A calamity expected, feared, and guarded against by a whole community does sometimes occur, and with a suddenness which finds the victims unprepared in spite of all their elaborate precautions. Compared with the importance of saving the range from fire, it was but a trivial thing which took nearly every man who dwelt in Lonesome Land to town on a certain day when the wind blew free from out the west. They were weary of watching for the fire which did not come licking through the prairie grass, and a special campaign train bearing a prospective President of our United States was expected to pass through Hope that afternoon.
Since all trains watered at the red tank by the creek, there would be a five-minute stop, during which the prospective President would stand upon the rear platform and deliver a three-minute address--a few gracious words to tickle the self-esteem of his listeners--and would employ the other two minutes in shaking the hand of every man, woman, and child who could reach him before the train pulled out. There would be a cheer or two given as he was borne away--and there would be something to talk about afterward in the saloons. Scarce a man of then had ever seen a President, and it was worth riding far to look upon a man who even hoped for so exalted a position.
Manley went because he intended to vote for the man, and called it an act of loyalty to his party to greet the candidate; also because it took very little, now that haying was over and work did not press, to start him down the trail in the direction of Hope.
At the Blumenthall ranch no man save the cook remained at home, and he only because he had a boil on his neck which sapped his interest in all things else. Polycarp Jenks was in town by nine o'clock, and only one man remained at the Wishbone. That man was Kent, and he stayed because, according to his outraged companions, he was an ornery cuss, and his bump of patriotism was a hollow in his skull. Kent had told them, one and all, that he wouldn't ride twenty-five miles to shake hands with the Deity Himself--which, however, is not a verbatim report of his statement. The prospective President had not done anything so big, he said, that a man should want to break his neck getting to town just to watch him go by. He was dead sure he, for one, wasn't going to make a fool of himself over any swell-headed politician.
Still, he saddled and rode with his fellows for a mile or two, and called them unseemly names in a facetious tone; and the men of the Wishbone answered his taunts with shrill yells of derision when he swung out of the trail and jogged away to the south, and finally passed out of sight in the haze which still hung depressingly over the land.
Oddly enough, while all the able-bodied men save Kent were waiting hilariously in Hope to greet, with enthusiasm, the brief presence of the man who would fain be their political chief, the train which bore him eastward scattered fiery destruction abroad as it sped across their range, four minutes late and straining to make up the time before the next stop.
They had thought the railroad safe at last, what with the guards and the numerous burned patches where the fire had jumped the plowed boundary and blackened the earth to the fence which marked the line of the right of way, and, in some places, had burned beyond. It took a flag-flying special train of that bitter Presidential campaign to find a weak spot in the guard, and to send a spark straight into the thickest bunch of wiry sand grass, where the wind could fan it to a blaze and then seize it and bend the tall flame tongues until they licked around the next tuft of grass, and the next, and the next--until the spark was grown to a long, leaping line of fire, sweeping eastward with the relentless rush of a tidal wave upon a low-lying beach.
Arline Hawley was, perhaps, the only citizen of Hope who had deliberately chosen to absent herself from the crowd standing, in perspiring expectation, upon the depot platform. She had permitted Minnie, the “breed” girl, to go, and had even grudgingly consented to her using a box of cornstarch as first aid to her complexion. Arline had not approved, however, of either the complexion or the occasion.
“What you want to go and plaster your face up with starch for, gits me,” she had criticised frankly. “Seems to me you're homely enough without lookin' silly, into the bargain. Nobody's going to look at you, no matter what you do. They're out to rubber at a higher mark than you be. And what they expect to see so great, gits me. He ain't nothing but a man--and, land knows, men is common enough, and ornery enough, without runnin' like a band of sheep to see one. I don't see as he's any better, jest because he's runnin' for President; if he gits beat, he'll want to hide his head in a hole in the ground. Look at my Walt. He was the biggest man in Hope, and so swell-headed he wouldn't so much as pack a bucket of water all fall, or chop up a tie for kindlin'--till the day after 'lection. And what was he then but a frazzled-out back number, that everybody give the laugh--till he up and blowed his brains out! Any fool can run for President--it's the feller that gits there that counts.
