MR. WEBSTER'S SLASHING
A month passed, which the boys spent quietly in grubbing up stumps and
chopping. Then Mr. Oliver suggested that they go over to Mr. Webster's
ranch and burn off his slashing, as he had promised its absent owner to
send them. He added that they could camp there for the night and get a
little hunting when they had done the work. There was a nipping air when
they started early in the morning, each with a packet of provisions and
a blanket upon his shoulder, and the newly turned clods in the clearing
were iron-hard. The Pacific Slope is warmer in winter than the Atlantic
coast, but there are times when the cold snaps are sharp enough in its
northern part, and the boys were glad to plunge into the shelter of the
woods where the frost was less stinging.
They reached the ranch without much trouble, and when they stopped at
the slip rails Frank, who had not been there before, looked about him.
The bush clearings are much alike, but this one was smaller than Mr.
Oliver's. A little, very rudely built log house stood at one end with
thick timber creeping close up behind it. There was also an unusual
quantity of underbrush among the stumps near the door, which Frank had
occasion to notice more particularly later. In the meanwhile it struck
him that the place had an uncared-for look and Harry seemed to share his
opinion.
"Webster's a very ordinary rancher," he remarked. "He can't stay with a
thing and finish it. When he's about halfway through he lets up and
starts something else. Any other man would have grubbed out all that
withered stuff about the house and chopped back the bush behind it. It's
not safe to have big trees growing so close."
"Why?" asked Frank.
"Because of the fires. They come along every now and then. It's lucky
there's no wind to speak of, because I wouldn't put a light to this
slashing if there was."
Frank glanced at the belt of fallen timber behind the fence on one side
of the clearing. It had been badly cut and some of the trees lay across
each other, while only a few of the branches had been sawed off and the
undergrowth had not been mowed. If the fall had not been a dry one it
would have been difficult to burn the slashing. Then he glanced up at
the leaden-gray sky above the pine tops and fancied that it looked
threatening. The dense wall of somber sprays seemed unusually harsh of
aspect, and there was something curious about the light. Everything was
gray and raw-edged, and he shivered, for the faint wind had blown across
a wilderness of snowy mountains.
"It's not the kind of day for hanging round," he said. "Let's get to
work."
Entering the house they found a can of coal oil and plenty of rags, for
a heap of worn-out clothing lay in a corner.
"They'll hold oil and that's about all they're good for," Harry
remarked. "I expect it's months since Webster pitched them there with
the idea that he might mend them sometime."
Frank carried out one or two of the duck garments, and when they had
torn them up and soaked them in coal oil he and Harry set about lighting
fires here and there in the slashing, after which they stood near the
door of the house and watched the conflagration. The fires spread
rapidly, and one side of the clearing was soon wrapped in crackling
flame that worked backward from the neighborhood of the fence, licking
up branches and undergrowth as it neared the bush. That did not stop it,
for the fire had flung out advance guards which leaped forward swiftly
through the withered fern and hurled themselves in crimson waves upon
the standing trunks. They seemed to splash upon them, flinging up
fountains of blazing brands and sparks that seized upon the lower sprays
and sprang aloft until each assaulted tree was wrapped in fire from base
to summit. The conflagration made the draught it needed, and by and by
it roared in what seemed to Frank malicious triumph as it pressed onward
into the forest under a cloud of rolling smoke. Where it would stop he
did not know, but he was almost uncomfortably impressed by the
spectacle.
"It's a full-power burn," said Harry approvingly. "Guess it's going to
clean up this slashing. And now we'll look around and see if Webster's
left anything we can make our dinner in."
There was a stove in the house, but they soon discovered that it did not
burn well, and Harry glanced disgustedly at the spider Frank discovered.
"A hole in the bottom of it!" he said contemptuously. "That's the kind
of thing Webster uses. I'll be astonished if you don't find another hole
in the kettle. You had better go along to the well and fill it."
In a few minutes Frank came back with the kettle, which fortunately did
not leak, and Harry set it on the stove and laid a piece of pork in the
spider, which he tilted on one side.
"It's going to be about an hour before that kettle boils, and, though I
feel like doing it, there's no use in straightening up this shack in the
meanwhile because the man would muss it up again as soon as he comes
back. There's a slough beyond the rise yonder, and as it lies to
windward we might get a shot at something. We could be back before
dinner's ready."
Frank would have preferred to stay where he was, as he had already done
a good morning's work. He assented, however, and accompanied Harry up a
steep and very rough slope and down the opposite side of it. When they
reached the bottom they plunged into a waste of tall grass and
half-decayed vegetation among the roots of which the frost had not
penetrated. As the result of this they sank to the knees here and there,
and Frank more than once fell down. He soon had enough of it, but he was
beginning to realize that there was very little worth doing in the bush
which could be accomplished, so to speak, with one's gloves on. The
small rancher and hunter must expect to get wet and ragged, as well as
weary and dirty, and must face the unpleasantness cheerfully and mend
his clothes afterward. The only other course was to stay in the cities.
