FIGHTING FIRE.
Before proceeding to relate the incidents which follows, it is necessary
to explain a little more fully the arrangement of the root fortress and
the drift-pile. The two trees, which were enormous ones, had originally
grown as close together as they could, and their roots had interlaced
beneath the soil. The sand in which they grew having been gradually
washed away, their great masses of roots were exposed for about fifteen
feet below the original level of the soil and as they spread out they
made two circles (one running a foot or two into the other), of about
twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. Inside of this circle of great
roots, the roots were mostly small, and the boys had cut them away with
their knives, leaving just enough of them to stop up all the holes and
obscure the view from without. The drift-pile, or hammock, as it is
sometimes called at the South, had been years in forming, being
drift-wood which had floated down the river during winter and spring
freshets, and as it had lodged against the trees it lay only on their
upper side, where it was piled up into a perpendicular wall nearly
twenty feet high. Thence it stretched away up the river for a hundred
yards or more. Now the only entrance big enough to admit a person into
the root fortress was on the side next to the drift, and it opened only
into an alley-way which the boys had partly found and partly made
through the drift. This alley-way led past several little aisles running
out to the right and left for a dozen yards or so,--aisles formed by the
irregular piling of the logs on top of each other. In the fortress there
were a dozen places at least, where the big roots were sufficiently wide
apart to admit a grown man easily, but the boys had left the smaller
roots which covered these gaps undisturbed, and cut only the one
entrance. After cutting that on the side next the hammock, they had
moved some of the drift so as to close up the sides of the entrance and
make it open only into the alley-way. All this had been done under Sam's
supervision, and as a result of his prudence and fore thought.
Joe had been gone nearly half an hour when he burst suddenly into the
chamber in which the others were. His hands were full of the wild
grapes, but of those he was evidently not thinking. His face was of that
peculiar hue which black faces assume when if they were white faces they
would grow pale; and his lips, usually red, were of an ashy brown. His
eyes were of the shape of saucers, and seemed not much smaller. He
gasped for breath in an alarming way, and Tom saw that the poor fellow
was frightened almost out of his wits.
"What's the matter Joe? Tell me quick," said the younger boy.
"O Mas' Tom, we'se dun surrounded. I was jest a-gittin' de grapes when I
seed a'most a thousand Injuns a-comin,' an' I dun run my life a'most out
a-gittin' here. Dey did not see me, but I seed dem, an' I tell you dey's
de biggest Injuns you ever did see. I 'clar dey's mos' as tall as
trees."
"How many of 'em are there, Joe?" asked Tom standing up.
"I couldn't count 'em e'zactly, Mas' Tom, but I reckon dey's not less'n
a thousand of 'em,--maybe two thousan' for all I know."
"Where are they, and what were they doing?" asked Tom; but before Joe
could answer, the voices of the Indians themselves indicated their
whereabouts, and Tom discerned that they were disagreeably close to his
elbow.
Seeking a place in which to cook their breakfast the savages had
selected the corner formed by the root fortress and the drift-pile as a
proper place for a fire, and were now breaking up sticks with which to
start one. They were just outside the fortress, and either of the boys
could have touched them by pushing his arm out between the roots. Tom
motioned the others to keep absolutely silent, and going a little way
into the hammock, through the passage way he managed to find a place
from which he could see the intruders. He soon discovered that Joe's
account of them was slightly exaggerated in two important particulars.
They were only ordinary Indians, neither larger nor smaller than grown
Indians usually are, and instead of a thousand there were but three of
them in all.
But three fully grown Indians were enough to justify a good deal of
apprehension, and if they should discover the party in the tree, Tom
knew very well they would make very short work of their destruction. He
crept back to the tree therefore and again cautioned Joe and Judie, in a
whisper, not to speak or make any other noise. Then he returned to his
place of observation and watched the Indians. They soon made a crackling
fire and proceeded to broil some game they had killed, this and the
eating which followed occupied perhaps an hour, during which Tom made
frequent journeys to the little room, nominally for the purpose of
cautioning the others to keep still, but really to work off some portion
of his uneasiness, which was growing with every moment. He was terrified
at first upon general principles, as any other boy of eleven years old
would have been. Then he was afraid that the Indians would by some
accident, lean something against the curtain of small roots between two
other big trees, and that the curtain might not be strong enough to
support it, in which event their hiding-place would be discovered at
once. He was afraid, too, that some slight noise inside the fortress
might catch the uncommonly quick ears of the Indians.
