The Outdoor Chums After Big Game Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness

CHAPTER XXI

NEV­ER GIVE UP

At first, the boys made light of the flight. All of them were pret­ty fair run­ners, and al­though the weath­er was warm for such ex­er­tion, they did some clever work.

“It's get­ting worse back there!” said Will, who brought up the rear.

Frank had known this for sev­er­al min­utes, and was cor­re­spond­ing­ly wor­ried.

The wind had risen to such an ex­tent that it rushed through the tree-​tops like an ex­press train, mak­ing a dole­ful sound. Nor was this all, for they could plain­ly hear a crack­ling from the rear that was grad­ual­ly be­com­ing a sub­dued roar.

“Oh! I saw the fire then!” called Will a minute or two lat­er.

Look­ing over their shoul­ders as they ran, all of them had glimpses of the flames leap­ing hun­gri­ly up­ward. What Mr. Ma­bie had feared all along had ac­tu­al­ly come to pass. All of them were glad, how­ev­er, that it had not been through any fault of theirs, since they had built no fire that day.

“Frank, it's catch­ing up with us! What­ev­er shall we do?” pant­ed Bluff, close be­side the one he ad­dressed.

Frank had been con­sid­er­ing this same ques­tion. He at first thought they might out­run the fire, but now he changed his mind. The woods were so dense, and the veg­eta­tion so thick, that when­ev­er they tried to make fast time they kept trip­ping over trail­ing vines, or else bang­ing up against the trunks of the for­est monar­chs, some­times dam­ag­ing their noses by the con­tact.

“What was he telling us about fight­ing fire with fire?” asked Jer­ry, who was by this time feel­ing not quite so jaun­ty as usu­al, but ready to seize up­on any open­ing that promised safe­ty.

“That was out on the prairie. I don't think the scheme would work here in the woods. It would take too long for the sec­ond blaze to get a start, and we'd be caught be­tween the two fires,” was Frank's re­ply.

“But we must do some­thing pret­ty soon!” cried Will.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “FRANK, IT'S CATCH­ING UP WITH US!”--_Page 192_. _The Out­door Chums Af­ter Big Game_.]

In­deed, it would ap­pear so. They were now en­veloped in a pall of smoke, that, en­ter­ing their eyes, made them smart fierce­ly. Not on­ly that, but the fire could be seen in a dozen places be­hind them, leap­ing up in­to the trees as the dried fo­liage of­fered such a splen­did torch, and the wind urged the con­fla­gra­tion along.

“Will's right. The old thing's run­ning us neck and crop. I be­lieve it's gain­ing on us right along!” ex­claimed Bluff.

“Look for a hol­low tree!” cried Jer­ry.

“Hum­bug! Just be­cause you once got in one dur­ing a storm you think a hol­low tree can be used for near­ly any­thing. Why, we'd be smoth­ered in a jiffy, even if we didn't get burned to a crisp! Say some­thing else!” shout­ed Bluff.

“What is it, Frank--you know?” de­mand­ed Will, who, in this time of need, some­how turned to the one whose cool head had many times man­aged to ex­tri­cate them from some im­pend­ing dan­ger.

“We've just _got_ to head an­oth­er way, and try and get out of the path of the fire, if we can. Be­sides, the riv­er lies to the left,” he an­swered, as cheer­ily as he could.

“The riv­er! Hur­rah!” shrieked Will in sud­den ela­tion, for the very thought of wa­ter was a blessed re­lief when threat­ened by fire.

“We can duck un­der, and save our ba­con!” cried Jer­ry.

“There you go, con­fess­ing to the swine again,” de­clared Bluff.

But in spite of their light words the boys were by this time thor­ough­ly alarmed. The ap­pear­ance of the burn­ing woods in their im­me­di­ate rear was ap­palling, to say the least. High sprang the flames, and their crack­ling could now be plain­ly heard. In­deed, the sound be­gan to as­sume the pro­por­tions of a con­tin­uous roar, such as a long freight train might make in pass­ing over a tres­tle and down a grade.

Now that they were run­ning al­most side­wise to the ad­vanc­ing fire, it ap­proached much faster than be­fore.

“I felt a spark on my face, fel­lows!”

Frank was not at all sur­prised to hear Will say this, for he, too, had ex­pe­ri­enced the same thing not half a minute be­fore. He had not men­tioned the fact, for fear of alarm­ing his chums still more.

“Keep on, fel­lows!” was all he said, for he need­ed ev­ery bit of breath he could muster.

Des­per­ate­ly they tried to in­crease their pace, but found it hard work with so many ob­sta­cles con­fronting them. Will tum­bled more than any of the oth­ers, some­how or oth­er. Per­haps it was be­cause he was car­ry­ing his cam­era so care­ful­ly, and think­ing more about it than his own per­son.

Fi­nal­ly Frank missed him en­tire­ly.

“Where's Will gone?” he de­mand­ed.

The oth­ers, turn­ing, were hor­ri­fied to find their chum miss­ing.

“Keep right on, you fel­lows! Don't you dare stop, or fol­low me! I'll get Will! The riv­er's close by!” he called out, and then turned around, re­trac­ing his steps di­rect­ly to­ward the ad­vanc­ing fire.

Nev­er had Will seemed so pre­cious in the sight of the boy who thus placed his own life in jeop­ardy in or­der to save that of his chum. In imag­ina­tion Frank pic­tured his agony of mind if he had to tell Vi­olet that her twin broth­er had per­ished mis­er­ably in a for­est fire, while he es­caped.

“Will! Will!” he was shout­ing fran­ti­cal­ly, as loud as he could, and this was not any­thing to boast of, for the smoke choked him, and he could hard­ly keep from cough­ing al­most con­stant­ly.

“Hi! Here I am! Lost like the babes in the woods!” sang out a voice.

Frank pounced on his friend, who, with smart­ing eyes, was fair­ly stag­ger­ing about, hard­ly know­ing which way he was try­ing to go, hav­ing be­come more or less rat­tled by the im­pend­ing per­il and the state of his own feel­ings.

“Run for all you're worth, Will!” he said, as he clutched the sleeve of the oth­er al­most fierce­ly, for they had lit­tle chance of elud­ing those hun­gry flames now.

To­geth­er they rushed along, Frank's eyes do­ing dou­ble du­ty, for Will seemed by this time half blind, and the one free hand was con­stant­ly rub­bing his smart­ing orbs.

“A lit­tle fur­ther, and we're safe!” he kept call­ing in the ear of his near­ly ex­haust­ed chum.

The heat was be­gin­ning to be ter­rif­ic now. Blaz­ing branch­es flew through the air, and set trees on fire all around them.

“It's like the fiery fur­nace!” Will said three times run­ning, and Frank re­al­ly be­gan to fear his com­pan­ion's mind was get­ting un­set­tled from the fright of their des­per­ate con­di­tion.

Oh! if the riv­er would on­ly show up ahead! No doubt the oth­ers had, ere now, gained the glo­ri­ous haven, and were set­tled up to their necks in the wa­ter, ready to de­fy the pow­er of the op­pos­ing el­ement. But it was an open ques­tion whether the halt­ing pair could ev­er make the shel­ter of the friend­ly stream.

“Let me go, Frank! You can make it alone!” plead­ed Will.

“Shut up! Keep on run­ning! I tell you we're go­ing to get there, and don't you think for a minute we ain't!” replied Frank fu­ri­ous­ly, as he pulled Will along.