A calamity expected, feared, and guarded against by a whole community does
sometimes occur, and with a suddenness which finds the victims unprepared
in spite of all their elaborate precautions. Compared with the importance
of saving the range from fire, it was but a trivial thing which took nearly
every man who dwelt in Lonesome Land to town on a certain day when the wind
blew free from out the west. They were weary of watching for the fire which
did not come licking through the prairie grass, and a special campaign
train bearing a prospective President of our United States was expected to
pass through Hope that afternoon.
Since all trains watered at the red tank by the creek, there would be a
five-minute stop, during which the prospective President would stand upon
the rear platform and deliver a three-minute address--a few gracious words
to tickle the self-esteem of his listeners--and would employ the other two
minutes in shaking the hand of every man, woman, and child who could reach
him before the train pulled out. There would be a cheer or two given as he
was borne away--and there would be something to talk about afterward in the
saloons. Scarce a man of then had ever seen a President, and it was worth
riding far to look upon a man who even hoped for so exalted a position.
Manley went because he intended to vote for the man, and called it an act
of loyalty to his party to greet the candidate; also because it took very
little, now that haying was over and work did not press, to start him down
the trail in the direction of Hope.
At the Blumenthall ranch no man save the cook remained at home, and he only
because he had a boil on his neck which sapped his interest in all things
else. Polycarp Jenks was in town by nine o'clock, and only one man remained
at the Wishbone. That man was Kent, and he stayed because, according to his
outraged companions, he was an ornery cuss, and his bump of patriotism was
a hollow in his skull. Kent had told them, one and all, that he wouldn't
ride twenty-five miles to shake hands with the Deity Himself--which,
however, is not a verbatim report of his statement. The prospective
President had not done anything so big, he said, that a man should want to
break his neck getting to town just to watch him go by. He was dead sure
he, for one, wasn't going to make a fool of himself over any swell-headed
politician.
Still, he saddled and rode with his fellows for a mile or two, and called
them unseemly names in a facetious tone; and the men of the Wishbone
answered his taunts with shrill yells of derision when he swung out of the
trail and jogged away to the south, and finally passed out of sight in the
haze which still hung depressingly over the land.
Oddly enough, while all the able-bodied men save Kent were waiting
hilariously in Hope to greet, with enthusiasm, the brief presence of the
man who would fain be their political chief, the train which bore him
eastward scattered fiery destruction abroad as it sped across their range,
four minutes late and straining to make up the time before the next stop.
They had thought the railroad safe at last, what with the guards and the
numerous burned patches where the fire had jumped the plowed boundary and
blackened the earth to the fence which marked the line of the right of way,
and, in some places, had burned beyond. It took a flag-flying special train
of that bitter Presidential campaign to find a weak spot in the guard, and
to send a spark straight into the thickest bunch of wiry sand grass, where
the wind could fan it to a blaze and then seize it and bend the tall flame
tongues until they licked around the next tuft of grass, and the next,
and the next--until the spark was grown to a long, leaping line of fire,
sweeping eastward with the relentless rush of a tidal wave upon a low-lying
beach.
Arline Hawley was, perhaps, the only citizen of Hope who had deliberately
chosen to absent herself from the crowd standing, in perspiring
expectation, upon the depot platform. She had permitted Minnie, the “breed”
girl, to go, and had even grudgingly consented to her using a box of
cornstarch as first aid to her complexion. Arline had not approved,
however, of either the complexion or the occasion.
“What you want to go and plaster your face up with starch for, gits me,”
she had criticised frankly. “Seems to me you're homely enough without
lookin' silly, into the bargain. Nobody's going to look at you, no matter
what you do. They're out to rubber at a higher mark than you be. And what
they expect to see so great, gits me. He ain't nothing but a man--and, land
knows, men is common enough, and ornery enough, without runnin' like a band
of sheep to see one. I don't see as he's any better, jest because he's
runnin' for President; if he gits beat, he'll want to hide his head in a
hole in the ground. Look at my Walt. _He_ was the biggest man in Hope, and
so swell-headed he wouldn't so much as pack a bucket of water all fall, or
chop up a tie for kindlin'--till the day after 'lection. And what was he
then but a frazzled-out back number, that everybody give the laugh--till he
up and blowed his brains out! Any fool can _run_ for President--it's the
feller that gits there that counts.
