“Oh, Laura!” gasped Eve. “That boy will never give the colt up.”
“Why not? See him?” exclaimed Mother Wit. “He knows he is riding a stolen horse. There! he’s sliding out of the saddle.”
The fact was, the colt—still but half broken under the saddle and with its eyes on its mother—would not move out of its tracks. The boy jumped off and tried to lead Jinks.
“Get away from that horse, boy!” commanded Laura, bringing the old mare down to a more moderate pace as they approached the stolen colt.
“I’ll tell my brother!” yelled the youngster. “I’ll set him on ye! This critter is his’n.”
“And he came by it just as dishonestly as you came by such grammar as you use,” said Laura, laughing, while Eve hopped over the wheel on her side of the cart and grabbed the reins out of the boy’s hands.
“Let that horse alone!” cried the youngster, kicking at Eve with his bare foot.
But Eve Sitz wasn’t afraid of any boy—not even had he been of her own size and age. Her open palm smacked the youngster’s head resoundingly and he staggered away, bawling:
“Lemme erlone! Hebe! Hebron Pocock! I wantcher!”
Laura was already backing the mare, preparatory to turning about.
“Come on with the colt, Eve!” she cried.
The boy they had unhorsed continued to bawl at the top of his voice. But for the moment nobody appeared. Eve lengthened the bridle rein for a leading strap and then essayed to climb into the cart again. The boy ceased crying and threw a stone. The colt jumped and tried to pull away, for the stone struck her.
“Whoa, Jinks!” cried Eve. “If I could catch that boy! I’d do more than box his ears—so I would!”
“Come on, Eve!” called Laura, looking over her shoulder. “Here come some women from the shanties. They will do something to us beside calling us names——or throwing stones,” as she dodged one that the boy sent in her direction.
“Whoa, Jinksey!” commanded Eve, again, trying to lead the frightened colt toward the cart.
“Hebe Pocock! Yi-yi! You’re wanted!” yelled the small boy again, sending down a perfect shower of stones from the bank above them, but fortunately throwing them wild.
Eve managed to climb up into the cart, still holding the snorting, pawing colt by the strap.
“Drive on! drive on!” she gasped, looking back at the several ill-looking and worse dressed women who were running toward them.
“Go on!” urged Laura to the mare, and Old Peggy started back up the hill, while Eve towed Jinks behind. Suddenly, however, the bushes parted, and a roughly dressed fellow, with a red handkerchief tied around his head in lieu of a cap, stepped out into the road. He carried a gun in the hollow of his arm, the muzzle of which was turned threateningly toward the cart and the two girls in it. The two barrels looked as big around as cannon in the eyes of Laura and Evangeline Sitz!
“Hey, there!” advised the ugly looking fellow. “You ladies better stop a bit.”
“It’s Pocock!” whispered Laura.
“I know it,” returned Eve, in the same tone.
“That horse you’re leadin’ belongs to me,” said Pocock, with an ugly scowl.
“You know better, Hebron,” exclaimed Eve, bravely. “It belongs to my father.”
“It may look like your father’s colt,” said Pocock. “But I bought her of a gypsy, and it ain’t the same an—i—mile.”
“The old mare knows her,” said Laura, quickly, as the colt nuzzled up to Peggy and the gray mare turned around to look upon the colt with favorable eye.
“That don’t prove nothing,” growled Pocock. “Drop that rein.”
“No, I won’t!” cried Eve. “Even the bridle is father’s. I recognize it.”
By this time the women from the shanties had arrived. They were dreadful looking creatures, and Laura was more afraid of them than she was of Pocock’s shot-gun.
“What’s them gals doin’ to your brother Mike, Hebe?” demanded one of the women. “They want slappin’, don’t they?”
“They want to l’arn to keep their han’s off’n my property,” growled Pocock. “Come! let the little horse go.”
“No!” cried Eve.
“Yes,” cried Pocock, shifting his gun threateningly.
“You bet she will!” cried the woman who had spoken before, and she started to climb up on Laura’s side of the cart.
Laura seized the whip and the woman jumped back.
“Shoot her, Hebe!” she yelled. “She’d a struck me with that thing!”
But Laura had no such intention. She brought the lash of the whip down upon the mare’s flank. With a snort of surprise and pain the old horse sprang forward and had not Hebe Pocock leaped quickly aside he would have been run over.
But unfortunately neither Eve nor the colt were prepared for this sudden move on Laura’s part. The colt stood stock-still and Eve lost her grip on the bridle rein.
“Go it!” yelled Pocock, laughing with delight. “I got the colt!”
He sprang at the head of Jinks. The women were laughing and shrieking.
“That’s the time I did it!” gasped Laura, in chagrin, pulling down the old mare.
And just then the purring of an automobile sounded in their ears and there rounded the nearest turn in the road a big touring car. It rolled down toward the cart and the group about the colt, with diminished speed.
