PINNED DOWN
So directly in their path was the felled giant of the forest that
the boys stumbled among its outstretched branches before they could
stop their onward rush.
Then they pulled their caps still closer over their eyes, circled
around the tree and found the path again. They knew just how close
they had been to death, and yet their thoughts at that moment were
not of themselves. They were thinking of Jimmy, wondering if,
perhaps, some such accident as had happened to them had overtaken
their chum. Was that what had delayed him? They shuddered and ran
faster.
The wind, fierce as it had been before, seemed momentarily to
increase in violence. Trees moaned beneath the force of it, sweeping
their tortured branches earthward. Again and again came that
tearing, rending sound that meant the downfall of another forest
giant.
Urged on now by a horrible fear for Jimmy’s safety, the boys climbed
over jagged stumps, fought their way through clinging branches,
keeping the while a sharp lookout to right and left of them. Several
times they stopped and shouted, but the wind viciously whipped the
sound from their lips and they had the nightmare feeling that they
were making no noise at all.
Then, in a sudden deep lull in the storm, they heard it. Faintly it
came to them—a cry for help—smothered the next minute by the fury of
the wind.
But it was enough for the boys. That had been Jimmy’s voice, and
with a wild shout they turned in the direction from which it had
come.
They found him, lying on his side, the branches of a great tree
pinning him to the earth. There was perspiration on his face, either
from pain or his desperate struggles to get free. His chums did not
know which, and they spent little time trying to find out.
Down on their knees they went, shouting encouragement to Jimmy while
they tried to lift the heavy branches from him. It was all they
could do with their combined strength to lift the limb which pinned
their comrade to the ground, but they managed it at last. The
heavier weight removed, it took them but a few minutes to cut off
the rest of the branches.
Then Jimmy was free! But he made no effort to rise. Bob knelt beside
him anxiously.
“Are you much hurt, old man?” he asked, putting an arm gently
beneath the lad’s shoulders. “Do you think you can get up?”
“I guess so,” said Jimmy, struggling to a sitting position. He
grimaced with pain and rubbed an ankle gingerly. “I feel kind of
numb and queer.”
“Humph, I should think you would, after all that,” returned Herb,
adding with, for him, unusual gentleness: “How about it, Doughnuts?
Think there are any bones broken?”
Jimmy shook his head, and, with Bob’s assistance, struggled gamely
to his feet. There was the exquisite torture of returning
circulation in his feet. He felt as though he were standing on a bed
of needles with all the sharp points turned upward. He bit his lips
to keep back a groan.
The boys regarded him anxiously while Bob felt him carefully all
over to make sure there were no broken bones.
“I’m all right, I guess,” said Jimmy, his round face becoming more
cheerful as the pain in his feet subsided. “Got plenty of bruises I
guess, but I don’t mind them.”
With intense relief the boys realized that what he said was true. It
had been a miracle that he should have escaped with only a few
scratches and bruises to tell the story. As it was, if the falling
tree had caught him just a little bit sooner—but resolutely they
turned away from that thought.
As soon as Jimmy found that he could hobble along, they turned and
began the stiff fight back to the lodge. And it was a fight, every
inch of the way.
The wind seemed like a human enemy against whom they had to exert
every ounce of their strength. It wrestled them, buffeted them,
snatched at their breath, at times sent them reeling against the
trunk of a tree.
The journey was made still harder for them because of the weakened
condition of Jimmy. Although he had not been seriously hurt, the
shock of his experience had been terrific. Toward the end the boys
fairly had to carry him along.
When they finally came within sight of the lodge they saw a sight
that made their hearts jump wildly. Half a dozen rangers were
running through the woods, armed with shovels and wet sacks.
As the boys stared, two of them turned and started for the door of
the lodge. Bob rushed forward, shouting to them. It was then he saw
that one of the men was Mr. Bentley.
“Let’s get inside,” he snapped at Bob. “We can’t talk in this wind.”
Swiftly Bob drew the key from his pocket and fitted it in the lock.
The door flew open and the wind fairly swept them inside. With an
effort Bob got the door shut, turned and faced the men.
“A fire over on the ridge,” said Mr. Bentley, curtly. His face was
drawn and there were grim lines about his mouth. “Can you boys send
out some radio messages for us?”
“Watch us!” cried Bob, turning to the instrument. “Where to?”
“Villages in the district,” replied Mr. Bentley. He had already
turned toward the door. “Ashley and Dawnville are in the path of the
fire. Our wireless will be busy directing the fight. After warning
the villages, send out calls for help in all directions. We’ll need
men, men and more men!”
“Is it so bad, then?” asked Herb, his eyes gleaming.
Mr. Bentley did not answer except by a nod of the head. But the
lines about his mouth had deepened.
Then the door slammed to after the men, and the boys turned
feverishly to the instrument. Static put up a fight, but they
finally managed to get Ashley, then Dawnville.
“Perry is just a little way further on,” suggested Joe. “Better get
them too, Bob.”
Bob got Perry and then started broadcasting the call for men, men
and more men. And when they were satisfied they had done all they
could do with the radio, the boys pulled on jackets and hats and
hurried to swell the numbers of the defenders.
Jimmy who, in his excitement, had forgotten what had happened to
him, went with them. To Bob’s suggestion that he stay at the lodge
for a while and join them later, he stubbornly refused to listen.
“Think you’re going to do me out of this, do you?” he cried. “Well,
I guess not! If anybody stays at home, it isn’t going to be me.”
The boys had no time to argue with him, if they had wanted to. They
knew that in a terrific wind such as this a forest fire can become a
hideous thing, burning up whole tracts of valuable lumber, sweeping
down upon villages and leaving terror and destruction in its wake.
Mr. Bentley had said that they needed men, men and more men. And
they knew that what he had said was nothing to what he had left
unsaid. Hardened veteran as he was of many forest fires, a blaze
such as this promised to be would try even his tested courage. Well,
they’d show him what Radio Boys could do!
They paused for a moment outside the lodge to get their bearings. No
need to ask in which direction the blaze was now. No longer need to
hunt for evidences of the terror. For plainly visible now was the
curtain of red, broken and torn by darting tongues of flame that
shot heavenward, painting a dull reflection on the sky.
They could hear the hoarse shouts of the men who risked their lives
in battle with the terrible enemy, the crackling of burning trees,
could smell the pungent acrid smell of burning wood.
“Come on, fellows!” cried Herb excitedly. “We don’t have to ask the
way, do we?”
“Couldn’t miss it,” shouted Joe, giving the gasping Jimmy a lift
over the tangled branches of a fallen tree.
“Look out for that hole, fellows,” warned Bob, for, with their eyes
upon that wavering, changing curtain of red, the boys had come very
near pitching headlong into a hole made by the torn-up roots of a
tree. “Wouldn’t do to break a leg just now.”
It was deceitful—that fire line. It had seemed just ahead of them,
but, although they ran as fast as they could, it seemed always to be
just as far ahead of them.
“Maybe it’s going the other way,” panted Jimmy, his lungs feeling as
though they would burst.
“Couldn’t,” Bob shouted back. “The wind’s blowing right toward us. I
think it’s just the other side of the hill.”
For a long time they had been climbing steadily, and as they neared
the top of the hill they seemed at last to be approaching the fire.
Or was it approaching them? With that wind——
The shouts of the fire fighters were growing plainer now. Groups of
men, gesticulating excitedly and carrying shovels and sodden sacks,
brushed past them.
The boys ran with them, beside themselves with feverish excitement.
They reached the top of the hill. Down below them, writhed and
twisted and fought the grinning demon of fire!