Produced by Al Haines
Cover art]
Boy Scout Series Volume 4
The Boy Scout Fire Fighters
OR
Jack Danby's Bravest Deed
BY
Major Robert Maitland
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO ---- AKRON, OHIO ---- NEW YORK
Copyright, 1912
By
The Saalfield Publishing Co.
CONTENTS
Chapter
I AT THE EDGE OF THE FIRE II FIGHTING THE FIRE III WHAT THE SPY SAW IV THE DOUBLE HEADER V TOM BINNS' BAD LUCK VI THE ATTACK ON THE STATION VII JACK DANBY'S PERIL VIII THE RESCUE IX A SWIMMING PARTY X THE BURNING LAUNCH XI THE MYSTERY DEEPENS XII AN UNGRATEFUL PARENT XIII THE MOVING PICTURES XIV A FOOLISH STRIKE XV THE DYNAMITERS XVI OFF ON A LONG HIKE XVII A TIMELY WARNING
[Transcriber's notes:
Two chapters in the source book were misnumbered. Chapters in thisebook have been renumbered.
The last numbered page in the source book was page 168, but damage tothe book indicates that a number of pages were missing after thatpoint. Since the original book did not have a table of contents, it isunknown what may be missing.]
The Boy Scout Fire Fighters
CHAPTER I
AT THE EDGE OF THE FIRE
A pall of smoke, dark, ugly, threatening, hung over a wood in which theThirty-ninth Troop of the Boy Scouts had been spending a Saturdayafternoon in camp. They had been hard at work at signal practice,semaphoring, and acquiring speed in Morse signaling with flags, whichmakes wireless unnecessary when there are enough signalers, coveringenough ground.
The Scout camp was near the edge of the woods. Beyond its sitestretched level fields, sloping gradually upward from them toward awooded mountain. The smoke came from the mountain, and in the growingblackness over the mountain a circular ring proclaimed the spreadingfire.
"Gee, that looks like some fire, Jack," said Pete Stubbs, a TenderfootScout, to his chum, Jack Danby, head office-boy in the place where heand Pete both worked.
"I'm afraid it is," said Jack, looking anxiously toward it.
"I never saw one as big as that before," said Pete. "I've heard aboutthem, but we never had one like that anywhere around here."
"We used to have pretty bad ones up at Woodleigh," returned Jack. "Idon't like the looks of that fire a bit. It's burning slowly enoughnow, but if they don't look out, it'll get away from them and comesweeping down over the fields here."
"Say, Jack, that's right, too! I should think they'd want to be morecareful there in the farmhouses. There's some of them pretty close tothe edge of the woods over there."
Scout-Master Thomas Durland, who was in charge of the Troop, came up tothem just then.
"Danby," he said, "take your signaling flags, and go over toward thatfire. I want you to examine the situation and report if there seems tobe any danger of the fire spreading to the lowlands and endangeringanything there."
"Yes, sir," said Jack at once, raising his hand in the Scout salute andstanding at attention as the Scout-Master, the highest officer of theTroop of Scouts, spoke to him. His hand was at his forehead, threemiddle fingers raised, and thumb bent over little finger.
"Take Scout Stubbs with you," said the Scout-Master. "You may needhelp in examining the country over there. I don't know much about it.What we want to find out is whether the ground is bare, and so likelyto resist the fire, or if it is covered with stubble and short, drygrowth that will burn quickly."
"Yes, sir!"
"Look out for water, too. There may be some brooks so small that wecan't see them from here. But I'm afraid not. Every brook around hereseems to be dried up. The drought has been so bad that there is almostno water left. A great many springs, even, that have never failed inthe memory of the oldest inhabitants, have run dry in the last month orso. The wind is blowing this way, and the fire seems to be runningover from the other side of Bald Mountain there. From the looks of thesmoke, there must be a lot of fire on the other side."