“Oh! we mustn’t lose that colt after coming so near getting it away,” cried Laura.
“But father can go after it with a constable,” declared Eve, doubtfully.
“But Pocock will get it away from here——”
“Why, Laura Belding!” exclaimed a loud, good-natured voice. “What is the matter here?”
“Mrs. Grimes!” gasped Laura, as the auto stopped. The butcher’s wife and daughter were sitting in the tonneau. Hester looked straight ahead and did not even glance at her two school-fellows.
“Isn’t that young Pocock, that used to work for your father, Hester?” demanded Mrs. Grimes. “That’s a very bad boy. What’s he been doing to you, Laura?”
“He has stolen that little horse from Eve’s father,” cried Laura. “And now he won’t give it up.”
“’Tain’t so!” cried Hebe Pocock, loudly. “Don’t you believe that gal, Mis’ Grimes. I bought this horse——”
“Hebe,” said the butcher’s wife, calmly, “you never had money enough in your life to buy a horse like that—and you never will have. Lead it up here and let the girl have her father’s property. And you women, go back to your homes—and clean up, for mercy’s sake! I never did see such a shiftless, useless lot as you are at the Four Corners. When I lived there, we had some decency about us——”
“Oh, Mother!” gasped Hester, grasping the good lady’s arm.
“Well, that’s where we lived—your father an’ me,” declared Mrs. Grimes. “It was near the slaughter houses and handy for him. And let me tell you, there was respectable folk lived there in them days. Hebe Pocock! Are you goin’ to do what I tell you?”
The fellow came along in a very hang-dog manner and passed the strap to Eve Sitz.
“’Tain’t fair. It’s my horse,” he growled.
“You know better,” said Mrs. Grimes, calmly. “And you expect Mr. Grimes to find you a good job, do you? You wanted to get to be watchman, or the like, in town? If I tell Henry about this what chance do you suppose you’ll ever have atthatjob?”
“Mebbe I’ll get it, anyway,” grinned Pocock.
“And maybe you won’t,” said Mrs. Grimes, calmly.
Meanwhile Laura and Eve, after thanking the butcher’s wife, drove on. But Hester never looked at them, or spoke.
For on that Saturday morning Mrs. Case had called at the Grimes house and asked to see Hester. The girl came down and, the moment she saw the physical instructor of Central High, seemed to know what was afoot.
“So you’ve come to tell me I’m not on the team any more, I s’pose, Mrs. Case?” she demanded, tossing her head, her face growing very red.
“I am sorry to tell you that, after your actions at the game with East High Wednesday afternoon, it has been decided that another girl nominated to your position on Team Number 1 would probably do better,” said Mrs. Case, quietly.
“Well!” snapped Hester. “You’ve been wanting to get me off ever since last spring——”
“Hester! although we are not at school now, we are discussing school matters, and I am one of your teachers. Just as long as you attend Central High you must speak respectfully to and of your instructors, both in and out of school. Do you wish me to report your language to Mr. Sharp?”
Hester was sullenly silent for a moment
“For I can assure you,” continued Mrs. Case, “that if I were to place the entire matter before him, including your general deportment at the gymnasium and on the athletic field, I feel sure your parents would be requested to remove you from the school. Do you understand that?”
“I don’t know that I would be very sorry,” muttered the girl.
“You think you would not,” said Mrs. Case; “but it is not so. You are too old to be taken out of one school and put in another because of your deportment. Wherever you went that fact would follow you. It would be hard work for you to live down such a reputation, Hester.”
“I wish father would send me to a boarding-school, anyway.”
“And I doubt if that would help you any. You will not be advised, Hester. But you will learn yet that I speak the truth when I tell you that you will be neither happy, nor popular, wherever you go, unless you control your temper.”
“What do I care about those nasty girls on the Hill?” sputtered the butcher’s daughter. “They’re a lot of nobodies, if theyareso stuck-up.”
“There is not a girl in your class, Hester, who puts on airs over you—or who attempts to,” said Mrs. Case, warmly. “And you know that is so. Deep in your heart, Hester, you know just where the trouble lies. Your lack of self-control and your envy are at the root of all your troubles in school and in athletics.”
Hester only pouted; but she made no reply.
“Now I am forced to remove you from this team where—if you would keep your temper—you could be of much use. You are a good player at basketball—one of the best in Central High. And we have to deny you the privilege of playing on the champion team because——”
“Just because the other girls don’t want me to play with them!” cried the girl, angrily.
“And can they be blamed?” demanded the teacher, quite exasperated herself now. “If you had any loyalty to Central High you would not have acted as you did.”
“I don’t care!” flashed out Hester.
At that Mrs. Case arose to go. “You are hopeless,” she said, decisively. “I had it in mind to offer you a chance to win back your position on the team. But such consideration would be thrown away on you.”
“I don’t want to play with the horrid, stuck-up things!” cried Hester, quite beside herself now with rage and mortification. “I hate them all. I don’t want any of them to be my friends. And as for your old athletics—I’m going to tell father that they’re no good and that I want to withdraw from the League.”
