BABES IN THE WOODS.
“One, two, three! All there!” whooped Jack Durham.
“We’re in great luck, fellows!” Hugh assured them, for truth to tell he
had felt fear gripping his heart as with an ice-cold hand.
If they had failed to discover the children where Peter had left them
after they could walk no further through the smoky forest, it would have
been very much like looking for a needle in a haystack to have tried to
find them. Following a trail by eyesight alone over that burned ground
must have proved well-nigh impossible, even for practiced scouts.
But here were the children, ready and willing to be saved. Indeed, they
were already stretching out their little hands entreatingly toward the
boys, as though begging Hugh and his trio of chums not to forsake them.
Hurrying forward, the scouts were quickly on the spot.
They found the reason why Peter had been forced to temporarily leave his
charges while he went in search of help. The oldest child could not have
been much more than five, the second three, and the youngest less than
two.
Later on they learned that Peter had carried the little one pretty much
all the way, but when the second child broke down and was unable to walk
any further Peter just knew he had to do something different.
“It’s all right, little ones,” said Bud Morgan, with one of his
reassuring smiles that made all youngsters like him. “We’ve come to take
you to the house of your neighbor, Mrs. Heffner. She’ll keep you till
daddy comes.”
“But Peter said we must stay here,” remarked the oldest child, a boy who
looked as though later on in life he would be able to hoe his own row
much better than, according to common talk, his father was doing.
“Peter sent us out to fetch you,” Hugh explained. “Peter would have come
along but we wouldn’t let him, because he was tired out, and burned in a
good many places. You’re going to come with us, of course. Jack, you
take the little one. Put your arms around his neck, honey, for he wants
to carry you. Bud, do the same with the second one. Don and myself will
look after this fine manly little chap here; and when you get tired just
let us know, for we mean to spell you playing nurse.”
Hugh said this in his kindest tone, and it had always been a notorious
fact that children took to the leader of the Wolf Patrol as though they
knew instinctively that he was a good friend.
The oldest boy did not hesitate after once looking into Hugh’s face. He
immediately put out his little hand confidingly, and allowed the scout
master to take it in his. Don offered support on the other side, and
thus flanked, what was there to fear further? Let the forest smolder and
blaze as it would, with such staunch allies between him and danger he
could rest stout of heart and undisturbed.
Nor did the other two show any sign of rebellion when Jack and Bud
offered to lift them up in their stout arms. “Any port in a storm” must
have appealed to the babes in the woods just then. Besides, these boys
looked kind, and they had promised to go straight to where Peter was,
Peter in whom the kids seemed to have unbounded confidence.
So they started back.
Hugh and Don led the way, with the little chap between them. If the boy
gave any sign of being tired out either of the scouts stood ready to
lift him up, “toting” him part of the way.
The forest looked just as gloomy and fearful as before, only none of
them seemed to mind it now. They had accomplished their errand, and the
suspense that had weighed so heavily on their minds had taken wings and
flown away.
“It was a lucky thing all around,” said Hugh as he picked his way along,
taking the easiest course possible more on account of those tender
little feet than for his own benefit, “that the kids didn’t think of
straying off.”
“We would have had a dickens of a time finding them if they had,” agreed
Don.
“Shows that someone must have taught them the spirit of obedience,”
suggested Jack. “I reckon now these two boys will grow up to make extra
fine scouts one of these days.”
“Must have been their mother, then,” declared Bud, “because from all
I’ve heard about their dad he’s a pretty poor stick; bad enough while
his wife was living, but a heap worse since he was left alone.”
“All but this boy here were too young to know anything about their
mother when she left them,” observed Hugh. “So I imagine we’ll have to
look somewhere else to see where they’ve been influenced.”
“Now I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you were right there, Hugh,”
admitted Don, “and that it was Peter’s work.”
“He struck me as an uncommon sort of a boy,” continued Hugh. “He
certainly was faithful to his trust with these kids.”
