MASTER returned to the fire and lay back on his blanket. Little puffs
of air had begun to rattle the dead leaves above him. Soon he could
hear a wind coming over the woodland. It was like the roar of distant
sea-billows. Waves of wind began to whistle in the naked branches
overhead. In a moment the main flood of the gale was roaring through
them, and every tree column had begun to creak and groan. Master rose
and looked up at the sky. He could see a wavering glow through the
tree-tops. The odor of smoke was in the air. He ran to call Miss Strong,
and met her coming out of her tent. She had smelled the smoke and
quickly dressed.
"My land, the woods are afire!" she cried.
The sky had brightened as if a great, golden moon were rising.
Sinth ran back into her tent and woke the children. With swift and eager
hands the young man helped her while she put on their clothes. She said
not a word until they were dressed. Then, half blinded by thickening
smoke and groping on her way to the other tent, she said, despairingly,
"I wonder where Silas is?"
A great, feathery cinder fell through the tree-tops.
"Come quick, we must get out of here," Master called, as he lifted the
crying children. "We've no time to lose."
She flung some things in a satchel and tried to follow. In the smoke it
was difficult to breathe and almost impossible to find their way. Master
put down the children and tore some rope from a tent-side and tied it
to the dog's collar. Then he shouted, "Go home, Zeb!" They clung to one
another while the dog led them into the trail. Master had Socky and Sue
in his arms. He hurried up the long slope of Rainbow Ridge, the woman
following.
They could now hear the charge and raven of the flames that were tearing
into a resinous swamp-roof not far away.
"Comin' fast!" Sinth exclaimed. "Can't see or breathe hardly."
"Drop your satchel and cling to my coat-tails," Master answered,
stopping to give her a hold.
A burning rag of rotten timber, flying with the wind, caught in a green
top above them. It broke and fell in flakes of fire. Master flung one
off his coat-sleeve, and, seizing a stalk of witch-hopple, whipped the
glow out of them. On they pressed, mounting slowly into better air. Just
ahead of them they could see the wavering firelight on their trail. On a
bare ledge near the summit they stopped to rest their lungs a moment.
They were now above the swift army of flame and a little off the west
flank of it. They could see into a red, smoky, luminous gulf, leagues
long and wide, beneath the night-shadow. Ten thousand torches of balsam
and spruce and pine and hemlock sent aloft their reeling towers of flame
and flung their light through the long valley. It illumined a black,
wind-driven cloud of smoke waving over the woodland like a dismal flag
of destruction. A great wedge of flame was rending its way northward.
Sparks leaped along the sides of it like fiery dust beneath the feet of
the conqueror. They rose high and drifted over the lake chasm and fell
in a sleet of fire on the lighted waves. The loose and tattered jacket
of many an old stub was tom into glowing rags and scattered by the
wind. Some hurtled off a mile or more from their source, and isolated
fountains of flame were spreading here and there on balsam flats near
the lake margin. Some of the tall firs, when first touched by the
cinder-shower, were like great Christmas-trees hung with tinsel and
lighted by many candles. New-caught flames, bending in the wind, had the
look of horses at full gallop. Ropes and arrows and spears and lances of
fire were flying and curveting over the doomed woods.
The travellers halted only for a moment. They could feel the heat on
their faces. Black smoke had begun to roll over the heights around them.
"It'll go up the valley in an hour an' cut Silas off," Sinth whimpered
as they went on.
"He must have crossed the valley before now," the young man assured her.
The woman ran ahead and called, loudly, "Silas! Silas!" She continued
calling as they hurried on through thickening smoke. They halted for a
word at Leonard's Trail, which left the main thoroughfare to Rainbow,
and, going down the east side of the ridge, fared away some ten miles
over hill and dale to the open country.
It was at right angles with the way of the wind and would soon lead them
out of danger.
"Make for Benson Falls with the childem!" cried Sinth. "I'm goin' after
Silas." She knew that her brother would surely be coming--that, seeing
the fire, he would take any hazard to reach them.
Master knew not what to do. He had begun to worry about the people at
Buckhom, but his work was nearer to his hand. It was there at the fork
in the trail. He sent a loud, far-reaching cry down the wind, but heard
no answer.
"He'll take care of himself--you'd better get away from this valley," he
called.
An oily top had taken fire below and within a hundred yards of them.
"Go, go quick, an' save them childern!" she urged. Then she ran away
from him.
She hurried along the top of the ridge, calling as she went. A dim,
misty glow filled the cavern of the woods around her. Just ahead drops
of fire seemed to be dripping through the forest roof. It failed to
catch. It would let her go a little farther, and she pressed on. A fold
of the great streamer of smoke was rent away and rolled up the side of
the ridge and covered her. She sank upon her knees, nearly smothered,
and put her skirt over her face. The cloud passed in a moment. Her
sleeve caught fire and she put it out with her hand. She felt her peril
more keenly and tried to run. She heard Zeb sniffing and coughing near.
Master had let him go, thinking that he might help her in some way. She
stooped and called to him and took hold of the dragging rope. The dog
pressed on so eagerly that he carried part of her weight. A broken bough
in a tree-top just ahead of her had caught fire and swung like a big
lantern. She had no sooner passed than she heard the tree burst into
flame with a sound like the frying of fat. She felt her hand stinging
her and saw that a little flame was running up the side of her skirt.
She cried, "Mercy!" and knelt and smothered it with her hands. Gasping
for breath, she fell forward, her face upon the ground.
"Silas Strong," she moaned, "you got to come quick or I won't never see
you again." The dog heard her and licked her face.
Down among the ferns and mosses she found a stratum of clear air, and in
a moment rose and reeled a few steps farther. The flank of the invader
had overrun the heights. Her seeking was near its end. Showers of fire
were falling beyond and beside her. She lay down and covered her face
to protect it from heat and smoke. She rose and staggered on, calling
loudly. Then she heard a bark from Zeb and the familiar halloo of Silas
Strong.
Through some subtle but sure intuition the two had known what to expect
of each other and had clung to the trail. She saw him running out of the
smoke-cloud and whipping his arms with his old felt hat. One side of his
beard was burned away. He picked her up as if she had been a child and
ran down the east side of the ridge with her, leaping over logs and
crashing through fallen tops. Beyond the showering sparks he stopped and
smothered a circle of creeping fire on her skirt. Sinth lay in his arms
moaning and sobbing. He shook her and shouted, almost fiercely, "The
leetle f-fawns--wh-where be they?"
"Gone with him on Leonard's Trail," Sinth answered, brokenly.
He entered a swamp in the dim-lighted forest, now running, now striding
slowly through fallen timber and up to his knees in the damp earth.
Every moment the air was growing clearer. He ran over a hard-wood hill
and slackened pace while he made his way half across a wide flat.
When he struck the trail to Benson Falls the fire-glow was fainter. Now
and then a great, rushing billow of light swept over them and vanished.
He stopped and blew and put Sinth on her feet.
"Hard n-night, sis," said he, tenderly.
She stood and made no answer. In a flare of firelight he saw that she
was holding out one of her hands. He struck a match and looked at it and
made a rueful cluck. The fire of the match seemed to frighten her; she
staggered backward and fell with a cry. He caught her up and strode
slowly on. Soon she seemed to recover self-control and lay silent. He
was in great pain; he was reeling under his burden, but he kept on. She
put up a hand and felt his face.
"Why, Silas," she said, in a frightened voice, "you're crying."
It was then that he fell to the ground helpless.