They were appalled by the predicament in which they found themselves.
The thing seemed quite mysterious.
The rock against which the fire had been built was all aglow, as if it
had been heated in a furnace till red hot--strange circumstance; one
that would have fascinated Layson into elaborate investigation had he
had the time to think about it--and, beyond it, evidently communicated
through it as a link, the rustling leaves of the past autumn, their
surface layers sun-dried, were bursting into glittering little points of
flame all about the narrow ledge of rock on which they were standing. As
they gazed, before Layson could rush forward to stamp out these
sparkling perils, the fire had spread, as the girl, wise in the direful
ways of brush-fires, had known at once that it would spread, to the
encircling pine-tops, left in a tinder barricade about the clearing by
the sawyers and the axemen.
"Oh," she said, distressed, "we're ketched!"
Layson, less conscious of their peril because less well informed as to
the almost explosive inflammability of dry pine-tops, took the matter
less seriously. "We'll get out, all right," said he. "Don't worry."
"There's times _to_ worry," said the girl, "an' this, I reckon--well,
it's one of 'em."
As if to prove the truth of what she said, with a burst almost like that
of flame's leap along a powder-line, the fire caught one resinous
pine-top after another with a crackling rush which was not only
fearfully apparent to the eye, but also ominously audible. Within ten
seconds the pair were ringed by sound like that of crackling musketry
upon a battlefield, and by a pyrotechnic spectacle of terrifying
magnitude. Layson had heard guns pop in untrained volleys at State Guard
manoeuvres, and was instantly impressed by the amazing similarity of
sound, but he had never in his life seen anything to be compared to the
towering ring of flame-wall which almost instantly encircled them. He
lost, perhaps, a minute, in astonished contemplation of the situation.
Then realization of their peril burst upon him with a rush. To wait
there, where they were, too evidently meant certain death. Not only
would the pulsing heat from the pine-tops already burning soon become
unendurable, but there was enough of tindrous litter strewn about the
entire area of the little clearing to make it horribly apparent to him
that, in a moment, it would all become a bed of glittering flame. He
gazed at the menacing, encroaching fire, appalled.
Madge, understanding the desperation of their situation even better than
he did, knowing, too, that a stranger could, indeed, scarce conceive the
deadly peril of it, was, at first, the cooler of the two. Her life there
in the mountains, where any man she knew might meet, and her own father
had met, death stalking with a rifle in his bended elbow, or a knife
clutched in his clenched hand, had given her a certain poise in time of
peril, an admirable self-control, quick wits, firm nerves. She felt that
there was small chance of escape, yet she was not visibly terrified, and
made no outcry.
Had she been caught, thus, with a mountaineer (which scarcely could have
happened) she would have felt small apprehension. Learned in the perils
of the woods, heavy-booted, sturdy-legged, a native, like Joe Lorey, for
example, would, she felt quite certain, have been able to effect her
rescue. But the chances, she decided, were practically nil, with this
untrained "foreigner" as her companion. She had been told that
"bluegrass folks" were lacking in strong nerves and prone to panic if
real danger threatened. Barefooted as she was, there was little she,
herself, could do. She knew that she would quickly fall unconscious from
intolerable pain if she so much as tried to make a dash for safety. That
she was badly frightened she would have readily admitted, that she was
panic-stricken none who looked at her could, for a moment, dream.
She glanced at Layson with a curiosity which was almost calm, as, for a
moment quite bewildered, he ran from side to side of their rapidly
narrowing space of safety, endeavoring to find a weak spot in the wall
of flames through which they might escape, but failing everywhere. For a
moment she thought that he had lost his head, and thus proved all too
true those tales which she had heard of "foreigners." It was almost as
one race gazing at another suffering ordeal in test, that she observed
his every movement, each detail of his facial play. While they had sat
there on the log, intent upon their work above her spelling-book, she
had wondered if the harsh, uncharitable mountain judgment of the
"foreigners" had not been too merciless. Now she felt that she began to
see its justification. The man, undoubtedly, she thought, showed an
unmanly panic.
"No use tryin' to get out that-a-way," she said calmly. "You'd better--"
Even as she spoke, and before her words could possibly have influenced
him, she saw a change come over him. The signs of fear, which had so
displeased her, faded from his actions and his facial play. Placed in
unusual, unexpected circumstances, for a second he had been bewildered,
but, as soon as opportunity had come for gathering of wits, he found
composure, coolness, nerve. She did not even finish out her sentence.
Instead, her thoughts turned to that acme of breeding, nerve, endurance
and high spirit dear to all Kentuckians, the race horse. "He's found his
feet!" she thought.