Presently Harry discovered the tracks of a deer leading out of the
valley and pointed them out to his companion.
"You won't mind waiting for your dinner?" he asked.
"No--not very much," Frank answered dubiously.
This satisfied Harry, who led the way up the hillside, and it seemed to
Frank that they scrambled over fallen logs and branches and through
thick undergrowth for the greater part of an hour before they crept
carefully down again to another hollow. Though they floundered all
around it there was no sign of the deer, and Frank was relieved when his
companion intimated that they might as well go back to the ranch. Dinner
was the first thought in both their minds when they reached it, but it
struck Frank that the fire had become a tremendous conflagration and he
noticed that a dense cloud of smoke was blowing across the clearing.
"It's a real fierce burn and there's more wind than there was, but
we'll get a meal before we look around," Harry remarked.
There were, however, one or two difficulties in the way of their doing
this. The kettle had boiled nearly dry, and the pork had disappeared
through the burned-out bottom of the spider. Harry said that he could
manage to fry another piece on the rim of it if Frank would refill the
kettle, and eventually they sat down to dinner and spent a long while
over it. Then Harry got up reluctantly.
"I guess we had better see what the fire's doing," he observed.
Frank was almost appalled when he reached the doorway. The whole
clearing was thick with smoke, out of which there shot up a furious wall
of fire that rose and fell with a crackle resembling volleys of riflery
and a roaring even more disconcerting. What was worse, it seemed to be
creeping into the thick bush behind the house, and Harry, running a few
paces toward the corner of the building, stopped aghast with the red
light flickering on his dismayed face.
"Dad promised he'd get Webster's slashing burned, but it wasn't in the
contract that we'd burn off his house," he said. "We'll have to hustle.
See if there's an ax and grubhoe in that woodshed."
Frank found the tools, and while he attacked the larger bushes near the
back of the house, Harry began to cut down the undergrowth in front of
it. By and by Frank came back and they dragged the brush away toward the
clearing where it could burn harmlessly, but the smoke grew more
blinding and every now and then a shower of sparks fell about the boys.
Fires sprang up among the underbrush, and falling upon them with the ax
and spade they savagely thrashed them out. Frank burned his hands in
doing so, but there was no time to trouble about that and he toiled on,
coughing and choking, until at last they were forced to stop for
breath.
They stood close in front of the house, with a mass of withered fern and
half-burned brush smoldering in front of them, while a sheet of fire
rose and fell amidst dense clouds of smoke behind the building. The
daylight appeared to be dying out, but Frank could not be sure of that,
because it was almost dark one moment as the smoke rolled about them and
the next they stood dazzled by a flood of radiance.
"We have done 'most all we can," said Harry wearily. "It was the wind
getting up that made the trouble--I should have noticed it--but if it
stands for the next half hour we ought to save the house. The fire's
eating back into the bush all the while."
"Should we get any of the things out?" Frank asked.
"I'm not smart at handling hot stoves, and there's mighty little else in
the place," Harry answered with a laugh. "I wouldn't bid a dollar for
Webster's pans and crockery, and he made the table and the two chairs.
Still, I don't know any reason why we shouldn't sling them out."
Just then the smoke rolled down about the boys in a blinding cloud;
there was a great snapping and crackling, and a shower of blazing
fragments drove them back thirty or forty yards across the clearing.
Presently the smoke thinned, and a row of stripped trunks behind the
house was outlined against a tremendous sheet of flame. Frank took off
his hat and shook a few red embers from the crown of it.
"When we were getting those rags I noticed a keg behind them," he said.
"A keg?" said Harry sharply.
"A little keg. It looked thick and strongly made."
The red light struck full upon Harry's face, and Frank saw that
consternation was stamped upon it.
"Then," he said, "it's full of coarse, tree-splitting powder. Some of
the ranchers use it for blowing out stumps. Did you notice whether it
had been opened?"
"The head seemed loose and one of the hoops had been started."
"Sure!" said Harry with dismay in his voice. Then he broke out in quick
anger: "It's just the kind of thing Webster would leave lying around
near his stove, without taking the trouble to head it up again. He'll
have some detonators lying loose, too--I've heard he uses giant powder.
We've got to bring them out."
They looked at each other with set faces while the sparks whirled about
the house, and both were conscious of an almost uncontrollable impulse
to vacate the clearing with the greatest possible speed. It was to their
credit that they mastered it, and in a moment or two Harry spoke again:
"The sparks shouldn't get at the keg if we put a jacket over it, and one
of us could carry all the detonators Webster's likely to have in his
pocket."
Frank had heard that the big copper caps which are used to fire giant
powder will contain a tremendously powerful fulminate, and he was
conscious of a very natural reluctance to carry a number of them about
his person through the showers of fiery particles that fell about the
building. Indeed, he afterward confessed that if Harry had not been with
him nothing would have induced him to approach it. How he screwed up his
courage he did not know, but as the flame leaped up again the sight of a
strip of blazing fence had its effect. The rest of it had been
destroyed, and he felt they must make an effort to save the house.
