BACK-FIRING.
Giving up was one of the hardest things for Hugh to do. He had been
known to work for a full hour over a boy who had been a long time under
water, and then found the reward for his persistence in seeing signs of
returning life.
Just because the fire had seized upon that straw-stack did not mean they
should throw up their hands and cry quits. On the contrary, it offered
abundant reasons why they should, every one of them, get busy, and fight
to save the pile.
Hugh’s voice rang out like the slogan of an old-time Scotch border
chieftain, rallying his Highlanders to meet the rush of the foe.
He happened to have a bucket full of water in his hands at the time, and
with this he dashed straight at the stack. The flames were already
having a merry time of it, and given another minute or so of free play,
nothing could have been done to save the huge heap of straw.
Indeed, it promised to take all the combined energy of the scouts to
fight the inroads of those eager flames, once they had taken hold.
“Beat it, soak it with water, tear it to pieces if you have to, but
don’t let it get the better of you!” shouted the scout master.
A number of the boys were attacking the stack wildly. The hired man
stood close by and watched operations as though he had never seen
anything like it in all his life. Evidently the systematic and
determined way in which those energetic lads went at things had made a
most powerful impression on him.
Once Hugh, seeing him standing there, called out to him to lend a hand
and fetch water if he could do nothing more. The man aroused himself and
started to do what he was told.
It was once on the tip of Hugh’s tongue to ask the boys if any one knew
the man with the blackened face, for something about him seemed
strangely familiar, although he could not take the time to figure it
out, nor did it matter. As it happened, something arose to divert his
attention to another point, and he speedily forgot all about the unknown
man.
Such energy certainly deserved to reap success, and in the end the
straw-stack was saved, but it had been a pretty narrow escape.
“The worst of it is,” said Hugh between gasps when he felt certain the
last threatening spark had been crushed out of existence, “that if this
pile had gone there would have been a slim chance for saving any of the
other haystacks; and after all of them got to burning we wouldn’t have
been able to hold the barn back.”
“Chances are even the house would have gone up the flue, too,” declared
Billy, who had worked like a good fellow to assist in the work.
Billy was a sight by this time calculated to excite the laughter of his
chums. What, with his own personal efforts, added to the heat of the
fire, he had long been fairly reeking with perspiration. Streaks of
black ran across his face and made him look like a Fiji Islander
decorated for the warpath.
“Talk about the map of Ireland, Billy,” one of the other scouts told
him, “you carry it around with you.”
“He certainly came from somewhere near Cork,” remarked another fellow,
“because he kissed the Blarney Stone before crossing over. Billy can
soft-soap you to beat the band. He gets nearly anything he wants.”
“Oh! heaps more than I want sometime,” laughed the good-natured Billy.
Having gained this hard-fought victory, the boys felt that they must
take a rest before starting in again. Hugh surveyed the field, and tried
to figure from which quarter the peril might come next.
“I’m afraid there’s getting to be a shift of the wind, Hugh,” remarked
Arthur, who, being known as a sort of weather prophet, felt it his duty
to observe all such things as clouds and wind.
“That would make it bad for us again,” asserted the scout master.
“You mean the fire is bound to strike us from a new quarter if the wind
whips around as it’s trying to do right now; is that it, Hugh?”
questioned Arthur.
“It’s moving into the northwest,” Hugh told him. “Which would bring it
across that patch of dead grass that up to now seems to have kept from
burning. Then the woods are closer on that side, and the heat would be
greater on the roofs of the barn and house.”
“Shall we get busy again and try to wet down everything that faces that
way?” asked the other, as though grasping the conditions by which they
were now confronted.
“It is the only thing we can do,” said Hugh.
As soon as he had shouted out the new orders, once more there was a
hurry call for the bucket brigade to start operations. Tired though they
might be from their late exertions, the scouts never hesitated. The
noisy clang of the pump was again heard in the land, and a stream of
hustling lads carried water to the new point that was threatened by the
insatiable enemy.
Hugh had made a correct diagnosis of the case, for as soon as the wind
swung around into the northwest, that dead grass began to blaze up and
the fire started to travel swiftly toward the outbuildings of the farm.
Once more the poor widow saw her cherished possessions threatened with
destruction. Unable to remain still, she had again joined the throng of
willing workers, and was carrying water as best the conditions allowed.
The hired man, too, staggered back and forth with a bucket. He did not
appear to be very strong, but then Hugh, on noticing this, supposed he
was tired out from his long-continued exertions. Doubtless they had
struggled against the encroachment of the fire for some time before the
coming of the scouts gave them new hope.
It was a lively ten minutes they all put in. Those who did not have
buckets in which to carry water stamped on the fire, and fought it with
brooms or any other like article they could find. Led by Hugh, they
defied the flames to approach closer to the outbuildings than a certain
line.