The man impressed her, now, even more than when, with courtesy, such as
she had never known, tact which had maintained her comfort when she
might have felt humiliated, learning which to her seemed marvellous, he
had offered her the key to learning's mysteries upon the log. She saw
that he had quickly won a mighty victory over self. She thought of tales
which she had heard by mountain fireplaces about "bad men," who, when
they first had heard a bullet's song, had dodged and whitened, only to
recover quickly and be nerved to peril evermore thereafter. Her doubt of
Layson fell away completely. Instead of thinking of him as of one whose
manhood is inferior to that of the rough mountaineers she knew, perforce
she saw in him superiorities. There was not the least sign of
bragadocio, of counterfeit, about his new-found calm. It was, she
recognized at once, entirely genuine. "Rattled for a minute," she
thought, wisely, again amending her first judgment, "but cooler, now,
than cucumbers."
She looked gravely at him as he moved about investigating, not
excitedly, alertly, full of the necessary business of escape. "Looks
bad, don't it?" she said gravely. "Like powder, them thar pine-tops."
"Oh, we'll get out all right," he answered, easily, and now she felt a
comfort in the fact that he was intentionally minimizing danger to give
confidence to the supposed weakness of her sex.
"Maybe so an' maybe not," said she, discovering, to her disgust, that it
was hard, now that he was showing strength, to keep the panic tremolo
from her own voice.
The fire had, by this time, encircled them completely, and from a
hundred points was running in toward them on tinder lines of dry
pine-needles and old leaves, flashing at them viciously along the crisp,
dry surface of old moss and lichens on the rocks. A wind had suddenly
arisen, born, no doubt, of the fire's own mighty draft. Bits of blazing
light wood, small, burning branches, myriads of flaming oak leaves and
pine-cones were swept up from the ring of fire about them, in the
chimney of the blaze, to lose their impetus only at a mighty height, and
then fall slowly, threateningly down within the burning ring. So
plentiful were these little, vicious menaces, that, within another
minute, they were dodging them continually.
He now took his place close by her side and gazed upon the spectacle,
calm-eyed, as if he found it interesting rather more than terrifying.
"Oh, we'll get out, all right," said he, again.
And then he turned to her in frank and unexcited inquiry. To her
increased disgust the sobs of growing fear convulsed her throat. She
fought them back and listened to his question.
"You know more about woods-fires than I do," he said evenly. "Better
tell me what to do, eh?"
This confession of his ignorance strengthened her growing confidence in
him instead of weakening it. The fact that he could ask advice so calmly
made her think that, probably, he would be calm in taking it if she
could offer it. It steadied her and helped her think. And then she saw
him spring, and, actually with a smile, strike in the air above her
head, diverting from its downward path which would have landed it upon
her, a flaming fragment of pine-top fully five feet long. He actually
laughed.
"Like handball," he said cheerily. "Don't worry. I won't let anything
fall on you. You just--_think!_"
Her panic, now, had vanished as by magic. Instantly she really _ceased_
to worry. He would _not_ let fire fall on her. He would get her out of
that. She was certain of it. She _could_ think--calmly and with care.
But she could not think of a way out--at least she could not think of a
way out for her. Barefooted as she was, she scarcely could expect to
find, even in her strong young body, strength enough to endure the pain
of treading, as she would be forced to if she made a dash, on an almost
unbroken bed of glowing coals and smouldering moss ten yards in width.
He, with his heavy boots, might manage it. Therefore there was hope for
him; but for her to try it would be madness.
Had he been a sturdy mountaineer, she wofully reflected--having found a
detail of lowland inferiority which, she was quite certain, would not be
dispelled as had some others--he might, in such a desperate case, have
summoned strength to "tote" her through, although she scarcely thought
Joe Lorey, the best man whom she knew, could really do it; still there
would have been the possibility. But no weak-muscled "foreigner,"
pap-nurtured in the lowlands, could, she knew, of course, accomplish
such a feat. It was fine to know things, as he did, but _muscle_ was
what counted now! In queer, impersonal reflection, born, doubtless, of a
dumb hysteria, she reflected bitterly upon the healthy weight of her own
mountain-nourished person.
"If I was only like them triflin' bluegrass gals Joe tells about," she
thought, "made up of nothin' or a little less, it wouldn't be no trick
to tote me outen this; but dellaw! I'm just as much as that there ox of
mine feels right to carry when I got a couple bags o' grist on, back an'
front."
