This gave them a minute to get their breath and look around at the stirring picture which often returned to their minds in future days. Over to the north it was a fearful sight, with the fire leaping up among some of the trees. Pines were blazing like great torches, but oaks, beeches and other forest trees did not seem to be affected, the fire being confined to the trash at their bases, such as windrows of dead leaves, stumps, logs and anything else in the way of fuel.
Those farmers who had their winter supply of wood stacked in the forest waiting for the first snow so as to haul it on sleds to the house, stood to lose the entire crop, and would have to cut anew. Others who had heaps of fence rails laid by for winter work would also meet with a complete loss, for the ground fire hunted all of these things out and made quick work of them.
Leaving some of the boys to keep watch over that treacherous grass fire, Hugh hurried back to see how the rest were getting along with their work. He stopped at a shed and made a discovery that pleased him.
“Here, Jack, come and help me get this spraying machine out!” he called to the nearest scout. “We can fill the barrel at the pond and drag it over to the house. I’ll cut the nozzle off the hose so a good stream of water can be forced to the roof, and smother any spark that drops. It’s going to insure a home for those poor kids anyway, even if everything else goes up in smoke.”
Jack Durham was only too willing to take hold. He was strongly built, and able to work like an ox. Together they ran the wheeled spraying machine down to the duck pond, and utilizing the first bucket that came along Hugh started to scoop up the water, throwing it into the barrel that was mounted on the two wheels.
When it was two-thirds full, he and Jack seized hold, and with considerable straining and dragging, managed to get it over to the farm-house.
Just as Hugh had said, when he used his sharp pocket knife blade to sever the nozzle at the end of the hose, it was possible to reach any part of the roof with a small stream of water once the pump was set going.
“We’ll try it, to make sure first before I leave you in charge, Jack,” said Hugh.
A few plunges of the easily worked pump satisfied the scout master that it was all right. He saw a large spark drop on the dry roof of the house near the ridge-pole, and had no difficulty whatever in drowning it out with the stream he turned in that direction, squeezing the end of the severed hose in order to make the water carry further.
“You see how it’s done, don’t you, Jack?” he asked, holding up the hose to display his manner of making the opening smaller, and thus increasing the force of the discharge. “Use it that way when you have to reach the further end of the roof. And step around occasionally to the other side to make sure a fire isn’t stealing a march on you. That’s all. The house is going to be saved at all events.”
“You just make your mind easy on that score, Hugh,” Jack told him. “If my muscles don’t go back on me, which they never have as yet, I can pump this thing all day, and stand up under it.”
Leaving the other on guard, Hugh once more turned back to other parts of the exciting fire line. He noticed that the hired man was still carrying buckets of water methodically, and it struck Hugh he had been standing by Mrs. Heffner in a way that was worthy of praise. Still, Hugh paid little or no attention to him, for a dozen different things were passing through his brain then, all of which had to do with the saving of the farm buildings.
“How long do you reckon this is going to keep up, Hugh?” asked Arthur, as he stopped near the scout master, to mop his face with his big red bandana handkerchief.
“I don’t know,” replied Hugh. “I hope that another hour at the most will see the worst over with. If we can keep things from going that long it’s likely we’ll come out all right.”
“Whew! but the air’s getting mighty torrid, I tell you!”
“That’s because the fire’s passed us and is moving along on both sides, as well as from the north. We’re in the midst of a big burning, and soon even escape to the south will be cut off, unless we feel like running the gantlet. The danger now isn’t so much from the flames as from the sparks.”
“Yes, they’re thicker than ever, it strikes me,” assented the other, making several quick slashes at his shoulders, and then snatching off his campaign hat to beat out a smouldering fire in the crown.
“It’ll be worth something to us to save the place for Mrs. Heffner,” said Hugh. “I’m sure every scout is ready to work till he drops, so as to make her mind easy. Think of those poor kids without a home!”
