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Show ,JPOOR" MAN'S 1 H COURTNEY I COOPER I mS"PER ' ' ' W.N.U. SERVICE kets. There was no air as such save the thin layer which lay close to the water. Otherwise, all was read death; oxygen had been almost al-most eliminated. Resin and wood fumes cut the nostrils; heat and smoke poison loaded the atmosphere to a point of suffocation. The person per-son who would escape death or smoke sickness must lie with nostrils nos-trils only inches from the lake; an attempt to breathe for long the poisonous poi-sonous air above meant fatality. No one slept. No one even thought of it. The threat of death by flame or suffocation had eradiated even the need of it; sleep is a necessity of peace; Insomnia a blessing in time of danger. Jack Hammond was not on a raft. He lay on a shallow bar, his eyes closed, his head barely above water. wa-ter. All about him were evidences of life; here a dripping hand emerged to wipe at a steaming face, there a man rolled uncomfortably, spurting water as he cooled his hot mouth. All those who had labored late in the town were here; groans attested to the pain of miners who, struggling strug-gling too long, had rushed for the lake with their clothing aflame. Now, with the touch of water aggravating ag-gravating the torture of their burns, they had no surcease. They could only lie and suffer and wait. Here, too, were the dogs; many, bush-wise, bush-wise, waiting philosophically. Others, Oth-ers, impatient, broke at times from the water, only to return whimpering. whimper-ing. Daylight had come; it meant little lit-tle in the way of visibility, save for a few moments when the wind freshened fresh-ened again, whipping away the smoke long enough to permit a fleeting view of the surrounding country. The town was gone, except ex-cept for smoldering log squares where cabins had been. But over on the Alaskan side "Wouldn't you know it?" a miner asked sarcastically, as he raised his head for a moment to look about They were moving swiftly down the lake; dimly, very dimly beneath, were revealed the life rafts. Hammond's Ham-mond's eyes searched every one there was a time when he would have looked thus for only one person, per-son, Kay Joyce. But now he found himself wondering which of the huddled hud-dled patches of gray down there on those giant squares was Jeanne Towers, and if she were safe from fumes or suffocation. "Got fire fighting equipment?" "Plenty." "Hose and tankage?" "Yeh and dynamite. Been bringing bring-ing up a lot of Indians from around Takla lake they know their business. busi-ness. Ought to; they set enough fires down in that region so they can get paid for putting them out." They were at quite an altitude, but still in fog. "This smoke goes up plenty high," Hammond said. Even as he mentioned men-tioned it, he became aware that the air had cleared, that he was breathing breath-ing deeply for the first time that day. The ranger leaned closer. "Not smoke; clouds," he shouted. "The visibility's hell. Getting colder cold-er freeze-up probably." "Hope so." The forester grimaced. No one hoped that more than he. Then: "Know any place we could get in up here, to start cutting off this blaze? If we can back-fire down below be-low and cut 'er off here, it'll save a half billion feet of timber." That was the job now, to save timber. But in saving it, Hammond knew, lives must be risked, perhaps lives given. He pointed toward Whoopee. "We can work through the inlet," he said. "The fire missed that. The smoke raised for a few minutes, and I got a look. It's clear." Thus the grueling task began, airplanes air-planes which banked and skimmed the surface of the lake, which took desperate chances, which dropped recklessly downward through the smoke pall to discharge their cargoes, car-goes, then took off as desperately &rO XI-Continucd 15 1 ,na(Je was carried aboard. I U .ited the Sergeant to -ft I short distance to 1 Jiff He was snapping final ' ins to leave you in . said. "Hear that, you 7 Hammond here is in com- 0 , fire-fighting until I get : H Jeanne Towers better be j tefor the women. 