THE TUNNEL
Dave knew no rest that night. He patrolled his line from San Jacinto to
Cattle and back again, stopping always to lend a hand where the attack
was most furious. The men of his crew were weary to exhaustion, but the
pressure of the fire was so great that they dared not leave the front.
As soon as one blaze was beaten out, another started. A shower of sparks
close to Cattle Cañon swept over the ridge and set the thick grass afire.
This was smothered with saddle blankets and with sand and dirt thrown
from shovels.
Nearer to San Jacinto Cañon the danger was more acute. Dave did not dare
back-fire on account of the wind. He dynamited the timber to make a
trail-break against the howling, roaring wall of fire plunging forward.
As soon as the flames seized the timber the heat grew more intense. The
sound of falling trees as they crashed down marked the progress of the
fire. The men retreated, staggering with exhaustion, hands and faces
flayed, eyes inflamed and blinded by the black smoke that rolled over
them.
A stiff wind was blowing, but it was no longer a steady one. Sometimes it
bore from the northeast; again in a cross-current almost directly from
the east. The smoke poured in, swirling round them till they scarce knew
one direction from another.
The dense cloud lifted for a moment, swept away by an air current. To the
fire-fighters that glimpse of the landscape told an appalling fact. The
demon had escaped below from San Jacinto Cañon and been swept westward by
a slant of wind with the speed of an express train. They were trapped by
the back-fire in a labyrinth from which there appeared no escape. Every
path of exit was blocked. The flames had leaped from hilltop to hilltop.
The men gathered together to consult. Many of them were on the verge of
panic.
Dave spoke quietly. "We've got a chance if we keep our heads. There's an
old mining tunnel hereabouts. Follow me, and stay together."
He plunged into the heavy smoke that had fallen about them again, working
his way by instinct rather than by sight. Twice he stopped, to make sure
that his men were all at heel. Several times he left them, diving into
the smoke to determine which way they must go.
The dry, salt crackle of a dead pine close at hand would have told him,
even if the oppressive heat had not, that the fire would presently sweep
over the ground where they stood. He drew the men steadily toward Cattle
Cañon.
In that furious, murk-filled world he could not be sure he was moving in
the right direction, though the slope of the ground led him to think so.
Falling trees crashed about them. The men staggered on in the uncanny
light which tinged even the smoke.
Dave stopped and gave sharp, crisp orders. His voice was even and steady.
"Must be close to it now. Lie back of these down trees with your faces
close to the ground. I'll be back in a minute. Shorty, you're boss of the
crew while I'm away."
"You're gonna leave us to roast," a man accused, in a voice that was half
a scream.
Sanders did not stop to answer him, but Shorty took the hysterical man in
hand. "Git down by that log pronto or I'll bore a hole in you. Ain't you
got sense enough to see he'll save us if there's a chance?"
The man fell trembling to the ground.
"Two men behind each log," ordered Shorty. "If yore clothes git afire,
help each other put it out."
They lay down and waited while the fire swept above and around them.
Fortunately the woods here were not dense. Men prayed or cursed or wept,
according to their natures. The logs in front of some of them caught
fire and spread to their clothing. Shorty's voice encouraged them.
"Stick it out, boys. He'll be back if he's alive."
It could have been only minutes, but it seemed hours before the voice of
Sanders rang out above the fury of the blast.
"All up! I've found the tunnel! Step lively now!"
They staggered after their leader, Shorty bringing up the rear to see
that none collapsed by the way. The line moved drunkenly forward. Now and
again a man went down, overcome by the smoke and heat. With brutal kicks
Shorty drove him to his feet again.
The tunnel was a shallow one in a hillside. Dave stood aside and counted
the men as they passed in. Two were missing. He ran along the back trail,
dense with smoke from the approaching flames, and stumbled into a man. It
was Shorty. He was dragging with him the body of a man who had fainted.
Sanders seized an arm and together they managed to get the unconscious
victim to the tunnel.
