forest fire has a leap
which is subtle--ferocious. Things it misses it goes back for until
they crumble and are devoured at its edge. It cuts with the sweep of
a red-hot scythe. All this occurs above the surface. What happens
beneath is worse. It gnaws with the tenacity of a cancer deep into the
ground, lingering hidden until suspicion has passed; then it asserts
itself in a new outbreak in places least suspected. When it is all
over the region lies desolate for years. It becomes a waste, a tangle
of briers--pitiful upstarts of trees and burned stumps.
Had it not been for the trapper's and the Clown's forethought the
fugitives would have fared worse. They had managed to rescue a
nondescript collection of clothing, blankets, mackintoshes, socks,
brogans and two teamsters' overcoats from the partly destroyed lower
shanty. In the storehouse adjoining they, with Blakeman's assistance,
found three hams, matches, a sack of flour, some tea, half a sack of
beans and a few cooking utensils. Everything else had been stolen,
including possibly the new stock of provisions Thayor had telegraphed
for, the debris of two new boxes and the gray ashes of excelsior
giving little doubt that the new provisions had arrived. Holt and
Skinner had only time to bundle these valuables together when the fire
reached them. Heavily loaded they managed to regain the others keeping
along the edge of the torrent.
Alice Thayor presented a strange appearance; a pair of lumberjack's
trousers, a mackinaw shirt, rough woollen socks, a pair of brogans
and one of the teamster's overcoats, its collar turned up against her
dishevelled hair, had transformed her into a vagabond. She was still
weak from shock, but she went to work with Margaret and Annette,
brewing a pail of tea, while Thayor, Holcomb and the rest straightened
out their weird bivouac in the acrid opal haze. The Clown was again
busy with his fry-pan, the old dog watching him with bloodshot eyes.
There was little or no conversation during the preparation of that
hurried meal. When at last it was ready Blakeman started to serve it.
Thayor caught his butler's eye and motioned him to a seat beside him.
"You are as hungry as the rest of us," he said with an effort;
"there's no need of formality here, Blakeman." He glanced with
a peculiar, weary smile from one to another of the little group
squatting around the improvised meal, and his voice faltered.
"Big Shanty is gone," he resumed; "but I thank God it was no worse.
Whatever is in store for us we must share. What that will be nobody
can tell, but it's going to be a hard experience and we must meet it.
It would be sheer folly to attempt to get clear of all this by way of
Morrison's; that road is completely cut off--am I right, Holt?"--and
he turned to the trapper.
The old man, who had eaten sparingly and in silence, raised his head.
"Yes, ye'r right, Mr. Thayor, but it won't do for us to stay whar we
be no longer 'n we're obleeged to, that's sartain. Them hell-hounds
ain't done yit. Yer life ain't safe," he added slowly.
Alice Thayor gave a little gasp, riveting her frightened gaze on the
speaker. Margaret turned and looked at her mother with trembling lips;
then she patted Alice's hand affectionately. Annette began to cry.
"It's hard to tell ye the truth, friend," continued the old man, "but
I might as well tell ye _now_. There ain't nothin' left for us to do
but to git out o' this hell-hole as quick as God'll let us. We got
plenty of things in our favour----No, sir, it ain't as bad as it might
be with them woods full of smoke. Thar's a railroad over thar"--he
continued, nodding to the wilderness beyond them. "I cal'late we could
make the railroad in, say, four days. Let's see--Bear Pond--as fur
as the leetle Still water; then over them Green Mount'ins and through
Alder Swamp."
"And it's clear goin', Hite," interposed the Clown, "as fur as Buck
Pond. I was in thar once with the survey." Holcomb did not speak; it
was a country which he had never entered.
"I had a trappin' shanty at Buck Pond once," continued Holt, "most
thirty years ago. I knowed that country in them days as well as I know
my hat and I presume likely it ain't changed. A day from Buck Pond,
steady travellin', ought, in my idee, to git us out to the cars. I'll
do my best to git ye thar."
Thus it was hurriedly decided that the trapper should lead the way.
Holcomb suggested that he and the trapper should return to the burned
camp in the hope, if possible, of finding something left which might
be of use on the journey. They were sadly in need of an axe; the dull
hatchet they had found in the cook's shanty they knew would prove next
to useless. So Holcomb and Holt set off at once for the scene of the
disaster while the rest got together into more practical carrying
shape all that they possessed, ready for a start immediately on their
return.
Soon Holcomb and the trapper were trudging about in the stifling heat
of the ruins; they had drenched themselves to the waist in the brook
and were thus enabled to make a hurried search within the fire zone.
The first ruins they came upon were the stables--not a horse had
escaped.
Although they found it impossible to approach the still blazing ruins
of the main camp, they discovered among the smouldering, charred
timbers of Holcomb's cabin the blade of a double-bitted axe, its helve
burned off. A few rods further on, in the blinding smoke, they found a
keg of nails. The only things the flames had left around them were of
iron. An iron reservoir lay on its side where it had fallen; twisted
girders loomed above the cauldron of desultory flame, marking the
rectangle of the main camp. They shovelled the hot nails and the
blades of the two axes into a blackened tin bucket and started back to
the brook.
The trapper led. He had gone about a dozen rods farther on when he
halted abruptly, peering under the palm of his hand at a smouldering
log ahead of him.
"God Almighty!" he cried, staring back at Holcomb, as he pointed to
the smoking log.
Holcomb, with stinging eyes, saw a claw of a hand thrust above the
log. The bones of the wrist were visible; the rest resembled a misfit
glove, the fingers hanging in shreds. The hand connected with the body
of a man lying close against the opposite side of the log. The legs
from the knees down were gone; the remainder of the man was a mass of
burned flesh and rags. Near the stump of the right arm lay a charred
kerosene can.