THE BOY SCOUTS AS FOREST FIRE FIGHTERS

BY SCOUT MASTER ROBERT SHALER

AUTHOR OF “BOY SCOUTS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS,” “BOY SCOUTS OF PIONEER CAMP,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE LIFE SAVING CREW,” “BOY SCOUTS ON PICKET DUTY,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE FLYING SQUADRON,” “BOY SCOUTS AND THE PRIZE PENNANT,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE NAVAL RESERVE,” “BOY SCOUTS IN THE SADDLE,” “BOY SCOUTS FOR CITY IMPROVEMENT,” “BOY SCOUTS IN THE GREAT FLOOD,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE FIELD HOSPITAL,” “BOY SCOUTS WITH THE RED CROSS,” “BOY SCOUTS AS COUNTY FAIR GUIDES,” ETC.

NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1915, BY HURST & COMPANY

CHAPTER I. OAKVALE’S ONE WISE MAN.

“Don’t believe in it, I tell you! All a humbug! No boy of mine will ever fool away his time strutting around and wearing soldiers’ clothes when he ought to be doing his chores at home! Take that from me, young fellow!”

“But Mr. Prentice, if you care to ask any one of the best citizens of Oakvale——”

“Foolish of them to be so blind, I tell you, boy!”

“There’s Mr. Hayward, the minister, sir!”

“A good man, but an easy mark all the same!”

“And Judge Marshall!”

“Surprised to hear that a long-headed man like the judge should allow his name to be used in connection with such utter foolishness. If he had boys of his own instead of three girls he might see things in a different light.”

“There’s Dr. Kane, and—well, the father of every one of the thirty boys in the troop. In fact, Mr. Prentice, I think you’re almost the only prominent man in or around Oakvale who hasn’t enthusiastically endorsed the local scout troop, which they believe has made good.”

Perhaps this little shaft of flattery told. At any rate the man called Mr. Prentice allowed a glimmer of a grim smile to flit across his stern face as he observed:

“All I can say then, Hugh, is that the prominent men of this section are a short-sighted lot when they allow themselves to be so easily led by the nose, and humbugged by a parcel of prank-loving boys!”

Billy Worth nudged the leader of the Wolf Patrol, Hugh Hardin, in the side. He acted as though it might be on the tip of his tongue to say something saucy; but for fear he might thus injure the cause Hugh was so manfully representing, Billy managed to remain silent.

Hugh made a final appeal, as he saw the man was about to leave them.

“But surely, Mr. Prentice, you must have heard some good things said about the scouts, haven’t you?” he asked, with one of his most persuasive smiles; which, however, in this case, seemed to be wasted on the one-idea man.

“Oh! yes,” carelessly replied the other, gathering up his lines preparatory to starting his horse, “a lot of wonderful stories have come floating over to my house, but I set most of them down as exaggerations. When I was a boy I read the ‘Arabian Nights,’ ‘Baron Munchausen,’ ‘Sindbad the Sailor,’ and ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ I know how proud fathers like to boast of their smart sons. I’ve had my eye-teeth cut, Hugh. You’re a clever lad, I know, but if you talked until doomsday you couldn’t change my mind about the folly of this Boy Scout game.”

He spoke to his horse, and the two boys saw him go down the road in a cloud of dust, for it was the driest fall ever known about Oakvale.

Billy Worth—who was a pretty ample sort of a boy—a good-natured expression on his face most of the time, doubled up like a hinge, so far as his girth allowed, and seemed to be quivering with mirth.

Hugh Hardin was shaking his head as though he fancied he had run across about the hardest nut to crack of all his experience.

“What is there so funny about it, Billy?” he asked, for he was thinking how sorry he would be to report an utter failure to poor Addison Prentice, who was really wild to join the scouts, and had begged Hugh to intercede with his parent for him.

“I’ll tell you,” gasped Billy, trying hard to catch his breath. “When you said he was the only prominent man around here who didn’t think the scouts worth their salt, he had nerve to say he pitied them all for disagreeing with him. He made me think of a story I heard long ago.”

“Well, go on and tell it,” said Hugh, “for I know you’ll not be in shape to talk straight again until you get it out of your system.”

