WE FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
"Where are you?" Harry shouted; "all call together."
We could hear several voices answering all together, "Here."
"Keep shouting," he called; "we're coming. Is there any open land up
there?"
"No," a voice said; "hurry!"
We followed the voices and pretty soon came to the observation station. It
was just a little shanty with a trestle-work wooden tower close to it.
"Did you get 'phone connection yet?" Harry called as we came up.
"Guess the poles are burned down," a fellow's voice answered. "We can't
even get Central. Have you got water?" he fairly wailed. "We're going to
be burned alive! Have you got water?"
Inside were two girls and two young fellows.
One of the girls was wringing her hands and just sobbing, and the other
girl was trying to calm her down. She just kept crying, "It's coming nearer
and nearer! What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?" One of the fellows was
all gone to pieces, too, and he just clutched Harry's arm and said, "Save
us; can't you save us?"
Harry just kind of threw him off. He said, "We're here to save you if we
can, and die with you if we can't. The first thing is, not to be a coward.
Remember, when the Titanic went down, the band was playing. There have been
a couple of million people killed in the last two years. Who are you, to be
standing here crying like a baby?"
Oh boy, that hit the girl if it didn't hit the fellow. She just got up and
grabbed Harry by the hand and said, "I'm _not_ a coward. I _can_ be brave."
"All right," he said; "we've got about eight minutes. Sit down and be
calm. These boys are scouts. Take a lesson from them."
_Oh, didn't I admire that fellow!_ I bet the girl did, too. Gee, you
couldn't blame her.
"There ought to be some axes here," he said; "hustle and turn things over."
Illustration #4 "We chopped away the brush to make a long clear space."
Oh boy, it didn't take us long to have that shanty inside out. We found
five axes.
"All right," Harry said; "now we've got just one slim chance and it all
depends upon how fast we can work. We've got to chop down and tear up a
line of brush and start a fire back to meet the other one. Everybody get
busy-woman's place is on the fire line; _hustle!_"
Oh boy, you should have seen that girl who had been crying. She just
grabbed an axe and wouldn't give it up. Now this is the way we did, and all
the while that line of fire was coming along, nearer, nearer, nearer. We
chopped away the brush so as to make a long clear space about ten or
fifteen feet wide. Harry and three of the scouts and one of the girls used
the axes; because that girl just wouldn't hand over the axe and we couldn't
make her. And didn't she turn out to be a regular Mrs. Daniel Boone!
The rest of us threw the brush over toward the fire as fast as we could.
Some of the small bushes we just dragged up out of the earth. Some
hustling!
The fire was so near us now, that we could feel the heat good and strong
and sparks kept falling among us, so we had to keep stamping them out.
I don't know how long it took us, but pretty soon we had a long, narrow
space cleared. I know my hands were bleeding. As fast as the brush was
chopped away, some of the fellows dragged it over toward where the fire
was, as near as they dared. That girl would go almost up to the blaze and
push a big clump of brush toward it and then run back. Her dress was all
torn, but she didn't care.
Then we lighted the brush along the edge of the cleared space that was
nearest to the fire. If the wind had been blowing that way, the fire would
have moved right out to meet the other one. But it had to buck the wind and
that was bad. Anyway, the clearing we had made prevented it from coming our
way, but the sparks kept blowing across the clearing, and we knew that all
we had done was to check the fire long enough to get another good head
start away from it.
Believe _me_, we didn't wait long.
Harry was panting so hard he could only just talk. "We've got to get down
the other side of the mountain," he said, "I figure it'll be about ten
minutes or so before the land this side of the clearing gets started. The
sparks'll start it. The clearing isn't wide enough and the wind is wrong.
Drop everything and follow me--quick."
Then Will Dawson spoke up. He never talked very much, but he was a good
scout just the same. He was breathing so hard he just gulped. "Do either
of you girls or fellows know where the man who lived here got his water?
There must be water here somewheres or they wouldn't have built the house
here."
"We can't stem this advance with spring water," Harry said; "we'd need a
reservoir. Come on!"
"But if we could find the spring," Will said, "we could follow the trickle
and get into a brook lower down. How are we going to find our way down the
other side of the mountain. It's worse than this side. The west side of the
mountain is always worse."
"The fire won't climb down as fast is it climbs up," Harry panted; "it
doesn't work that way. The mountain itself acts as a wind shield. We've
got to get over the top blamed quick. I'll find a way down. Don't let's
waste time here!"
Will just said, "The best trail in the world is a brook. It goes the
quickest way. If it takes us fifteen minutes to find the spring, even then
it's best. It's better than getting lost. The brook knows it's way and we
don't. Water is a scout."
"Who says so?" Harry said, kind of impatient.
"Kit Carson said so," Will said.
"Well, I guess you're a pretty good scout, too," Harry said; "hike around,
only _hustle!_" In about two minutes we found the spring, about a hundred
feet from the house.
"Lucky it's there," one of those new fellows said.
"It had to be there," Will answered him; "because people drink water. Where
there are people, there is water."
Gee whiz, I never knew Will Dawson till that night. And I was mighty proud
that he was in my patrol, you can bet.
That girl said, "Isn't he just _wonderful?_" I said, "You're wonderful,
too, and I'd like to have you in my patrol."
But, one thing, there wasn't any time to talk, because the sparks were
blowing across the clearing and dropping all around the house. The fire
that we had started back toward the other one had cleared some land between
us and the blaze, but not enough.
The water from the spring trickled down over the rocks and we followed it.
It went through a kind of cavern on the top of the mountain, and when we
got through there, we could see plain enough that we were on the west
slope. The mountain wasn't all down hill right there, but the trickle of
water flowed down through hollows and anybody could see now that Will
Dawson was right. He was right for three reasons.
First, because as long as we followed the brook there wouldn't be any going
up and down, like there was climbing up the east side of the mountain.
Second, because it took us down the quickest way. And third, because we'd
always be near water. In some places we had to scramble down steep
precipices where the water fell, but we always managed it, and every time
we did that, we knew we were saving space.
After we got about half a mile, we could see points of flame up over the
top of the mountain and we knew the fire had reached the spot where we had
been. Harry said he guessed the shanty was on fire. Maybe it would come
down the east side a ways, we didn't know, but anyway it wouldn't have such
a breeze to drive it, and we were coming into open land, so we should
worry. The west slope of that mountain was easy, once we got down a ways
from the top. That's the way it is with most all the mountains near the
Hudson; the steep side faces the river. Pretty soon we were hiking across
pastures and then we came to a road. We didn't bother with the brook after
we passed the steep part. I don't know where it went, but it did us a good
turn, that's one thing. Some fellows like fire better than water, and I'm
not saying anything against camp-fires. And I don't say that water is
always a friend, either, because look at floods and things like that. But
I like water better.
Only I gee whiz, I don't like it to rain in vacation.