“You may be saved the necessity for that if you haven’t a care, Hester,” warned Mrs. Case, taking her departure.
It was because of this visit from the physical instructor, perhaps, that Hester fairly bullied her father at luncheon time into allowing her mother and herself to try out an automobile that an agent had wanted to sell the wholesale butcher for some time. If automobiles had been uncommon on the Hill Henry Grimes would have had one long before for his family, for he loved display, just as Hester did. But nearly every family at their end of Whiffle Street had a car.
However, Mrs. Grimes woke up enough to show interest in the matter, too, for she really liked riding in a car that ran smoothly and rapidly over the macadamized roads about Centerport; so she added her complaint to Hester’s and finally the butcher telephoned for the car to be sent up. But he would not give any time to it himself. Therefore it was that Hester and her mother appeared on the Hill road just above the Four Corners in season to extricate Laura Belding and Eve Sitz from their very uncomfortable session with Hebe Pocock and his crowd.
“We ought to have gone along and left those girls to get out of it as best they could,” snapped Hester, when the car rolled on and Laura and Eve, with the mare and colt, were out of sight.
“Why, I declare for’t!” ejaculated Mrs. Grimes. “You certainly do hate that Belding girl—and I don’t see a living thing the matter with her. She’s smart an’ bright—remember how she found my auto veil that you lost last spring?”
Hester had very good reason for remembering that occasion. She had always been afraid that Laura would circulate the story connected with that veil; and because Laura had kept silence Hester hated her all the more.
And now Hester allowed bitter thoughts against Mother Wit and the other members of the basketball team to fester in her mind, until she was actually insanely angry with and jealous of them.
When her mother that evening at dinner told Mr. Grimes about the actions of Hebron Pocock, who sometimes worked for the butcher at the slaughtering plant near the Four Corners, Hester tried to smooth the matter over and suggest that Hebe was “only in fun” and was just scaring two silly girls.
“Well, I suggested him for watchman at the gymnasium,” said Mr. Grimes. “But he isn’t likely to get it. The Board has every confidence in this Bill Jackway, despite the fact that somebody seems to get into the gym. and damage things without his knowing how they do it. Bill is an easy-going fellow. That’s why I suggested Hebe Pocock. If Hebe was on the job, he’d eat a fellow up who tried to monkey around the gym.”
Hester was silent thereafter until the subject of conversation was changed.
The following week she found herself “out of it” with a vengeance. If Lily Pendleton had been absenting herself from Hester’s side more than usual since the fall term opened, now she was still more away. Lily did not wish to lose her membership in the basketball team. To be a member of the champion nine of Central High gave her a certain prestige that that young lady did not wish to lose.
Besides, Lily was one of the largest girls in the Junior class, was vigorous physically, and loved the game. So Hester was thrown back upon her own resources more than ever. And her own company did not please Miss Hester Grimes.
She could, of course, have found associates among some of the younger girls, or among those who are always willing to play the courtier to a girl who spends her money freely. Yet there were few of these latter at Central High, and not many of the younger girls—the sophs and freshies—liked Hester well enough to chum with her.
And now that the whispered accusations against the wholesale butcher’s daughter had gone about the school regarding the gymnasium mystery, many girls looked askance at Hester when she passed by, and some even ignored her and refused to speak to her.
Ordinarily this would have troubled her but little. She was often “not on speaking terms” with dozens of girls—especially with those of her own class. But this was different, and she began to notice it. Girls who had heretofore nodded to her on the street or in the yard of the school, at least, walked right by and did not turn their eyes upon her.
Furthermore, when Hester approached a group of her classmates they often hushed their animated discussions and broke up the group quickly. They were speaking of her. She could not imagine what they said, but her heart burned with anger against them.
Hester kept away from the gym. She told herself she did not care what happened to the “old place.” She hated it. She would not go there and see another girl practice in her place on the basketball team.
A game with the West High girls was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. It was not until after that that her mother learned that she no longer played on the Central High team. And Mrs. Grimes wanted to knowwhy.
“Never you mind!” snapped Hester, who was not above being saucy to her mother at times. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“Don’t youwantto play any more?” insisted Mrs. Grimes.
“No, I don’t! Now, that’s finished!” cried Hester, and flounced out of the room.
Her father had agreed to buy the new auto, and she telephoned for the man at the garage to bring it up. Nobody ever crossed Hester, if he could help it, and when she said to the man that she wanted to learn to run the car he supposed that her father was willing.
He did not ask her age, although the Centerport Board of Aldermen had established a rule that no person under sixteen should be given a license or be allowed to run a motor car. At any rate, he did not expect to be requested to let her run the car without his guidance.
But this is exactly what Hester demanded when they were out of town. It was a warm, smoky fall day. There were brush fires somewhere over the ridge to the south of Centerport; or else some spark from a railroad locomotive had set the leaves in the ditches afire. It had been dry for a week and the woods were like tinder.