“What do you suppose will become of them all?” questioned Bud.
“Oh! Mrs. Heffner will be only too glad to look after them until their
dad can come after them,” Hugh informed him.
“What a shock the man will get if he makes his way this morning to his
home and finds it a heap of ashes,” suggested Jack.
“He’ll think his babies have all perished there,” added Bud. “It’ll
serve him right. A shock like that might set him to thinking, and to
reform. I can remember that years ago before he took to drink Alec
Barger used to be reckoned a fine-looking man, with a future before him.
It isn’t too late yet for him to undo the past if only he sets his foot
down hard on his failings.”
“I wonder what the damage done by this forest fire has been?” queried
Don.
“When they go to count up,” replied Hugh, “there will be a pretty heavy
toll to pay in the way of farms ruined and wood burned. Plenty of them
may have escaped, something like Mrs. Heffner’s place did, but others
went up in smoke.”
“That isn’t the whole story by a good deal,” declared Jack. “It’s been
so terribly dry this fall that I reckon there are fires burning in
dozens of places all through the East, from the Adirondacks to the Maine
coast.”
“If only it would rain,” sighed Don, “what a wonderful amount of good an
hour’s soaking would do everywhere.”
“I thought I felt a drop strike me a minute ago!” admitted Bud. “I was
half afraid to say anything about it, for fear I’d frighten it away. One
thing you can see for yourselves, though, fellows.”
“What’s that?” demanded Don.
“The sun has gone in!” announced Bud, as seriously as though that event
might be the most important on the calendar; which to tell the truth was
a fact, since the whole country was in danger of burning up.
“That’s a fact!” exclaimed Jack, as he turned an eager look upward. “I
noticed it was getting somewhat gloomy, but thought it must come from
the smoke. But, Hugh, clouds have come up and covered the sky. Oh! why
don’t it start in to sprinkling right away. I’m half choked with the
dust that’s in the air.”
“So say we all of us,” added Don, as he started to raise his canteen to
his lips and then suddenly paused to add: “Why, what’s the matter with
us, boys; if we’ve been wetting _our_ throats every little while, don’t
you think these kids would like a drink of fresh water, too?”
“Careless of us, I must say!” muttered Jack, as he stopped, got down on
one knee and then hastened to unscrew the cap of his canteen, adding:
“Take a drink, little one, a nice cool drink of water. It’ll make you
feel better, and when you get to where Peter and Mrs. Heffner are, you
will have some bread and milk.”
All of the children drank eagerly, showing how they must have been
suffering. Peter, being only a small boy, could not have had the
forethought to provide any means of carrying water along with them on
their flight, and the forest rills were all dried up from the
long-continued drought.
As soon as the little girl was through, she put her chubby arms around
Bud’s neck again, and rested her soft cheek against his. It was plain
that the scouts had already quite won the confidence of the youngsters.
Children, no matter how small, quickly size up those who are their real
friends; instinct takes the place of reason with them.
Jack and Bud even began to sing one of their school songs as they ambled
along in the wake of the leaders. The obstacles they had met no longer
impeded their path, and being young and free from cares it did not take
much to start them going.
“This sure is a queer experience for us to have, Hugh,” Don was
remarking as he looked around at their strange surroundings, with the
many columns of smoke rising from stumps, half-decayed logs and deposits
of dead leaves, which, being somewhat damp underneath, had not burned as
readily as other batches.
“Well, it counts with a lot of others we’ve passed through in our time,”
the other told him. “When you stop to think of it, Don, we’ve been a
pretty lucky bunch of scouts to go through with all we have since the
troop was first formed.”
“I often have to smile when I think how queer it seems that our fine
scout master, Lieutenant Denmead, is nearly always away on some trip
whenever these big things are pulled off. This time we’ll have another
adventure to tell him, of how we were called by duty up into the burning
forest, and what a glorious time we had of it beating the fire away from
the widow’s farm buildings and hay-stacks.”
