THE INCENDIARIES
The red glow of the sun on the snow-clad peaks of the main ridge had
begun glinting through the smoke gloom when voices seemed to echo from
within the very rock against which they were leaning. The boys crept to
look behind it. Then their eyes rounded in astonishment. As Ted would
have spoken, Pedro clapped his hand over his mouth with a look that bade
silence. Crouched motionless at the side of the cave mouth,--for a deep
cave it now disclosed itself,--the two boys peered at the spectacle that
greeted their eyes.
Three Mexicans, aglitter with the silver buttons of their native costume,
appeared suddenly from some black depth, carrying torches.
With these one of their number kindled a bon-fire, whose flame revealed a
couple of burros standing patiently under their packs, tied to a mammoth
stalagmite. For the red flare behind the three figures of the Mexicans,
showed a cave roofed with amber-tinted icicles of smoke-stained rock,
beneath which up-rose for each a pyramid of the same formation.
The Mexicans might have been father and son and old servant, from their
general appearance and from the fact that most of the work of
supper-getting was performed by the shabby, white-haired one, while the
fat middle-aged one struck the younger a blow that was not reciprocated.
They were talking in a tongue that Ted could not translate, though from
the peppery tone of it, he judged they were quarreling. Pedro assured him
later they were not. (He knew Mexican.) They were merely regretting that
their horse had been burned.
The fat one, evidently too fagged to move, was demanding that one of the
others go see for sure, while they argued that it was no use, the animal
could not have survived. They must have been exhausted, lame, besides, to
judge from the creaky way they moved. The fat one poured some verbal
vitriol on their heads for not having brought the horse inside, while the
white haired one deprecated that they had not intended to be gone so long.
"It's the fat one's, and now he'll have to hoof it like the others; he'd
sure break the back of a burro," translated Pedro in huge enjoyment, to
his mystified companion. "Wonder if they're the fire bugs Rosa saw?"
"Let's listen and find out," said Ted.
As the blaze by which they dried their mysteriously muddy feet died down
to red coals, from the pack of one of the burros the old peon extracted
some ready-made tamales and proceeded to add the heat of cooking to the
hotter peppers within their enwrapping corn husks. This fiery mixture
they quenched from a round-bellied bottle passed from lip to lip, though
the fat one took his first and longest.
"They're the fire bugs, all right," said Pedro softly into Ted's ear. And
it was agreed that they might safely creep in along the shadows till
Pedro could hear more plainly.
Sanchez was the name of the fat leader, and his son and his servant the
others proved to be. They had, it developed, a grouch against the lumber
company down on the Kawa, (in which, as it happened, Ace's father had an
interest). They had been fired from the crew, and no punishment was too
great for a company that would do that to a workman who merely asked his
accustomed afternoon siesta.
"_Detestablemente!_" (And other remarks that sounded like fireworks.)
The pigs of _Americanoes!_ Pedro convulsed Ted with his recital when they
had crept back to the cave mouth, despite the seriousness of the
situation.
That they would start more fires at their first opportunity had also been
established by their conversation.
"We can't let 'em go," argued the ranch boy.
"We can't capture them," the Castilian was as positive. "We are unarmed,
and they have their daggers."
Ted pondered, peered out at the still, smoking ground, soothed the
nervous horse, then came to a conclusion, which he unfolded to his
comrade.
He must go for help. He would ride that horse, find Norris, get Ace to
wireless Radcliffe, and summon help. But--he eyed Pedro doubtfully,
knowing his uncourageous bearing at the rodeo.
"But what?" insisted the Spanish boy. But had he not guessed it! Of
course he would remain behind to keep track of the desperadoes.
But how could Ted start with the ground so hot? He would have to wait
awhile, then make up for lost time by break-neck riding.
So be it. They were hungry now, and ate the ration of tinned corned beef
and hardtack from their pockets. Ted also fed the horse some hardtack,
and brought him several hatfuls of water from the spring,--scorching his
soles as he crossed the charred ground.
Pedro propped his tired body in a sitting posture with one ear cocked for
the conversation within. Ted flung himself flat on his back in the smoky
gloom, which obscured even the light of the moon. He was mentally
exploring that cave,--remembering what Norris had once told them of the
region and wondering into what limed recesses the Mexicans were likely to
retire when capture threatened. That the cave had its depths he felt
assured by their having so suddenly appeared with their torches. And what
could Pedro do if they tried to leave before help came?--My, but he must
ride! Three such incendiaries loose in those dry forests, and there would
be no end to the harm they could do!