All these were dangers well worth considering; but now a new, and much
greater danger began to show itself. The drift was largely composed of
light wood, and from his hiding-place Tom could see that the fire built
by the trees had communicated itself to the hammock, and that the flames
were rapidly spreading. The danger now was that the fire would burn into
the alley-way and so cut off retreat from the fortress, and if so those
inside would be burned alive. Quitting his place of observation
therefore, he established himself as a sentry in the alley-way, having
determined, if the fire should approach the passage, to take Joe and
Judie out of the fortress and into one of the aisles near the farther
edge of the drift-pile. Having begun to plan he saw all the
possibilities of the case and tried to provide for all. He knew that if
the wind should drive the flames into the drift the whole pile would be
destroyed in a very brief time, but in that case, he reasoned, the black
smoke of the resinous pine would make it impossible for the Indians to
see very far in that direction, and so he resolved, if the worst came,
to lead his companions out of the upper end of the hammock, into the
bushes and so escape to the creek, where he hoped to find a hiding-place
of some sort. He had got this far in his planning when he heard Judie
cough, and stepping quickly into the room found it full of smoke. Seeing
that to stay there was to suffocate, he beckoned his companions to
follow, and stepping lightly they passed down the alley-way and sat down
in one of the aisles, behind a great sycamore log which ran across the
pile. Peeping over this log Tom saw the three Indians shoulder their
guns and walk away. He ran at once to the look-out, and though the smoke
almost blinded him he observed all their movements. He wanted them away
speedily, so that he and Joe might extinguish the fire if that were
still possible, and as every minute served to increase the difficulty
and lessen the chances of doing so, the loitering of the savages seemed
interminable. They stopped first to drink at the spring. Then they
amused themselves by throwing sticks, and pebbles and shells at a turtle
which was sunning himself on a log in the stream. Then they stopped to
examine the track of a turkey or of some animal, in the sand, and it
really seemed to Tom that they did not mean to go away at all.
All things have an end, however, and even the stay of disagreeable
visitors cannot last always. The three savages finally disappeared a
mile down the river, and Tom, after scanning the surrounding country and
satisfying himself that there were no others in the immediate
neighborhood, hurried to the place where Joe and Judie were hidden.
"They've gone at least," he said, "and now Joe, we must put this fire
out, if we can. Judie, you stay here, and if you find the smoke bothers
you, go further down the alley that way. Don't try to stay if the smoke
comes."
How to stop the fire was the problem. Fortunately there was very little
wind, and what there was blew chiefly from up the river. The flames had
spread over a considerable space, however, and the boys had hardly
anything with which to work.
They carried water in their hats from the river, which was only a few
yards away, now that it had risen to the bottom of the second bank.
This was altogether too slow a way of working, however, and the fire was
visibly gaining on the boys. But, slow as this process was, it served to
teach Tom a lesson or rather to remind him of one he had learned and
forgotten. He found that a hatful of water thrown on the bottom of the
fire did more good than two hatfuls thrown on top, and he remembered
that when the soot in the chimney at home caught fire once, his father
would not allow anybody to pour water down the chimney, but stood
himself by the fireplace throwing a little water, not up the chimney
but, on the blazing fire below. This water, turned into steam, went up
the chimney and soon extinguished the fire there. In the same way Tom
now discovered that when he threw a hatful of water on a burning log at
the bottom of the pile it had a perceptible effect all the way to the
top. Thinking of the chimney fire he remembered also that his father had
said at the time that a plank laid over the top of a burning chimney, or
a screen fastened over the fireplace would stop the burning of the soot
by stopping the air, and so smothering the fire. This suggested a new
plan of operations for present use. The long gray moss grew in great
abundance all around the place, and gathering this he dipped it in the
river and then threw it on top of the fire. A bunch of the moss held
greatly more water than his hat, and it served also to smother the fire.
He and Joe repeated the operation, putting some of the moss on top and
some against the sides of the burning pile of timber. The steam from
these perceptibly checked the burning, and an hour's work covered the
fire almost entirely up, so far at least as the exposed side of the
drift-pile was concerned. But just as they were disposed to congratulate
themselves upon their success in subduing the flames, they discovered
that while they had been smothering the fire on one side it had been
burning freely further in. The openness of the hammock gave free access
to the air from the other side, and just beyond the line of moss they
saw a blaze licking its tongue out from below. They were tired out,
already, and this added discouragement to weariness. Little Judie,
although the boys had urged her to remain quiet, had been hard at work
bringing moss to them, insisting upon her right to work as well as
they. She had discovered too that the sand, just below the surface was
wet, and that this served almost as good a purpose as the moss itself
when thrown on the fire. The poor little girl was utterly tired out at
last, however, and when the fire seemed to be subsiding, she had yielded
to Tom's entreaties, and going into the drift-pile had laid down to
rest. Now that all their work promised to accomplish nothing, the boys
were vexed with themselves for having permitted the frail little girl to
wear herself out in so fruitless a task. This, with their
disappointment, served to make them utterly wretched.