“Say, that red-white-'n'-blue ribbon sure looks fierce on that green
dress--but I reckon blood will tell, even if it's Injun blood. G'wan, or
you'll be late and have your trouble for your pay. But hurry back soon's
the agony's over; the bread'll be ready to mix out.”
Even after the girl was gone, her finery a-flutter in the sweeping west
wind, Arline muttered aloud her opinion of men, and particularly of
politicians who rode about in special trains and expected the homage of
their fellows.
She was in the back yard, taking her “white clothes” off the line, when the
special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the
whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid
violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white
surface, and it crushed crisply under her thumb with the unmistakable feel
of burned grass.
“Now, what in time--” began Arline aloud, after the manner of women whose
tongues must keep pace with their thoughts. “That there feels fresh
and”--with a sniff at the spot--“_smells_ fresh.”
With the wisdom of much experience she faced the hot wind and sniffed
again, while her eyes searched keenly the sky line, which was the ragged
top of the bluff marking the northern boundary of the great prairie land. A
trifle darker it was there, and there was a certain sullen glow discernible
only to eyes trained to read the sky for warning signals of snow, fire, and
flood.
“That's a fire, and it's this side of the river. And if it is, then the
railroad set it, and there ain't a livin' thing to stop it. An' the wind's
jest right--” A curdled roll of smoke showed plainly for a moment in the
haze. She crammed her armful of sheets into the battered willow basket,
threw two clothespins hastily toward the same receptacle, and ran.
The special had just come to a stop at the depot. The cattlemen, cowboys,
and townspeople were packed close around the rear of the train, their backs
to the wind and the disaster sweeping down upon them, their browned faces
upturned to the sleek, carefully groomed man in the light-gray suit, with a
flaunting, prairie sunflower ostentatiously displayed in his buttonhole and
with his campaign smile upon his lips and dull boredom looking out of his
eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he was saying, as he smiled, “you favoured ones
whose happy lot it is to live in the most glorious State of our glorious
union, I greet you, and I envy you--”
Arline, with her soiled kitchen apron, her ragged coil of dust-brown hair,
her work-drawn face and faded eyes which blazed with excitement, pushed
unceremoniously through the crowd and confronted him undazzled.
“Mister Candidate, you better move on and give these men a chancet to save
their prope'ty,” she cried shrilly. “They got something to do besides stand
around here and listen at you throwin' campaign loads. The hull country's
afire back of us, and the wind bringin' it down on a long lope.”
She turned from the astounded candidate and glared at the startled crowd,
every one of whom she knew personally.
“I must say I got my opinion of a bunch that'll stand here swallowin' a lot
of hot air, while their coat tails is most ready to ketch afire!” Her voice
was rasping, and it carried to the farthest of them. “You make me _tired!_
Political slush, all of it--and the hull darned country a-blazin' behind
you!”
The crowd moved uneasily, then scattered away from the shelter of the depot
to where they could snuff inquiringly the wind, like dogs in the leash.
“That's right,” yelled Blumenthall, of the Double Diamond. “There's a fire,
sure as hell!” He started to run.
The man behind him hesitated but a second, then gripped his hat against the
push of the wind, and began running. Presently men, women, and children
were running, all in one direction.
The prospective President stood agape upon the platform of his
bunting-draped car, his chosen allies grouped foolishly around him. It
was the first time men had turned from his presence with his gracious,
flatteringly noncommittal speech unuttered, his hand unshaken, his smiling,
bowing departure unmarked by cheers growing fainter as he receded. Only
Arline tarried, her thin fingers gripping the arm of her “breed girl,” lest
she catch the panic and run with the others.
Arline tilted back her head upon her scrawny shoulders and eyed the
prospective President with antagonism unconcealed.
