FOLLOWING A HOT TRAIL
"Fire! Fire!" cried Professor Zepplin, leaping up from where he had
been leaning over, watching the water bubbling in the bottom of the
excavation they had made.
The guide had been hanging over the hole, dipping water to Ned, who
was turning it into the water-bags.
"Where, where?" demanded Mr. Kringle explosively. He also sprang to
his feet. "It's a prairie fire!"
"The boys are caught. They'll perish!" exclaimed Professor Zepplin,
with blanching face. "Go to them, go to them, Mr. Kringle!" he begged.
"No living thing could get through that wall of fire, Professor,"
announced the guide impressively. "We'll shout and perhaps, if alive,
they'll bear us."
They did so, with the result already known.
"Which direction did Master Stacy take?" Mr. Kringle asked.
"I saw him riding down that way," replied Walter, pointing excitedly.
"Then, perhaps he is safe outside of the fire zone. Some of you hurry
back to the camp, The stock may take fright and stampede. No, we'll
all go. The wind may shift at any moment, and while I do not think the
flames could reach the camp, all our animals might be suffocated, even
if they did not succeed in getting away."
"But you're not going to desert Tad and Chunky, are you?" demanded
Walter indignantly.
"Certainly not. What can we do here? We must get the ponies first;
then we'll hurry to them. I'm afraid they've been caught," answered
the guide.
"If there's any way of escape you may depend upon it that Master Tad
has discovered that way," answered the Professor. "He is a resourceful
boy, and--"
But the rest were already dashing madly toward the camp and Professor
Zepplin began to do so with all speed to catch up with them. The hot
breath of the prairie fire had brought the color to his blanched
cheeks.
"How--how do you think the fire started?" stammered the Professor,
when he at last came up with the guide.
"It was set afire," answered Kris Kringle grimly.
"Set!" shouted the Professor and the two boys all in one breath.
"Yes."
"By whom?"
"That remains to be seen."
"Do you mean that one of the boys was imprudent enough to build a fire
in that grass? Surely they would not have been so foolish as to do a
thing like that."
"As I said, that remains to be seen. The first thing to be done is to
get to them as quickly as possible, though I don't know that we can do
any good. They're either out of it, by this time, or else they're
not," added Mr. Kringle suggestively. "Professor, I wish you and one
of the boys would get out your rifles, mount your ponies and watch the
camp, while two of us go in search of the lost ones."
"Watch the camp?"
"Yes."
"For what reason?"
"Merely as a precaution."
"I'll attend to that. I want all of you to get after Tad and Stacy. We
don't care about the camp particularly, when compared with two human
lives."
The smoke was rolling over them in such dense clouds that the camp was
wholly obscured from view until they were upon it.
"Quick! Get the horses before they break away!" commanded the guide.
"I can't find them!" shouted Ned, who had bounded on ahead and
disappeared in the great suffocating cloud.
Walter was only a few steps behind him, both boys groping, blinking
and coughing as the smoke got into eyes and lungs.
"Lie down when it gets stronger than you can stand. There's always a
current of fresh air near the ground," called the guide.
Both lads adopted his suggestion instantly, and they were none too
soon, for already they were getting dizzy. After a few long breaths,
they were up, groping about once more in search of the stock.
"Over to you right," called the Professor.
"We've been there. They're not there at all," answered Ned.
By this time the guide had dived into the cloud.
"The stock has gone," they heard him shoat.
"Have they stampeded?" roared the Professor.
"I don't know. I'll find out in a minute."
"Queer that this smoke blows two ways at once," said Walter.
"There is a slight breeze blowing this way," explained Ned. "Not
enough, however, to turn the fire back. It has got too good a start."
Suddenly a weird "c-o-o-e-e" sounded to the right of them.
"What's that?"
"It's the guide, Walt. He's trying to call the boys, to see if they
are alive," explained Ned.
"I don't think so. That cry is for some other purpose. I'm going over
where he is to find out what it does mean. Come on."
Together the lads ran as fast as they could in the direction from
which the guide's voice had come.
They found him with hands shaped into a megaphone, uttering his shrill
cries. He made no answer to their questions as to what he was trying
to do.
