Silas Strong 39

Silas Strong 39

XXXIV

 

MASTER returned to the fire and lay back on his blanket. Little puffs

of air had begun to rattle the dead leaves above him. Soon he could

hear a wind coming over the woodland. It was like the roar of distant

sea-billows. Waves of wind began to whistle in the naked branches

overhead. In a moment the main flood of the gale was roaring through

them, and every tree column had begun to creak and groan. Master rose

and looked up at the sky. He could see a wavering glow through the

tree-tops. The odor of smoke was in the air. He ran to call Miss Strong,

and met her coming out of her tent. She had smelled the smoke and

quickly dressed.

 

"My land, the woods are afire!" she cried.

 

The sky had brightened as if a great, golden moon were rising.

 

Sinth ran back into her tent and woke the children. With swift and eager

hands the young man helped her while she put on their clothes. She said

not a word until they were dressed. Then, half blinded by thickening

smoke and groping on her way to the other tent, she said, despairingly,

"I wonder where Silas is?"

 

A great, feathery cinder fell through the tree-tops.

 

"Come quick, we must get out of here," Master called, as he lifted the

crying children. "We've no time to lose."

 

She flung some things in a satchel and tried to follow. In the smoke it

was difficult to breathe and almost impossible to find their way. Master

put down the children and tore some rope from a tent-side and tied it

to the dog's collar. Then he shouted, "Go home, Zeb!" They clung to one

another while the dog led them into the trail. Master had Socky and Sue

in his arms. He hurried up the long slope of Rainbow Ridge, the woman

following.

 

They could now hear the charge and raven of the flames that were tearing

into a resinous swamp-roof not far away.

 

"Comin' fast!" Sinth exclaimed. "Can't see or breathe hardly."

 

"Drop your satchel and cling to my coat-tails," Master answered,

stopping to give her a hold.

 

A burning rag of rotten timber, flying with the wind, caught in a green

top above them. It broke and fell in flakes of fire. Master flung one

off his coat-sleeve, and, seizing a stalk of witch-hopple, whipped the

glow out of them. On they pressed, mounting slowly into better air. Just

ahead of them they could see the wavering firelight on their trail. On a

bare ledge near the summit they stopped to rest their lungs a moment.

 

They were now above the swift army of flame and a little off the west

flank of it. They could see into a red, smoky, luminous gulf, leagues

long and wide, beneath the night-shadow. Ten thousand torches of balsam

and spruce and pine and hemlock sent aloft their reeling towers of flame

and flung their light through the long valley. It illumined a black,

wind-driven cloud of smoke waving over the woodland like a dismal flag

of destruction. A great wedge of flame was rending its way northward.

Sparks leaped along the sides of it like fiery dust beneath the feet of

the conqueror. They rose high and drifted over the lake chasm and fell

in a sleet of fire on the lighted waves. The loose and tattered jacket

of many an old stub was tom into glowing rags and scattered by the

wind. Some hurtled off a mile or more from their source, and isolated

fountains of flame were spreading here and there on balsam flats near

the lake margin. Some of the tall firs, when first touched by the

cinder-shower, were like great Christmas-trees hung with tinsel and

lighted by many candles. New-caught flames, bending in the wind, had the

look of horses at full gallop. Ropes and arrows and spears and lances of

fire were flying and curveting over the doomed woods.

 

The travellers halted only for a moment. They could feel the heat on

their faces. Black smoke had begun to roll over the heights around them.

 

"It'll go up the valley in an hour an' cut Silas off," Sinth whimpered

as they went on.

 

"He must have crossed the valley before now," the young man assured her.

 

The woman ran ahead and called, loudly, "Silas! Silas!" She continued

calling as they hurried on through thickening smoke. They halted for a

word at Leonard's Trail, which left the main thoroughfare to Rainbow,

and, going down the east side of the ridge, fared away some ten miles

over hill and dale to the open country.

 

It was at right angles with the way of the wind and would soon lead them

out of danger.

 

"Make for Benson Falls with the childem!" cried Sinth. "I'm goin' after

Silas." She knew that her brother would surely be coming--that, seeing

the fire, he would take any hazard to reach them.

 

Master knew not what to do. He had begun to worry about the people at

Buckhom, but his work was nearer to his hand. It was there at the fork

in the trail. He sent a loud, far-reaching cry down the wind, but heard

no answer.

 

"He'll take care of himself--you'd better get away from this valley," he

called.

 

An oily top had taken fire below and within a hundred yards of them.

