Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1916-03-02
CHAPTER XVI.
rhe splrlt of the East.


Company H, under Captain Donald
son, they trotted swiftly up with the
Quickstep of hard-trained infantry
and stood in column Of tours while
the officers sought the head Of at
fairs. Daily promptly sent for the
young forest ranger, and in less than
It takes in the telling these two keen
witted Westerners, the woodsman
and the soldier, were ready to Crap
pie with the enemy. Light-marching
kits were dumped upon the ground
and the hard.muscled men took TO
the hills and the timber under quick.
decisive orders. Two hours later
wagons arrived with commissary sup
plies and the smoky, blackened val
ley took on military air.
It was Titan struggle. and 1t was
Indicative of the force that has con-
quered nature--the human atoms toll
ing in semidarkness beneath the
threatening forest, choked by the
smoke, fiayed by the almost unbear-
able heat, menaced by the flames that
at any moment might sweep here or
there among the rocks and declivities
OF the uneven hills and cut off escape.
That was the great danger they
guarded against-the possibility Of
getting hemmed in. Guards we're de-
tailed to watch the vanguards of the
foe, to note the speed of the flames
the lie Of the timber. the lines that
were likely to go fastest. following the
different growths, but In the mysteri-
GUS dusk and the silence of vast
mingled sounds they were impotent
and each man had to take care OF him
self.
The mighty boom of falling patri.
archs Of the forest, hoary with thou
sand years Of age. crashing through
obstructing branches, shook the earth
each moment. With each such stu
pendous fall wealth and world-econ.
omy and prudence trembled at the
sacrilege. It was a carnival of waste,
a sacrifice of the gifts of God-and
among all those who fought 1t with
heart and hand and brain there was
none who knew its worldwide import
30 we'll. who lamented 1t 80 keenly
as the lean. brown forest rangers
whose special foe 1t was.
And to think dozen miles of gov.
eminent trails would have prevented
i'll" cried the leader with an oath
Out In the valleys beyond, the heavy
smoke had obscured the setting sun
entirely. Over the crest of the Coast
Range 1t had spread up to the heav-
ems. drifted afar on the changing wind
and all the distant valley of the VIII.
lamette knew that the forest fires
were burning in the hills.
The papers throughout the state
told of 1t that day, and 1t awakened
no more interest than would have at
tended the announcement OF heavier
run OF salmon than was usual in the
Columbia.
They were too common, those fires
that sported with the national wealth
each year, too much a part OF every.
day life. and they did not know that
this was to be marker OF time in
the coast country.
Time was when they were unknown,
these monsters Of destruction--a long
past time 1t was. when those first for
est rangers. the silent Red Men of
the hills. had burned out the under
brush each year SO that pony might
60 anywhere unhindered.
The silent rangers had gone with
the years-passed to the Hunting
Grounds and the reservations, via civ.
ilization, and now the great timber
had shed its dry foliage and its pitch,
the little growths had sprung up sea-
son after season. the vines had crept
between and man might not pene.
trate the Businesses without built
trails.
So Destiny took up the land and
played with 1t that hot, dry August.
All through the early hours of the
long night they labored, dirty. black.
lened. tattered scarecrows of men. run.
ming here and there. digging like mad
in the wide trench that was to stop
the surface flames. saving unceas.
lingly at the towering trees. while the
guards brought twenty-minute tidings
of the approaching fire.
High against the dun, smoke-light.
ened sky the dark canopy of the East
Belt whispered and moaned as IL in
fear. and from time to time Sandry. a
Ihaggard. grim-lipped specter of a man.
lifted his bloodshot eyes toward it, II
was still his own. his future of the
Dilhngworth. despite the tangle of
Hampdens threats, the unrecorded
deed and the unfinished trail of the
Yellow Pines at the south. and II
pulled at his heart pathetically.
There was still stretch of almost
impenetrable timber near the summit
of the big ridge which must be cut
through before the flames reached 1t,
or all would be lost.
"Shall we make It. JohnT asked
the owner desperately of Daily. who
ran by in the smoke with wet rags to
tie over the mouths of the men
Ought to If the wind stays where
It is
II was two o'clock and that hour IN
the sleeping world outside when all
the elements are at an ebb