They had run far out the road past the entrance to Robinson’s Picnic Grounds, and there Hester demanded to manage the car alone, while the man sat in back.
“You make me nervous!” she exclaimed. “I’ll never learn anything with you nudging my elbow all the time. There! get along with you.”
She really was a very capable girl, and she was not unfamiliar with motor cars; but the chauffeur doubted.
“I don’t believe I can do it, Miss,” he said. “I’ll sit here——”
Suddenly the car stopped. The engine was still running, but the car did not move.
“Nowwhat’s the matter?” snapped Hester. “Hop out and see, Joseph.”
The man did so and immediately she turned the switch again and the machine darted ahead, leaving the chauffeur in the middle of the road.
“I’ll be back after a little!” she called to him, coolly, over her shoulder, and the next moment rounded a turn safely and shut the amazed and angry chauffeur out of view.
The car purred along so easily and it was such a delight to manage the wheel without the interference of the chauffeur that Hester did not note the distance she traveled. Nor was she at first aware of the speed. Then she suddenly realized that she had shifted the gear to the highest speed forward, and that a picket fence she passed was merely a blur along the roadside.
But this was a road on which there were few houses, and most of them were back in the fields, in the middle of the farms that bordered the pike.
“This will never do,” thought Hester, and she began to manipulate the levers and finally brought the car to a stop. The roadway was narrow and she would have to back to turn. But this was one of the very things she desired to learn how to do; and that officious Joseph was always fussing when he was beside her.
“How many miles have I come, I wonder?” she asked herself, looking about.
She was on a ridge of land overlooking a narrow valley. At the end of the valley the road seemed to dip from the ridge, and it disappeared in a thick haze of blue smoke.
“The fire must be over that way,” she thought. “Shall I run that far and see what it means? The wind is not blowing toward me.”
She started the car once more. The auto rolled on, but she noticed that it wasn’t firing regularly.
“Hullo! Is it going to kick up rusty now and here?” muttered Hester, and she stopped. Having learned that much, she opened the carburetor to see if the gasoline was flowing all right. Then she tried a dozen times to start the car, without success. Suddenly she stood up with a jerk. In the distance she heard a growing roar—the oncoming rush of a powerful car.
Fortunately she had stopped on the side of the road. There was room for another car to pass. And out of the blue smoke ahead it appeared with startling suddenness, hurled like a missile from a gun directly up the road toward her.
She knew the car almost instantly. It was the Beldings’ auto and it was crowded with young folk. She knew where they had been. The next week the girls of Central High had been invited to Keyport to play the first team at basketball of the High School in that town.
Hester had heard all about the game the day before with the West High girls. With Roberta Fish in Hester’s old position at forward center, the girls of Central High had swept all before them. They had beaten their opponents with a good lead. Of course, the West High team was not as strong as the East High had been; but Roberta had done well and victory had, for the first time in months, perched upon the banner of Central High.
A committee had been appointed to go over and see the Keyport managers, and now it was returning. The big car was driven by Chet Belding, with Launcelot Darby beside him. Laura, Jess, Bobby, Nellie, and the Lockwood twins filled the tonneau comfortably.
Hester hoped that the Belding car would wheel right by and that her school fellows would not notice her. But Chet saw the car stalled, and Laura’s quick eye detected the lone girl standing with her back to them, looking off across the valley.
“What’s the matter with that girl and her car?” demanded Lance, as Chet slowed down.
“It’s Hester. Mr. Grimes has bought a car at last, I understand,” said Laura, leaning over the back of the seat and speaking to the boys. “Is she in trouble, do you think?”
“I’ll bet she is!” exclaimed Lance.
“And out on this road alone. Where’s the chauffeur?” said Chet.
“And if the wind should change!” cried Nellie Agnew.
“By Jove, that’s so!” ejaculated Chet, bringing his car to a full stop right beside the stalled auto.
“Hullo, Miss Grimes!” he sang out. “Can we help you? What’s the matter with your car?”
Hester saw it was useless to refuse to see them then. Besides, she did not want to be stalled there for hours.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out,” she said, pointedly speaking to the boy, not to the girls.
“Great machines,” drawled Lance. “When you think you know all about ’em they kick up and give you a lot of trouble. Isn’t that so, Chet?”
Chet was getting from under the wheel, and grunted. But Laura hopped out before him, came to Hester’s side of the car, and asked:
“Did it stop of itself?”
“No. It wasn’t firing regularly. I looked at the carburetor to see if it was all right. Then I tried to start her and couldn’t,” said Hester, ungraciously.
Laura was going over the wiring to see if there were no loose contacts before Chet came to them. She turned the fly wheel far enough to get the buzz of the spark coils.
“Go ahead, Sis!” chuckled Chet. “You know so much you’ll be taking our old mill to pieces pretty soon, I reckon.”