All at once off in the cloud they heard rapid hoofbeats. The boys
glanced at each other in surprise.
"It's the ponies returning," breathed Walter Perkins.
Ned shook his head.
The cries now took on a more insistent tone, and a moment later two
ponies came whinnying into the camp, snorting with fear. Kris Kringle
spoke to them sharply, whereupon they came trotting up to him with
every evidence of pleasure.
The lads were amazed.
"Can you boys shoot a rope?"
"Yes," they answered together.
"Which one is the better at it?"
"Ned is more expert than I am."
"Take one of my ponies. We've got to go after the stock. Rope and
bring them in as fast as possible. It's getting late, and it will be
dark before we know it. There's not more than two hours of daylight
left."
"I can take my pony and help," began Walter.
"You haven't any pony. They're all gone."
Ned and the guide dashed from the camp at break-neck speed. Emerging
from the dust cloud they saw some of the stock far off on the plain.
"There they are!" cried Ned
"Thank goodness, they're all together. And they are not running. We've
got them bunched."
"Were they afraid of the smoke? What made them break away?"
"They didn't break away."
"What?"
"Their tethers were cut and they were sent adrift," answered the guide
grimly.
Ned was speechless with surprise.
Some of the ponies, objecting to being roped, ran away, necessitating
a lively chase. Kris Kringle worked with the precision of an automatic
gun and with proportionate speed. In half an hour they had roped all
the ponies, and, with the burros trailing along behind, started back
to camp as rapidly as possible.
A heavy pall of smoke still hung over the camp and all the surrounding
country.
Once more they staked down the ponies and pack animals, and urging
vigilance on the part of Professor Zepplin, Ned and the guide dashed
away at full gallop in search of the two missing lads.
"Are we going through the fire?" questioned Ned apprehensively.
"We're going to try it. The worst of it must have passed before this,
but we may have to turn back or turn out for spots. It's the shortest
way, and the only course to follow if we want to know what has become
of them."
Spreading out a little they continued on their way, the ponies
snorting, threatening to whirl about and race back into the open
plain. The ground was like a furnace and the grass smouldered beneath
them, heating their feet and singeing their fetlocks.
Suddenly Ned's pony reared into the air, bucked and hurled its rider
far over into the smouldering bunch grass.
Ned uttered a yell of warning as he felt himself going.
The guide wheeled like a flash. Ned's mount had whirled and was away
like a shot. But the guide was after him with even greater speed. The
chase came to an abrupt ending some few rods farther on, when Kris
Kringle's lariat squirmed out, bringing the fleeing pony to the ground
with its nose in the hot dust.
Without dismounting, the guide turned his own mount, and fairly
dragging the unwilling pony behind him, pounded back to the place
where Ned had been unhorsed.
"Grab him!" commanded the guide to Ned, who had quickly scrambled to
his feet. "What was it that he saw?"
"I don't know. Guess he made up his mind to go back."
"No; he saw something. Hang on to him and cover the ground all about
you till you find it."
"Wha--what do you--"
"Never mind. Look!"
"Here! Here it is!" cried Ned aghast.
The guide was at his side instantly.
"It's a pony," gasped the Pony Rider boy.
Kris Kringle was off his own mount instantly, and bidding Ned hold the
animal, he made a brief examination of the fallen horse, after which
he darted here and there, unheeding the fact that the still burning
grass was blistering his feet through the heavy soles of his boots.
For several rods Kringle ran along the faint trail that Tad and Stacy
had left, or rather, that the fire had left after passing over it.
"They beat their way out here. We may find them later. Come on!"
Again Ned and the guide dashed away, both keeping their gaze on the
smoking prairie about them. The smoke now was almost more than they
could bear.
"Do--do you think they are alive?" asked Ned unsteadily.
"So far. If they are not, it's not their fault. The Professor is
right. Those boys have pluck enough to pull them through, but
sometimes pluck alone will not do it. A prairie fire is no respecter
of pluck."
They burst out into an open space. There were no signs of either of
the missing boys.
"Something has happened to them. We must have missed them," announced
the guide.