1 JJihe news into town. See : . ,,,erybody knows it." ;j "jjSd to obey. The Ser- rt a back fire 'SZffSS Srasstothe ? J 'ttat's the danger point i 'Xk will be dropping over there ; :.;;U U that grass goes, the j i's going, anyway-but 1 re might as well take the long iance to save it." TO get at it." 'Better send what canoes are ,i,Mp around to the inlet and breathed with difficulty. They worked with wet bandannas wrapped around their faces to shield their nostrils; the bite of smoke and burning pitch cut through, nevertheless. Coughing, gasping for clean air, they went on. Then, as they slowly made their desperate way along the hot, blackened black-ened marsh wastes toward the forest for-est proper, a worker straightened suddenly, shouting: "Somebody's out there in the grass!" Hammond followed the direction in which the miner had pointed. Deep in the marsh weeds a man had risen and was looking about him in bewildered terror. The light of the forest fire blazed higher, flashing flash-ing against the heavy layers of smoke and glancing downward through the haze. Hammond's eyes centered. Smoked out from his hiding hid-ing place, even as a dozen forms of animal life were being smoked out, Bruce Kenning stood out there in a yellowed, inflammable sea transfixed trans-fixed with fear. "Come this way!" Hammond shouted thickly. His lips were heav- Sup Around the World Annie and tsgar.fr" 1 "I will." .VJiough," Terry added, from 1 He way the wind's taking the blaze, : they'll get by. But we'd vi m ot risk it. Get 'em all on k lake, where we know they'll be " saie." a "Yes, sir." "And if Bruce Kenning shows up njuhere, take charge of him. fiat's all I'll be back as soon as ' I can make it." )ct Hammond raised a hand in half salute. Timmy Moon slowly turned his plane, taxied a short distance, Leaded the ship into the wind and " took oft, a great, carmine bird in the glow of the flames. Hammond went on, hurrying for , I Jeanne's store, to find her there, 'J loading what food her shelves pos-Q pos-Q sssed into the arms of waiting min-B min-B as. He delivered Terry's orders, ta: "Don't get excited and leave jourmoney toburnup in the store." y She managed to smile. "Oh, I've got it." Then again ir lie looked concernedly at his u bruised features and matted hair, indicating a cut on the right side (! his head. "Please," she begged, "I've some white cloth here I could use lor bandages." "Thanks. That salve I've got ovei in the cabin is best. Bandages ;re bad stuff when there's a fire around." "But you will take care of yourself!" your-self!" He promised and whirled, calling ha miner to start a rescue squad tith canoes to Whoopee. p then he said to Jeanne: V "Tell the women they'll probably e to mix with the girls from ''Mid the World Annie's when !' get on the rafts." 'tanne handed a sack of dried ,j Potatoes to a waiting miner. ;;; f, I'll tell them. They've got "MS" sense to understand " with no clear knowledge of shore or tree-top line. Wading whites and sloshing Indians slopped off the pontoons pon-toons to splash ashore and there stand waiting until other chance-taking chance-taking pilots, Timmy Moon among them, should bring up the long lines of small-bored, lightly-woven hose, the collapsible tanks and portable pumps which would allow water to be sent thousands of feet into the forest. Boxes of dynamite were unloaded. un-loaded. Sacks were carried out by the bale. Hour after hour, into the deep night and again to daylight, the dogged task continued with short respites for rest as the shifts changed. Dynamite boomed and trees crashed to earth. Long, ragged rag-ged lines of men, gasping for clean air, waving wet sacks monotonously, monotonous-ly, attacked the smoldering earth. Other gangs moved here and there to backfire, where this action could aid. Now and again, reeling with sickness, a worker staggered to the Big Moose and sank at its edge, his lips bubbling. He was given scant attention every man in the gang, Hammond among them, ran the same chance of smoke poisoning; there was no time to succor those who already had fallen. The air grew hotter, more horrible. horri-ble. But suddenly Hammond paused in his commands and looked up, blinking. He put out his hand, swiftly retrieving it, close to his eyes. "Snow!" he shouted. "It's started