“We can stand it for another hour, if we have to!” Arthur declared, and with that he ran off to make up for lost time, rejoining the string that was heading for the pond with their buckets.
Many times did those sharp-eyed boys discover a fire just starting, where a live coal had managed to settle in some snug nook, and the dry wood soon began to smoulder. The dash of a bucket always put an end to these ambitious beginnings, and so the buildings had up to now been kept intact.
Hugh put his hand on the side of the barn. He was worried when he felt how hot the wood seemed to be.
“It wouldn’t take much to start things so they’d go with a rush,” he told himself, “and a hundred buckets wouldn’t hinder the flames.”
Just then he heard the children start to screaming again, and the sound gave him a nasty feeling, for he felt that it meant new trouble. As Hugh turned he was dismayed to see the straw stack was on fire, a spark having managed to lodge in some exposed part of it, and being unnoticed, had finally communicated its fiery touch to the inflammable material of which the stack was composed.
“That settles it for us, I guess!” one of the scouts was heard to shout, when this new disaster was discovered.
Giving up was one of the hardest things for Hugh to do. He had been known to work for a full hour over a boy who had been a long time under water, and then found the reward for his persistence in seeing signs of returning life.
Just because the fire had seized upon that straw-stack did not mean they should throw up their hands and cry quits. On the contrary, it offered abundant reasons why they should, every one of them, get busy, and fight to save the pile.
Hugh’s voice rang out like the slogan of an old-time Scotch border chieftain, rallying his Highlanders to meet the rush of the foe.
He happened to have a bucket full of water in his hands at the time, and with this he dashed straight at the stack. The flames were already having a merry time of it, and given another minute or so of free play, nothing could have been done to save the huge heap of straw.
Indeed, it promised to take all the combined energy of the scouts to fight the inroads of those eager flames, once they had taken hold.
“Beat it, soak it with water, tear it to pieces if you have to, but don’t let it get the better of you!” shouted the scout master.
A number of the boys were attacking the stack wildly. The hired man stood close by and watched operations as though he had never seen anything like it in all his life. Evidently the systematic and determined way in which those energetic lads went at things had made a most powerful impression on him.
Once Hugh, seeing him standing there, called out to him to lend a hand and fetch water if he could do nothing more. The man aroused himself and started to do what he was told.
It was once on the tip of Hugh’s tongue to ask the boys if any one knew the man with the blackened face, for something about him seemed strangely familiar, although he could not take the time to figure it out, nor did it matter. As it happened, something arose to divert his attention to another point, and he speedily forgot all about the unknown man.
Such energy certainly deserved to reap success, and in the end the straw-stack was saved, but it had been a pretty narrow escape.
“The worst of it is,” said Hugh between gasps when he felt certain the last threatening spark had been crushed out of existence, “that if this pile had gone there would have been a slim chance for saving any of the other haystacks; and after all of them got to burning we wouldn’t have been able to hold the barn back.”
“Chances are even the house would have gone up the flue, too,” declared Billy, who had worked like a good fellow to assist in the work.
Billy was a sight by this time calculated to excite the laughter of his chums. What, with his own personal efforts, added to the heat of the fire, he had long been fairly reeking with perspiration. Streaks of black ran across his face and made him look like a Fiji Islander decorated for the warpath.
“Talk about the map of Ireland, Billy,” one of the other scouts told him, “you carry it around with you.”
“He certainly came from somewhere near Cork,” remarked another fellow, “because he kissed the Blarney Stone before crossing over. Billy can soft-soap you to beat the band. He gets nearly anything he wants.”
“Oh! heaps more than I want sometime,” laughed the good-natured Billy.
Having gained this hard-fought victory, the boys felt that they must take a rest before starting in again. Hugh surveyed the field, and tried to figure from which quarter the peril might come next.
“I’m afraid there’s getting to be a shift of the wind, Hugh,” remarked Arthur, who, being known as a sort of weather prophet, felt it his duty to observe all such things as clouds and wind.