"It wouldn't take us long to get the powder out," he said with a note of
uncertainty in his voice.
Harry sprang forward and Frank was glad that he did so. He realized that
this was not a matter for calm discussion, and vigorous action was a
relief. Another cloud of smoke met them as they drew near the house,
and the sparks that came flying out of it fell thick about them. The
heat scorched their faces and they gasped in the acrid vapor, while
Frank's eyes were smarting intolerably when he staggered into the
building. There was, however, less smoke inside it, and a fierce light
beat in through one window. Flinging the old clothes about they came
upon the keg and found that the head was lying loose. Working in
desperate haste they forced the top hoop upward and Harry wrapped a
woolen garment over the top of the keg. After that he flung everything
in a lidless wooden case out upon the floor and pounced upon a little
box that fell among the rest.
"Detonators!" he shouted. "What's in the packet near you?"
Frank tore the paper savagely. "It looks like thick black cord."
"Fuse," said Harry. "It's harmless. I don't see any giant powder. Hold
on. I'll look around his sleeping room."
He vanished through an inner door and Frank soon heard him throwing
things about. The suspense of the next few moments was almost
unbearable. A pulsating radiance alternately lighted up the room and
grew dim again, and the roar and crackle of the fire set his nerves
tingling. Then Harry ran back toward him.
"I can't find any giant powder," he reported, and added, "get hold of
the keg. We'll carry it between us."
Frank set his lips as they sprang out of the door with it. The keg was
not remarkably heavy, but it was an awkward shape and too big for either
of them to carry on his shoulder or beneath his arm. Indeed, Frank felt
his hands slipping from its rounded end and he was horribly afraid of
dropping it among the patches of smoldering undergrowth and glowing
fragments which lay all about him. A few moments later thick smoke
whirled about him, and he hardly breathed as he struggled through it
until it blew away again. Then, to his relief, he saw that the house was
some distance behind them and they were clear of the worst of the
sparks. They went on, however, to the opposite side of the clearing,
where they deposited the powder, and then dropped the detonators a
little farther on, after which Harry sat down on the frozen ground
panting heavily.
"It's done and I want to get my breath," he said. "The next time I burn
a slashing I'll see there's no powder about the place before I begin."
Frank made no answer. He was glad to sit still and recover, for the
strain had told on him. Indeed, he was almost sorry when his companion
stood up again.
"Perhaps we had better get back and pitch some water on the roof," he
suggested. "I was too busy to think of that before."
The wind seemed to be dropping and the sparks were not quite so bad when
they reached the house. They found a bucket, and after smashing more of
the ice upon the shallow well Frank climbed up on the woodshed which
reached to the low roof. The latter was covered with cedar shingles and
he wondered why it had not ignited, because the sparks were still
dropping upon it and there were several charred spots. This, however,
was not a question of much consequence, and Harry kept him busy during
the next half hour sluicing the roof with water which he passed up in
the bucket. Some of it went over Frank's hands and clothing and it was
icy cold, but they worked on steadily while the fire worked back farther
from them into the bush. It had burned most fiercely when it had the dry
branches in the slashing to supply it, but these were all licked up, and
though the small stuff blazed the great standing trunks would not burn.
There were already rows of them rising, charred and blackened columns,
behind the slashing.
At last Harry called Frank down from the roof.
"You can let up," he said. "It's hardly likely we'll have any more
trouble. There's a lamp and some canned stuff in the shack, and as we'll
have to camp here I'll make some coffee. It's quite dark now."
Frank concluded that it had been dark some time, though he had not
noticed when dusk crept down. He was glad to find the stove still
burning when he entered the house, very wet, and aching in every limb.
The kettle was soon boiling, and, as there was no bottom in the spider,
Harry, who had found a bag of flour and a can of syrup, contrived to
make some flapjacks and what he called biscuit on the top of the stove.
He said that this would be no drawback because Mr. Webster never blacked
the thing, and Frank found no fault with the cakes when they ate them
hot with syrup.
Then they filled up the stove with the full draught on and lounged
contentedly beside it while their clothing dried on them. They had had a
heavy day, but now that the danger was over they were no more than
comfortably weary and the thrill of the last stirring hours remained
with them. Frank felt that they had done something worth while that
afternoon.
When he diffidently pointed it out Harry laughed.
"Sure!" he agreed. "Still, it's quite likely that Webster will get
jumping mad when he sees his fence, though it won't take him many days
to split enough rails for a new one."
A little later Frank walked across the room and opened the door. The
undergrowth on one side of the clearing gleamed white with frost. On the
other side a few big branches still snapped and glowed, and there was a
red glare behind the black rows of trunks, but it was now broken by
patches of darkness and he could see that the fire was rapidly dying
out. He came back with a shiver and sat down in his warm seat beside the
stove.