CHAPTER XVIIIPINNED 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!