“Say, that red-white-'n'-blue ribbon sure looks fierce on that green dress--but I reckon blood will tell, even if it's Injun blood. G'wan, or you'll be late and have your trouble for your pay. But hurry back soon's the agony's over; the bread'll be ready to mix out.”
Even after the girl was gone, her finery a-flutter in the sweeping west wind, Arline muttered aloud her opinion of men, and particularly of politicians who rode about in special trains and expected the homage of their fellows.
She was in the back yard, taking her “white clothes” off the line, when the special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white surface, and it crushed crisply under her thumb with the unmistakable feel of burned grass.
“Now, what in time--” began Arline aloud, after the manner of women whose tongues must keep pace with their thoughts. “That there feels fresh and”--with a sniff at the spot--“smells fresh.”
With the wisdom of much experience she faced the hot wind and sniffed again, while her eyes searched keenly the sky line, which was the ragged top of the bluff marking the northern boundary of the great prairie land. A trifle darker it was there, and there was a certain sullen glow discernible only to eyes trained to read the sky for warning signals of snow, fire, and flood.
“That's a fire, and it's this side of the river. And if it is, then the railroad set it, and there ain't a livin' thing to stop it. An' the wind's jest right--” A curdled roll of smoke showed plainly for a moment in the haze. She crammed her armful of sheets into the battered willow basket, threw two clothespins hastily toward the same receptacle, and ran.
The special had just come to a stop at the depot. The cattlemen, cowboys, and townspeople were packed close around the rear of the train, their backs to the wind and the disaster sweeping down upon them, their browned faces upturned to the sleek, carefully groomed man in the light-gray suit, with a flaunting, prairie sunflower ostentatiously displayed in his buttonhole and with his campaign smile upon his lips and dull boredom looking out of his eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he was saying, as he smiled, “you favoured ones whose happy lot it is to live in the most glorious State of our glorious union, I greet you, and I envy you--”
Arline, with her soiled kitchen apron, her ragged coil of dust-brown hair, her work-drawn face and faded eyes which blazed with excitement, pushed unceremoniously through the crowd and confronted him undazzled.
“Mister Candidate, you better move on and give these men a chancet to save their prope'ty,” she cried shrilly. “They got something to do besides stand around here and listen at you throwin' campaign loads. The hull country's afire back of us, and the wind bringin' it down on a long lope.”
She turned from the astounded candidate and glared at the startled crowd, every one of whom she knew personally.
“I must say I got my opinion of a bunch that'll stand here swallowin' a lot of hot air, while their coat tails is most ready to ketch afire!” Her voice was rasping, and it carried to the farthest of them. “You make me tired! Political slush, all of it--and the hull darned country a-blazin' behind you!”
The crowd moved uneasily, then scattered away from the shelter of the depot to where they could snuff inquiringly the wind, like dogs in the leash.
“That's right,” yelled Blumenthall, of the Double Diamond. “There's a fire, sure as hell!” He started to run.
The man behind him hesitated but a second, then gripped his hat against the push of the wind, and began running. Presently men, women, and children were running, all in one direction.
The prospective President stood agape upon the platform of his bunting-draped car, his chosen allies grouped foolishly around him. It was the first time men had turned from his presence with his gracious, flatteringly noncommittal speech unuttered, his hand unshaken, his smiling, bowing departure unmarked by cheers growing fainter as he receded. Only Arline tarried, her thin fingers gripping the arm of her “breed girl,” lest she catch the panic and run with the others.
Arline tilted back her head upon her scrawny shoulders and eyed the prospective President with antagonism unconcealed.
“I got something to say to you before you go,” she announced, in her rasping voice, with its querulous note. “I want to tell you that the chances are a hundred to one you set that fire yourself, with your engine that's haulin' you around over the country, so you can jolly men into votin' for you. Your train's the only one over the road since noon, and that fire started from the railroad. The hull town's liable to burn, unless it can be stopped the other side the creek, to say nothing of the range, that feeds our stock, and the hay, and maybe houses--and maybe people!”