to snow! Keep going, fellows! We've got help from upstairs!" An outcry from the gang joined his call. Snow! Now the flakes were thicker and the wind was freshening, freshen-ing, with the peculiar wet chill of approaching freeze-up. A thrill went through Hammond, as quickly, however, how-ever, to change to apprehension. There was a possibility of fatality in all this. If gangs should quit, believing a blizzard imminent, and if it should prove only a flurry, then uy purred ana painlul. You ve got a bare chance! Put your coat over your head and make a run for it!" For a moment, the man seemed about to obey. He even moved a few feet toward the advancing line of marsh fire, now throwing a ten-foot ten-foot wall of flame upward as it crackled along its line of defense toward the forest. Then suddenly, he changed his mind; he whirled and made for the smoky outlines of the deeper timber. "He'll never get through there!" a workman called. "Afraid not," Hammond answered. an-swered. "Unless he knows a way to circle the main fire. There's still a half mile or so of bush that isn't burning he might make the lake." "Not if it's any hotter in there than it is here." The workman rubbed at smarting eyes. They were beginning to approach the end of endurance; at last, they were forced to turn back. The heat had become that of a superheated oven. Men were staggering, clawing claw-ing at their throats. Nevertheless, they retreated with hope; the grass fire had reached the forest; a tree had blazed up with a booming explosion, ex-plosion, the fire spreading to other trees about it. But the hope faded. Even before they had reached the town again, embers were falling there. The wind heightened, blowing the smoke clouds over the huddled little settlement, settle-ment, like great billows of black-red fog. The forms of men now were only faintly visible, as they worked at the burying of stores, or strove to lug down to the lake the possessions they deemed most valuable, their dogs snarling and fighting about them. Then a cry came, high-pitched, high-pitched, frantic. "Help me, somebody! Help me with my cabin. It's caught fire!" The effort was useless. In another an-other ten minutes a dozen structures were blazing; the red-black clouds above seemed to have loosed a ver- It Was Slow, Choking Work. him. "Everything we've got in the world gone but Around the World Annie's dance hall wasn't even touched!" Yet everything was not gone. The shallows of the lake were splotched with possessions, where hurrying refugees had thrown them, hopeful for rescue at a later time; tents, bedding, pieces of homemade furniture, furni-ture, tar-covered hams and bacon, cans of desiccated food, blankets, mattresses, even bunks and rustic bedsteads and chinaware were scattered scat-tered indiscriminately about in the water to await sorting when danger was gone. That time was yet distant. dis-tant. The wind lessened again, the the grueling labors of forty-eight hours would be lost. Jack started on a circuit of his workers. The hose gangs were still at it, the man-power pumps going faithfully, pulling the water by easy stages from the lake into canvas collapsible collaps-ible tanks, there to be pumped out again to more tanks and finally to the reaches of the fire. Here a sack crew worked diligently, there a gang of ax-men, their faces muffled muf-fled in wet cloths, walked amid smoldering embers, that they might fell threatening trees and bring an end to the menace of tree-top explosions. ex-plosions. But at last he sighted a group of idle men at the bank of the Big Moose. The forest once had run to the river's edge here; now it was scarred and blackened. Logs still smoked, the baked earth steamed with the thickening of the snowfall. Certainly here was no place to relax re-lax labors. "What's wrong with you?" Jack shouted. "This fire isn't over!" A Takla Indian turned and with a short arm gesture motioned him closer. Then a white man called: "Better come down here." (TO BE CONTINUED) , ' And std someone for Kay i Mo be sure she gets out of cottage." I'- girl looked up is apea(iy dne she . !,, ,., Hammond turned away. M ut,Z Jeanne Towers, to think 1 J " the woman who had reviled 1 , aS