“If there are any fires in the south, Jones will have his hands full. And so will we,” he added, “if this wind keeps up and they don’t get her blocked before morning. Well, I’m glad that it’s not from the north or west.” And with that, after a long look out of the window behind him he went back to sleep.
Already those menacing columns of smoke were answering to the call of the wind. They no longer wandered hesitatingly upward in hazy fashion, but bent sharply to the northward, stretching their covetous arms over the doomed forest. The smoke rapidly increased in volume and blackened the whole sky, while here and there a dull red glowed fretfully on the horizon. The dew was keeping down the flames, but the wind was fanning the glowing coals to a fury which needed only the help of the drying morning sun to cause them to leap away like a cyclone over the whole ill-fated woods. Under ordinary conditions such a wind storm could only precede a rainstorm, but the drought had lasted so long that every particle of moisture seemed to have dried from the atmosphere and the dry wind seemed only to evaporate the dew and make the ground more dry.
Scarcely had the foreman picked up the lost thread of his dream when the telephone bell rang long and violently. He was on his feet in an instant.
There was a long pause as he listened. “Coming around east of Brown’s, is she? That’s bad, isn’t it?—Can we head her north of Mantrap?—Think we can. Well, I have the wagon here all loaded and we will leave here in half an hour with fifteen men. We ought to be down there in two hours. You scout her out till we come.
He hung up the receiver and slipped across the hall to call his wife. “Come, Mamma, the fire is coming in at the southeast corner and we’ll have to go down. You call the men and get the grub ready while I go call the boys.”
His wife was too accustomed to this sort of thing to be surprised; in fact, she had been prepared for it for several days. Sturgis, leaving the house as she started to call the men, hurried over to notify the boys and Professor Mertz, who inquired the particulars and promised to join them at once.
A few minutes later a prolonged, “Tur-r-r-r-rn out” almost raised the boys from their beds. A medley of answers came from all parts of the upper regions of the bunkhouse: “Aye-aye, sir,” “What’s up?” “Who is it?” “What happened?” “Is it a fire?”