She caught her breath, and almost shrieked the last three words, as a dreadful probability flashed into her mind.
“I know a woman--just a girl--and she's back there twenty mile--alone, and her man's here to look at you go by! I hope you git beat, just for that!
“If this town ketches afire and burns up, I hope you run into the ditch before you git ten mile! If you was a man, and them fellers with you was men, you'd hold up your train and help save the town. Every feller counts, when it comes to fightin' fire.”
She stopped and eyed the group keenly. “But you won't. I don't reckon you ever done anything with them hands in your life that would grind a little honest dirt into your knuckles and under them shiny nails!”
The prospective President turned red to his ears, and hastily removed his immaculate hands from where they had been resting upon the railing. And he did not hold up the train while he and his allies stopped to help save the town. The whistle gave a warning toot, the bell jangled, and the train slid away toward the next town, leaving Arline staring, tight-lipped, after it.
“The darned chump--he'd 'a' made votes hand over fist if he'd called my bluff; but, I knew he wouldn't, soon as I seen his face. He ain't man enough.”
“He's real good-lookin',” sighed Minnie, feebly attempting to release her arm from the grasp of her mistress. “And did you notice the fellow with the big yellow mustache? He kept eyin' me--”
“Well, I don't wonder--but it ain't anything to your credit,” snapped Arline, facing her toward the hotel, “You do look like sin a-flyin', in that green dress, and with all that starch on your face. You git along to the house and mix that bread, first thing you do, and start a fire. And if I ain't back by that time, you go ahead with the supper; you know what to git. We're liable to have all the tables full, so you set all of 'em.”
She was hurrying away, when the girl called to her.
“Did you mean Mis' Fleetwood, when you said that about the woman burning? And do you s'pose she's really in the fire?”
“You shut up and go along!” cried Arline roughly, under the stress of her own fears. “How in time's anybody going to tell, that's twenty miles away?”
She left the street and went hurrying through back yards and across vacant lots, crawled through a wire fence, and so reached, without any roundabout method, the trail which led to the top of the bluff, where the whole town was breathlessly assembling. Her flat-chested, un-corseted figure merged into the haze as she half trotted up the steep road, swinging her arms like a man, her skirts flapping in the wind. As she went, she kept muttering to herself:
“If she really is caught by the fire--and her alone--and Man more'n half drunk--” She whirled, and stood waiting for the horseman who was galloping up the trail behind her. “You going home, Man? You don't think it could git to your place, do you?” She shouted the questions at him as he pounded past.
Manley, sallow white with terror, shook his head vaguely and swung his heavy quirt down upon the flanks of his horse. Arline lowered her head against the dust kicked into her face as he went tearing past her, and kept doggedly on. Some one came rattling up behind her with empty barrels dancing erratically in a wagon, and she left the trail to make room. The hostler from their own stable it was who drove, and at the creek ahead of them he stopped to fill the barrels. Arline passed him by and kept on.
At the brow of the hill the women and children were gathered in a whimpering group. Arline joined them and gazed out over the prairie, where the smoke was rolling toward them, and, lifting here and there, let a flare of yellow through.
“It'll show up fine at dark,” a fat woman in a buggy remarked. “There's nothing grander to look at than a prairie fire at night. I do hope,” she added weakly, “it don't do no great damage!”
“Oh, it won't,” Arline cut in, with savage sarcasm, panting from her climb. “It's bound to sweep the hull country slick an' clean, and maybe burn us all out--but that won't matter, so long as it looks purty after dark!”
“They say it's a good ten mile away yet,” another woman volunteered encouragingly. “They'll git it stopped, all right. There's lots of men here to fight it, thank goodness!”