Hester stood by and bit her lip with vexation. She was almost on the point of driving Laura away from the car, rather than have her enemy—for so she considered Mother Wit—help her out of her trouble. But night was coming on and she did not want to stand there much longer, if the car could be started.
Laura removed a plug, grounded it on a cylinder and turned the wheel to a sparking point to note the quality of the spark and the strength of the battery. Then she ticked the carburetor and opened the small cock at the bottom.
“You’re getting your gloves all messy, Laura!” called Jess from the other car.
“Hush!” commanded Chet, grinning, and holding up his hand. “Do not disturb the priestess of automobiling at her devotions. There will be something ‘didding’ in a minute—now watch.”
But Laura was serious—and interested. She closed the cock and felt along the gasoline pipe to the valve rod. This seemed to interest her particularly. In a moment she straightened up and stood back, saying to Hester:
“You try the engine. Maybe she’ll work now.”
Hester scrambled into her seat and tried the starter. The engine began to buzz like a saw-mill.
“Great Scott, Laura!” cried her brother. “What did you do to it?”
“Turned on the gasoline,” said his sister, drily. “When Hester looked at her carburetor she turned it off. No wonder the engine wouldn’t run.”
“Thanks,” muttered Hester, in a choked tone, while the crowd in the other auto smothered their laughter, and she prepared to start the car when Chet should have stepped aside.
“Hold on!” said young Belding. “This isn’t any way to be traveling, Miss Hester.”
“Why not?” she snapped at him, for the situation was getting on her nerves now.
“The wind is likely to change. If it veers around it will drive the fire directly up this road,” said Chet.
“What’s burning?” demanded the girl, sharply.
“The whole forest back yonder through the cut. We came through a big cloud of smoke.”
“If you got through I guess I can,” Hester said, ungratefully, and the next moment started her car, which rolled swiftly away along the turnpike.
The fact was, she did not want to try to turn the machine while they were watching her. She knew she should be awkward about it. And Laura Belding had displayed her superiority over her once already—and that was enough!
The big car purred again joyously, and the roadway slipped behind like a ribbon running over a spool. In half a minute Hester and her car had dipped into the valley and were running through the cut between the hills. The Belding car was out of sight.
But suddenly she became aware that the smoke was thick here. This deep cut was filled with it. And the fumes were not only choking; there was heat with the smoke.
A shift of wind drove a thick cloud out of the forest and she had to shut her eyes. This was dangerous work. She knew better than to try to run the car on high speed when she could not see twenty feet beyond it.
When she reduced speed she was cognizant of a roaring sound from the forest. For a moment she thought a big wind was coming.
Then she knew better. It was the fire. Not far away the flames were devouring the forest hungrily—and the wind was behind the flames!
There must have already been a change in the air-current, as Chet had prophesied. The forest fire was driving right into this narrow cut between the hills. To be caught here by the flames would not only mean the finish of this brand new car, but Hester knew that there would be no escape for her from such a situation.
Hester’s car jarred down to a complete stop. The smoke stung her eyes and it began to be difficult for her to breathe. She knew that she had come too far on this road. She should have heeded Chet Belding’s warning.
But now she needed all her courage and coolness to get her out of the hot corner into which she had so heedlessly driven the automobile. The road was not more than thirty feet wide and the thick woods bordered it on either hand. Out of the covert dashed a flash of rusty brown that was gone in an instant. Hester knew it to be a fox. Already she had seen the rabbits running, and not a bird was in sight.
The fire was coming—and coming by leaps and bounds!
It smote upon Hester Grimes’s mind that not alone were she and the innocent animals of the wood in peril; but there were lonely farms, deep in the forest, where the houses were so near the woods that the fire was sure to destroy them.
Who would warn those squatters and small farmers of the danger down here in the cut? When once the flames rose over the ridge, with the wind behind them, they would descend the other side with the swiftness of an express train.
Crops, orchards, outbuildings, and dwellings would all be sacrificed to the demon of flame. And some of the families along that far road on which the Sitz farm lay would scarcely have time to flee.
But Hester, as she often said herself, “was no namby-pamby girl.” She made a deal of fun of her chum, Lily, because the latter was always so helpless—or appeared to be—in time of trouble.
She was alone, at the edge of this burning forest, with this big car. It had to be turned around, and then she must run it out of the line of the fire. Her father would have something to say—and that to much purpose—if she lost this brand new car, which he had not even paid for as yet.
She started the car on the reverse, and twisted the wheel. The car backed, and shook, and she stopped it just as a rear tire collided with a stump. She must go ahead, and back, and go ahead again, and reverse once more, and repeat the operation half a dozen times before the car would be headed in the proper direction.
The smoke grew thicker and thicker—and more choking. Her eyes were half blinded by tears, for the smoke stung them sadly. But soon she was free. The car could fly back over the road which it had lately descended, and once out of the cut her peril would be past.
