THE LAST RUN OF THE BELOVED THIRTY
A second time Phil loudly called and now an answer showed Nels Anderson
and the golfing man to be near the edge of the woods. They had completed
the burning of a wide strip of the dry grass completely around the
clearing, only to find their work useless. All hope of thus stopping the
spread of the fire toward the buildings was destroyed by the falling
embers. The wind carried them everywhere.
There was no time to lose. The danger of death from suffocation, even
if the flames could be escaped, was very great. Now the roof of the
house was on fire. There was not a barrel of water within miles. Further
fighting, further loss of time, would be folly. Giants of the forest were
flaming up from roots to topmost branch not twenty yards within the
woods. The whole roadway would be ablaze, on both sides, in a few minutes.
A most pitiable object was Anderson's poor cow. Her head to the ground
as if to escape the smoke, a low, frightened bellowing told of her
realization of the danger. Forgetful of herself the child was saying, "Oh,
poor, good bossy! Oh, poor bossy!"
The small haystack along side the crude, log barn suddenly blazed up. The
dull red glow gave place to a white light all through the clearing. It
was impossible now that any part of the property could be saved. Anderson
and the other man came running to the car.
"It will be a close shave! Can you make it, boys?" cried the one in the
golf cap, above the roar of the flames.
"You bet! Be at the lake in no time! We've often carried more'n six,"
yelled Paul excitedly. "Right in here!" and he held the tonneau door open
wide. "You in front with Phil, Mr. Anderson!"
Even as Jones followed Mrs. Anderson, the little girl and the golfing
man into the tonneau, and slammed the door behind him, the Thirty was
under way. Its staunch gears were never before so quickly shifted from low
to high. What mattered it if Paul did sit down hard in the strange man's
lap? What mattered it if poor Nels, unused to automobiles, was jerked
nearly from his seat before he got his great, clumsy legs quite inside?
The raging sea of fire was bordering the trail ahead, and hundreds of
little tongues of flames leaped here and there in the parched, dry grass
and weeds in the road itself.
With frightened, staring eyes Paul looked with wonder upon the dreadful
flames leaping from one treetop to another. The man beside him was
shielding his face from the terrible glare and heat and the woman and
little girl clung tightly to each other, the former watching only the
child and holding a hand to protect her face. As if dazed and unable to
comprehend, Nels Anderson looked always back toward the doomed clearing.
Phil Way alone watched the road ahead. With firm set jaw and straining
eyes he looked ever forward through the blinding glare and the billows
of smoke that now and again concealed the trail completely. But his
hands gripped the wheel with perfect confidence, his foot pressed the
accelerator steadily. The gallant car responded. The ground seemed
speeding from under its wheels. On and on it flew.
Thus far the fire had raged to the west of the road only. In but a few
places had it reached the trees directly beside the trail, pausing there
till some fresh gust of wind, or shower of sparks, carried it to the other
side.
But now Phil saw before him a spot where on both sides of the road the
forest was a flaming furnace. He did not falter. On flew the car. Another
moment and it was in the midst of the fire. A hundred yards it ran
through the deadly heat, the awful roar and sheets of flame leaping upward
and outward till their fiery fingers were all but seizing the brave lad
and his passengers.
Safely the Thirty ran the fearful gauntlet. There came a shout of praise
and admiration from the golfing man, words of thanksgiving from the woman.
The worst was over.
Rapidly, but not so fast as in the direct course of the wind, the fire
was reaching out toward Opal Lake. Like a galloping army it came on behind
the car, but, barring accident, could never, would never, overtake the
swift machine.
Barring accident! Bravely the engine, clutch, gears, springs, axles and
wheels had withstood the strain of the terrific speed, the heavy load
and the wretched road. Bravely, with every charge of gas, each cylinder
delivered generous power.
The car shot down the grade into the small valley where, some distance
below, the gravel road came to its abrupt ending. There was a heavy jolt
as the front wheels struck the dry bed of the shallow stream.
Anderson, the giant, pitched forward. He might have caught and righted
himself quite readily had he had complete use of his hands and arms, long
since partially paralyzed; but in his disabled condition he missed the
windshield frame he tried to catch, and went partly overboard.
With his left hand Phil Way reached for his falling passenger, still
holding the wheel with his right. He seized poor Anderson just in time,
but the great bulk of the fellow drew him partly from his own seat, and
pulled the steering wheel sharply round.
Still going at speed, though now on the upward grade, the automobile
answered instantly to the call of the steering knuckles--true to its
mechanism, perfectly, to the last--answered to the driver's unintended
command, and sharply swerved to the right. A large pine stood in its
course.
