Man's hand had done this. An enemy, waiting and watching until they had left the field, had stolen down, gathered burning brands, and spread them along the bottom of the hill, where the increasing wind might scatter the fire until the whole grove was in a blaze.
Not only was Mrs. Atterson's timber in danger, but Darrell's tract and that lying beyond would be overwhelmed by the flames if they were allowed to spread.
On the other side, Dickerson had cut his timber a year or two before, clear to the river. The fire would not burn far over his line. Whoever had done this dastardly act, Dickerson's property would not be damaged.
But Hiram lent no time to trouble. His work was cut out for him right here and now--and well he knew it!
He had brought the small axe with him, having caught it up from the doorstep. Now he used it to cut a green bough, and then ran with the latter down the hill and set upon the fire-line like a madman.
The smoke, spread here and there by puffs of rising wind, half choked him. It stung his eyes until they distilled water enough to blind him. He thrashed and fought in the fumes and the murk of it, stumbling and slipping, one moment half-knee deep in quick-springing flames, the next almost overpowered by the smudge that rose from the beaten mat of leaves and rubbish.
It was a lone fight. He had to do it all. There had been no time to rouse either the neighbors, or the rest of the family.
If he did not overcome these flames--and well he knew it--Mother Atterson would arise in the morning to see all her goodly timber scorched, perhaps ruined!
"I must beat it out--beat it out!" thought Hiram, and the repetition ofthe words thrummed an accompaniment upon the drums of his ears as he thrashed away with a madman's strength.
For no sane person would have tackled such a hopeless task. Before him the flames suddenly leaped six feet or more into the air. They overtopped him as they writhed through a clump of green-briars. The wind puffed the flame toward him, and his face was scorched by the heat.
He lost his eyebrows completely, and the hair was crisped along the front brim of his hat.
Then with a laughing crackle, as though scorning his weakness, the flames ran up a climbing vine and the next moment wrapped a tall pine in lurid yellow.
This pine, like a huge torch, began to give off a thick, black smoke. Would some wakeful neighboring farmer, seeing it, know the danger that menaced and come to Hiram's help?
For yards he had beaten flat the flames and stamped out every spark. Behind him was naught but rolling smoke. It was dark there. No flames were eating up the slope.
But toward Darrell's tract the fire seemed on the increase. He could not catch up with it. And this solitary, sentinel pine, ablaze now in all its head, threatened to fling sparks for a hundred yards.
If the wind continued to rise, the forest was doomed!
His green branch had burned to a crisp. He had lost his axe in the darkness and the smoke, and now he tore another bough, by main strength, from its parent stem.
Hiram Strong worked as though inspired; but to no purpose in the end. For the flames increased. Puff after puff of wind drove the fire on, scattering brands from the blazing pine; and now another, and another, tree caught. The glare of the conflagration increased.
He flung down the useless bough. Fire was all about him. He had to leap suddenly to one side to escape a burst of flame that had caught in a jungle of green-briars.
Then, of a sudden, a crash of thunder rolled and reverberated through the glen. Lightning for an instant lit up the meadows and the river. The glare of it almost blinded the young farmer and, out of the line of fire, hesank to the earth and covered his eyes, seared by the sudden, compelling light.
Again and again the thunder rolled, following the javelins of lightning that seemed to dart from the clouds to the earth. The tempest, so long muttering in the West, had come upon him unexpectedly, for he had given all his attention to the spreading fire.
And now came the rain--no refreshing, sweet, saturating shower; but a thunderous, blinding fall of water that first set the burning woods to steaming and then drowned out every spark of fire on upland as well as lowland.
It was a cloudburst--a downpour such as Hiram had seldom experienced before. Exhausted, he lay on the bank and let the pelting rain soak him to the skin.
He did not care. Half drowned by the beating rain, he only crowed his delight at the downpour. Every spark of fire was flooded out. The danger was past.
He finally arose, and staggered through the downpour to the house, only happy that--by a merciful interposition of Providence--the peril had been overcome.
He tore off his clothing on the stoop, there in the pitch darkness, and crept up to his bedroom where he rubbed himself down with a crash-towel, and finally tumbled into bed and slept like a log till broad daylight.