But on the very moment of starting ahead again Hester heard a great crashing in the bushes. Out into the road ahead of the car sprawled on hands and knees a man—or the semblance of one. For the instant Hester scarcely knew what to make of the figure sprawling there before the car. But she shut down again so as not to run over it.
Then the individual arose to his knees and waved his arms weakly. His clothing was in rags. Indeed, he had only half a shirt and the remains of his overalls left upon his body, besides his shoes. His hair had been singed from his head. A great angry burn disfigured one side of his face, while the beard was crisped to cinders on the other side. He was without eyebrows and eyelashes, and his eyes stared from deep hollows in his face—or so it seemed.
“For heaven’s sake, help me!” he gasped. “Take me aboard! Take me away from here!”
He struggled to his feet and fell again. He had come as far as he could. Had the road not been right where it was, the man must have fallen in the woods and been swept again by the flames.
Hester sprang up, caught him around the waist and half dragged him to the car. She was thoroughly scared now; but she was courageous enough to aid this man who was more unfortunate than herself.
“Get in! Get in!” she cried, flinging open the door of the tonneau. “We must hurry.”
“You bet we gotter hurry!” gasped the man, as he crawled into the car and she banged to the door so that he would not fall out.
Into her own seat Hester sprang. The car was jarring with the throb of the engine. If it should balk now, what would become of them?
The frightened girl turned the switch carefully. The car rolled on. It moved faster and faster along the narrow road. The smoke was now so thick that she was running the car blindly. At any moment the wheels might hit a stump at the side of the road, for she could not be sure that she was keeping in the main-traveled path.
While they were in the cut she heard nothing from the man behind. But when the car shot up the hill out of the cut to the ridge-ground, and left the smoke behind, the man struggled up into the seat and leaned over to speak to her.
“You air a brave gal!” he gasped. “Woof! my lungs is burnt to a crisp—I swallered so much smoke. Ye jest erbout saved my life, Miss.”
Hester made no reply. She was winking the tears out of her eyes, and the pressure in her own lungs hurt.
“But there air a lot of folks goin’ to be caught similar over the ridge, if we can’t warn ’em.”
“What’s that?” she demanded, quickly, but without looking around at him.
“My name’s Billson. I live back in the bottoms yonder. I got an acre or two cleared around my cabin; but the bresh warn’t burned up. It is now, by jinks!” added Mr. Billson, with a grim cackle.
“When the wind veered thar so suddent, it caught me. I had to run through a wall of fire at one place. Then I got acrost the crick and that saved me for a while. But the fire would have caught me again if it hadn’t been for you. I am sure mighty much obleeged to ye.”
“I—I’m glad I was there with the car,” faltered Hester.
“And we’ve got to warn those other folks over the hill,” cried the man, coughing. “Gee! I guess I’ll never get this smoke out o’ my lungs.”
“But how can we get to those other farms?” gasped Hester.
“I’ll show ye. There’s a crossroad along here a spell. An automobile can git through it on a pinch. And there’s two families live on that road, too.”
“Do you s’pose they’ll be in danger?” asked Hester, slowly.
“In course they are. Say! you ain’t afraid, are you?” demanded the man. “I tell ye the fire is coming. It’s going to sweep this whole ridge.”
“Won’t—won’t they see it?”
“DidIsee it?” demanded the squatter. “Not soon enough, you bet. Drive on, Miss. Surely you ain’t goin’ to show a yaller streak now?”
“But my—my chauffeur is waiting for me along the road here toward town.”
“Let him wait. He’s out of danger. There are plenty of open fields in that direction.Hewon’t get into no trouble. You drive through this side road like I tell you, and we’ll get clear around by Sitz’s farm ahead of the fire. But drive hard!”
Inspired by the man’s excitement, Hester did as she was told. They came to the crossroad, which she remembered, and turned into it. There was little smoke here beyond the ridge. Nobody would have suspected the raging pit of flame down there in the cut to the southeast.
Yet the flames were advancing on the wings of the wind. Hester had seen enough to assure her that the case was serious indeed. Once the fire topped the ridge the whole northern slope would be swept by a billow of flame!
The picture of these farmsteads burning and the people being unable to escape with their livestock and sundry possessions began to take form in Hester’s mind. She speeded up the car and it rushed through the gathering twilight like a locomotive of a fast express.
At the first house they stopped for only a moment. Hester turned on the car lamps, for the shadows were gathering in the narrow places along the road now. The squatter did not have to urge the danger upon the farmers. A look at his condition told its own story. A forest fire is a terrible thing, and once it gets under way usual means of fire-fighting are of no avail.
On and on raced the motor car. Along the summit of the wooded ridge behind them the glow of the fire spread to a deep rose—then to a crimson—against the sky. It was an angry light and the smoke that billowed up from it began to canopy the heavens.
From certain heights Hester could see far down into the city of Centerport, with its countless twinkling lights. The forest fire must burn out long before it reached the edge of the city; but detached houses, here and there, were in peril—and many farmers got out their teams and ploughed fresh furrows around their stacks and buildings.