“That would make it bad for us again,” asserted the scout master.
“You mean the fire is bound to strike us from a new quarter if the wind whips around as it’s trying to do right now; is that it, Hugh?” questioned Arthur.
“It’s moving into the northwest,” Hugh told him. “Which would bring it across that patch of dead grass that up to now seems to have kept from burning. Then the woods are closer on that side, and the heat would be greater on the roofs of the barn and house.”
“Shall we get busy again and try to wet down everything that faces that way?” asked the other, as though grasping the conditions by which they were now confronted.
“It is the only thing we can do,” said Hugh.
As soon as he had shouted out the new orders, once more there was a hurry call for the bucket brigade to start operations. Tired though they might be from their late exertions, the scouts never hesitated. The noisy clang of the pump was again heard in the land, and a stream of hustling lads carried water to the new point that was threatened by the insatiable enemy.
Hugh had made a correct diagnosis of the case, for as soon as the wind swung around into the northwest, that dead grass began to blaze up and the fire started to travel swiftly toward the outbuildings of the farm.
Once more the poor widow saw her cherished possessions threatened with destruction. Unable to remain still, she had again joined the throng of willing workers, and was carrying water as best the conditions allowed.
The hired man, too, staggered back and forth with a bucket. He did not appear to be very strong, but then Hugh, on noticing this, supposed he was tired out from his long-continued exertions. Doubtless they had struggled against the encroachment of the fire for some time before the coming of the scouts gave them new hope.
It was a lively ten minutes they all put in. Those who did not have buckets in which to carry water stamped on the fire, and fought it with brooms or any other like article they could find. Led by Hugh, they defied the flames to approach closer to the outbuildings than a certain line.
Billy was so industriously engaged that he must have overstepped the bounds of personal safety. The first thing he knew he was feeling uncomfortably warm in the rear. Then one of the other fellows gave a shriek.
“You’re on fire, Billy! You’re all ablaze! Stand still, and let me whack you with this broom!”
“Hey, bend over, and I’ll put you out all right!” cried Jack Durham, and immediately following his words he gave the bucket he was holding a clever toss that shot its contents all over the fat boy.
“Now you’re extinguished, Billy!” he told the other, laughingly, as he ran off to the duck pond.
It was a satisfaction to Hugh to see that they were mastering the new attack of the devouring element. Several times there had been danger of the barn going, for little blazes started up; but a dash of water finished these.
They could hear a cow mooing wildly inside the barn, and a horse was stamping in his stall, being greatly excited by all this clamor. Hugh had already made up his mind that if the worst came they must see to it that the poor animals were given a chance for their lives; should the barn take fire in earnest, and all hope of saving the building be lost, some one must go inside and lead both horse and cow to the outside air.
Fortunately things did not reach this desperate stage, for the efforts of the hard-working scouts to save the buildings were crowned with complete success.
“Whee! but that was a corking fight, though!” gasped Billy, when it was finally safe for them to stop their labor and breathe more freely.
“But we won out, as we nearly always did, you noticed!” suggested Harold Tremaine, who had learned some pretty valuable lessons since becoming a member of Oakvale Troop.
“Thanks to Hugh and his way of doing things,” added Ralph Kenyon.
“I’ve done no more than the rest of you,” objected the scout master. “Every fellow is justly entitled to feel that he’s had an equal share in the glory.”
“There’s enough to go around, all right,” suggested Bud Morgan. “I know I’m as glad as I can be that we came up here. It’s been a picnic fighting the forest fire. If we can’t help extinguish it we’ve helped cheat it out of its prey.”
“You have saved me from being ruined, my brave boys,” declared Mrs. Heffner, as she looked at the group. “I’ll never forget it, never. When my Willie and Ben grow up to be big enough I give you my word they shall also wear the uniforms of the scouts. If this is what your organization teaches you to do for others in time of need, every boy ought to belong.”
