THROUGH THE FLAMES
That night Dick slept fitfully. The place where they had camped was in a
deep coulee, unwooded except for a few clumps of red willow. Straight
above them, at the top of an almost perpendicular wall of red shale and
crumbling sandstone, was a dark fringe, which marked the beginning of a
mighty forest of spruce and jack pine. Moaning in his sleep, Dick sat up
and commenced rubbing his eyes. Then he paused to stare in open-mouthed
wonder.
The coulee was full of smoke. It floated around them in a ever
thickening cloud, while above, plainly visible in the glare of the
conflagration, sweeping down from the north, he beheld a thick, dense
column of smoke, which seemed to span the coulee like a black bridge.
Ten feet away, Sandy, on sentinel duty, coughed and dug at his eyes. In
alarm, Dick threw aside his blankets and crawled hurriedly forward to
consult with his chum.
“Sandy!” he shouted, “the fire is all around us. We’ll die like rats in
a trap if we stay here. Why didn’t you awaken me before? Let’s hurry
back to the river and our canoe.”
“Can’t,” said Sandy laconically, “I’ve been watching that. There’s a
belt of fire between us and the river. We should never have camped so
far away from it.”
“Well, you know we thought we’d be safer from Henderson’s men up here,”
Dick replied.
The boys could hear plainly the howling of the wind and the distant,
thunderous roar of the fire. Accustomed as he had become to danger since
his sojourn in the north, Dick could not overcome a sudden feeling of
fear and apprehension.
“Where will we go?” shivered Sandy. “It seems to be all around us.”
“We’ve got to go through it somehow,” Dick answered, not altogether
sure, himself, what ought to be done. “It’s dangerous to remain here any
longer. What do you think is best?”
Sandy, eyes running water, scratched his head in perplexity.
“If we could get to the river,” he said, “we’d be safe. I don’t see any
other way.”
A few moments later, two disconsolate figures clambered up the side of
the coulee and struck off hurriedly at right angles with the fire. With
a catch in his throat, Dick perceived the huge walls of flames bearing
down upon them. For several miles, at least, they were cut off from the
river. Even the sky glowed dully like a large orange disk through a
thick blanket of smoke.
“What’s that!” exclaimed Sandy, suddenly starting back.
Something had shot past them through the underbrush—a heavy body,
hurtling along in mute terror. Almost immediately came other bodies,
small and large—rabbits scurrying almost between their legs; deer,
jumping past in a wild stampede; bear and moose, crashing their way
forward in a cumbersome, heart-stirring panic, as they ran from the
fire.
“If they’re afraid, it’s about time we were,” Sandy declared grimly,
through set teeth. “If this smoke gets any worse we’ll be suffocated in
another ten minutes. My throat feels as if I had been drinking liquid
fire for a week.”
Twenty feet away a flying ember settled down on the dry grass and
immediately burst into flames. With the ever increasing velocity of the
wind, similar patches of fire sprang up around them on every side.
“I’m afraid,” said Dick, fighting bravely against mounting despair,
“that we’ll never make it. I never saw such a wind.”
Sandy did not reply. With handkerchiefs pressed to their noses and
mouths, the boys struggled forward for another quarter of a mile.
By this time the heat had become terrific. Dick’s face felt as if it had
been washed in a bucket of lye. Sandy’s cheeks were streaked with tears,
not tears of grief, but tears of misery from smoke-tortured, bloodshot
eyes.
“No use,” choked Sandy, plunging down a short embankment with Dick at
his heels. “I’m about ready to quit. You see,” he explained, struggling
with the lump in his throat, “I’m getting dizzier and dizzier every
minute. This heat and smoke is getting me.”
Dick put out his hand with an assurance he did not feel, and patted his
chum on the shoulder.
“Buck up,” Dick encouraged, “we’ll get out of this somehow. I tell you,
Sandy, we’ve got to do it. Maybe this——”
Dick never finished what he was about to say. His foot slipped, and with
a startled exclamation, he pitched forward, completely upsetting Sandy.
In a moment both boys had rolled and slid down a steep bank. It seemed
there was no end to the fall, and Dick’s heart almost failed him as he
thought of what fate might meet them below. Perhaps they were rolling
toward the brink of a cliff hundreds of feet high, perhaps they would
fall into some rock cluttered canyon, or again, they might be drowned in
some deep lake at the bottom of the bank.
