THE WRATH OF THE FIRE MONSTER
Og off with the wolf cubs, had a premonition that all was not well. A
strange feeling of impending catastrophe haunted him. He watched the wolf
cubs to see whether they sensed anything wrong, but they gave no sign.
Og’s instincts were keener even than theirs in this emergency, for he
knew that something was amiss. He tried to shake off the feeling and go
on with his hunting, but, try as he would, a strange something seemed
urging him to return to the canyon that had been his home now for weeks
past and, almost despite his own will power, he obeyed.
Back across the pleasant valley he hurried, his fire brand and stone
hammer held in readiness, and his sharp eyes and keen ears alert to
catch the first sign of trouble. On he pushed as swiftly as his short
legs would carry him, and that was with incredible swiftness, all things
considered. On his way he passed several groups of tree people in the
tops of palm trees, and they, too, seemed to be strangely agitated,
seeming to become more disturbed than ever as he passed with his fire
brand.
Og tested the air with his nose. Something made him pause and sniff again
and again, while his restless eyes roved the woods and the meadow, and
even the skyline beyond. There was a strange tenseness about everything,
and he saw a low-hung cloud beyond the tops of the palm trees that seemed
all too near and very menacing. Yet even then he could not understand
what was happening.
On he hurried, and presently he was picking his way among the boulders in
the canyon toward the sheltering rocks that he called home. Everything
appeared as he had left it. His precious tiger skin, and other trophies
were still rolled in the corner among the rocks, his pile of sticks was
there, too, and so were his extra stone hammers and his flint knives.
What, then, could be wrong?
He looked about him. Then he gave a grunt of surprise and crossed over to
his stone fireplace. Scar Face had been there. Scar Face had been there
and stolen some fire from the embers in his fireplace. Og stooped and
picked up a stone hammer that lay close to the fire and by this token he
knew all that had transpired in his absence. It was the hammer that he
had given the leader of the tree people. Scar Face, as his kind were wont
to do, had dropped it and left it there, forgetting it in his excitement
at having a fire brand of his own.
Og picked up the hammer and scrutinized it carefully, then with it still
in his hand, he turned and looked out across the valley, across the tops
of the trees, to where the low-hung cloud appeared. It was much larger
now and much nearer and Og could see that it was not as other clouds
in the sky, for it ballooned upward and outward in great black billows
and here and there it was shot with tongues of flame. Og was chilled
with fear, for he knew that Scar Face had stolen the fire and carried
it off to the bush, and not knowing its potentialities, had attempted
to build himself a camp fire in the woods. And, in doing it, he had set
the world on fire—loosed the wrathful Fire Demon. Og could see it all,
and he trembled as he thought of the result, for his mind leapt back to
the volcano and the earthquake when the wrathful Fire Demon had set the
world aflame once before.
The hairy boy was thoroughly frightened. So, too, were the wolf cubs
now, for they raised their sharp muzzles to the wind and sniffed
apprehensively, and whimpering drew closer to their master.
It was a terrible forest fire that Scar Face had started. A mass of dirty
yellow smoke was rolling skyward and drifting across the heavens. Soon it
began to obscure the sun. Og could see the great orb through the smoke
and it looked sinister and menacing; like a great ball of fire itself.
The air became heavy and pungent with the odor of burning vegetation. A
great silence seemed to fall over everything, even the birds were still.
Yet a part of this silence it seemed was an undertone that struck dread
even to the stout heart of the hairy boy. It was the sinister moan of
the fire, far off it seemed and dreadful, but as it drew nearer this
moan would become a roar as the flames leapt from tree to tree and tore
through the underbrush devouring everything in their path.
Og began to wonder about his own safety and the safety of the wolf cubs.
He realized that the lack of vegetation there in the canyon would
prevent the flames from reaching him. But he realized, too, that there
was sufficient fuel on the mountainsides above him, and in the pleasant
valley, to bring the flames uncomfortably close, and blow billowing smoke
clouds into the canyon, that would choke them to death. What was he to do?
Presently he realized that he was not the only one who was worried. A
group of tree people appeared at the mouth of the canyon, all of them
whimpering in terror. They paused there at the entrance and looked in at
Og as if beseeching him to help them to safety. Others appeared. They
came at first in family groups of threes and fours, and they gathered
among the bowlders at the entrance of the canyon, where they crouched
shivering with fear, and alternately watched the ever-increasing smoke
cloud and the actions of the hairy boy. Still they came. In larger groups
now; sometimes a dozen or a score at a time. Soon the entire entrance
of the canyon was blocked with the mass of them, but still they came.
