CHAPTER XXVIII.
FIGHTING THE FLAMES.
The instant that Jack realized that the hut was on fire he let out a cry that brought all of his companions to their feet at a bound.
“What’s the matter?”
“Where does all this smoke come from?”
“The camp is on fire, boys!”
“We must get out or we’ll be burnt to death!”
There was a wild scramble for the doorway, but Jack held every one of them back.
“You can’t get out that way!” he exclaimed. “The fire is all around there. See there, now!”
A fierce gust of wind at that moment caused the flames to shift about, and the doorway, which had been almost black before, now became a sheet of living fire!
“We are penned in!” groaned Andy. “What in the world shall we do?”
“We’ll be roasted like so many pigs, suah!” howled Pickles. “Heaben have mussy on us!”
“We must cut a way through one of the sides!” cried Harry. “Where is the ax?”
In a trice he had the implement in his hands and was working madly to cut away enough of the matted branches and twigs to afford them an opening sufficient to allow of the passage of their bodies.
In the meantime, the smoke kept growing thicker and thicker. The wood was all damp from the quantity of snow upon it, and smoked much more than it burned.
“Hurry, or I’ll--be--choked!” gasped Boxy. “I--I can’t--breathe--any longer!”
“Lie down on the ground and you’ll breathe easier!” returned Jack.
He threw himself down, and all the others but Harry followed his example.
In a minute more Harry had a small opening. This he enlarged as rapidly as possible. Soon he was able to crawl through, and he did so, calling on the others to follow.
“That was a narrow escape!” cried Andy, as he took a deep breath of the cold, pure air that was sweeping up the creek and through the woods. “The hut’s a regular smokehouse, isn’t it?”
“We must do something to save it,” put in Jack, hurriedly. “All our things are in there, and we can’t afford to lose them.”
“What shall we do, we have no water?” returned Boxy.
“I kin cut a hole in de ice an’ fill de bucket,” said Pickles.
“You do that, Pickles, and we’ll do what we can with snow,” said Harry. “Come on, boys, snow is as good as water, if we use enough of it.”
Spurred on by the necessity of the occasion, and also by the novelty, the members of the Zero Club set to work with a will. Standing as close as they dared, they shoveled and threw great lumps of snow on the hissing flames, working first upon that portion of the fire nearest to the door of the hut. They were pleased to see that the flames were confined principally to the large fuel pile leaning against the hut, not to the hut itself.
“I think we are getting the best of it,” cried Jack, after five minutes of hard work.
“We are,” returned Harry. “But it is by no means out yet. Keep up the good work, all hands!”
Pickles had succeeded in chopping a hole in the ice on the creek, and now came back with a bucket of water.
“Give it to me, and I’ll run through the doorway and plant it on any blaze inside!” cried Jack, and bucket in hand, he disappeared into the hut.
“It’s all right in there, so far,” he said, on reappearing. “Go on with the snow.”
They continued to fling the huge chunks of snow on the flames until all that remained was a small fire several yards away from the hut entrance.
“Might as well leave that for a campfire,” suggested Harry. “We want something to keep us warm and to see by.”
“Phew! but I am warm enough just now!” exclaimed Boxy, wiping the smut and perspiration from his face. “That’s the hardest work I have done in some time.”
“Be careful that you don’t catch cold,” warned Harry. “The wind cuts like a knife to-night.”
“What time is it?”
Jack consulted his watch. It was four o’clock in the morning. By a general vote the boys decided that no more sleep would be indulged in for that night.
“We can’t rest in the hut anyway,” said Andy. “All is in disorder, and some of the blankets are wet.”
“We will hang all the wet things around the campfire to dry,” said Jack. “And then we will see what we can do to repair damages.”
“And in the future we’ll be careful how we build our fires,” added Boxy. “Not so close to the hut, please, Pickles, after this.”
“Dat’s it!” cried the colored youth. “I dun reckon I’se ’sponsible fo’ dis muss,” he went on, soberly.