Arline moved on to where a plow was being hurriedly unloaded from a wagon, the horses hitched to it, and a man already grasping the handles in an aggressive manner. As she came up he went off, yelling his opinions and turning a shallow, uneven furrow for a back fire. Within five minutes another plow was tearing up the sod in an opposite direction.
“If it jumps here, or they can't turn it, the creek'll help a lot,” some one was yelling.
The plowed furrows lengthened, the horses sweating and throwing their heads up and down with the discomfort of the pace they must keep. Whiplashes whistled and the drivers urged them on with much shouting. Blumenthall, cut off, with his men, from reaching his own ranch, was directing a group about to set a back fire. His voice boomed as if he were shouting across a milling herd. A roll of his eye brought his attention momentarily from the work, and he ran toward a horseman who was gesticulating wildly and seemed on the point of riding straight toward the fire.
“Hi! Fleetwood, we need you here!” he yelled. “You can't get home now, and you know it. The fire's past your place already; you'd have to ride through it, you fool! Hey? Your wife home alone--alone!”
He stood absolutely still and stared out to the southwest, where the smoke cloud was rolling closer with every breath. He drew his fingers across his forehead and glanced at the men around him, also stunned into inactivity by the tragedy behind the words.
“Well--get to work, men. We've got to save the town. Fine time to burn guards--when a fire's loping up on you! But that's the way it goes, generally. This ought to've been done a month ago. Put it off and put it off--while they haggle over bids--Brinberg, you and I'll string the fire. The rest of you watch it don't jump back. And, say!” he shouted to the group around Manley. “Don't let that crazy fool start off now. Put him to work. Best thing for him. But--my God, that's awful!” He did not shout the last sentence. He spoke so that only the nearest man heard him--heard, and nodded dumb assent.
Manley raged, sitting helpless there upon his horse. They would not let him ride out toward that sweeping wave of fire. He could not have gone five miles toward home before he met the flames. He stood in the stirrups and shook his fists impotently. He strained his eyes to see what it was impossible for him to see--his ranch and Val, and how they had fared. He pictured mentally the guard he had burned beyond the coulee to protect them from just this danger, and his heart squeezed tight at the realization of his own shiftlessness. That guard! A twelve-foot strip of half-burned sod, with tufts of grass left standing here and there--and he had meant to burn it wider, and had put it off from day to day, until now. Now!
His clenched fist dropped upon the saddle horn, and he stared dully at the rushing, rolling smoke and fire. It was not that he saw--it was Val, with cinder-blackened ruffles, grimy face, and yellow hair falling in loose locks upon her cheeks--locks which she must stop to push out of her eyes, so that she could see where to swing the sodden sack while she helped him--him, Manley, who had permitted her to do work it for none but a man's hard muscles, so that he might finish the sooner and ride to town upon some flimsy pretext. And he could not even reach her now--or the place where she had been!
The group had thinned around him, for there was something to do besides give sympathy to a man bereaved. Unless they bestirred themselves, they might all be in need of sympathy before the day was done. Manley took his eyes from the coming fire and glanced around him, saw that he was alone, and, with a despairing oath, wheeled his horse and raced back down the hill to town, as if fiends rode behind the saddle.
At the saloon opposite the Hawley Hotel he drew up; rather, his horse stopped there of his own accord, as if he were quite at home at that particular hitching pole. Manley dismounted heavily and lurched inside. The place was deserted save for Jim, who was paid to watch the wares of his employer, and was now standing upon a chair at the window, that he might see over the top of Hawley's coal shed and glimpse the hilltop beyond. Jim stepped down and came toward him.
“How's the fire?” he demanded anxiously. “Think she'll swing over this way?”
But Manley had sunk into a chair and buried his face in his arms, folded upon a whisky-spotted card table.
“Val--my Val!” he wailed, “Back there alone--get me a drink,” he added thickly, “or I'll go crazy!”
Jim hastily poured a full glass, and stood over him anxiously.
“Here it is. Drink 'er down, and brace up. What you mean? Is your wife--”
Manley lifted his head long enough to gulp the whisky, then dropped it again upon his arms and groaned.