she had been able, T s Pat of her hand, to forgive Wow which Lew Snade had icTl0,! miners awaited h!m C'e; lown narrow street CT m 3fter a hasty dress-f dress-f 01 jus wounds. PEO or orders," said one of io&PliedquicWy. "We've " Cg ..L0ncreek' And start hS6 way out of town and Wr.Mv.' dropPing a man at M at as reeorfur hundred tfS 'mile W Pfesent a "ne nearly 4 oSganS -or the signal. M Nicbrl , I '' Wlth a sh"t that I ' o ward P(by the nearest man, 1 M' ,t0ube oed and re- ,; 'slear! , br'ghter glare. HIS?, llfe-Then, with a "JS H " Jfenu,g crackle, the S? fnt0 burn- while it sin,, i r Hammond fol-IV fol-IV "ched thp fbe ready. once they r. ?ltV 1Su"slaught did not take NaXSalvationtosend :te:t- that flae Wlnd and into the P on? might meet name wri tio . nStnct "s area of de- H h1l0th;crnhcking work- The : Ham am flre was oven Hatraond aad his men smoke lay thick ana aeep. ji uu.-plane uu.-plane motor sounded, swiftly approaching. ap-proaching. For a time the ship circled, in long banks, as its pilot strove to find a break in the blanket of invisibility beneath them. Then lower it came, searching desperately; desperate-ly; at last it showed faintly through the deep-brown haze as the aviator spotted the rafts and made certain of clear stretches of water where a landing would not endanger life. Again the ship banked. Then it seemed to drop flat to the surface of the lake, splashing water in great waves as it bounced eerily along settled in long surging leaps, and finally taxied toward the shallows. It halted, motor idling. The cabin door opened. A forester swung out to a slippery pontoon. "Where's Jack Hammond?" he shouted to the dripping miners, who wet hands to their nostrils, had half risen from the bar. Jack waved. Then, hands to his puffed face, he rose and splashed forward, the pilot pi-lot and forest ranger, each with nostrils nos-trils shielded, shouting for him to hUHey'reached the plane and clambered clam-bered from the pontoon into the cabin, the ranger slamming the door as he followed. The motor snarled with acceleration; quick y the Pilot swung about and abruptly sent the ship into the air. Hammond Ham-mond leaned close to the ranger. "What's up?" he shouted. "Terry sent me after you. Wants vou to take charge of one of the airplane shifts; splitting up the work so we can all get a little rest. Terry's Ter-ry's busy below. We're going to head in up here somewhere to try to block off the blaze. Terry says you know the country.' y Hammond nod led and was silent, looking out the side of the cabin. itable rain of fire. Heavy embers, as large as a man's arm, and blazing blaz-ing fiercely, were falling thickly; it seemed impossible that a wind could carry anything so weighty. Spruce needles, half burnt, or untouched, drove in upon the town like the pelt of a sleet storm. The night was electric with sparks. "Get to the lake!" shouted Hammond. Ham-mond. "The town's done for!" He was among the last to go. Up on the hill, the cottage which he had built for Kay was a mass of crawling flame. Farther on, Bruce Kenning's cabin stood outlined, its roof already caving. His own cabin cab-in was red with destruction. Thus he watched his past, its hopes, its dreams, its agonizing disappointments, dis-appointments, die to the touch of an all-consuming torch. At last, he turned away, gaunt from physical and mental pain, and followed the other refugees down to the lake. All that night the airplanes roared above Sapphire lake the ships which had left with the beginning of the fire, to seek pumps and tanks and dynamite, the ships summoned by Sergeant Terry, the ships of the forestry division. They drummed and zoomed and snarled, like the air force of some hidden army, working high in the clouds, where no one might see. Smoke had cut off all vision, save that of near-by objects. The wind had lessened its intens'ity somewhat and brought with its abatement only greater suffering to these refugees, dependent upon the lake for their lives. , Deep in the broad waters, the life rafts, huge affairs each capable of bearing a hundred persons, floated float-ed with their clusters of human fraight, lying flat on the soggy logs and covered by equally soggy Wan- |