The limestone of which these caves were formed,--sediment of the shells
of myriads of sea creatures,--had been deposited in the primeval ocean
that once flowed over that whole region from the Gulf of California.
Uplifted by contractions of the earth crust, it had been cut as the
surrounding granite could not have been by the percolating rains and
streams, flowing along the cracks of the uplift.
This cave was probably a network of water-worn passageways extending no
telling how far underneath the ridge. There were reputed to be caves
almost as large as Mammoth in these unexplored recesses of the Southern
Sierras. Could this be one of them, or was it just a two- or three-cavern
affair, he wondered? On that depended a very great deal of their success
in the coming capture, for once entrenched within these labyrinthian
caves, the Mexicans could hold them at bay until they had made good their
get-away. It had been so, he had been told by military men, in chasing
Mexicans over the border.
Perhaps there were other caves in the region. Where, indeed, had these
men secreted themselves while the fire had raged in a semi-circle about
them? In a cave, the air would be damp and cool, no matter what was going
on outside, and they could have been genuinely comfortable with the
inferno raging over their very heads. Unless, of course, the smoke
suffocated them! That would all depend on the air passages that fed their
particular cavern. Some of those caves across the Mexican border were
miles in extent, and had exits galore.
Pondering the pendant stalactites that had gleamed like onyx in the
firelight, he pictured the water percolating drop by drop through the
limestone crevices, dissolving the lime and forming the stalactites a
drop at a time through the years. How wonderful it was! He wished he too
might study. Perhaps, if he could make a go of his mother's fruit
ranch?--He was half asleep. He roused himself by trying to recall what it
was that Norris had told them about stalactites.
The rain water, charged with the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere,
seeps in from the surface and falls drop by drop. Each slow drop remains
long enough upon the ceiling to deposit some of its dissolved lime in a
ring to which the next succeeding drop adds another layer.
In time this ring lengthens into a pipe-stem of soft lime. It fills and
crystallizes, thickens and elongates, as the constant drip, evaporating
from the outside, deposits more and more of the lime. Thus these stone
icicles are formed, sometimes an inch a year.
At the same time the drops that fall to the floor, solidifying one at a
time, build up a slender pyramid beneath,--a stalagmite,--which reaches
higher and higher as its stalactite hangs lower and lower. In time these
two formations meet in a slender pillar, the pillar thickens through the
same slow process and if the pillars stand close enough together,--as
where the drip follows a long rock fissure,--the pillars will eventually
join in a solid partition.
This _dripstone_, as the material of the formation is termed, began as
soft carbonate of lime; it hardens into _gypsum_ or, sometimes,
alabaster, or calcite.
The boy peered once more into the carved gallery, waiting till an
up-flare of the dying fire again illumined the fantastic ceiling, whose
fairy architecture gleamed opalescent in the orange glow. He thought of
the old fairy tales of gnomes hammering on their golden anvils in their
jeweled caves in the hearts of the mountains, and wondered if such lore
had not arisen from the fact of just such cave formations, coupled with
the echoes the slightest sound set to reverberating. After all, most folk
tales had some foundation.
Once these Mexicans were captured and the forest fire brought under
control, he meant to ask Norris if their camping expedition might not
include an exploration of some of the caves he had assured them
honeycombed this part of the Sierra.
He little dreamed in what fantastic fashion his wish was to come about,
as he lay there waiting till he could start his ride for help!
Nor did Pedro, drowsing, exhausted, beside him, dream of the test that
was to be made of his courage while he remained behind. He seemed so
fagged that Ted did not even wake him, when at last he deemed it time to
sally forth.
Ted loved nothing better than a good horse.
The plainsman, he used to argue, may have his twin six, the airman his
ship, but for the outdoor man, give him the comrade who can take the
mountain trails, the needle carpeted forest floor, the unbridged streams,
the glacier polished slopes.
The black horse wore the high Visalia saddle, against which his rider
could rest on steep grades. It would be more dangerous, should the animal
throw him, though of course the high horn would help him to pull leather
should need arise. He had lengthened the stirrups, Western fashion, till
his long legs dangled easily and he could have raised himself scarce an
inch above the saddle by standing in his stirrups. His long, lean legs
would give him a good hold where the going was rough, and if he had only
a quirt, or even a pair of drop-shank spurs, he would have felt confident
of making time. (For he knew how to use the spurs so that they would not
torture his animal.) He regretted that the mysterious owner had not
fitted the poor brute with the old spade bit, for should the horse fall,
on the uneven ground, it would be likely to cut his mouth badly. He had
once seen an animal bleed to death from such a hurt. Well, they must not
fall!