“Oh! it was only that chestnut about an Irishman who was on a jury that had to be discharged because they could not come to any agreement after being out ever so long. When some one asked him what was the matter he vowed he had never run across eleven such pig-headed men in his life; and that he was the only sensible member of the whole jury. Hugh, that stubborn Irishman is Mr. Prentice.”

“I guess you’re pretty nearly right, Billy; but don’t think I’ve given up trying to influence him on that account. Opposition only makes the game more worth playing. Something seems to tell me that we’ll make Mr. Prentice see a great light one of these days.”

“That’s the ticket, Hugh! ‘Never give up the ship!’ is our motto. We’ll try and get up some scheme to prove to Addison’s dad that he’s barking up the wrong tree when he thinks the scouts are a shiftless lot, who’ve got a reputation that hasn’t any foundation in fact.”

The boys were some little distance outside of the town of Oakvale when they had this conversation with Mr. Prentice, who owned the big quarry toward which he was heading when stopped on the dusty road by the chums.

Oakvale was proud of its troop of Boy Scouts, and justly so. If you do not know why this should be, it may pay you to secure a few of the previous volumes in this series and read what some of those boys had done to gain such an enviable reputation among the thinking people of the neighborhood.

Even a glance over the titles of these books will show the extent of their activities in the time that had elapsed since the troop was first organized. As Hugh and his comrades went steadily on their way as the weeks and months crept by, they were constantly finding numerous opportunities to add to the esteem in which they were held by the community.

Well had they proved the vast advantages which scouts have over ordinary, unattached boys in a country town. Organization had done wonders for many of the members of the troop. There was really not a single family in Oakvale a member of which wore the khaki of the troop but stood ready to openly declare that a most radical change for the better had followed since “Tommy joined the scouts.”

Hugh had received the proper credentials from Headquarters to be an assistant scout master; and sometimes during the temporary absence of Lieutenant Denmead, a genial, retired army officer who had willingly assumed that office because of his love for boys, Hugh filled his place acceptably.

If Mr. Prentice had not been one of the most stubborn men alive, and if he had been open to conviction, he certainly would never have closed his ears to the stories that were told of the doings of these Oakvale scouts, and proven to be absolutely true.

Why, only on the preceding spring several of them chancing to visit Lawrence, a town many miles away, during the great freshet which culminated in a disastrous flood, had aroused the dormant local scout troop, almost dead from lack of appreciation, and performed prodigies in the way of saving distressed families caught in their homes by the rising waters.

Then Hugh, on that same visit, had actually saved the life of a reckless boy who ventured onto a bridge threatened by the flood, snatching him off after he had fallen and become senseless just before a floating tree carried the structure down amidst the boiling waters of the torrent.

Later on when they were in camp near a large cement works it happened that there was a strike by the hundreds of foreign workmen, and the guards who had been brought from the city to defend the strikebreakers fired upon them.

As a result a dozen and more men, yes—and women, too—among the ignorant foreigners received serious gunshot wounds. Hugh and some of his chums hurried to the spot, organized a rude field hospital, and looked after the injuries of the wounded in a manner that called for high praise from the Red Cross surgeon coming on the field later on at the summons of Hugh Hardin.

For this great service, and for saving lives at the same time, every scout who had taken a part in that work now proudly displayed the coveted bronze medal which is sent from Scout Headquarters in New York City to any boy wearing the khaki who saves a life. Hugh was also the possessor of a gold medal, because he had saved that lad from the doomed bridge at the extreme risk of his own life.

Then, to come down to a period only a short time back, in the early days of the present dry autumn, the scouts had served as guides at the yearly County Fair in the vicinity of Oakvale. They had met trains, directed visitors to boarding places, answered innumerable questions, run errands, taken telegrams, and last but far from least, rendered first aid to the injured to a considerable number of persons who came to grief among the jostling throngs that visited the Exposition grounds.

(What else Hugh and some of his nearest and dearest chums managed to do during that time will be found narrated in the pages of the preceding volumes; and they should afford interesting reading to all who are concerned with the education of boys along other lines than those connected with ordinary school life.)