No more orders were needed. The two Scouts, hurrying off, went acrossthe clear space at the Scout pace, fifty steps running, then fiftysteps walking. That is a better pace for fast travelling, except veryshort distances, than a steady run, for it can be kept up much longerwithout tiring, and Boy Scouts everywhere have learned to use it.
"Why do they call that Bald Mountain, I wonder?" said Pete, as theywent along. "It isn't bald any more'n I am. There are trees all overthe top."
"I don't know, Pete. Places get funny names, sometimes, just the sameway that people do. It doesn't make much difference, though, in thecase of a mountain."
"Nor people, either, Jack," said Pete Stubbs, stoutly. He had noticeda queer look on his chum's face, and he remembered something that healways had to be reminded of--the strange mystery of Jack's name.
He was called Jack Danby, but he himself, and a few of his bestfriends, knew, that he had no real right to that name. What his ownreal name was was something that was known to only one man, as far ashis knowledge went, and that one a man who was his bitter enemy, andfar more bent on harming him than doing him the favor of clearing upthe mystery of his birth and his strange boyhood at Woodleigh. ThereJack had lived in a cabin in the woods with a quaint old charactercalled Dan. He had always been known as Jack, and people had spoken ofhim as Dan's boy. By an easy corruption that had been transformed intoDanby, and the name had stuck.
He had come to the city through the very Troop of Boy Scouts to whichhe now belonged. They had been in camp near Woodleigh, and Jack hadplayed various pranks on them before he had struck up a greatfriendship with one of them, little Tom Binns, and so had been allowedby Durland to join the Scouts. More than that, Durland had persuadedhim to come to the city, and had found a job for him, in which Jack hadcovered himself with glory, and done credit both himself and Durland,who had recommended him.
"Gee, it's getting smoky," said Pete, as they reached the first gentlerise at the foot of the mountain, though it had seemed to rise abruptlywhen viewed from a distance.
"A woods fire always makes this sort of a thick, choking smoke.There's a lot of damp stuff that burns with the dry wood. Leaves thatlie on the ground and rot make a good deal of the smoke, and thenthere's a lot of moisture in the trees even in the driest weather."
"Sure there is, Jack! They take all the water there is when the rainfalls and keep it for the dry weather, don't they, like a camel?"
"That's a funny idea, Pete, comparing a tree to a camel, but I don'tknow that it's so bad, at that. It is rather on the same principle,when you come to think of it."
Men were working in the fields as they approached the fire. Theyseemed indifferent to the danger that Durland feared. One boy not mucholder than themselves stared at the carroty head of Pete Stubbs, andlaughed aloud.
"Hey, Carrots," he cried, "ain't you afraid of settin' yourself onfire?"
"You ain't so good lookin' yourself!" Pete flamed back, but Jack put ahand on his arm.
"Easy there, Pete!" he said. "We're on Scout duty now. Don't mindhim."
A little further on they met an older man, who seemed to be the farmer.
"Aren't you afraid the fire may spread this way?" asked Jack, stoppingto speak to him.
"Naw! Ain't never come here yet. Reckon it won't now, neither."
"There always has to be a first time for everything, you know," saidJack, secretly annoyed at the stolid indifference of the farmer, whoseemed interested in nothing but the tobacco he was chewing.
"Tain't no cons
arn of your'n, be it?" asked the farmer, looking at themas if he had small use for boys who were not working. He forgot thatPete and Jack, coming from the city, might work almost as hard therethrough the week as he did on his farm, without the healthful outdoorlife to lessen the weariness.
"Sure it ain't!" said Pete, goaded into replying. "We thought maybeyou'd like to know there was a good chance that your place might beburnt up. If you don't care, we don't. That's a lead pipe cinch!"
"Come on, Pete," said Jack. "They'll be looking for a signal prettysoon. If we don't hurry, it'll be too dark for them to see our flagswhen we really have something to report."