“They would,” said Hugh, “if their folks only took the trouble to investigate for themselves what was going on. But we’re all glad to be here, Mrs. Heffner, glad to be able to help you out. It would have been too bad if you lost your home, after fighting so hard all these years to build it up, and keep a roof over the heads of your family.”
“I never could have lived through it again, Hugh,” she told him, beginning to cry, now that the danger seemed over, for up to then she had kept up wonderfully.
“What if the wind changed again and swung in from that side over there, Hugh?” asked Arthur just then, pointing as he spoke.
“I hardly think it will,” the scout master replied. “But just as you say, there is a little chance, and to make things absolutely sure we must get busy and back-fire.”
“What’s that?” asked Harold, who had considerable to learn concerning many things connected with outdoor life.
“Why, in the old days out West,” Hugh explained, “when a border man found himself threatened with a fire near his dugout he would himself apply a match to the dead grass. It would eat its way up slowly against the wind, and by the time the big fire arrived there would be a section burned over. This would serve as a protection to him against the roaring fire, which would pass him by on either side.”
“Oh! I see now what you mean,” commented Harold, who was anxious to learn many of these interesting things, “we will go around starting little fires wherever we can find a clump of dead grass that hasn’t been water-soaked, and let them burn as far back as they can. Show me how to do it, Hugh; I’d like to have a hand in this back-firing business. It sounds good to me.”
The other boys, as well as Mrs. Heffner and the strange hired man, had heard all that Hugh said. No sooner was the word given than a number of them started to run from tuft to tuft of dead grass, applying a firebrand. Where only a few minutes ago they had been trying their best to kill the flames, they were now turning their attention to coaxing them to start up afresh.
“Fire’s all right, and a right good thing,” remarked Billy, wisely, “if only you can control it.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “like a lot of other things fire makes a splendid servant but a mighty bad master. We’re going to get it to do our bidding now, and clean off the dead grass on the east side of the buildings. Keep a sharp watch so that it doesn’t give you the slip and surprise us.”
“We need fire to keep us warm, and to do our cooking for us,” continued Billy; and then clapping his hands behind him he went on to add: “But when it bites holes through the only trousers you’ve got along it is going a littletoofar, I say. And I might have been roasted if it hadn’t been for you, Jack; you saved my life with that bucket of water, even if you did make me feel pretty moist.”
“Listen,” said Ralph just then.
“What did you think you heard?” asked Hugh, when all of them had strained their hearing for a full minute without catching any sound out of the ordinary.
“I must have been mistaken,” admitted Ralph, “but it was like someone calling!”
“Oh! what if somebody was caught in that fire-trap, and so mixed up he couldn’t tell which way to go?”
It was Billy who said this. Always tender-hearted, the stout scout was appalled at such a dreadful thing happening. They all stood there and stared hard at the smoke-filled forest. Here and there flashes of flame could still be seen, and in more than one place a tree burned fiercely.
“Let’s hope it isn’t as bad as that,” said Hugh.
“The people up through this section had plenty of warning to get away, from what I heard,” remarked Ned Twyford.
“But some of them would sooner stay and take the chances, just as Mrs. Heffner here did,” Monkey Stallings suggested.
“You could hardly blame them, either,” another boy interjected.
“It’s hard to desert your property,” the widow told them, “especially when you’ve got a family of children to bring up, and no husband or father to lean on. But I didn’t dream the danger would be so great.”
“You mean,” said Hugh, “that if you’d known how bad it was you’d have gone off in the wagon and left things to burn?”
She drew her two younger children convulsively to her.
“Yes, I think I would,” she admitted. “The lives of my little ones are worth much more to me than even the farm buildings. But it would have been very cruel to have lost my home just when I was making the last payment to lift the mortgage.”
“Hugh! there it was again!” called out Ralph.
