DISASTER
For a minute or two he sat on his horse and scanned the black boat. It
was certainly the boat he had seen before, and he wondered how she had
been brought back against the stream. She must have hired a tow from
the steamboat, and he wondered what had been the inducement. As
before, no one was in sight. No smoke rose from the stovepipe that
projected through the roof, and the door upon the little end deck was
closed.
“Hello! Aboard there!” he shouted at last.
There was a sound of stirring in the boat. The door of the cabin
opened, and a man stepped out upon the stern deck, a ragged and
disreputable object. He was dressed in a tattered cotton shirt and
trousers, barefooted and bareheaded, with long, fair hair, straggling
mustache and a yellowish, malarial complexion. He looked startled; he
gave Joe a glance of mingled fright and suspicion.
“Howdy!” Joe greeted him. “Camping here?”
“Fur a leetle while, mebbe,” drawled the sallow man, looking him
carefully up and down. “You’re Burnam’s woods-rider, ain’t you?”
“One of them. Can I come on board?”
The man hesitated, and spat into the bayou.
“I reckon you can’t,” he said at last. “My brother’s in yander, mighty
sick, and he’s just gone to sleep.”
“Too bad. What’s the matter with him?”
“Chills ’n’ fever. He’ll git over it. Just done had it myself. Gum
runnin’ good?” he added listlessly.
“Pretty fair. Some one’s been stealing some of it. Seen anybody round
the woods at night?”
“Naw!” The river-man looked sidelong at Joe, and bit off a chew from a
plug of tobacco. “Soon’s Bud gits well enough to help me, we aims to
float down to Choctaw Bluffs.”
“I saw you up here a week or so ago. How did you get back?” said Joe.
“Naw, you didn’t. Ain’t never been by yere before,” returned the man
quickly. “We been up by Peach Tree, and we’re goin’ to Choctaw.”
“Going down to the River Island?” Joe asked casually.
“No, _sir_! Too many rough charackters there. They says Blue Bob uses
the River Island this spring.”
Joe had often heard of this same Blue Bob, notorious among the
houseboat men, whose evil reputation had spread all along the river,
from Montgomery to Mobile. Blue Bob, with a gang of disreputable
associates, ran a large houseboat, combining a sort of small piracy
with occasional selling of illicit whisky. He stole hogs and cattle
along the river; he had been concerned in several shooting affrays,
and had been several times arrested but had always been lucky enough
to get off with nothing more than a fine.
It struck Joe that it might have been Blue Bob who had robbed the
turpentine orchard, for the River Island was not more than thirty
miles down the river. They had been almost within sight of it, in
fact, on the recent bee-hunt. But he hardly thought that the lazy,
shiftless figure before him, evidently a prey to hookworms and
malaria, had had anything to do with the thefts. The stealing in the
turpentine woods had been energetic and laborious, involving a good
deal of hard work. All the same, he felt that the black houseboat
would bear watching, until “Bud” got over his chills and fevers.
He offered to get the boatman some quinine, which was declined, and he
rode away with a careless good-by. For half a mile up the shore he
proceeded, finding no traces of any other boat, until he was checked
by an impenetrable swamp, and he turned back into the pine woods
again.
The wagons had taken a load of gum-barrels up to the camp that day,
where a charge was to be run in the still. But only a part had been
taken; eight or ten partly full barrels still stood in the orchard,
and Joe felt increasingly uneasy about them as the day went on. He
determined to spend another night in the woods and guard them himself.
He rode up to camp for supper, however, when the negroes ceased work
and found the still just cooling from its recent charge. The upper
orchard as well as the river tract had been dipped within the last few
days. Negroes were still barreling up the hot rosin, and he counted
nearly twenty barrels of turpentine on the plank platform beside the
road, ready for hauling down to the steamboat. A great row of rosin
barrels stood near the still, and Wilson told him that they were going
to run another charge after supper.
After a hasty meal Joe rode back in the twilight to the river tract.
Leaving Snowball tied near the road, he went quietly into the dim
woods and stationed himself near enough to the houseboat to be sure of
knowing if anybody left it or came to it.
There was a dull smolder of embers on the shore of the bayou, where
the houseboat’s occupants had probably cooked their supper; but there
was no light aboard nor any sound whatever. Joe waited for more than
an hour in silence; then, growing disgusted, he walked back into the
pine woods a little way.