Hundreds of them there were. Og marveled at their great number.
The fire was increasing to terrific proportions and drawing steadily
nearer. The undertone that had at first sounded like a far-off moaning
became a steady roar, punctuated now and then by a great snapping and
cracking, or a crash as some mighty tree, its trunk burned through,
crashed to the ground. The tongues of flame that shot upward and split
the rolling smoke bank like flashes of lightning were fiercer now,
and the air was hot and heavy and pungent with the smoke. There was
a constant rain of fine cinders and charred bits of sticks, some of
them still hot and carrying live sparks of fire. When these fell among
the mass of tree people squalls of terror arose and there was a wild
scrambling and milling about in their mad effort to get out of the way of
the dropping ashes.
Soon they began to crowd in through the mouth of the canyon, packing
themselves into the declivity like a huge flock of sheep. Og watched
them and wondered what would happen to them when the leaping fire roared
across the pleasant valley and up the mountain’s sides overhead. Indeed,
he wondered with great fear what was going to happen to him, too, when
that situation developed.
The smoke was growing dreadfully thick even down there close to the
ground. It was a black pall across the heavens by this time shutting
out the sun completely and a draught was drawing thick billows of it
into the canyon. The tree people began coughing and spitting and rubbing
their eyes. Some of them were quick to discover that the air was clearer
and fresher close to the ground and many of them threw themselves prone
among the stones and lay that way breathing in the meager quantity of
smoke-free air that lingered in crevices between the rocks.
A terrific wind was roaring through the canyon. It was a torrid wind, hot
and scorching, for it was created by the fire itself, a terrific draught
that whirled aloft great chunks of charred and still smoking wood and
dropped them among the terror-stricken tree dwellers. Screams of pain and
anguish were added to the noise of the fire and Og shuddered as he saw
some among them clutch at back or side and shriek with pain.
But the hairy boy was just as uncomfortable as the tree people and in
almost as much of a panic. It was all too evident to him now that he
could not live long in the canyon. The thick acrid smoke was in his lungs
and he was coughing and spitting with the rest of them. His eyes burned
like balls of fire themselves, for the smoke had scorched them until they
were raw and painful. He was busy, too, dodging the rain of charred wood
and hot cinders and more than one singed his hair and bit deep into his
flesh. It was a terrible situation and the hairy boy was put to it to
find a way out of the difficulty.
He had clung to his refuge under the shelter of the bowlders where he
had made his home for days past, but he was fast realizing now that this
was a far from satisfactory place to hide in the face of this terrible
threatening peril. But where was he to go? In desperation he peered
through the smoke for some better rocky refuge; some more protected
corner of the canyon. And suddenly he found it. Through a rift in the
swirling smoke bank he beheld the black opening of the sabre-toothed
tiger’s cave. It was an awesome place to think of venturing into, but
better by far than any refuge the canyon afforded.
Eagerly Og gathered up his tiger skin, his best knife and hammer, and his
still burning fire brand. Then, calling to the cowering wolf cubs, he
started to bolt through the smoke. But suddenly he paused. He thought of
the tree people. He knew they would never think of the cave as a refuge
nor have the courage to venture into it if they did think of it, and they
would all perish there in the canyon. He would show them. He would lead
the way.
He raised his voice in a great glad shout which some of the ape men heard
even above the roar of the fire. They looked at him in astonishment, and
when they saw him beckoning and calling them to follow, one by one they
broke away from the huddling, cringing mass and trailed him through the
swirling smoke cloud. And presently Og was leading the whole tribe in the
direction that safety lay.
It was a bold and daring thing that he was doing, and when Og reached the
yawning entrance of the great cave he stood before it irresolutely, with
the ape men cowering behind him and peering into the sinister blackness
of the interior. Not so the wolf cubs, however. Once they saw the cave
they dashed inside. Og noticed that they never hesitated, nor did they
utter a single growl of warning. Indeed, it was with a relieved whimper
that they sought this refuge and Og took heart and stepped inside, but he
slung his tiger skin back over his shoulders and clutched his hammer and
fire brand ready for action as he went deeper into the great cave.
Only a few moments longer did the tree people hesitate, then with much
squealing and pushing and shoving the whole tribe crowded inside and
began to follow the hairy boy whose fire brand torch dispelled some of
the blackness and showed them the way through narrow passages that led
deeper into the bowels of the mountain where the air was free from smoke
and cool and damp and delightful to their singed and badly burned bodies.