They rushed through Tentorville at a speed that made the dogs howl and the women run to the doors of their houses, leaving their suppers to burn. Beyond this straggling little settlement there were better farms. The village was not endangered by the flames, for there were open fields all around it.
At the next house the occupants had been warned by telephone; for news of the advancing fire had been wired from beyond the ridge, toward Keyport.
The better class of farmers were supplied with ’phones, and they were warned; but the man who had been burned out of his own place was interested in the other poor people—the tenant farmer and squatter class.
“Them fellers can’t stand the expense of telephones,” he told Hester. “And they work moughty hard and will go to bed airly. If they haven’t kalkerlated on the veering of the wind they won’t know anything about it till the fire’s upon ’em.”
Thirty-seven of such farmers and settlers did the rushing auto visit. Hester and her comrade must have startled some of these people dreadfully, for the auto dashed up to the little farmsteads with the noise of an express train, and the scorched man yelled his loudest to the inmates:
“Git up! Git up! The fire’s comin’. It’ll be over the ridge before midnight and this hull mountainside’ll crackle in flames. Git out!”
Then, at the first word in reply from the aroused inmates, the girl and her companion rushed on in their car, and sometimes before the people in the house realized what had passed, the car was out of sight.
For nearly two hours from the time Hester had helped the man into her car did she speed about the country. By that time both he, and the girl—and the gasoline—were about exhausted.
They pulled up at a country store where they sold gasoline, and Hester refilled her tank. There she telephoned home to her family, too. Joseph had come in on another auto and Hester’s father was about to send out a general alarm for his absent daughter.
“What in thunder are you doing, riding over the country alone?” her father demanded over the telephone.
“Now, don’t you mind. I’m all right,” said Hester, tartly. “I’m coming home now—by the way of the Sitz place and Robinson’s Woods. We’ve done all we can to rouse up the farmers.”
And she shut her angry father off before he could say more, and ran out to the car—to find her companion senseless in the bottom of the tonneau, and a local doctor bending over him.
“These are bad burns,” said the physician, looking up at the wide-eyed crowd. “And I believe he is hurt internally. Where did he come from?”
“This gal brought him in her car, Doc,” said the storekeeper, who had forgotten trade for the moment.
“Who is he?” asked the physician, with his hand on the man’s pulse, but looking curiously at Hester.
“I don’t know—oh, yes! I remember! He said his name was Billson.”
“Jeffers-pelters!” ejaculated the storekeeper. “I‘d never ha’ knowed him. His whiskers is burned off, that’s a fac’.”
“Then you know all about him, Carey?” pursued the medical man.
“Not much! not much!” exclaimed the storekeeper, hastily. “He’s jest a squatter. Come from one of the lower counties, I b‘lieve. Holler-chested. Bad lungs, he said. Goin’ to live in the open an’ cure ’em.”
“He ought to go to the hospital at once,” growled the doctor.
“I can take him,” said Hester, quietly. “He’s a very brave man, I believe. He warned all the people through the section back of Tentorville——”
“I guess you druv the car, Miss,” cackled Carey, the storekeeper.
“But I should have driven it home in a hurry after finding him on the road without knowing anything about the people in danger,” said the girl, honestly. “He did it.”
“No matter who did it. I want to get him to the hospital. I’ll go to Centerport with him, Miss, if you’ll take us.”
“Of course,” said Hester.
“You know him, Carey,” said the doctor, turning to the storekeeper. “Can I use your name at the hospital in Centerport?”
“No, you can’t,” said the other, quickly. “I can’t stand no ‘nearest friend’ game for a man that never spent fo’ bits a week in my store for groceries. No. I dunno him.”
“We’ll stand sponsor for him, sir,” said Hester, hastily. “Come on. You’ll have to tell me how to drive. I don’t know these roads very well.”
“What’s your name, Miss?” asked the physician, climbing into the car as Hester touched the electric starter.
Hester told him, and the medical man nodded. “Henry Grimes’s gal, eh?” he said. “Well, he’s well able to be sponsor for this poor fellow. Drive on.”
He was a shabby old man, this country doctor. His name was Leffert, and he seemed none too blessed with this world’s goods. But he was kindly and he eased the senseless man into a comfortable position in the tonneau with the gentleness of a woman.
The car started on the long run to Centerport with a plentifully filled tank. And the engine worked nicely. When they passed the Sitz place Hester saw that the farmer and Otto were out ploughing along the edge of the woods by lantern light. But the sky above the ridge glowed like a live coal. The forest fire was sweeping on.
When they came down the hill past Robinson’s Woods the doctor nudged Hester from behind.
“Hadn’t you better take that left-hand turn, Miss?” he demanded.
“What for? This is the nearest way,” returned the girl, slowing down a bit.
“But it goes through the Four Corners. They have a habit of setting on automobiles there.”