So quickly did the collision occur, so unprepared were any of the
automobile's occupants to meet the terrible shock that the escape of all
from serious injury was truly miraculous. The outcome must surely have
been far worse had the tree been struck squarely head-on. The fact of
the fender and right front tire and wheel receiving the heaviest force
of the impact lessened the jar, and the car swung around spending
broken momentum in the dishing of both rear wheels.
Nels Anderson, pitched far out on the ground, was gathered up cut and
bleeding. Mrs. Anderson and the child were bruised but not much hurt.
Phil, Paul and the golfing man suffered no injuries beyond the nervous
shock.
Strange as it may seem, Paul Jones spoke not a word. Questioningly he
looked at Way.
Phil had been first to help Anderson to his feet. Now leaving him to the
care of the others he quickly inspected the damage done to the machine.
The roar of the flames was still just behind. Their blood-red glare cast a
twilight glow far ahead through the darkness of the woods.
"She was a mighty good car," said Phil Way, softly, as if to himself,
quite as one might speak of some friend who has gone. "A mighty good
car!" but at the same moment his gaze took in the flames fast following
along the ground and from tree to tree both west and south. Even here
the heat and smoke were terrible. The dull red light was everywhere. The
very sky seemed ablaze.
"This is most unfortunate. I'm truly sorry for this, boys," spoke the
golfing man, very soberly. He too had been hastily investigating the
damage.
Though his voice was kind, the speaker irritated Paul Jones exceedingly.
"Wouldn't have happened but for you, and except to send you to prison you
aren't worth it, I can tell you that, Mr. Grandall," were the words he
thought, but did not utter.
"Might have been worse! We're still a mile from the lake and the fire's
just behind us! That's the whole answer," said Phil rapidly. His words
were in reply to the stranger's sympathetic expression, but were equally
addressed to all. "Right ahead on this trail, then! We've a raft that will
hold everyone!"
Rapid movement was necessary. The wind was blowing furiously now. No power
on earth could stay the flames that swept ever forward. Their path grew
constantly wider.
Both Phil and Paul looked with astonishment to see the stranger, whom they
now detested more than ever, seize Anderson's little girl in his arms to
carry her; but they were all hastening forward through the crimson light,
and clouds of smoke. No more than a glance could the boys exchange.
Many times the two lads looked back. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the
rise of the ground soon shut off their view of the prized Thirty. The
hungry, sweeping flames came curling, playing, leaping, dancing, roaring
on. They reached the car.
Phil remembered, long afterward, that as he stepped out of the automobile
for the last time he noticed the speedometer, twisted about so that the
light of a lamp shattered and broken, but still burning, fell upon it.
The reading was 5,599 miles--the record of the season.
Safely ahead of the fire the fleeing refugees reached Opal Lake. With a
glad shout, though their faces showed deepest anxiety and fear, Billy
Worth and Chip Slider received them.
"The raft's all ready! I've made it big enough to float a house! All our
provisions are on board, too!" said Billy to Phil, the moment he ran up.
"Where's the car?"
A few words told the story. There was no comment beyond the quick, "Oh!
what an escape!"
The snaky tongues of fire coming on swift, almost, as the wind itself,
were but two hundred yards away when the rescuers and rescued embarked
upon the raft. Boxes and camp equipage afforded seats. Billy had trimmed
a couple of extra long poles with which to move the clumsy craft, and
present safety for all was assured.
The dawn was just breaking. Once out on the water the coming daylight was
quite clear despite the smoke that in vast clouds rolled swiftly over,
whipped and torn by the wind.
"Thank goodness there's no fire to the north--not yet anyway," said
Phil rubbing his face, grimy with smoke and ashes. He was thinking of
MacLester and for the information of the Andersons briefly told of Dave's
unaccountable disappearance.
"There's a long stretch of pine on the other side," said the stranger,
still wearing his golfing cap, by the way. "There are a couple of streams
there, though, both of them flowing into the lower end of the lake. If
your friend is lost and should remember that, he could follow either one
of them and not come out wrong."
Dave was more than merely lost, Paul thought and said so. And, "You know
this country pretty well," he added, addressing the former speaker. "You
belonged to the Longknives," he went on rather tartly. "It will be the
last of the old clubhouse."
"Yes, one blot will be wiped out. It is only too bad that so much that is
good must go with it."
Paul glanced at Phil and his eyes also met Billy's. The man's words were
puzzling.
