CHAPTER XXXIX
THE TUNNEL
Dave knew no rest that night. He patrolled his line from San Jacinto toCattle and back again, stopping always to lend a hand where the attackwas most furious. The men of his crew were weary to exhaustion, but thepressure of the fire was so great that they dared not leave the front.As soon as one blaze was beaten out, another started. A shower of sparksclose to Cattle Canon swept over the ridge and set the thick grass afire.This was smothered with saddle blankets and with sand and dirt thrownfrom shovels.
Nearer to San Jacinto Canon the danger was more acute. Dave did not dareback-fire on account of the wind. He dynamited the timber to make atrail-break against the howling, roaring wall of fire plunging forward.
As soon as the flames seized the timber the heat grew more intense. Thesound of falling trees as they crashed down marked the progress of thefire. The men retreated, staggering with exhaustion, hands and facesflayed, eyes inflamed and blinded by the black smoke that rolled overthem.
A stiff wind was blowing, but it was no longer a steady one. Sometimes itbore from the northeast; again in a cross-current almost directly fromthe east. The smoke poured in, swirling round them till they scarce knewone direction from another.
The dense cloud lifted for a moment, swept away by an air current. To thefire-fighters that glimpse of the landscape told an appalling fact. Thedemon had escaped below from San Jacinto Canon and been swept westward bya slant of wind with the speed of an express train. They were trapped bythe back-fire in a labyrinth from which there appeared no escape. Everypath of exit was blocked. The flames had leaped from hilltop to hilltop.
The men gathered together to consult. Many of them were on the verge ofpanic.
Dave spoke quietly. "We've got a chance if we keep our heads. There's anold mining tunnel hereabouts. Follow me, and stay together."
He plunged into the heavy smoke that had fallen about them again, workinghis way by instinct rather than by sight. Twice he stopped, to make surethat his men were all at heel. Several times he left them, diving intothe smoke to determine which way they must go.
The dry, salt crackle of a dead pine close at hand would have told him,even if the oppressive heat had not, that the fire would presently sweepover the ground where they stood. He drew the men steadily toward CattleCanon.
In that furious, murk-filled world he could not be sure he was moving inthe right direction, though the slope of the ground led him to think so.Falling trees crashed about them. The men staggered on in the uncannylight which tinged even the smoke.
Dave stopped and gave sharp, crisp orders. His voice was even and steady."Must be close to it now. Lie back of these down trees with your facesclose to the ground. I'll be back in a minute. Shorty, you're boss of thecrew while I'm away."
"You're gonna leave us to roast," a man accused, in a voice that was halfa scream.
Sanders did not stop to answer him, but Shorty took the hysterical man inhand. "Git down by that log pronto or I'll bore a hole in you. Ain't yougot sense enough to see he'll save us if there's a chance?"
The man fell trembling to the ground.
"Two men behind each log," ordered Shorty. "If yore clothes git afire,help each other put it out."
They lay down and waited while the fire swept above and around them.Fortunately the woods here were not dense. Men prayed or cursed or wept,according to their natures. The logs in front of some of them caughtfire and spread to their clothing. Shorty's voice encouraged them.
"Stick it out, boys. He'll be back if he's alive."
It could have been only minutes, but it seemed hours before the voice ofSanders rang out above the fury of the blast.
"All up! I've found the tunnel! Step lively now!"
They staggered after their leader, Shorty bringing up the rear to seethat none collapsed by the way. The line moved drunkenly forward. Now andagain a man went down, overcome by the smoke and heat. With brutal kicksShorty drove him to his feet again.
The tunnel was a shallow one in a hillside. Dave stood aside and countedthe men as they passed in. Two were missing. He ran along the back trail,dense with smoke from the approaching flames, and stumbled into a man. Itwas Shorty. He was dragging with him the body of a man who had fainted.Sanders seized an arm and together they managed to get the unconsciousvictim to the tunnel.