She looked around the ring of fire, dull-eyed, disheartened. "Ain't no
use," said she, aloud.
He seemed to almost lose his temper. "Use?" said he, "of course there's
use! You tell me where the best chance is and we'll fight out, all
right."
She did not even answer; the situation seemed to her so wholly
hopeless.
He acted, then, without further question. Hastily throwing the loop of
his gun over his shoulder, he crooked one arm beneath her
much-astonished knees, clasped another tight about her waist, and
started for the fire with a determined spring.
"No, no; not there!" she screamed, astonished, terrified, and yet,
withal, delighted by the unexpected hardness of the muscles in the arms
which held her, the unexpected spring in the apparently not overburdened
limbs which bore them up, the unexpected nerve, determination of the
man's initiative.
This "foreigner," it seemed, was not so weak, was not so namby-pamby as
his class had been described to be. She did not struggle in the circling
arms, she only made an explanation.
"That's hard wood, burnin' there," said she. "Burnin' hard wood's harder
to break through an' hotter, too. Try some place where it's pine.... But
you can't never do it!"
"Where?" said he. "Show me! You know, I don't."
"Well--over thar," she said, and indicated, with a pointing hand, the
place in the encircling conflagration where passage seemed least
hopeless.
At that moment fire blazed high there, but her knowing eye told her that
it was largely flaring needles, brittle twigs, and easily dissipated
cones which fed it.
A few great springs, such as she now felt that the quivering, eager
limbs which held her, were possessed of the ability to make, might take
them through this flimsiest spot in the terrible barricade. The
crackling, burning branches of the dead pine-tops would be likely to
give way before them, not to trip them up, as oak would, to thrust them,
falling, on the bed of glowing coals fast forming on the ground.
"Over thar," said she, again. "I reckon that's the best place--but you
cain't--"
With the new respect the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles
brought to her, arose in her a towering admiration of him. When she
first had seen him, there beside the pool, she definitely had liked him;
while they had delved into the mysteries of the alphabet upon the log
his patient, willing, helpful kindness had increased her prepossession
in his favor. It was only when, after disaster had so swiftly, so
unexpectedly, descended on them and she had compared his body, made
apparently more slender in comparison to the rude-limbed mountaineers
she knew than it was really by tight-fitting knickerbockers and
golf-stockings and its well-cut shooting-jacket, that she had lost
confidence in him. But now his muscles, closing round her, seemed like
thews of steel. She had never heard of athletes, she did not dream that
muscle-building is a part of modern education--that alertness on the
baseball, polo, football fields, count quite as much, at least in
college popularity, as ready tongues and agile wits. The last fibres of
destroyed respect for him rebuilt themselves upon the minute. Her
confidence returned completely in a sudden flash--quicker than the magic
leapings of the fire about them. She knew that he would take her through
to safety.
A thought occurred to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him
the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new
consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful
peril in the passage of the flames--peril to his eyes and face and
clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was
the means of saving him, in part, from it.
"You let me down for just a minute," she said briefly. "Just a minute.
Then I'll let you take me up an' carry me. An' you can _do_ it, too!
You're strong, ain't you?"
Wondering, he released his hold on her, and she slid to her feet. Then,
with a quick movement, she unbuttoned the waistband of her outer skirt,
and, letting it slip down to the ground, stepped out of it.
"Ain't it lucky I got wet?" said she, and smiled. "It ain't more'n half
dry yet. The under one is wet, too, and both of 'em are wool--and that
don't burn like cotton would.
"Now pick me up again an' I'll just fix this
skirt--so--there--now--that's the way. Can you see, now? All right?
Well, it'll keep th' fire from catchin' in our hair, an' it'll save your
eyes."
[Illustration: A MIGHTY LEAP HAD CARRIED THEM BEYOND THE BLAZING
BARRIER]
He laughed. "That's fine!" said he, and, almost before she realized that
they were under way, a mighty leap had taken them close to the blazing
barrier, another one had landed them within its very midst, another one
had carried them beyond its greatest menace, another had delivered them
from actual peril, leaving them on ground where filmy grass, dead
leaves, dry needles, had blazed quickly, with a consuming flash, and,
utterly and almost instantly destroyed, had left behind them only thin,
hot ash, devoid of peril, scarce to be considered.
But he did not let her feet touch ground again until they were even
beyond this. Finally, when they reached a rocky "barren," where the
little fire had found no fuel, she felt his tautened thews relax.
Instantly she slipped from his encircling arms, and he began to whip the
flames in grass and little brush close to them with the dampened skirt.