“I got something to say to you before you go,” she announced, in her
rasping voice, with its querulous note. “I want to tell you that the
chances are a hundred to one you set that fire yourself, with your engine
that's haulin' you around over the country, so you can jolly men into
votin' for you. Your train's the only one over the road since noon, and
that fire started from the railroad. The hull town's liable to burn, unless
it can be stopped the other side the creek, to say nothing of the range,
that feeds our stock, and the hay, and maybe houses--and maybe _people!_”
She caught her breath, and almost shrieked the last three words, as a
dreadful probability flashed into her mind.
“I know a woman--just a girl--and she's back there twenty mile--_alone_,
and her man's here to look at you go by! I hope you git beat, just for
that!
“If this town ketches afire and burns up, I hope you run into the ditch
before you git ten mile! If you was a man, and them fellers with you was
men, you'd hold up your train and help save the town. Every feller counts,
when it comes to fightin' fire.”
She stopped and eyed the group keenly. “But you won't. I don't reckon you
ever done anything with them hands in your life that would grind a little
honest dirt into your knuckles and under them shiny nails!”
The prospective President turned red to his ears, and hastily removed his
immaculate hands from where they had been resting upon the railing. And he
did not hold up the train while he and his allies stopped to help save the
town. The whistle gave a warning toot, the bell jangled, and the train slid
away toward the next town, leaving Arline staring, tight-lipped, after it.
“The darned chump--he'd 'a' made votes hand over fist if he'd called my
bluff; but, I knew he wouldn't, soon as I seen his face. He ain't man
enough.”
“He's real good-lookin',” sighed Minnie, feebly attempting to release her
arm from the grasp of her mistress. “And did you notice the fellow with the
big yellow mustache? He kept eyin' me--”
“Well, I don't wonder--but it ain't anything to your credit,” snapped
Arline, facing her toward the hotel, “You do look like sin a-flyin', in
that green dress, and with all that starch on your face. You git along to
the house and mix that bread, first thing you do, and start a fire. And if
I ain't back by that time, you go ahead with the supper; you know what to
git. We're liable to have all the tables full, so you set all of 'em.”
She was hurrying away, when the girl called to her.
“Did you mean Mis' Fleetwood, when you said that about the woman burning?
And do you s'pose she's really in the fire?”
“You shut up and go along!” cried Arline roughly, under the stress of her
own fears. “How in time's anybody going to tell, that's twenty miles away?”
She left the street and went hurrying through back yards and across vacant
lots, crawled through a wire fence, and so reached, without any roundabout
method, the trail which led to the top of the bluff, where the whole town
was breathlessly assembling. Her flat-chested, un-corseted figure merged
into the haze as she half trotted up the steep road, swinging her arms like
a man, her skirts flapping in the wind. As she went, she kept muttering to
herself:
“If she really is caught by the fire--and her alone--and Man more'n half
drunk--” She whirled, and stood waiting for the horseman who was galloping
up the trail behind her. “You going home, Man? You don't think it could
git to your place, do you?” She shouted the questions at him as he pounded
past.
Manley, sallow white with terror, shook his head vaguely and swung his
heavy quirt down upon the flanks of his horse. Arline lowered her head
against the dust kicked into her face as he went tearing past her, and
kept doggedly on. Some one came rattling up behind her with empty barrels
dancing erratically in a wagon, and she left the trail to make room. The
hostler from their own stable it was who drove, and at the creek ahead of
them he stopped to fill the barrels. Arline passed him by and kept on.
At the brow of the hill the women and children were gathered in a
whimpering group. Arline joined them and gazed out over the prairie, where
the smoke was rolling toward them, and, lifting here and there, let a flare
of yellow through.
“It'll show up fine at dark,” a fat woman in a buggy remarked. “There's
nothing grander to look at than a prairie fire at night. I do hope,” she
added weakly, “it don't do no great damage!”
“Oh, it won't,” Arline cut in, with savage sarcasm, panting from her climb.
“It's bound to sweep the hull country slick an' clean, and maybe burn us
all out--but that won't matter, so long as it looks purty after dark!”
“They say it's a good ten mile away yet,” another woman volunteered
encouragingly. “They'll git it stopped, all right. There's lots of men here
to fight it, thank goodness!”