The boys of the Wolf Patrol always said Ralph had the ears of a fox. Either through natural causes, or because of the training he had received when trapping small fur-bearing animals during the winter time, Ralph certainly could catch sounds that were unheard by his mates.
At this fresh announcement new excitement arose.
“The same sound you heard before, was it, Ralph?” asked the scout master.
“As near as I could tell, it was, Hugh.”
“And you think it may have been someone shouting?” continued the other.
Ralph shrugged his shoulders.
“Seemed like it, that’s all I can say,” he replied.
Once again everybody listened. They could hear the crackling of the flames as the fire seized upon another half-dead pine tree not far away, mounting upward with fierce rapidity.
“There, didn’t you hear that?” demanded Ralph suddenly.
Several of the other scouts admitted that they had caught some uncertain kind of sound, though unable to say just what it seemed to resemble.
“It may have been a crow cawing,” suggested Jack Durham.
“Or else a dog barking in the woods?” added Bud Morgan.
“Whatever it can be,” persisted Ralph, “it’s headed this way, because all of you heard the cry that time and you couldn’t before.”
Hugh turned toward the widow.
“Who lives nearest to you over that way, Mrs. Heffner?” he asked her.
“The Bargers—oh! I wonder if he got back again last night?” was the answer she made.
Hugh saw that she was looking anxious.
“Why do you say that, Mrs. Heffner?” he asked.
“It’s this way,” she tried to explain. “Mr. Barger is a widower, and has three children. He doesn’t keep hired help but has a bound boy of about fifteen working for him. Poor Peter has a hard time of it because Mr. Barger is a drinking man, and not an easy boss.”
“Do you mean that he went away yesterday?” asked Hugh.
“He took a load into town,” she replied.
“But surely he had plenty of time to get back home again?”
“Most men would,” Mrs. Heffner explained, “but when Mr. Barger goes in once in a while he meets some boon companions, and he usually gets home the next day at noon in a muddled condition.”
Hugh grasped the cause of her alarm.
“You are afraid the three children have been left there with only that bound boy Peter to take care of them?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fearful that is what has happened, Hugh. And think of those poor children in the midst of that terrible smoke and fire. Even if they haven’t been burned to death, there’s a chance they’ve been smothered.”
All of the scouts had heard what was said. They looked toward the forest with pitying eyes. It was terrible to think of children being lost in those smoke-shrouded woods.
“Can we do anything, Hugh?” asked Billy, looking as though ready to even rush out into the forest himself if Hugh but gave the word.
“Yes, there is one thing that might help,” the scout master decided.
“Start out and scour the woods, do you mean?” questioned Harold.
“No, because we might manage to miss them after all,” said Hugh. “Let’s all join together and give a yell. They’re bound to hear it, if what we believe is true, and can head this way. Now, ready!”
Like every other high school pupil, Hugh had watched the clever tactics of the cheer captain when they fought for honors on the diamond or the gridiron with some rival school.
He knew how to bring out a concerted shout, capable of carrying a long distance, and when they all gave tongue together the result was certainly satisfactory.
“Listen!” warned the scout leader, as the sound died away.
Plainly all of them caught what seemed to be an answering cry.
“It must be that boy Peter,” said Mrs. Heffner, excitedly, “he’s tried to lead those poor children over to my house, not knowing where else to go. Oh! please help him get here, Hugh! The dear little things, just to think of them being out in those terrible woods.”
“Wait a minute and we’ll give another shout,” said Hugh.
When they did so the response came quickly.
“Closer than before,” said Jack Durham.
“He’s getting his bearings all right!” declared Ralph.
“We must keep him posted,” added Arthur Cameron, “and I hope none of them will be burned seriously. I’m glad I brought that salve along with me. We found it good at other times to take the fire out of burns.”
Each time they sent out that cheering shout it seemed as though the reply came from a point nearer at hand.
“He’s coming right along,” declared Billy.
“Another call or so ought to do the business,” Ned Twyford told them.