Mechanically he opened the reins, as was his habit:--His own horse had
been trained to hitch to the ground, and all he had to do when he
dismounted in a hurry was to drop rein. He was glad to find that the
saddle was rim fire, (or double-rigged), as it would stay in place, no
matter what acrobatics they might be forced to perform. So far, so good!
With right hand on the saddle horn, left grasping rein and mane, he swung
up, and before ever he touched leather, they were off.
Would his mount prove broncho? Had his probably Mexican owner uglied his
disposition? That remained to be discovered. And on that detail would
depend much of the success of his race for help. For with Norris at the
far end of the ridge, there would be several hours of tough going, he
surmised.
"Yes, sir, you shore gotta _slope_ some!" he told the mustang, in
imitation of the cowmen. "Or those Greasers will just naturally fade out
of the landscape."
As the night wind blew the smoke down canyon, he could very nearly tell
his way, and the time as well, by the stars. Being early in July, he knew
that in the constellation of Hercules, almost directly above, the hero's
head pointed South. It was something Norris had told them one night when
they had to travel late to find a fit camping spot. The crest of the
ridge lay South, and along the crest he should find more open going. He
would then have to veer to the West. As Venus rose brilliantly in the
East, he knew he had now about two hours and a half till sunrise.
Breasting the wind, he headed around the twisting stems of unyielding
manzanita, then up, straight South, over slide rock and fallen tree
trunks, turning aside for only the larger bowlders. The mountain-bred
horse was lithe as a greyhound, as he alternately climbed and slid, or
made wide leaps over the uneven slope.
The ridge attained, however, he found it harder going than he had
imagined, by reason of the broken shale, weathered by the frost of
unnumbered winters. But just on the other side,--that furthest from the
fire zone,--stretched a smooth granite slope, where the going would be
unobstructed. But these smooth slopes, bed of that prehistoric river of
ice, slanted slowly but surely to the cascading mountain stream whose
roar now assailed his ears. One slip on that smooth surface and his horse
would never stop till he had reached the rapids! The boy wondered if the
animal were sufficiently sure-footed. The answer would mean, at the very
least, the difference between a broken leg and a sound one, for the boy
speeding to secure help in the capture of the fire bugs. But there seemed
a fighting chance, and he would take it.
At intervals the granite was blocked out by cracks, and he found the
slight unevenness of a crack lent his mount a surer footing. At times it
was fairly level and he ventured a gallop; again it was precarious even
at a walk.
Suddenly a monotonous "chick-chick-chick" buzzed beneath their feet. The
horse leapt violently to one side,--just in time to evade the coiled
spring of four feet of green-black rattlesnake, on whose sinister form he
had all but trod. By that instant leap he had avoided the speedy death of
the injected virus of the stroke. Ted's heart was in his mouth.
On--on--on he urged the black. It became mechanical; he ceased to think.
Exhausted alike by his long vigil and the strain he had been under, he
now sat his horse in a daze, just keeping his nose generally Westward,
while he skirted the crest of the ridge. He felt half numb as he rounded
the end of the crest where Norris was to have been stationed. To his
stupefaction, the fire fighters had completed their trench and gone!
Where could they be? Probably back at the camp, which he had skirted by
this detour, never dreaming he would find any one but Rosa there.
Well,--he was "outa luck!" Back he went the way he had come, till he
thought it time to climb the ridge. A flare of cook-fire through the
graying dawn showed him where to head, and the huge sun was just slipping
blood-red through the smoke gloom as he took the last log at a leap and
dropped off beside the moving figures.
The men were all there,--as was Ranger Radcliffe, whom the DeHaviland had
evidently returned with fresh supplies. It took but few words to acquaint
them with the situation.
By the time Ted had drank a quart of coffee with his breakfast, he was
able to pull himself together again and lead the posse to the hidden
cave mouth. The Ranger would have to be the one to go, to make the
arrest, and he deputized Ace to help him. That meant leaving Norris to
head the firemen. (It never occurred to any of them that they would not
be right back with Pedro and the Mexicans. The foam-flecked horse Ted
left to Rosa's care.)