He had gone only a few paces when he thought he saw a flicker of light
among the trees ahead. It seemed to increase rapidly. Wondering if it
could be a camp-fire or a blaze from some chipper’s cigarette, he
started to investigate it. The glow brightened to a glare, and he
covered the last half of the distance at a run.
As he broke out of the woods into an open space, a blast of heat
struck him. One of the gum-barrels had been left there, and it was
roaring and flaming like a gigantic torch, sending up volumes of
pitchy smoke.
Joe knew well that he could no more extinguish that blaze than he
could put out a volcano. Only quantities of sand would do it, and
there was no sand. He knew, too, that the barrel had caught fire by no
accident. There was an incendiary in the woods; and he cocked his
rifle and stared in every direction. Nothing stirred, though all the
woods at hand were lighted up like day.
Then in the distance he caught another ominous flash of flame. Sick at
heart, he rushed toward it. Another of the barrels was on fire, too
far gone to be checked. There were six or eight more barrels, standing
at intervals of a few hundred yards, and with a sense of impending
disaster he ran for the next in the line.
When he was still twenty yards away he saw the barrel flash up. In the
sudden glare he thought he saw the retreating shape of a man. He
shouted; then he fired two quick shots at the vanishing figure, but
nothing answered either his shot or his cry. Reaching the barrel he
saw that a flaming splinter had been thrust deep into the gum. He
jerked it out. The gum was not yet fairly burning, and he beat out the
fire with a pine branch.
He realized that wholesale destruction was meant this time. He started
toward the next barrel, and then stopped, perplexed and despairing.
Help was what he needed. He wondered if they could see the glare of
the burning barrels at the camp, and he looked in that direction.
To his dismay he saw that the sky above the far-away turpentine camp
was red! Either the camp itself or the woods around it were on fire.
Deeper-planned destruction than he had imagined must be under way, but
he knew that it was at the camp that he would be needed most. Tearing
through the woods to the spot where he had left his horse, he leaped
into the saddle and went flying up the road.
The red glare on the sky seemed to increase. While he was still far
off he saw a towering flame and heard the yelling of the negroes. He
left the woods for a short cut, reached the clearing, threw Snowball’s
bridle across a branch, and rushed into the fiery glow of the camp.
It seemed all aglare with fire and surging with men. The still itself
was the centre of the conflagration. The wooden platform around the
retort had already been burned away, and the flames were shooting high
from the turpentine-soaked timbers; but that blaze was trifling
compared to the roaring blast of fire that rose from the barrels of
rosin. Three or four dozen of them were ablaze at once. The barrels
had burst, and the molten rosin was running into a great lake of flame
that spread and flowed like lava. A dozen negroes were throwing sand
on it with shovels, but the flaming liquid splashed so dangerously
that they had to give up the attempt.
Joe heard Burnam’s voice roaring commands. A gang under his direction
was pulling down several of the cabins nearest the burning still.
Another gang was carrying supplies out of the commissary—high
combustibles, tins of kerosene, boxes of cartridges, buckets of lard.
The black, excited faces of the negroes rushing about in the red glare
made the wildest scene that Joe had ever beheld.
He rushed forward ready to lend a hand at anything, but the pool of
burning rosin caught his eye first. It was overflowing into the little
creek that crossed the camp-space; the rosin floated flaming on the
water, so that a burning current was beginning to stream down toward
the roadway.
No one seemed to have noticed that orange rivulet of fire, but Joe
remembered the barrels of turpentine spirit on the platform by the
road. The little creek flowed right under that platform.
Joe caught an excited negro by the collar as he rushed past.
“Go tell Burnam to send some men down to the road right away to look
after that spirits!” he cried, and darted himself in the direction of
the threatened barrels.
The platform was eighty yards from the edge of the camp, and pines
screened it from the glare of the fire. Three of the heavy posts that
supported it stood in the stream, which formed a sort of pool among
them. To Joe’s relief, everything seemed blindly dark. The flood of
fire had not yet come down, but he had scarcely reached the spot when
a lump of blazing, unmelted rosin came drifting down, and lodged right
against one of the pine posts. He thrust it under water and
extinguished it; but within a minute several more lumps came flaming
down, followed by a stream of burning fluid that hissed and smoked on
the surface of the running water.