“Poor chap,” Harold ventured, “it’s enough to scare any one, just the thought of being lost in a forest afire.”
All of them were scanning the smoky edge of the woods as if they fully expected to see a party of childish figures issue forth and hasten toward them. It was a very exciting moment, and one those boys would not soon forget.
“I see something moving over there!” called out Ralph.
He pointed as he said this, and every one tried to follow the direction of his extended finger.
“Yes, there is some person coming,” ejaculated Bud Morgan.
“Only one did you say?” cried the widow, as though appalled.
“Seems to be,” Bud continued; “there, now he’s burst out on the open I can see him better.”
“Just one person?” persisted Mrs. Heffner.
“Looks like it might be the boy Peter you told us about,” said Ralph; “he’s bending over and trying to walk steady but he seems pretty groggy. Yes, that’s Peter all right, but he’s alone, Mrs. Heffner.”
“Must have cut out for himself, and tried to escape,” Jack Durham hinted, with all the scorn in his voice that a true scout would naturally feel for any one who would be guilty of such an act.
“But I wouldn’t have believed that of Peter,” objected the widow. “He always struck me as a steady, reliable, brave sort of boy. It wouldn’t be like Peter to run away and leave those motherless children to burn when the farm-house took fire.”
“Look! he’s fallen over now, poor fellow!” cried Billy.
“No, he’s got on his feet again, and keeps right along,” Jack Durham declared. “Bully for Peter; he’s got the grit all right.”
The boy came staggering toward them. He was, indeed, a piteous sight with his clothes burned in many places, his face fiery red from the heat, and his limbs fairly tottering under him.
He pushed aside the tin cup of cold water Hugh held out to him.
“Save—the kids—they’re in between the rocks at the Dry Spring—couldn’t fetch ’em any further. Oh!pleasego,” and with that Peter collapsed in a heap.
“Why the poor boy has fainted!” exclaimed the widow.
Arthur Cameron was quickly bending over Peter.
“I’ll bring him around, Hugh, and look after him,” he said. “Do something for the kids out there in the woods. Let me have that tin cup of cold water, please.”
Knowing that Arthur could be trusted to do the right thing by the exhausted boy, Hugh turned to Mrs. Heffner.
“Did you hear what he said, ma’m?” he demanded.
“Yes, every word of it, Hugh.”
“He must have had the children along with him?”
“Just as I said,” she told him. “Peter thought of us because I’ve been kind to him a few times. He was trying to fetch them here.”
“But they gave out on the way; that’s about what I made out he said?” the scout master remarked, with a note of interrogation in his voice.
“Yes, and I really believe Peter must have done the best he could trying to hide them so the fire wouldn’t injure the poor little darlings.”
“He mentioned a place he called the Dry Spring?”
“We all know that place, and he would have to pass it on the way here from the Bargers’ house,” Mrs. Heffner explained.
“Do you think I could find it?” Hugh asked next.
She considered for a brief space of time.
“The smoke in the forest might bother you, Hugh.”
“Oh! we’d have to stand for that,” was his cheery remark.
“I think I could tell you how to go.”
“Then please do it, Mrs. Heffner,” said the scout master. “Here, Jack, Bud and you, too, Don Miller, stand by and listen, because you’re elected to keep me company on this trip.”
“And how about me?” asked Billy, trying to throw all sorts of entreaty into his voice and look.
“You’re nominated to stay right here and stand guard,” Hugh told him. “Fact is, we’ve got to have athletes on this trip, Billy. Now, Mrs. Heffner, let’s hear the directions, please.”
“First head into the woods where Peter came out,” she explained. “You’ll run across a stone wall. Keep that to your right. About the time you reach the end of the wall you ought to see the dry bed of a creek. Sometimes in the spring, water runs there, but just now it’s as dry as a bone.”
“Do we follow the bed of the dry creek?” asked Hugh.