Then they reached the bottom with a jarring impact that shook the breath
from their bodies. When they recovered enough to look each other over,
Dick was sitting upright, astride of Sandy, who lay in a crumpled,
groaning heap under him. Dick heard, or thought he heard, the trickle of
running water. His right foot felt pleasantly cool. When he put out his
hand to investigate his fingers encountered water.
Sandy was half submerged in a tiny pool, and was sinking fast, before
Dick could pull him back to safety. Dazed from the fall, Sandy sputtered
a moment, then inquired excitedly:
“Have we got to the bottom?”
“I guess so,” replied Dick. “At any rate there seems to be a sort of
creek running along here. Are you all right, Sandy?”
“Well, if I’m not, I soon will be,” answered Sandy, more cheerfully.
“Wait till I get a drink of this water. Boy, I’m dry. Do you think we’ll
be safe here?”
By way of answer, Dick pointed up to the wide belt of fire. “It’s closer
than it was before. We’re protected down here from the heat and smoke,
but that won’t last long. In two hours this place will be as hot as a
stove. Our only chance is to keep on moving.”
“I hate to leave this water,” said Sandy, gulping large mouthfuls of it.
“I don’t intend leaving the water,” Dick assured him. “It’s just
occurred to me that our best plan will be to follow this little creek.
It’s probably fed from a spring and will eventually run either into a
lake or river. Once we get into more water we’ll be pretty safe.”
Sandy thought Dick was right, and a few minutes later, greatly
refreshed, they set out again, following the creek downstream.
Two miles further on the creek ran into a larger stream, and a little
later as they hurried around a curve, Sandy, who was in the lead, gave
vent to an exclamation of despair.
“Look at that!” he shouted. “The fire has cut in ahead of us.”
Sandy was right. Not more than a quarter mile downstream, the fire was
raging on both sides of the creek, and even as they looked, a large jack
pine, flaming to the top of its highest branches, swayed suddenly in the
wind and went crashing forward in a shower of sparks and burning embers.
Sick at heart, the two young adventurers stood for a short time,
scarcely daring to think of their predicament. Apparently there was
little chance of escape, the main body of the fire behind them, another
fire sweeping ahead.
“We’ve got to get through,” Dick muttered. “We’ll have to take a chance,
Sandy. The fire ahead hasn’t been burning long and it’s not as far
through it—maybe not more than a hundred yards. Somehow, I feel certain
that this creek will take us straight on to the Big Smokey where we left
the canoe.”
Sandy’s face brightened a little. “I believe you’re right, Dick. If a
burning tree or branch doesn’t fall on us, we can make it. We’ll have to
wade right down through the center of the stream. If it gets too hot we
can dive under the water. I’m going to take off my shirt, soak it in
water and breathe with it around my head.”
“A good idea,” approved Dick. “I’ll do it too.”
A half hour later, two boys emerged, wet and blackened, from a cloud of
smoke and flame and advanced painfully along the creek to a point where
it emptied into the Big Smokey river. Behind them thundered the terrible
conflagration, getting closer every moment. Moose, deer and caribou
stood trembling at the river’s edge, or struck boldly out into the
stream. The boys turned north and followed the river for a mile before
they discovered the object they sought. It was daylight now, though the
smoke made it difficult to see far. Yet the light, graceful Peterboro
canoe, loaded with supplies, did not miss their searching eyes. As they
pushed it into the river and climbed in, Dick Kent gave voice to a
fervent exclamation.
“We made it, Sandy!” he exulted, as he dipped his paddle once more into
the bosom of the Big Smokey.
Sandy was about to share Dick’s rejoicing, when the movements of a huge
brown bear, which had splashed into the water behind them, attracted his
attention. The bear was swimming straight for the canoe.
“Shove out quick!” cried Sandy suddenly, but too late.
The brown bear, blinded by smoke, and thinking the canoe some log to
cling to, clawed at the rim of the frail craft and pulled down. The
canoe went over, spilling its contents into the river, while the bear,
finding the craft unstable, swam on out into the river.