Chapter XIII: And May You Come Back

As, a half hour later, Florence neared the entrance to a second trail leading to the flaming forest, she suddenly thought of the fire-fighter, who had been placed there to prevent fire-fans from rushing into danger, and her knees all but doubled under her.

“How am I ever to get past him?” she asked herself in sudden consternation.

How indeed? Well enough she knew what these hard-boiled fighters thought of girls who, for sentimental reasons or for the purpose of experiencing a thrill, tried to crowd past them.

“If I stop to argue I’m lost,” she told herself.

Then the experience of a friend in a great city came to her and she smiled. This friend had been hurrying to a train when a man sprang out before her and exclaimed,

“Give me your money! This is a stick-up!”

“I—I’ve got to catch a train,” her friend had panted as she went racing straight on.

“I’ll do something like that,” she concluded. And she did.

“Hey! Where y’ think yer goin’, sister?” the fire guard demanded as she ran up to him.

“I—I’ve got to get back there,” she puffed. “It—it’s awfully important.”

She was past him and had lost herself in the brush before he knew what had happened.

“Well, that’s that,” she chuckled. “Now to find that boy.”

This, she discovered at once, was not going to be easy. There was little or no trail. She had hoped to find an even slope on which to travel. Instead there were ridges and narrow valleys or low, deep runs. She was obliged to pass around the deepest of these. In doing so she lost her sense of direction. The brush was thick. Wild raspberry bushes tore at her. Vines tripped her. She stepped on a great, fallen log. It caved in and sent her sprawling. Fallen trees blocked her path.

“I—I’ve got to get through,” she thought, fighting doggedly on.

To make matters worse the wind shifted, setting great masses of smoke bellowing down upon her. Choking and coughing, eyes blinded, she paused to consider.

“Am I going the right way?” she asked herself in some alarm. To this question she could form no answer.

The wind changed again. The smoke was less dense. She pushed on.

Fifteen minutes later, billows of smoke once more bore down upon her. And this time the air seemed hot to her flushed cheek.

“What a dunce I was,” she exclaimed. “I—”

She did not finish, for, at that second, the smoke appeared to rise straight in the air. And there, not a hundred yards away, was a wall of fire. Even as she watched, the flames, reaching the foot of a great spruce tree, raced to its very top with a great whoosh. A second tree went up like a rocket, then a third.

She did not wait for more. She turned and ran. Over rocks and fallen trees, through masses of thimbleberry bushes, through a low swampy spot that sank to her tread, she raced until, with staring eyes and wildly beating heart, she came squarely up against one more wall of fire.

All but exhausted, she sank down upon a great, hot rock to think. What had happened? The wind had shifted. This had brought the fire in from a new direction. Perhaps that boy in the crimson sweater had set fresh fires. Perhaps she was completely surrounded.

“Trapped,” she thought with a shudder.

“But I must keep my head,” she told herself. “There should be a way out. There must be. There—there just has to be.”

Strangely enough at that very moment her good friend, Captain Frey, was talking about that very question. He was speaking to a dozen of his boys. Among them were Mike and Tony.

“Boys,” he was saying, “a girl dodged past the guard and went back there where the fire is burning its fiercest. What she wanted I don’t know, but from what the guard tells me I’d say it was this big girl, Florence. You all know her.”

“Yea—yea—yea,” they all agreed.

“I’ll say we do!” Mike muttered.

“She’s the realest thing on the island!” the Captain exclaimed. “If we all were like her there’d be no more fire. I don’t know her reason for going in there but it’s bound to have been a good one.

“Thing is,” his tone was sober. “Wind’s shifted since she went in. If she loses her way—”

“And she will,” Mike broke in. “I know dat place. It’s bad.”

“Some of you boys must go in and bring her out,” the captain challenged abruptly. “Who’s it going to be?”

“Me and Tony, eh, Tony?” Mike volunteered.

“Sure t’ing,” Tony agreed.

The captain looked at them squarely. “Seems to me I heard that she ducked you two,” he said.

“Fergit it,” said Mike. “We had it comin’. Anyway, that was a long time ago. Leave us go after her. We’ll bring her out, Cap’n. Honest, we will.”

“Sure we will,” Tony seconded.

There was a strange new light in the Captain’s eye and a huskiness in his voice as he said, “All right, boys. In you go! And may you come back.”