The Boy Scout Fire Fighters Part 17

There was a terrific roar, a crash of shattered metal and in a cloud of sand the big gray racer turned abruptly and plunged end over end down the beach into the curling breakers. The crowd gave vent to a shriek of alarm when they saw Dan Dacy's limp form shoot clear of the wreck and go whirling, arms and legs flying out toward the point where the combers were breaking.

Like every one of the five thousand witnesses of the tragedy, the scouts stood paralyzed for a moment--but only for a moment--Bruce was the first to gather his scattered wits.

"Quick, Jiminy! We'll get him! Come! He may still be alive! The rest of you fellows follow on foot!"

While he was speaking, Bruce rushed into the station and started the motor cycle. Jiminy was right behind him and an instant later the powerful machine was making forty miles an hour over the sandy beach.

Bruce bent low over the handle bars while Jiminy clung on and sought to buckle the life buoy belt about his waist.

When the machine reached the wrecked motor car Bruce brought it to an abrupt stop. But already Jimmy had leaped from the machine and plunged into the water. With powerful overhand strokes he breasted the breakers.

He seemed to shoot through the water, so mighty were his efforts.

Thirty feet out he saw something bobbing upon the surface of the water.

It was Dacy's leather helmet. Toward this Jiminy headed and the water fairly boiled with the struggle he was making to reach the spot. In a few seconds he was near enough to reach out and grasp the black object.

But he let go of it immediately and the next moment he was seen to prepare for a dive under the surface. A few feet away he had seen some air bubbles coming to the top.

In a jiffy he had unbuckled the life buoy. Then like a seal the lithe youngster sought the dark green depths, following the line of bubbles.

Down he swam, deeper and deeper, for on the white, sandy bottom he could see a dark, shapeless ma.s.s turning round and round with the action of the water. He reached out to seize it and his lingers slipped from the driver's leather jacket. Again he tried, and his hand closed about the cold wrist of the unconscious man.

Then he turned and started to struggle upward, dragging his heavy burden after him. It was hard work--terrible work, for he had dived deep and he was badly in need of air. His lungs felt as if they would burst. The blood pressure in his neck and head was almost unbearable. At first he could make no headway. The drowning man seemed to hold fast to the bottom. But he fought hard for he realized that if he let go of Dacy he would have difficulty in finding him with a second dive. Every moment was precious, too. There might still be a spark of life in the limp form he was trying to rescue.

Up, up, he struggled. Above he could see the light of day. Great green bubbles raced past him. Only a few feet now. Only a second or two longer. Thus did he spur himself onward until suddenly his head shot clear of the waves, and, with a-gasp, he filled his tortured lungs with new air. Ten feet away danced the cigar-shaped float with its life belt, and swimming toward him from the crowded beach were two other scouts ready to help.

Jimmy summoned every ounce of his remaining strength and held the head of the unconscious man above the water. And when the spectators saw that he had actually made the rescue a cheer louder and longer than any that had greeted the racers rent the air.

It was hard work and Jiminy was at the point of exhaustion, yet he tried his utmost to buckle the life belt about poor Dacy. But while he fumbled with the straps the two other scouts arrived and relieved him of the task. Quickly the belt was adjusted and the sign flashed to Bruce, who seized the steel cable and hauled away.

Then the two lads turned their attention to Jiminy and between them aided him into shallow water.

By the time the three swimmers reached the beach the scouts had cleared Dacy's lungs of water and had started the pulmotor. For twenty minutes the lads worked valiantly, doing everything that they could to bring back life in the unconscious man, while the anxious crowd looked on.

Finally their efforts were rewarded. Dacy's eyelids quivered several times, then slowly opened, whereat the crowd gave a mad cry of joy and the scouts had all they could do to keep them from pressing closer.

But one man did break through the circle of guards and the lads let him pa.s.s. He was Mr. Herrick. Tears of joy coursed down his good natured face when he saw that Dacy was still alive, and before the scouts could restrain him he seized the prostrate man's hand and squeezed it while he murmured:

"Dacy, Dacy, thank goodness you are still alive. I was afraid you had sacrificed your life to save that little girl of mine."

Then turning toward Bruce, he said, "Scouts, I don't know how to thank you for this. I--"

"Don't try to thank us, Mr. Herrick," said Bruce, "but you can help us put him onto the side car. I think we should get to a doctor's right away, for there may be some broken bones or internal injuries."

And a few moments later the life guard's motorcycle was carrying its first patient to the emergency hospital.

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENED

Whack--"Nine-hundred-en-ten;" whack--"nine-hundred-en-'leven," whack, "Zare ees almoost une tousan trees what you boys mus' cut awraty. What you zink of zat?" said Paul Nez, the big French-Canadian lumber cruiser, as he hacked a blaze into a six-inch poplar and left his short hatchet wedged fast while he felt through his pockets for a handkerchief.