The cave mouth accomplished, Radcliffe entered first, with revolver
cocked, though Ace almost trod on his heels. Ted staggered after with a
flaming pine knot flickering in his almost nerveless hand.
The cavern was absolutely empty!
To Pedro, left in the cave mouth to watch the Mexicans, the night had
been the crucial test.
He had been asleep when Ted departed, while the Mexicans had slept within
the cave. He awoke to find the three dark visages bending over him, their
verbal fireworks hissing about his ears. At first "caballo" was all he
could make of it,--(the horse). Then as Sanchez the stout, soared
rhetorically above the others, he gathered that they dared not leave him
and they could not carry him. "El Diablo!" How much simpler to thrust a
dagger between his ribs. "Muerte!--Presto!" But no, wait! For the time
being he would walk between them carrying two extra torches. There must
be another exit to the cave, but could the burros make it with the packs?
Try it they must, for this way their choice lay between the fire fighters
and the flames. The doomed forest still glowed red and black down canyon,
and with the morning light, the wind veered till the smoke assailed them
chokingly. There was no time to be lost.
Never for an instant dreaming that Pedro understood, they gave him the
torches he was to bear, and started into the depths of the cavern. And
the boy? Too frightened at first to have spoken had he tried to, he had
the wit to see that protest would be useless. They were three to one,
armed, and desperate, and they counted him a likely witness to their
incendiarism.
Besides, now that the wind had changed, he could not have gone ten paces
without having been blinded by the smoke till he could not see where he
was heading. This side of the canyon was going to go like tinder, too.
Besides,--this came later,--how could he allow the fire bugs to get away?
His job was to keep tabs on them, and that he would now have an
exceptional opportunity to do, he cheered himself.
At first the flare of the torches revealed merely the cavern of onyx
stalactites he had seen the night before. This formation wound in a
narrowing labyrinth until they made a sharp turn to the left. Presently
they came to a pit of inky water, around which they had to skirt on a
sloping shelf. The burros could not make it and they left them there.
Either, Pedro argued, they meant to return that way or else they had
other supplies awaiting them. But now they could no longer smell the
smoke. From somewhere came pure air, damp and refreshingly chilly. The
sounds of the outer world were cut off completely. On and on they
wandered as in a dream. Pedro began surreptitiously pinching himself to
make sure he was not having some weird nightmare.
They came to a grotto that might have been brown marble, whose curious
carvings he had no time to study. From this they had to crawl on hands
and knees through an opening into another twisting passageway, floored
with muddy water and barely high enough for them to stand erect. Their
voices echoed and reechoed. Then came arches of stalactites almost
meeting the stalagmites beneath them, through which they edged their way
as through a frozen forest.
This opened into a vast cavern hung as with icicles of alabaster, which
their torch light warmed to onyx.
"If these fellows weren't so free with their knives," Pedro told himself,
"it would be an adventure worth having. But they certainly have too much
dynamite in their dispositions to suit me,"--for the Mexicans were now
quarreling among themselves. The boy and the old man were for turning
back before they lost themselves,--for at every turn there were branching
ways.
But Sanchez, the heavy-handed, was for going on,--and on they went,
shivering in the unaccustomed chill.
Pedro wondered what the rescue party would do when they found them gone.
If only he could leave some sign of his whereabouts! Could he drop his
handkerchief at one turning of the ways, his hat at another, without
detection? Or was it already too late? Why had he not thought of that
before?--Tucking one torch into the crook of the other elbow for a
moment, he dropped his bandanna as again they took the left-hand of two
turns.
But now their little flare of light revealed a blind passageway. The
water-worn rock had been hollowed out by some eddying pool, no doubt,
while the main stream had flown on past. How he wished he knew more of
cave formations! Should he find opportunity to escape, how would he ever
find his way out again?
Retracing their steps, they took the right hand turn. Here was another
high roofed vault,--he could not see how high, he could only guess from
the reverberation of their voices,--whose stalactites had become great
pillars that gleamed yellowly. The floor sloped toward them till they had
stiff climbing. On one wall was a limestone formation like a frozen
cataract. And thrust into the wall beside it he saw a torch stick. Who
had left it there, and what ages ago, he wondered? In this cavern some of
the stalactites hung as huge as tree trunks, and had not Sanchez bade the
others keep an extra eye on him, the lad might easily have hid behind one.