Hugh and Billy walked slowly on after their meeting with Mr. Prentice, which had been an accidental one. They saw that he had stopped his horse a little further along the road, and appeared to be examining some part of the hillside, since his extensive quarry ran for a quarter of a mile along the road.

The boys had climbed up the slope and were standing by the little narrow-gauge track down which cars loaded with stone were allowed to drop, checked by a brake, to the base of the hill, where wagons came and went.

This track crossed the county road at a certain place below where the two boys were standing. In reality it was a dangerous thing to allow, but during working hours the quarry company always kept a signal man there to see that vehicles were warned to keep back, whenever a car came down the almost level incline. An overhead trolley drew the empty car back up the rise again.

“Why, isn’t that a queer thing how that wagonload of children has gone and stopped right on the track of the stone chute!” exclaimed Billy, suddenly. “My stars! they must have got a wheel caught in the track somehow, for the horses don’t seem able to drag it off worth a cent. It would give the children a bad scare now if one of those stone cars started down the hill, eh, Hugh?”

“It’s to be hoped nothing of the kind happens,” said Hugh, “though with the brake set the man on the car could stop it easily enough. I was just wondering who those children are, and I’ve guessed it. They come from the orphan asylum.”

“Yes, that’s Sim Reeves’ rig, of the town livery stable, and he’s a good-hearted man, so I guess he loaned the wagon and driver just to give the poor kids a little outing on this fine Saturday afternoon. But I wish they’d hurry and get that wagon moving, for as sure as you live there’s a car loaded with stone starting slowly down the incline now.”

“Yes, you’re right,” said Hugh, thrilled by the thought of a catastrophe overtaking those innocents below.

“The man on it can’t see that there’s anything wrong down at the crossing,” cried Billy in great excitement. “He will soon, and put on the brakes.”

While Billy continued to keep his eyes glued on the coming car, Hugh on the other hand allowed his gaze to roam around. He even took several steps over to one side as though measuring the distance separating him from the track at a certain place.

All at once Billy gave a shriek.

“Hugh! look! look! the brake’s given way! There goes the man jumping for his life, and listen to the children screaming, will you? Hugh, can’t we do something? It’ll get going faster and faster, and—oh! Hugh, the poor, poor kids!”

CHAPTER II. WHAT PRESENCE OF MIND MEANT.

While Billy Worth was talking Hugh was acting. That seemed to be a chronic habit with the scout master. An emergency never caused him to quail, and as a rule he could be depended on to do the right thing at the right time.

That was where the benefit of his preliminary look around came in. The very second that he discovered the accident to the descending stone-laden flat-car, Hugh knew that it was up to him to do something in order to save those imperiled orphans from a terrible calamity.

The car was on a run of the track that was very nearly level, so that as yet it had not attained the very great velocity sure to follow, after it came over the crown of the rise, just above where the two boys stood.

Hugh stooped and caught hold of a small log that he had noticed when he made his movement in the direction of the track. It took all his strength to lift it up, and Billy would have been of great assistance could his wits have served him as speedily as was the case with the scout leader.

With a tremendous effort Hugh raised the log and hurled it upon the track. Just as he intended it should do, it fell with one end braced in a cavity, and the other pointing upwards. When the onrushing heavy car struck that obstruction, it could not very well go any further, but must be hurled from the track.

All this happened almost in a breath. The car had now reached the edge of the steeper descent, and was seen by the frightened children below. Some of the youngsters were being flung from the wagon by the driver, but there would never have been time to have saved them all before the constantly increasing speed of the runaway car brought it upon the trapped wagon.

The horses, as though conscious of their peril, pranced and jumped wildly, but for all their antics did not seem able to release the imprisoned wheel. As for the children they shrieked louder than ever, for the anticipated danger had become a real one.

Billy began to realize that his more active chum had done something while he was only standing there shivering. He also found Hugh’s hand gripped on his arm, and that he was being dragged hastily back from the track.

“Oh!” gasped Billy, as with a rush and a roar the laden stone car came speeding down the incline.

Hugh held his very breath in fear lest the uptilted log might not project far enough to catch the base of the heavy car. But it turned out all right.

There was a mighty crash when car and log came in collision, and Hugh saw the descending vehicle of transportation flung bodily aside. It landed in a heap upside-down—something of a wreck, with the rocks scattered in all directions.