“Yes, all the way. I should say it was all of half a mile before you’ll strike the Dry Spring. Once it fed the stream that ran there, but now only the rocks lie there. Peter must have left the Barger children among those rocks.”
“We understand, Mrs. Heffner,” said Hugh. “Just tell us on which side we will find the Dry Spring.”
“Keep watch on your right as you go from here,” she told him, “and while you’re gone I shall pray that you find the poor little innocents safe and unharmed.”
“Ready, boys?” called out the scout master.
“On deck, Hugh,” replied Don Miller, “and I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad scheme for each one of us to carry a full canteen of water along.”
“A good idea, Don,” admitted Hugh. “I have one already, you may notice, but several more can do no harm.”
As they were getting these, Hugh noticed that Peter was responding to the treatment of Arthur Cameron. He had come out of his swoon and was eagerly drinking some water from a bucket. No doubt his tongue and throat were parched from his recent experience in the burning forest.
When he realized what Hugh and his several chums meant to attempt, the bound boy started to get upon his feet.
“I’ll go along and show you,” he said, and Arthur had to catch hold of him; he was so extremely weak through exhaustion and excitement.
“No, you’re going to stay just where you are,” Arthur told him, severely. “You’re not in a fit condition to walk twenty feet.”
“But what if they couldn’t find the place?” the boy pleaded.
“We’ll get there, Peter, don’t you fear,” Jack Durham assured him.
“Every time,” added Bud Morgan.
Billy Worth was not the only disappointed one. Every scout who could not accompany Hugh felt as though he were being cheated out of a treat. They would all have been pleased to belong to the rescue party, but at the same time they had learned the value of discipline, so there was no protest.
The hired man had listened to all that went on. He had watched the business-like way in which Arthur revived the fainting Peter. Apparently the help, as Hugh took it for granted he must be, took a lively interest in the venture, for after the boys had actually started he called out in a voice that was husky from the smoke he had swallowed:
“I hope and pray you may get those children, Hugh Hardin.”
Hugh half turned in his tracks as though tempted to reply, but changing his mind hurried along.
“Watch out for the stone wall, boys,” he told the other three.
“She said it lay on the right, didn’t she, Hugh?”
“Yes, and the Dry Spring lies in the same direction from the bed of the creek,” the scout master explained.
“This smoke is sure enough tough,” remarked Jack. “It grips your eyes—and how it makes ’em smart.”
“There’s a lively bunch of fire ahead of us,” observed Bud.
“We’ll pass around it,” suggested the leader.
“No use wasting our time fighting fire in spots,” Don Miller told them.
“We’ll keep all our strength for the job we’ve got before us,” Hugh explained.
“I only hope we find the place,” said Jack.
“With the poor, frightened kids safe and sound,” Don added, for he was almost as tender-hearted as Billy Worth.
They were now deep in the woods. All around them lay the smoke clouds. It arose from smoldering beds of leaves or stumps that were slowly giving up their substance to the hungry flames.
The low stone wall lay close beside them on the right. Hugh wondered what it had ever been built for, though there were traces of a long-abandoned road to be seen in places.
All of them were constantly on the watch for signs of the dry creek bed which Mrs. Heffner had explained was to be their guide all of the way to where the dry spring was located.
“I think I see it ahead there, Hugh,” announced Jack, presently.
“Yes, you’re right about that,” Don Miller echoed, proving that he, too, had made the discovery.
“It’s about time we struck it,” said Hugh, “because here’s where the wall ends. She described things exactly as they are. It’s a pleasure to follow up such a trail.”
The creek bed was plainly in evidence. Years before there must have been quite a lovely little stream of clear ice-cold water gurgling between those moss-covered stones. That was before the spring had stopped, owing to some interior convulsion of Nature or rock “slip.”
It was very hot and almost suffocating in the midst of the forest through which the devastating fire had so recently passed. It would have been much more so had the trees been included in the general conflagration.