Dave was the last man in. He learned from the men in the rear that the
tunnel had no drift. The floor was moist and there was a small seepage
spring in it near the entrance.
Some of the men protested at staying.
"The fire'll lick in and burn us out like rats," one man urged. "This
ain't no protection. We've just walked into a trap. I'll take my chance
outside."
Dave reached forward and lifted one of Shorty's guns from its holster.
"You'll stay right here, Dillon. We didn't make it one minute too soon.
The whole hill out there's roaring."
"I'll take my chance out there. That's my lookout," said the man, moving
toward the entrance.
"No. You'll stay here." Dave's hard, chill gaze swept over his crew.
Several of them were backing Dillon and others were wavering. "It's your
only chance, and I'm here to see you take it. Don't take another step."
Dillon took one, and went crumpling to the granite floor before
Dave could move. Shorty had knocked him down with the butt of his
nine-inch-barrel revolver.
Already smoke was filling the cave. The fire had raced to its mouth and
was licking in with long, red, hungry tongues. The tunnel timbers were
smouldering.
"Lie down and breathe the air close to the ground," ordered Dave, just as
though a mutiny had not been quelled a moment before. "Stay down there.
Don't get up."
He found an old tomato can and used it to throw water from the
seep-spring upon the burning wood. Shorty and one or two of the other men
helped him. The heat near the mouth was so intense they could not stand
it. All but Sanders collapsed and staggered back to sink down to the
fresher air below.
Their place of refuge packed with smoke. A tree crashed down at the mouth
and presently a second one. These, blazing, sent more heat in to cook the
tortured men inside. In that bakehouse of hell men showed again their
nature, cursing, praying, storming, or weeping as they lay.
The prospect hole became a madhouse. A big Hungarian, crazed by the
torment he was enduring, leaped to his feet and made for the blazing hill
outside.
"Back there!" Dave shouted hoarsely.
The big fellow rushed him. His leader flung him back against the rock
wall. He rushed again, screaming in crazed anger. Sanders struck him down
with the long barrel of the forty-five. The Hungarian lay where he fell
for a few minutes, then crawled back from the mouth of the pit.
At intervals others tried to break out and were driven back.
Dave's eyebrows crisped away. He could scarcely draw a breath through his
inflamed throat. His eyes were swollen and almost blinded with smoke. His
lungs ached. Whenever he took a step he staggered. But he stuck to his
job hardily. The tomato can moved more jerkily. It carried less water.
But it still continued to drench the blazing timbers at the mouth of the
tunnel.
So Dave held the tunnel entrance against the fire and against his own
racked and tortured men. Occasionally he lay down to breathe the air
close to the floor. There was no circulation, for the tunnel ended in a
wall face. But the smoke was not so heavy close to the ground.
Man after man succumbed to the stupor of unconsciousness. Men choked,
strangled, and even died while their leader, his hair burnt and his eyes
almost sightless, face and body raw with agonizing wounds, crept feebly
about his business of saving their lives.
Fire-crisped and exhausted, he dropped down at last into forgetfulness of
pain. And the flames, which had fought with such savage fury to blot out
the little group of men, fell back sullenly in defeat. They had spent
themselves and could do no more.
The line of fire had passed over them. It left charred trees still
burning, a hillside black and smoking, desolation and ruin in its path.
Out of the prospect hole a man crawled over Dave's prostrate body. He
drew a breath of sweet, delicious air. A cool wind lifted the hair from
his forehead. He tried to give a cowpuncher's yell of joy. From out of
his throat came only a cracked and raucous rumble. The man was Shorty.
He crept back into the tunnel and whispered hoarsely the good news. Men
came out on all fours over the bodies of those who could not move. Shorty
dragged Dave into the open. He was a sorry sight. The shirt had been
almost literally burned from his body.
In the fresh air the men revived quickly. They went back into the cavern
and dragged out those of their companions not yet able to help
themselves. Three out of the twenty-nine would never help themselves
again. They had perished in the tunnel.