Billy tried to shout, but his best effort was hardly more than a whisper, such was the reaction that instantly set in when he saw the danger to the orphans was a thing of the past.

He did manage to seize Hugh’s hand and pat it tenderly, as though in that way he could find an outlet for the mingled emotions of gratitude and pride that filled his loyal heart.

Some scouts might have immediately hurried down, to allow themselves to be made heroes of by those who had witnessed this presence of mind on the part of the boy. That was not Hugh Hardin’s way.

“Go down if you want to, Billy,” he told the other, when importuned to descend to the road. “They’ve managed to get a lever under the wheel now, and pried it loose, so they can go on. I want to see just how the car struck, and how close it came to passing over the log without connecting.”

That seemed to be the point giving him the greatest satisfaction; for he found that had the stout little log been six inches shorter, it would have failed to throw the car from the track. What that meant made Hugh shiver as he looked.

“Here comes Mr. Prentice up to see what happened!” exclaimed Billy.

“There’s one thing this accident may bring about,” remarked Hugh, “and that’s a change in this grade. The stone cars should never cross the road at all, but go over or under it. When the town council hears about this new trouble, mark my words if they don’t make him change his grade.”

“It would be just like him to blame you for smashing his car, Hugh,” said Billy, who apparently did not entertain a very high opinion of the owner of the big stone quarry.

“Let him!” replied the other, unconcernedly. “The driver of the wagon must have seen all that happened. I’d be willing to go on record for what I’ve done. Still, knowing the kind of a man he is, I hardly expect to be thanked for saving him from a lot of lawsuits that might bankrupt him; or perhaps even being accused of criminal carelessness in a coroner’s court.”

Mr. Prentice came climbing hurriedly to the scene of the wreck. There was an awed expression on his face in place of its habitual stern look. The man who had jumped from the car when the brake gave way, and who was an ignorant foreigner, reached the spot about the same time.

The owner of the quarry examined the remains of his heavy car. Then he looked at the track, and discovered the partly broken log projecting upward.

“Who put that log in there?” he asked.

“I did, Mr. Prentice,” answered Hugh, modestly but firmly; “but only when I saw that the car was heading downward, and that it would likely strike the wagonload of children stalled on the crossing.”

Mr. Prentice did not say another word. He looked hard at the boy, who did not allow his eyes to drop a particle. Mr. Prentice was thinking many things just then; his mind must have been in a riotous condition.

He went back and again looked around at the scene of the wreck, up the hill, then down to where the wagon had been stalled.

“I guess he understands pretty well what a great thing you did for him when you jumped that car off the track, Hugh,” muttered Billy, as they watched the quarry owner moving around, and talking with the man who had abandoned the runaway car on finding the brake had given way.

“All I’m hoping is that he makes up his mind now never to drop another load of rock down this grade till he’s made it safe for anyone passing on the county road below,” Hugh replied.

“But he didn’t even thank you, Hugh.”

“I never expected he would, and it doesn’t matter a particle to me if he keeps on forgetting to,” said the scout master, smilingly. “There’s enough satisfaction in knowing you’ve done your duty, without looking for thanks or praise. The feeling that comes from within beats any outside commendation all hollow, according to my way of thinking.”

“Huh! I’d just like to tell the old man what I think of him,” grumbled the indignant Billy.

“For fear you might be tempted to say something you’d be sorry for afterward,” remarked Hugh, “suppose we slip down to the road and head for home.”

Though still grumbling, and evidently feeling pretty hard toward Mr. Prentice, Billy could not refuse to keep his chum company as the other started down the side of the hill in the direction of the road. He looked back several times, however, and said a few things half under his breath, which could not have been very complimentary to the quarryman, if the sour expression on Billy’s round face stood for anything.

Once down at the crossing the scouts stopped to exchange a few words with the man who was stationed there to signal when a car was coming. He, too, chanced to be a Polock and could not talk English very well, so Hugh looked for himself to see how it happened the wheel of the heavily-laden wagon came to be trapped in the way they had seen, and just at the wrong time.

Then they surveyed the situation so as to see whether it would be possible to build an overhead track, or dig one under the road.