The fields nearest the mountain and the fire were full of stubble thatwould burn like tinder, as Jack knew. The corn had been cut, and thedry stalks, that would carry the flames and give them fresh fuel tofeed on, remained. Not far beyond, too, were several great haystacks,and in other fields the hay had been cut and was piled ready forcarrying into the barns the next day. If the fire, with a good start,ever did leap across the cleared space from the woods it would be hard,if not impossible, to prevent it from spreading thus right up to theouthouses, the barns, and the farmhouses themselves. Moreover, therewas no water here. There were the courses of two little brooks that inrainy weather had watered the land, but now these were dried up, andthere was no hope of succor from that side.
As they approached the woods, too, Jack looked gravely at what he saw.Timber had been cut here the previous winter, and badly and wastefullycut, too, in a way that was now a serious menace. The stumps, highabove ground, much higher than they should have been, offered freshfuel for the fire, dead and dry as they were, and over the ground werescattered numerous rotting branches that should have been gathered upand carried in for firewood.
"Looks bad, doesn't it?" Jack said to Pete.
"It certainly does," rejoined his companion. "Now we've got to find aplace where we can do the signaling."
"I see a place," said Jack, "and I think I can reach it pretty easily,too. See that rock up there, that sticks out from the side of themountain? I bet you can see that a long way off. You go on up towhere the fire's burning. Get as near as you can, and see how fastit's coming. Then work your way back to the rock and tell me whatyou've seen."
"Right, oh!" said Pete. "I'm off, Jack!"
Though the smoke was thick, now, and oppressive, so that he coughed agood deal, and his eyes ran and smarted from the acrid smell, Jack madehis way steadfastly toward the rock, which he reached without greatdifficulty. He was perhaps a mile from the Scout camp, and there, heknew, they were looking anxiously for the first flashing of his red andwhite flags to announce that he was ready to report.
He stood out on the rock, and, after a minute of hard waving of hisflags, he caught the answer. Thus communication was established, andhe began to make his report. He had no fear of being misunderstood,for it was Dick Crawford, the Assistant Scout-Master and his goodfriend, who was holding the flags at the other end, and not some novicewho was getting practice in signaling, one of the pieces of Scout lorein which Jack had speedily become an adept.
"Bad fire," he wig-wagged back. "Seems to be spreading fast. Groundvery bad. Likely to spread, I think. Fields full of stubble. Nowater at all. Brooks and springs all dried up."
"Mr. Durland says have you warned men working in the fields?"
"Not yet," was the answer from Jack. "But they think it's all right,and seem to think we're playing a game."
Then Jack dropped his flags in token of his desire to stop for aminute, and turned to Pete Stubbs, who had come up.
"It's burning mighty fast," said Pete. "The woods are awfully dry upthere. There's no green stuff at all to hold it in check. If thosepeople on the farm down there don't look out, they'll be in a lot oftrouble."
Jack sent that information, too, and then came orders from DickCrawford.
"Return to camp," the Assistant Scout-Master flashed. "Warn farmer andmen of danger. Suggest a back fire in their fields, to give clearspace fire cannot jump. Then report, verbally, result of warning."
The warning was a waste of breath and effort.
"Think you can learn me my business?" asked the farmer, indignantly."I don't need no Boy Scouts to tell me how to look after my property.Be off with you, now, and don't bother us! We're busy here, workingfor a living. Haven't got time to run around playing the way you do."
Jack felt that it was useless to argue. This farmer was one whobelieved that all boys were full of mischief. He didn't know anythingabout the Boy Scout movement and the new sort of boy that it hasproduced and is producing, in ever growing numbers. So Jack and Petewent on to camp, and there Jack made his report to Durland.
"It would serve him right to have his place burned," said Durland, "butwe can't work on that theory. And there are others who would suffer,too, and that wouldn't be right. So we'll just go over there and stopthat fire ourselves."
There was a chorus of cheers in reply to that. The idea of having achance to fight a really big fire like this awoke all the enthusiasm ofthe Scouts of the three Patrols, the Whip-poor-wills, the Raccoons andthe Crows, this last the one to which Jack and Pete belonged.
So off they went, with Durland in the lead.