Dave was the last man in. He learned from the men in the rear that thetunnel had no drift. The floor was moist and there was a small seepagespring in it near the entrance.
Some of the men protested at staying.
"The fire'll lick in and burn us out like rats," one man urged. "Thisain't no protection. We've just walked into a trap. I'll take my chanceoutside."
Dave reached forward and lifted one of Shorty's guns from its holster."You'll stay right here, Dillon. We didn't make it one minute too soon.The whole hill out there's roaring."
"I'll take my chance out there. That's my lookout," said the man, movingtoward the entrance.
"No. You'll stay here." Dave's hard, chill gaze swept over his crew.Several of them were backing Dillon and others were wavering. "It's youronly chance, and I'm here to see you take it. Don't take another step."
Dillon took one, and went crumpling to the granite floor beforeDave could move. Shorty had knocked him down with the butt of hisnine-inch-barrel revolver.
Already smoke was filling the cave. The fire had raced to its mouth andwas licking in with long, red, hungry tongues. The tunnel timbers weresmouldering.
"Lie down and breathe the air close to the ground," ordered Dave, just asthough a mutiny had not been quelled a moment before. "Stay down there.Don't get up."
He found an old tomato can and used it to throw water from theseep-spring upon the burning wood. Shorty and one or two of the other menhelped him. The heat near the mouth was so intense they could not standit. All but Sanders collapsed and staggered back to sink down to thefresher air below.
Their place of refuge packed with smoke. A tree crashed down at the mouthand presently a second one. These, blazing, sent more heat in to cook thetortured men inside. In that bakehouse of hell men showed again theirnature, cursing, praying, storming, or weeping as they lay.
The prospect hole became a madhouse. A big Hungarian, crazed by thetorment he was enduring, leaped to his feet and made for the blazing hilloutside.
"Back there!" Dave shouted hoarsely.
The big fellow rushed him. His leader flung him back against the rockwall. He rushed again, screaming in crazed anger. Sanders struck him downwith the long barrel of the forty-five. The Hungarian lay where he fellfor a few minutes, then crawled back from the mouth of the pit.
At intervals others tried to break out and were driven back.
Dave's eyebrows crisped away. He could scarcely draw a breath through hisinflamed throat. His eyes were swollen and almost blinded with smoke. Hislungs ached. Whenever he took a step he staggered. But he stuck to hisjob hardily. The tomato can moved more jerkily. It carried less water.But it still continued to drench the blazing timbers at the mouth of thetunnel.
So Dave held the tunnel entrance against the fire and against his ownracked and tortured men. Occasionally he lay down to breathe the airclose to the floor. There was no circulation, for the tunnel ended in awall face. But the smoke was not so heavy close to the ground.
Man after man succumbed to the stupor of unconsciousness. Men choked,strangled, and even died while their leader, his hair burnt and his eyesalmost sightless, face and body raw with agonizing wounds, crept feeblyabout his business of saving their lives.
Fire-crisped and exhausted, he dropped down at last into forgetfulness ofpain. And the flames, which had fought with such savage fury to blot outthe little group of men, fell back sullenly in defeat. They had spentthemselves and could do no more.
The line of fire had passed over them. It left charred trees stillburning, a hillside black and smoking, desolation and ruin in its path.
Out of the prospect hole a man crawled over Dav
e's prostrate body. Hedrew a breath of sweet, delicious air. A cool wind lifted the hair fromhis forehead. He tried to give a cowpuncher's yell of joy. From out ofhis throat came only a cracked and raucous rumble. The man was Shorty.
He crept back into the tunnel and whispered hoarsely the good news. Mencame out on all fours over the bodies of those who could not move. Shortydragged Dave into the open. He was a sorry sight. The shirt had beenalmost literally burned from his body.
In the fresh air the men revived quickly. They went back into the cavernand dragged out those of their companions not yet able to helpthemselves. Three out of the twenty-nine would never help themselvesagain. They had perished in the tunnel.
Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West Page 39