“They won’t dare bother us,” declared Hester. “Most of those people work for father.”
“Aw—well,” said the doctor, and sat down again.
The car roared through the settlement of shacks about the Four Corners like a fast express. Nobody tried to bother them. In twenty minutes thereafter the car stopped at the City Hospital. The patient was carried in on a stretcher, and one of the interns took Hester’s name and address. Dr. Leffert evidently had no standing at the institution, and he merely handed the patient over to the hospital authorities and hurried away. Hester drove the car home and found both her mother and father excitedly awaiting her coming.
“Now, don’t you bother about me—or the car!” she said, sharply, when her parents began to take her to task for worrying them so. “I haven’t had a bite to eat, and I’m tired, too. Your old car isn’t hurt any——”
“But you can’t ride that car all over this country alone, Hess! I swear I won’t have it!”
“But Ididdrive it alone, didn’t I? And it isn’t hurt any. Neither am I,” she replied, and it was several days before her parents learned the particulars of their daughter’s wild ride over the mountainside with the squatter, Billson, warning the small farmers of the coming fire.
“I declare for’t!” her mother then said. “You’re the greatest girl, Hess! The folks say you’re a heroine.”
“They say a whole lot beside their prayers, I reckon,” snapped Hester.
“But one of the country papers has got a long article in it about you and that Mr. Billson. Only they don’t know your name.”
“No. I told Doc. Leffert to keep still about it,” said Hester. “Now! there’s been enough talk. I want two dollars, Ma. I want to send that Billson some jelly and some flowers. He’s having a mighty hard time at the hospital. And there isn’t a soul who cares anything about him—whether he lives or dies.”
“Ain’t that just like you, Hessie?” complained her mother. “You throw that poor fellow good things like you was throwing a bone to a dog! I—I wish you wasn’t so hard.”
But events were making Hester seem harder than usual these days. She was completely cut off from the society of her school fellows. She had no part in the after-hour athletics. Nobody spoke to her about the fine time expected at Keyport when the basketball team went over to battle with the team of the Keyport High.
And when that day arrived, fully a carload entrained at the Hill station of the C. K. & M. Railroad, bound for the neighboring city. These were all the girls of Central High interested in the game and their friends among the boys.
It was not a long run by train to Keyport, but they had a lot of fun. Chet and Lance were full of an incident that had occurred in Professor Dimp’s class that morning, and Chet was telling his sister and a group of friends about it.
“Short and Long got one on Old Dimple again to-day,” said Chet. “You know he’s forever hammering the Romans into us. We ought to call him ‘The Old Roman’—we really had! There’s that Roman lad who was such an athlete and all-around pug——”
“‘Pug!’” gasped Laura. “Wait till mother hears you saythat.”
“Ha! I’m going to watch to see that she doesn’t hear me, Sis,” returned her brother. “Well, Old Dimple was telling us about this lad who used to swim across the Tiber three times before breakfast. And when he’d expatiated on the old boy’s performance, Short and Long put up a mitt——”
“‘A mitt!’” groaned Laura again.
“Aw, well! His hand, then. Dimple perked right up, thinking that Short and Long was really showing some interest, and says he:
“‘What’s your question, Mr. Long?’
“And Billy says: ‘What’s puzzling me, is why he swam itthreetimes?’”
“‘Eh?’ says Dimple. ‘How’s that, young man?’”
“‘Why didn’t he swim itfourtimes,’ says Billy, grave as a judge, ‘and so get back to the bank where he’d left his clothes?’ And not a smile cracked Short and Long’s face! Dimple didn’t know whether to laugh or get mad, and just then the gong sounded ‘Time’ and Dimple got out of it without answering Billy’s question.”
“Tickets!” cried Lance, as the girls laughed at the story. “Here comes the conductor. Get your pasteboards ready.”
“Who says that’s the conductor, Lance?” demanded Chet.
“Huh! It’s Mr. Wood, isn’t it? He’s the conductor of this train.”
“Impossible,” sighed Chet “Wood is a non-conductor.”
But the crowd wouldn’t stand for puns like that and shouted Chet down.
When they debarked at the Keyport station they formed in marching order and, the boys with canes and the girls with flags, marched two by two to the Keyport girls’ athletic field. The game was called for four o‘clock, and Mrs. Case got her team out and “warmed them up” with ten minutes’ practice before the referee called both teams to the court selected for the match game.
The boys in the audience droned out the Central High yell, with its “snap-the-whip” ending of, “Ziz—z—z—z——Boom!” and the ball was thrown into play. Right at the start the home team got the best of the visitors. There were excellent players on the Keyport team. Indeed, in all athletics the Keyport girls had excelled for years. Our friends from Central High were outmatched at several points.
But they fought hard. Laura and her mates battled every moment, and when the whistle ending the first half sounded, the Keyport team was only two points ahead. But the visitors ran to their dressing room in no hopeful frame of mind.