Frequently one of the scouts would feel the necessity for taking a mouthful of cold water, because he believed himself to be perilously near the choking stage. One and all were glad they had been wise enough to carry those canteens along with them.
There was no sign of animal or bird life anywhere about them. Perhaps many of these perished in the fire. Most of them, however, must have found some means for escaping through flight, or failing that, taken refuge among the rocks, perhaps in hiding places under the roots of trees.
“Must be pretty near there I should say, Hugh?” ventured Jack.
“We’ve certainly covered half a mile of territory since starting out,” Bud Morgan asserted, using his bandana freely in order to mop his streaming face.
“Not quite that much yet,” Hugh told them. “You know, in a case of this kind, it’s easy to think you’ve gone further than you really have. But we are coming close to where the spring ought to be located, and we’ll all be on the watch for the signs.”
“It’ll never give us the slip,” ventured Don Miller confidently.
“I don’t see how it could very well,” the scout master told them, “because when the spring was working it fed the creek, so we should easily tell where they joined forces.”
“Unless I miss my guess,” ventured Bud, “we’re going to strike that junction right away.”
“Looks so to me,” Jack hastened to add.
Through the eddying wreaths of pungent blue wood smoke they could see a pile of stones. It lay on their right, and that was where the widow had told them to search.
“Looks almost as if someone had piled those rocks up, doesn’t it?” said Don Miller, as they stumbled along, and constantly drew nearer the spot that all of them had decided must be the place they were aiming for.
“Perhaps that’s what has been done, partly,” Hugh observed.
“You mean Peter heaped ’em up like that, don’t you?” asked Jack.
“I think that’s about the kind of fellow Peter is,” the scout master replied. “Think of him doing his level best to save those children when their father, who ought to have been at home to look after them, was having a lark in town over night.”
“Peter is a faithful fellow,” remarked Don, “and I’m afraid he leads a pretty hard life of it there with Farmer Barger. When I get back home again, I’m going to see if something can be done for him. He deserves a kinder master, poor chap.”
They were now close to the rocks, and all of them felt thrilled with eagerness to know what the result of their mission was going to be. Would they find the three frightened and weary little Barger children where Peter had entrenched them; or was it possible they had since wandered off into the blackened and smoking forest to meet some dreadful fate?
The piled-up rocks made Hugh shiver to look at them; he thought they seemed so like a cairn or a burial place.
So, raising his voice, the scout master gave a loud shout, his object being to learn the truth, one way or the other. Immediately all of them felt greatly relieved, for above the rocks there suddenly popped into view several tousled heads as the children stared around in search of the one who had brought them new hope.
“One, two, three! All there!” whooped Jack Durham.
“We’re in great luck, fellows!” Hugh assured them, for truth to tell he had felt fear gripping his heart as with an ice-cold hand.
If they had failed to discover the children where Peter had left them after they could walk no further through the smoky forest, it would have been very much like looking for a needle in a haystack to have tried to find them. Following a trail by eyesight alone over that burned ground must have proved well-nigh impossible, even for practiced scouts.
But here were the children, ready and willing to be saved. Indeed, they were already stretching out their little hands entreatingly toward the boys, as though begging Hugh and his trio of chums not to forsake them.
Hurrying forward, the scouts were quickly on the spot.
They found the reason why Peter had been forced to temporarily leave his charges while he went in search of help. The oldest child could not have been much more than five, the second three, and the youngest less than two.
Later on they learned that Peter had carried the little one pretty much all the way, but when the second child broke down and was unable to walk any further Peter just knew he had to do something different.
“It’s all right, little ones,” said Bud Morgan, with one of his reassuring smiles that made all youngsters like him. “We’ve come to take you to the house of your neighbor, Mrs. Heffner. She’ll keep you till daddy comes.”
“But Peter said we must stay here,” remarked the oldest child, a boy who looked as though later on in life he would be able to hoe his own row much better than, according to common talk, his father was doing.