Arline moved on to where a plow was being hurriedly unloaded from a wagon,
the horses hitched to it, and a man already grasping the handles in an
aggressive manner. As she came up he went off, yelling his opinions and
turning a shallow, uneven furrow for a back fire. Within five minutes
another plow was tearing up the sod in an opposite direction.
“If it jumps here, or they can't turn it, the creek'll help a lot,” some
one was yelling.
The plowed furrows lengthened, the horses sweating and throwing their heads
up and down with the discomfort of the pace they must keep. Whiplashes
whistled and the drivers urged them on with much shouting. Blumenthall, cut
off, with his men, from reaching his own ranch, was directing a group
about to set a back fire. His voice boomed as if he were shouting across a
milling herd. A roll of his eye brought his attention momentarily from the
work, and he ran toward a horseman who was gesticulating wildly and seemed
on the point of riding straight toward the fire.
“Hi! Fleetwood, we need you here!” he yelled. “You can't get home now, and
you know it. The fire's past your place already; you'd have to ride through
it, you fool! Hey? Your wife home alone--_alone!_”
He stood absolutely still and stared out to the southwest, where the smoke
cloud was rolling closer with every breath. He drew his fingers across his
forehead and glanced at the men around him, also stunned into inactivity by
the tragedy behind the words.
“Well--get to work, men. We've got to save the town. Fine time to burn
guards--when a fire's loping up on you! But that's the way it goes,
generally. This ought to've been done a month ago. Put it off and put it
off--while they haggle over bids--Brinberg, you and I'll string the fire.
The rest of you watch it don't jump back. And, say!” he shouted to the
group around Manley. “Don't let that crazy fool start off now. Put him to
work. Best thing for him. But--my God, that's awful!” He did not shout the
last sentence. He spoke so that only the nearest man heard him--heard, and
nodded dumb assent.
Manley raged, sitting helpless there upon his horse. They would not let him
ride out toward that sweeping wave of fire. He could not have gone five
miles toward home before he met the flames. He stood in the stirrups
and shook his fists impotently. He strained his eyes to see what it was
impossible for him to see--his ranch and Val, and how they had fared. He
pictured mentally the guard he had burned beyond the coulee to protect them
from just this danger, and his heart squeezed tight at the realization of
his own shiftlessness. That guard! A twelve-foot strip of half-burned sod,
with tufts of grass left standing here and there--and he had meant to burn
it wider, and had put it off from day to day, until now. _Now!_
His clenched fist dropped upon the saddle horn, and he stared dully at the
rushing, rolling smoke and fire. It was not _that_ he saw--it was Val, with
cinder-blackened ruffles, grimy face, and yellow hair falling in loose
locks upon her cheeks--locks which she must stop to push out of her eyes,
so that she could see where to swing the sodden sack while she helped
him--him, Manley, who had permitted her to do work it for none but a man's
hard muscles, so that he might finish the sooner and ride to town upon some
flimsy pretext. And he could not even reach her now--or the place where she
had been!
The group had thinned around him, for there was something to do besides
give sympathy to a man bereaved. Unless they bestirred themselves, they
might all be in need of sympathy before the day was done. Manley took his
eyes from the coming fire and glanced around him, saw that he was alone,
and, with a despairing oath, wheeled his horse and raced back down the hill
to town, as if fiends rode behind the saddle.
At the saloon opposite the Hawley Hotel he drew up; rather, his horse
stopped there of his own accord, as if he were quite at home at that
particular hitching pole. Manley dismounted heavily and lurched inside. The
place was deserted save for Jim, who was paid to watch the wares of his
employer, and was now standing upon a chair at the window, that he might
see over the top of Hawley's coal shed and glimpse the hilltop beyond. Jim
stepped down and came toward him.
“How's the fire?” he demanded anxiously. “Think she'll swing over this
way?”
But Manley had sunk into a chair and buried his face in his arms, folded
upon a whisky-spotted card table.
“Val--my Val!” he wailed, “Back there alone--get me a drink,” he added
thickly, “or I'll go crazy!”
Jim hastily poured a full glass, and stood over him anxiously.
“Here it is. Drink 'er down, and brace up. What you mean? Is your wife--”
Manley lifted his head long enough to gulp the whisky, then dropped it
again upon his arms and groaned.