 

"Go, go quick, an' save them childern!" she urged. Then she ran away

from him.

 

She hurried along the top of the ridge, calling as she went. A dim,

misty glow filled the cavern of the woods around her. Just ahead drops

of fire seemed to be dripping through the forest roof. It failed to

catch. It would let her go a little farther, and she pressed on. A fold

of the great streamer of smoke was rent away and rolled up the side of

the ridge and covered her. She sank upon her knees, nearly smothered,

and put her skirt over her face. The cloud passed in a moment. Her

sleeve caught fire and she put it out with her hand. She felt her peril

more keenly and tried to run. She heard Zeb sniffing and coughing near.

Master had let him go, thinking that he might help her in some way. She

stooped and called to him and took hold of the dragging rope. The dog

pressed on so eagerly that he carried part of her weight. A broken bough

in a tree-top just ahead of her had caught fire and swung like a big

lantern. She had no sooner passed than she heard the tree burst into

flame with a sound like the frying of fat. She felt her hand stinging

her and saw that a little flame was running up the side of her skirt.

She cried, "Mercy!" and knelt and smothered it with her hands. Gasping

for breath, she fell forward, her face upon the ground.

 

"Silas Strong," she moaned, "you got to come quick or I won't never see

you again." The dog heard her and licked her face.

 

Down among the ferns and mosses she found a stratum of clear air, and in

a moment rose and reeled a few steps farther. The flank of the invader

had overrun the heights. Her seeking was near its end. Showers of fire

were falling beyond and beside her. She lay down and covered her face

to protect it from heat and smoke. She rose and staggered on, calling

loudly. Then she heard a bark from Zeb and the familiar halloo of Silas

Strong.

 

Through some subtle but sure intuition the two had known what to expect

of each other and had clung to the trail. She saw him running out of the

smoke-cloud and whipping his arms with his old felt hat. One side of his

beard was burned away. He picked her up as if she had been a child and

ran down the east side of the ridge with her, leaping over logs and

crashing through fallen tops. Beyond the showering sparks he stopped and

smothered a circle of creeping fire on her skirt. Sinth lay in his arms

moaning and sobbing. He shook her and shouted, almost fiercely, "The

leetle f-fawns--wh-where be they?"

 

"Gone with him on Leonard's Trail," Sinth answered, brokenly.

 

He entered a swamp in the dim-lighted forest, now running, now striding

slowly through fallen timber and up to his knees in the damp earth.

Every moment the air was growing clearer. He ran over a hard-wood hill

and slackened pace while he made his way half across a wide flat.

 

When he struck the trail to Benson Falls the fire-glow was fainter. Now

and then a great, rushing billow of light swept over them and vanished.

He stopped and blew and put Sinth on her feet.

 

"Hard n-night, sis," said he, tenderly.

 

She stood and made no answer. In a flare of firelight he saw that she

was holding out one of her hands. He struck a match and looked at it and

made a rueful cluck. The fire of the match seemed to frighten her; she

staggered backward and fell with a cry. He caught her up and strode

slowly on. Soon she seemed to recover self-control and lay silent. He

was in great pain; he was reeling under his burden, but he kept on. She

put up a hand and felt his face.

 

"Why, Silas," she said, in a frightened voice, "you're crying."

 

It was then that he fell to the ground helpless.

 

 

 

 

XXXV

 

TERROR had begun to spread in the wilderness north of Rainbow. The

smoky wind, the growing firelight had roused all the children of the

forest. Chattering birds rose high and took the way of the wind to

safety. One could see flying lines of wild-fowl in the lighted heavens;

faintly, as they passed, one could hear their startled cries. Deer ran

aimlessly through the woods like frightened sheep. From scores of camps

on lake and pond and river--from Buckhorn, from Barsook, from

Five Ponds, from Sabattis, from Big and Little Sandy, from Lost

River--people, who had seen the fire coming, were on their way out of

the woods.

 

Master ran at first down Leonard's Trail with the boy and girl in his

arms. Soon his thoughts halted him. He had withstood the severest trial

that may be set before a man. To be compelled to seek safety with the

children, while a woman took the way of peril before his eyes, had made

him falter a moment.

 

He hoped that Sinth had left the ridge, now overrun with flames, and

fled down the slope. If so she would be looking for Leonard's Trail. He

stopped every few paces and sent a loud halloo into the woods. Fire was

crackling down the side of the ridge. As he looked back it seemed to him

that the great lake of hell must be flooding into the world.