Joe had picked up a shovel as he ran down, and now he cautiously flung
sand on the water. Fire spattered fiercely in all directions. The dry
brush along the road ignited, but he was able to beat it out. Running
up to the top of the bank, he yelled at the top of his voice.
“Here! This way! Help!”
No one answered; no one came. His voice was totally lost in that
shouting and uproar. No doubt the scared negro had forgotten to give
Burnam his message. He started to run for help himself, when a
backward glance showed him a tongue of flame licking up one of the
posts of the platform.
He rushed back and smothered it. The liquid fire was coming down
faster now, and threatened to spread over the whole pool under the
platform. There was no time to seek for help. If he left the spot for
a minute the spirit-barrels might flash up like gunpowder. He wet down
the posts thoroughly, but he realized that he would have to stop the
stream of flame that was pouring into the pool.
With his shovel he set to work to throw a dam of sand and mud across
the creek. Three times he had to stop and rush back to extinguish a
fire on one of the posts. Drops of spattering fire fell on his hands;
his clothes smoked, but at last he had the stream effectually blocked.
Then he stopped, breathless, and beat the fire out of his coat and
trousers.
While he worked, the thought had continually hammered at his brain
that this certainly meant the end of Burnam’s turpentine business, and
of his own investment in it. The still was destroyed. A copper retort
is extremely expensive. Even if money were forthcoming to buy another,
it would take time to get it, and to set it up, and the best of the
season’s run of gum would be lost. It looked as if these barrels of
turpentine would be about all the salvage from the wreck.
Then he noticed with consternation that the water was brimming to the
top of his dam, and that burning rosin was beginning to flow over it.
He built it higher, but the water, carrying the liquid fire on its
surface, rose steadily. Would that flaming stream never cease flowing?
For a moment he felt at his wit’s end. Then it occurred to him that he
should have provided for the water to drain out under the dam instead
of over it. Thus it would carry no fire. He punched an outlet
underneath, and had the satisfaction of seeing the level of the
flaming creek slowly subside, and no more fire went over the dam.
His satisfaction was increased by noticing that the flow of liquid
rosin was diminishing. The great lake of flame must have burned out. A
good deal of the burning stuff had got past his dam, however, and a
glance back at the turpentine gave him a shock of fright.
One of the barrels had caught fire. It was well smeared with raw gum
on the outside, and was snapping and crackling fiercely, though the
flame had not yet worked through to the contents. With a bound, Joe
reached the platform. This barrel would have to be sacrificed to save
the rest. The ground beyond the platform sloped away, and with a great
heave he tilted the barrel up and sent it rolling off. It landed with
a crash, burst open, and flashed into a stream of flame; but the
burning spirit, thinning and scattering as it went, flowed down the
slope away from the platform.
And now no more burning rosin was coming down the creek. Isolated
lumps still sputtered and flared, but the main flow had ceased.
With a last glance around, Joe hurried back to the scene of the main
fire. The still had burned out, and the copper retort and brick
furnace stood up barely from the ashes. The danger from the fire had
shifted to a group of cabins. One had been burned and another torn
down, and the men were working hard to save the others.
Shouting orders, pulling, hauling, wielding an ax, working harder than
any of the men, Burnam was everywhere. He was hatless, his sleeves
were rolled above his elbows, his face and arms were black with smoke,
and his voice was hoarse with shouting. Joe almost ran against him,
and the operator glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Where’ve you been?” he shouted furiously into Joe’s face. “Why
haven’t you been helping?”
Joe was so utterly taken aback that he forgot the events of the last
few minutes, and could only stammer that he had been “down in the
river orchard.”
“What were you doing there this time of night—and a night like this?
Asleep, hey?”
“The gum-barrels were afire,” said Joe, more and more confused.
“They’re all burned by now, I reckon. Some one must have—”
It was no time to give Burnam bad news. Joe thought for an instant
that the man meant to kill him. He shrunk back as Burnam lifted his
clenched fist.
“Burned? What were you doing, then? You dare to come in here and tell
me that you let the gum burn up on your range? What d’you think I pay
you for? You never were no good, anyway! You get outer this camp!
You’re fired! Go get your wages, and keep away from here, or I’ll
break every bone in your body!”