"Et will take you all ze Wintair for ze work mebbe, huh?" he continued, as he blew his nose with a loud blast.

"George! I shouldn't wonder if it would take us a couple of months at least," said Bruce Clifford as he sat down upon a stump and pushed his hat back upon his head.

"Yes, snow will be thick through here when we finally finish, I guess,"

added Jiminy Gordon, surveying the forest.

"Well, the Doctair Lyman he say he not such great rush," smiled the Canadian. Then he paused and seemed to search into the very heart of the wood with his coal black eyes, and all this time he kept sniffing the air.

"Camp 'round here sure. One no good camp too, mebby," said he finally as he pointed toward the west.

"I thought I smelled the smoke of a camp fire," said Bruce.

"So did I," added Jiminy.

"I smell heem smoke, I smell heem sc.r.a.ps, too. No good camp, no know woods. Mebby heem get seek. Come on. We all through now. We find 'em wood road now soon. Doctair Lyman heem line run cross by that blaze over tair; you see heem, huh? Heem end of Doctair Lyman's wood."

"So that's the line, eh? Well, twenty-five acres of woods is a lot of territory, isn't it, Bruce?" said Jimmy, as he picked up his scout hatchet and slipped into his belt.

The Canadian wrenched his hatchet free from the poplar and started swinging westward between the trees and the two Quarry Troop scouts fell in behind him in single file. And as they walked on the smell of the camp lire, and the tainted odor that emanates from a camp's garbage dump grew stronger to their nostrils.

Then presently the camp itself loomed up at the very side of the wood road for which the Canadian lumberman was headed.

A single wall tent of large proportions was the most conspicuous thing about the place. This had its flaps pinned back and in the doorway, reclining on a collapsible canvas camp chair with a bandage-swathed foot propped up on a soap box sat one of the occupants.

The woodsman and the two Quarry Scouts needed only a glance at the little clearing to know that those who had built it here knew nothing at all about the woods and were, moreover, very disorderly by nature. Blankets lay in a confused heap among leaves and twigs instead of being hung up to dry; empty cans, paste board boxes and sc.r.a.ps of paper littered the place; fire burned entirely too near a dry brush pile and there was no stone fireplace to hold it in check; loose papers were scattered about and to make matters even worse, the pots and pans that had been used to cook the last meal lay on the ground unwashed.

It was indeed a bungle of a camp but if the single occupant realized it he did not seem to care a whit for he sat serenely in the doorway of the tent so interested in a book that he did not hear Paul Nez and his young companions approaching.

"'Allo, you get heem broke foot, mebby?" said Paul with a grin as he moved toward the tent.

The camper looked up with a start, and then smiled. "Yes, I twisted my right ankle yesterday by falling down a gully, and ouch--don't make me move 'cause it hurts like sin. Glad it isn't sprained though. It ought to be well in four or five days. Anything you want? Anything we can do for you? If there is, go ahead and do it yourself. The rest of the fellows are off partridge hunting. What do you want, provisions, matches? I'll tell you where they are and you can help yourself. I can't move."

"We don't want heem nothin'. We go out of woods now right off, down wood road. Why you don't fix heem camp up good? Look um fire--poor, bad, very worse. Some day heem catch bush so, leaves mebby, and then heem timber fire. Burn out heem woods. Look um pans, pots, dirty dishes. Not good for smell. Not good for men in heem woods. Blankets, look um all get lousy. Not very good camp, heem," said the Canadian, plainly showing his disgust at the general disorder about the place.

"I know it, old chap. It looks like the sloppiest kind of a place to me, but then I'm not supposed to know anything about camps and woods. I come from Boston, you see. The other fellows are the campers. They are Vermonters, from St. Cloud City," said the man in the doorway sarcastically.

"Huh, a deuced of a lot they know about the woods and camping," said Bruce in disgust as he surveyed the scene.

"They know more about keeping a pig sty," said Jiminy Gordon as he picked up the blankets and, shaking them free of the dust, hung them onto the branch of a nearby hemlock.

"Thanks, old chap, those blankets on the ground worried me a lot. And if you don't mind, will you sc.r.a.pe up a few of those papers? Jack and Bart (they are the fellows who are camping with me) run off every morning and leave a mess like that behind. They are off hunting most of the day and here I have to sit like a blooming invalid until they come back. But I don't mind so long as I have a good book. Thanks, that looks much better, doesn't it? I'm much obliged to you fellows--ah--er, what're your names anyway--mine's Dave--Dave Connors."

The two scouts introduced themselves and then because Paul Nez had started down the wood road they waved farewell to the camper with the injured foot and hustled to catch up to the timber cruiser.

"When you come into heem woods for cut um down?" asked the Canadian when the scouts finally caught up with him.