“Yes, and bringing in these tots who were the waifs of the fire,” added
Hugh, as he looked fondly down at the sturdy curly-headed chap who was
so manly trudging alongside, with not a single murmur, though the way
was far from easy for his little feet.
“If we didn’t do a single thing besides this,” Don asserted in a way
that told how he meant every word of it, “I’d feel that it was worth our
trip up here ten times over. I never ran across such a fine little bunch
of kids before. No wonder Mrs. Heffner turned white in the face when she
thought of them being left there in charge of only little Peter.”
“Everything is all right now, it looks like,” remarked Jack, who, of
course, had been listening to what the others said, for he was close
behind them.
“There, I felt it!” burst out Bud, and when they turned to look at him
he was found to be holding his face upward as though searching the bare
treetops for something.
“Another drop of rain, do you mean, Bud?” asked Don, with considerable
eagerness.
“It certainly was,” came the reply. “Oh, why does it wait to be squeezed
out in driblets that way? There’s a heap of wet due us by now, and the
old weather clerk up yonder had better give it to us from the bung-hole
and not by way of the spigot. We want it, and we want it bad.”
“Hold your horses, Bud,” Hugh told him. “I’ve got an idea we’re going to
get all we need before a great while. Half an hour’s drenching rain
would put out nearly every fire there is. Even if a few old stumps did
smoulder afterward they couldn’t do any more damage, things would be so
well soaked. By the time we get to the farm-house it ought to be
starting in.”
“Huh!” grunted Bud, “I’d be willing to stand the worst kind of a ducking
if that would hurry things up any.”
“Well, nothing that we can do or promise will make the least
difference,” Hugh went on to say, with a laugh, “so we might as well
keep our coats dry and be comfortable.”
“We’re much more than half way there now, I should say, wouldn’t you,
Hugh?” Don wanted to know.
“Two-thirds of the distance you had better put it,” added Jack.
Hugh nodded, and then surprised them both by saying:
“I’ll see what I can do to help things along. I remember that leaning
birch over there on the left. We struck it after we had left the stone
wall just five minutes, so you see by that time we ought to be back
there, which would mean the farm-house in as many more. So we’re over
the worst of the journey, and three-quarters of the way back.”
“Every little helps,” admitted Jack, “and I’m going to keep a bright
lookout for that old stone wall. It’ll sure seem like a good friend to
me; and the kids will be glad to get in a house again after all they’ve
passed through.”
“That’s queer now!” Don was heard to say, half to himself.
“What did you think you saw, Don?” asked Hugh, noticing that the other
seemed to be staring straight ahead.
“There was something or other moving off yonder, and in this gully, too,
where the creek used to run,” the scout explained. “I saw it just as it
went behind a clump of rocks. Watch and see if it comes out on this
side, fellows; over there, I mean.”
“Then it must have been heading this way, Don?” remarked Hugh.
“Which it surely was, and as it stands to reason that no wild animal, a
fox or anything else, could have stuck it out through all that fire, I
take it I must have seen—there, look!”
“Why, it’s certainly somebody coming this way!” ejaculated Bud, as they
stood and stared.
“If that smoke would only blow away we could make out who it was,”
muttered Don.
“We’ll soon know,” ventured Hugh. “He’s headed up the gully, you see.”
“I wonder now if it could be their daddy?” reflected Bud.
“Well, hardly,” the scout master told him. “He would be coming from our
rear, heading for the Heffner place to find out if they knew anything of
his babies. I’ve got an idea I could guess who it is.”
Just then the smoke did blow away and they could see the approaching
figure very distinctly. It was a boy, and he was limping painfully along
as though his feet had been bruised by the cruel stones. No sooner did
the oldest child set eyes on that figure steadily drawing near and
nearer than he burst out into a shrill cry.
“Peter, oh! Peter, here we all are!” was what he sent out; and at that,
the bound boy forgot to limp as he started on a run toward them.