Billy was so industriously engaged that he must have overstepped the
bounds of personal safety. The first thing he knew he was feeling
uncomfortably warm in the rear. Then one of the other fellows gave a
shriek.
“You’re on fire, Billy! You’re all ablaze! Stand still, and let me whack
you with this broom!”
“Hey, bend over, and I’ll put you out all right!” cried Jack Durham, and
immediately following his words he gave the bucket he was holding a
clever toss that shot its contents all over the fat boy.
“Now you’re extinguished, Billy!” he told the other, laughingly, as he
ran off to the duck pond.
It was a satisfaction to Hugh to see that they were mastering the new
attack of the devouring element. Several times there had been danger of
the barn going, for little blazes started up; but a dash of water
finished these.
They could hear a cow mooing wildly inside the barn, and a horse was
stamping in his stall, being greatly excited by all this clamor. Hugh
had already made up his mind that if the worst came they must see to it
that the poor animals were given a chance for their lives; should the
barn take fire in earnest, and all hope of saving the building be lost,
some one must go inside and lead both horse and cow to the outside air.
Fortunately things did not reach this desperate stage, for the efforts
of the hard-working scouts to save the buildings were crowned with
complete success.
“Whee! but that was a corking fight, though!” gasped Billy, when it was
finally safe for them to stop their labor and breathe more freely.
“But we won out, as we nearly always did, you noticed!” suggested Harold
Tremaine, who had learned some pretty valuable lessons since becoming a
member of Oakvale Troop.
“Thanks to Hugh and his way of doing things,” added Ralph Kenyon.
“I’ve done no more than the rest of you,” objected the scout master.
“Every fellow is justly entitled to feel that he’s had an equal share in
the glory.”
“There’s enough to go around, all right,” suggested Bud Morgan. “I know
I’m as glad as I can be that we came up here. It’s been a picnic
fighting the forest fire. If we can’t help extinguish it we’ve helped
cheat it out of its prey.”
“You have saved me from being ruined, my brave boys,” declared Mrs.
Heffner, as she looked at the group. “I’ll never forget it, never. When
my Willie and Ben grow up to be big enough I give you my word they shall
also wear the uniforms of the scouts. If this is what your organization
teaches you to do for others in time of need, every boy ought to
belong.”
“They would,” said Hugh, “if their folks only took the trouble to
investigate for themselves what was going on. But we’re all glad to be
here, Mrs. Heffner, glad to be able to help you out. It would have been
too bad if you lost your home, after fighting so hard all these years to
build it up, and keep a roof over the heads of your family.”
“I never could have lived through it again, Hugh,” she told him,
beginning to cry, now that the danger seemed over, for up to then she
had kept up wonderfully.
“What if the wind changed again and swung in from that side over there,
Hugh?” asked Arthur just then, pointing as he spoke.
“I hardly think it will,” the scout master replied. “But just as you
say, there is a little chance, and to make things absolutely sure we
must get busy and back-fire.”
“What’s that?” asked Harold, who had considerable to learn concerning
many things connected with outdoor life.
“Why, in the old days out West,” Hugh explained, “when a border man
found himself threatened with a fire near his dugout he would himself
apply a match to the dead grass. It would eat its way up slowly against
the wind, and by the time the big fire arrived there would be a section
burned over. This would serve as a protection to him against the roaring
fire, which would pass him by on either side.”
“Oh! I see now what you mean,” commented Harold, who was anxious to
learn many of these interesting things, “we will go around starting
little fires wherever we can find a clump of dead grass that hasn’t been
water-soaked, and let them burn as far back as they can. Show me how to
do it, Hugh; I’d like to have a hand in this back-firing business. It
sounds good to me.”
The other boys, as well as Mrs. Heffner and the strange hired man, had
heard all that Hugh said. No sooner was the word given than a number of
them started to run from tuft to tuft of dead grass, applying a
firebrand. Where only a few minutes ago they had been trying their best
to kill the flames, they were now turning their attention to coaxing
them to start up afresh.
“Fire’s all right, and a right good thing,” remarked Billy, wisely, “if
only you can control it.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “like a lot of other things fire makes a splendid
servant but a mighty bad master. We’re going to get it to do our bidding
now, and clean off the dead grass on the east side of the buildings.
Keep a sharp watch so that it doesn’t give you the slip and surprise
us.”
“We need fire to keep us warm, and to do our cooking for us,” continued
Billy; and then clapping his hands behind him he went on to add: “But
when it bites holes through the only trousers you’ve got along it is
going a little _too_ far, I say. And I might have been roasted if it
hadn’t been for you, Jack; you saved my life with that bucket of water,
even if you did make me feel pretty moist.”
“Listen,” said Ralph just then.
“What did you think you heard?” asked Hugh, when all of them had
strained their hearing for a full minute without catching any sound out
of the ordinary.
“I must have been mistaken,” admitted Ralph, “but it was like someone
calling!”