Even on the little isle of safety they found it necessary, still, to
agilely avoid innumerable bits of floating "light-wood" brands, and, for
a time, to beat, beat at the hungry little flames around them, but, at
last, the danger was all over, and they stood there, looking at each
other, with a sense of great relief. He smiled, breathing hard, but not
exhausted.
"Tight work, eh?" he said cheerfully.
"Jest _wonderful_!" she answered, with a ready tribute.
Then the memory of his embracing arm, the fact that her own arms had
been as tightly clasped about his neck, came to her with a rush,
although, while they had raced across the burning strip she had not
thought of these things. Shyness stirred in her almost as definitely as
it had while she lay hidden at the pool's mouth, watching him and
tingling with shamed thrills at thought of her amazing plight there. No
man had ever had his arms about her in her life before.
But, even while she blushed and thrilled with this embarrassment, she
fought to put it from her. He, evidently, had not thought of it at all,
was, now, not thinking of it. What had been done had been a part of the
day's work, a quick move, made in an emergency, when nothing else would
serve. His attitude restored her own composure.
And gratitude welled in her. She struggled to find words for it.
"I--I'm much obleeged to you," were all she found, and she was conscious
of their most complete inadequacy.
"No reason why you should be," he said gayly. "We got caught in a tight
place, that's all, and we helped one another out of it."
She laughed derisively. "I helped _you_ out a lot, now didn't I?" she
asked.
Again she made a survey of him, standing where he had been when he had
loosed his hold of her, unwearied, smiling, and she looked with actual
wonder. Good clothes and careful speech were not, of a necessity, the
outward signs of weaklings, it appeared!
Joe Lorey, in a dozen talks with her, had told her that they were. She
did not understand that this had been a clumsy and short-sighted
strategy, that, finding her more difficult than other mountain
girls--the handsome, sturdy young hill-dweller had not been without his
conquests among the maidens of his kind; only Madge had baffled him--he
had feared that, now when the railroad building in the valley had
brought so many "foreigners" into the neighborhood, one of them might
fascinate her, and it had been to guard against this, as well as he was
able, that he had spoken slightingly of the whole class. He had
delighted in repeating to her tales belittling them, deriding them, and
she, of course, had quite believed his stories.
But her experience with this one had not justified that point of view,
and the matter largely occupied her thoughts as they walked slowly
through the thickets of a bit of "second-growth" beyond the fire, which,
stopped by the rocky "barrens," was dying out behind them. Her
companion was, to her, an utterly new sort of being, not better trained
in mind alone, but better trained in body than any mountaineer she knew;
doubtless ignorant of many details of woods-life which would be known to
any child there in the mountains, but, on the other hand, even more
resourceful, daring, quick, than mountain men would have been, similarly
placed, and, to her amazement, physically stronger, too!
The fact that he had shown himself more thoughtful of and courteous to
her than any other man had ever been before, made its impression, but a
slighter one. Hers were the instincts of true wisdom, and she valued
these things less than many of her city sisters might, although she
valued them, of course. She looked slyly, wonderingly at him. He was a
very pleasant, very admirable sort of creature--this visitor from the
unknown, outside world. She quite decided that she did not even think
his knickerbockers foolish, after all.
For a moment, even now, she thrilled unpleasantly with a mean suspicion
that he might be a "revenuer," after all, and have done the good things
he had done as a part of that infernal craft which revenuers sometimes
showed when searching for the hidden stills where "moonshine" whisky is
illegally produced among the mountains; but she put this thought out of
her heart, indignantly, almost as quickly as it came to her.
Instinctively she felt quite certain that duplicity did not form any
portion of his nature. They had not been traitor's arms which had so
bravely (and so firmly) clasped her for the quick and risky dash across
that terrifying belt of fire!
"No," said she, determined to give him fullest measure of due credit, "I
didn't help you none. I didn't help you none--an' you did what I don't
believe any other man I ever knew could do. I'm--"
Again she paused, again at loss for words, again the quest failed
wholly.
"I'm much obleeged," said she.
Then, suddenly, the thought came to her of that other and less
prepossessing "foreigner" whom, that day, she had seen there in her
mountains. She described him carefully to Layson, and asked if he could
guess who he had been and what his business could have been.
Descriptions are a sorry basis for the recognition of a person thought
to be far miles away, a person unassociated in one's mind with the
surroundings he has suddenly appeared in; and, therefore, Layson, who
really knew the man and who, had he identified him with the unknown
visitor, would have been surprised, intensely curious, and, possibly,
suspicious, could offer her no clue to his identity.