"We saw--" Paul began, but a shout interrupted him--
"_There's_ Dave! There's Dave now and some man with him!" yelled Chip
Slider suddenly. His voice was like a burst of ecstasy. His eyes scanning
the distant shore, he had instantly caught sight of the two hats waved as
a signal.
The joy of the three chums, that the fourth member of their almost
inseparable quartette was safe and sound, it would take pages to describe.
With the most delighted waving of his own hat, Phil shouted to MacLester
about the skiff still moored on the north shore. His voice was lost in
the roar of the wind and the flames now sweeping very near the water's
edge. By signals, however, he quickly made Dave understand and the
latter and the man with him were seen to hurry forward to where the
boat was tied.
All the time the golfing man watched MacLester and the person with him
keenly. "Impossible!" he muttered at last. "I thought for a moment I knew
the old chap your friend seems to have in tow."
But it was not impossible, apparently, for even before MacLester and
his chums could exchange greetings, as the skiff drew near, the small,
elderly man in the stern of the boat cried: "Oh! 'tis there ye air then,
Mr. Beckley! Oh, ho! hurray! I dunno!" A laugh that was equally like a sob
accompanied the words, and "Oh, ho! oh, ho! I dunno!" the old fellow
cried again and again.
"It's 'Daddy' O'Lear, right from my own home," the golfing man explained
briefly.
The three boys again exchanged quick glances. Instantly as he heard the
name "Beckley" Phil had remembered the initial B on the shaving cup found
in the clubhouse. Was the man trying to carry on a deception even as
to his name, and at such a time, his thoughts inquired. No, he quickly
decided, there was some mistake.
"I do hope it may be no bad news he may be sent with, Meester Beckley,"
said Mrs. Anderson. She had been sitting silent on one of the boxes Billy
provided, the little girl leaning on her knees. All the Andersons had
watched the fire constantly, their heavy hearts revealed in their sad
faces.
"I--I think not," spoke the man in a puzzled way, glancing toward the fire
now almost bursting through the shore line.
"It will be hot here, and dangerous," said Phil, looking in the same
direction. "We must shove down the lake. Our poles won't reach to go
out farther. The water's too deep. We'll lie off opposite the marsh near
the Point."
Shouting to the approaching boat to follow, Way and Billy slowly pushed
their heavy craft to the west. The skiff overtook them easily and quickly.
"Hello!" grinned Paul Jones as Dave faced quickly about when the boat
came alongside. But his half-jocular tone fell on ears attuned to serious
matters.
"Oh! this is a terrible thing," said MacLester, his eyes fixed on the
flood of flames.
"I was never so glad as I am this minute! What in the world happened to
you, Dave? But never mind; you're safe now," Way answered with emphasis.
Somehow all felt it was no time for conversation. Dave made no response to
Phil's question. But Billy Worth--Chef Billy--remembered one thing.
"Have you had anything to eat?" he demanded. "I'll bet you haven't!"
"Mighty little--either of us," was the answer. "We were lost,--just about."
"Here's something!" and Worth drew a basket out from beneath a blanket.
"Guess we'll all feel better for a bite of breakfast," he added.
Crackers, cheese, bread and butter and bananas were in the "ship's
stores," as Billy expressed it, and there was enough for all.
The simple matter of eating served not only to relieve hunger but gave all
present a sense of better acquaintance and far greater freedom in talking
with one another.
"'Tis an awful waste of wood, sure!" said Mr. O'Lear.
Obviously he referred to the fire. The flames now swept the shore line
from the Point to the lake's eastern boundary. For miles upon miles the
forest was a whirlwind of furiously roaring flames, or a desolate waste
of blazing wreckage, smoldering stumps and blackened, leafless tree trunks.
"The clubhouse! The roof has caught!" cried Billy Worth suddenly. "And
look! It's a man!--two men, on the porch roof!" he yelled.
"Great heavens! it's Lew Grandall!" cried the stranger on the raft. "And
the other man! They're fighting!"
"It's Murky! The other one is Murky!" Paul's sharp voice fairly shrieked.
"It's the suit-case! They have the suit-case! Murky's trying to get it
away from him!"
"Oo--ho there!" shouted the golfing man with all his force. "Get to the
ground! The fire's all around you! Get into the lake quick or you're dead
men!"
For an instant the two who fiercely struggled on the small balcony seemed
to answer to the voice. Grandall would have leaped, it was apparent, but
the other seized him furiously, and drew him forcibly back. Then a thick
burst of smoke concealed them both.