Some of these huge pillars were cracked with age, and again the thought
occurred to him that if only he might insert himself into one of the
cracks,--a few were all of a foot in width,--he could easily escape
detection in that uncertain light. But now he was under surveillance
every instant. Besides, (tardy thought), was he not pledged to keep an
eye on the villains? He smiled through his fears at the recollection that
they, not he, were captive.
Meantime Ace and Radcliffe, (leaving Ted to sleep off his exhaustion in
the cave mouth), were examining the onyx cavern and the ground outside
for some sign as to what had happened, and which way Pedro and the
Mexicans had gone. Radcliffe had his electric flash, and at the turn of
the winding passageway discovered scratches on the sandstone floor where
the burros had left hoof marks. But had they taken the turn to the right
or that to the left? There were hoof prints both going and coming, in
each passageway. Which had been made the more recently? They could not
tell.
Ace hoped that the Ranger would propose each following a different
direction, but instead, Radcliffe remarked that they ought to have
brought a ball of twine to unwind as they went, as people had been known
to get lost in unknown caves, and stay lost for days. The best
alternative was to make a rough map of their turnings in his note-book.
They advanced along the right hand passageway, whose breath seemed like
that of another world from that of the parched mountain side,--cool and
moist and wonderfully exhilarating. Had it not been for his uneasiness as
to Pedro's whereabouts, Ace would have enjoyed this expedition into the
unexplored. His was a nature that craved the tang of adventure, even more
than most. It was one of the things that had led him to take up geology,
for in the U. S. Geological Survey his life would lead him, likely, to
far places.
He wished, though, that Ted were with them. A good pal certainly doubles
one's enjoyments.
They had gone what seemed like miles, (though cave miles are deceptive,
so completely is one cut off from space and time), bearing always to the
right, when Radcliffe's light suddenly burned out, leaving them in
primeval darkness. At first breath they tried to laugh at their
predicament, then the utter blackness seemed to press upon them till it
suffocated, and Ace suppressed a sudden desire to scream. His panic
moment was dissipated by Radcliffe's discovery of a bit of candle. Ace
had, of course, that most important part of a camper's equipment, a
waterproof match-box, linked to his belt, and in it a few matches. But
even then it meant going back the way they had come, for without a good
light they could do nothing. Perhaps it was just as well, for they were
bound on no hour's adventure, and should have brought food as well. How
Radcliffe wished he had his acetylene lamp!
To their surprise they found Norris at the cave mouth trying to arrange
his coat under the sleeping Ted. And around him lay the coiled lariat he
had taken from the saddle-horn of Ted's recent mount, also three
canteens, some cooked food, and a supply of hard candles from the fire
crew supplies. There were also the boys' sweaters,--Radcliffe, of course,
had his woolen uniform,--and to cap the climax, a ball of twine and the
Ranger's pet lamp, with its tin of carbide powder.
To their amazed query Norris explained that he had explored dozens of
caves in his time, including some hundreds of miles of that honeycomb
formation that underlies a portion of Kentucky, to say nothing of the
caverns of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the Black Hills of South
Dakota, and the Ozarks. Of the caves of California, however, he as yet
knew nothing.
Had he not been needed to head the fire crew, he would have loved nothing
better than to have gone with them.
"I knew this was a cave region," he told them as they ate and refreshed
themselves before going back into the black depths--for they had been
gone several hours, it seemed. "Fissured limestone--I noticed it
yesterday when we were down here trying to back-fire. Then what feeds the
Kawa? Not these little flood creeks that dry up almost before the spring
floods are over. Where does all that snow water go to? Some underground
passageway, of course. It seeps through the porous rock to subterranean
channels. By the way, I see there are tracks of muddy feet inside here,
and _your_ feet are dry! The mud must have been left by the Mexicans."
"That's a fact!" exclaimed Radcliffe. "Ace, did you notice any mud along
that passageway? Then we surely took the wrong turn."
"Not necessarily," said Norris. "They might have _come_ from some muddy
cavern, but gone back another way. However, I was going to give you a
little idea of the probable layout of a cave. This one, if--as I
suspect--it feeds the Kawa--likely descends to other levels, till the
lowest one is very nearly on that of the river. Seeping through, here and
there, the rains and melting snows probably collect into a stream."
"Wish you could go with us, old chap," said the Ranger. "But----"
"You'll get along all right, with these things," sighed Norris, "and if
you don't show up again within a few hours, we'll follow your twine," and
he tied one end of the cord ball to a manzanita bush, handing the ball to
Ace. At that moment Ted awoke and insisted that he join them. Norris
reluctantly returned to the fire crew.