“We ought all of us to have known better,” said Harry, frankly. “In the future we must either keep the fire farther off or else somebody must sit up and watch it.”
The conflagration had destroyed the greater part of the snowhouse, and after the blankets had been hung up to dry, and the hut put in shape once more, they set to work to rebuild the tumbled-down walls. This was hard work, but it had to be done, so no one grumbled.
By daylight the camp was once more in shape, and the only evidence left of the fire was a few charred sticks and the long icicles which hung from the top of the hut and the branches of the trees.
“We can thank Providence for escaping with our lives,” remarked Jack, earnestly, as they sat down to a hastily-gotten breakfast. “If something hadn’t woke me up we might all of us been burnt to death while we slept.”
“It was truly a fortunate escape!” returned Harry.
“And one I shall never forget,” added Andy.
“We are having enough adventures for one outing,” laughed Boxy. “I wonder what will happen next?”
“Nothing much to-day, I imagine,” said Jack. “See, it is snowing again.”
He was right. While they had been fighting the flames it had ceased, but now the white flakes began once more to drift downward, at first sparingly, but thick and fast by the time the morning meal was over.
“This means a day in camp, I suppose,” grumbled Boxy. “My! when will it stop?”
“When the clouds are empty,” laughed Harry. “Boxy, make the best of it, and be thankful we have enough to eat.”
“We’ll set to work making traps,” suggested Jack. “Pickles, come on and give us a lesson.”
They withdrew into the hut, leaving the fire to take care of itself. They brought several pine torches with them, and these, along with a sperm candle, made the interior of the place tolerably light.
For several hours they sat grouped around the colored youth, while he, with a jack-knife, half-a-dozen thin slabs of wood, some stout twine and several pliable switches, showed them how to construct a squirrel trap, a rabbit trap, and also traps for various birds.
“But we can’t do nuthin’ wid dem jess now,” remarked Pickles. “’Cos we can’t find no runs in dis snow.”
“Do traps have to be set in runs for wild animals?” asked Boxy.
“Da don’t hab to be, but it’s generally best; yo’ ketches dem quicker.”
After making traps, the boys began to play various games, such as throwing the knife, and who’s got the bean, and the like. In this manner time went by until it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon.
They had had a lunch at noon of crackers and cheese, expecting to wait until evening before getting another regularly cooked meal, but now both Andy and Boxy declared that they were hungry again, and it was voted that they should go out, stir up the waning fire and get ready to cook a bit of venison in the pot with several onions Pickles had been thoughtful enough to bring along.
“You see, we needn’t be afraid of the onions, because we are not going out in company this evening,” said Boxy, in imitation of a young society miss. “So, Mr. DeBrown won’t have a chance of catching my breath.”
“I wonder how things are at Rudskill,” remarked Harry.
“I suppose our folks keep thinking about us,” said Andy. “They’ll imagine we are completely snowed under and starving.”
“Yes, it’s a pity they don’t know we are so comfortable,” put in Jack. “A good shelter, and plenty to eat are big things out here just now.”
“Hark!” cried Pickles, who stood by the doorway, ready to go out. “What am dat?”
“I don’t hear anything,” said Andy, after a brief pause.
“I heard a scratching,” put in Harry, in a whisper.
“It’s some wild animal after food,” returned Jack, in an equally low tone of voice.
“What can it be?” questioned Andy.
They were silent after this, and soon the scratching could be heard quite plainly.
Then, before they could realize it, something sprang upon the top of the hut.
“The deer meat!” cried Harry. “It is all outside, hanging on the tree limb!”
“And so are the rest of the rabbits!” put in Jack. “We must go outside and shoot that creature, whatever it is!”
Jack caught up his gun, as did also Harry, and together they sallied forth in the howling snowstorm.
At first amid the swirling snow they could see nothing. Then Harry caught sight of an immense wildcat making off with the venison in its mouth.
He took hasty aim and fired. None of the shot reached its mark, and an instant later the wildcat was gone, before Jack could get any show at it.