Chapter III

The Firebugs at Work

MORE than ever, now, I wished that Hannah was not coming up. My new orders would prevent me taking her home, and just now the forest was no place for a girl to travel alone. And what she was bringing me would be of no use for some time to come: until I got back my morning and evening hours, I could have no time for exploring my cave hole.

At noon, as I descended the trail to the cabin, I had decided to send Hannah straight home as fast as her horse could carry her. But the moment I entered the clearing I knew that would be impossible: there she was, sitting upon the little porch, surrounded with sacks, ropes, and her roll of bedding, and a pack-saddle and riding-saddle upon the ground told that she had turned her horses down the trail.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Maybe an hour. Why? You don't seem glad to see me.”

And what I said to her shows where my mind was: “That big ham I was to bring up when we came-did Uncle John and I overlook it-is it down home?”

“No. Of course it is n't there. I packed it in your outfit myself. You have n't lost it?”

“Worse than that! It has been stolen! Taken right out of the cabin! These are bad times up here. I wish you had n't come. I was going to send you right home, but now you can't go: your horses are halfway home by this time!”

“Ha! As though I would go back before seeing your cave!” she cried.

“The cave! There's no time for it now!” I said, and went on to tell her all about the sneaking man I had seen, and all that the Supervisor had just told me. That sobered her. “And what is more,” I added, “old Double Killer is prowling about here, too. I saw him this morning. I can show you his tracks in the trail to the summit.”

“It does look bad,” she said. “But here I am here I stay. I guess I can stand it if you can. And you know that I can shoot!” She tapped the holster at her side, in which was thrust her 38 Colt automatic pistol.

“Yes, you will have to stay until I can get word to Uncle John to come after your,” I said. I did n't tell her how much I admired her courage.

“Now, George, promise that you will not telephone them about this! Mind, if mother hears about this ham stealing, and about old Double Killer being up here, she will have you back home in a hurry, as well as me,” she begged.

I had n't thought of that, and I knew that she was right. Mother would have us out from here, too quick. And what shame then, for me. It would be said that I was afraid to stay and face the dangers. And me a Boy Scout!

“Well, we'll see about it, “ I answered. “But come. I must return to the lookout. Let's sling this stuff into the cabin and be upon our way.”

We got the outfit inside, took some crackers and cheese for a lunch, and a canteen of water, and at twenty minutes to one were entering the lookout. The telephone was ringing for me. I answered.

“Glad to know that you are back up there. No sign of fire the sawmill way, is there?” the Supervisor said.

“No, nor elsewhere.”

“Good. Well, keep your eyes peeled,” he answered, and rang off.

“You see how it is: I have to be here every minute of the day from sunrise to sunset. There's no use talking about me exploring the cave,” I told Hannah.

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “You can go into it while I stand watch in here. But first, I want to see the hole: show me where it is.”

She was right. With here help I could have all the time that I wanted to go into it. But we had not brought up the rope and candles, and I did not like to leave the summit to go after them. I pointed the way to the cave. Down past a bend in the west slope, it was not in sight from the lookout, but I explained that she could find it by the half-circle of rock slabs piled below the entrance, and she hurried off down along the summit. I watched her until she turned from it and went out of sight, and taking up the field-glasses, discovered a sudden upburst of smoke away south in the Blue Range. I sighted it with the chart level, went to the telephone and reported: “Fire on 182, away down in the Blue.”

A few minutes later, I heard Honey moon Meadows and Saddle Mountain lookouts giving their degree sightings of the fire; and then the Supervisor ordering to it the patrols in that section of the forest.

I took the glasses again, and stared down into Black River Canyon and the little grass park in it. No smoke was there nor any living, moving thing. I turned to the north: smoke was curling up from the forest due west of the sawmill. Yes, and also from a point a mile or more farther west: the I.W.W. firebugs had begun their destructive work. I sighted the two fires and quickly reported them, and kept the receiver to my ear. Green's Peak reported them; the Supervisor ordered his C. C. Ranch and Cienega Flat patrols to a fire at Sheep Springs, and another a mile west of the Springs. He then conferred with the patrols at the sawmill, started them to the fires, and then Mr. Hammond, the mill-owner, said that he would send his men with them, and himself and wife guard their property. How I hoped that the I.W.W. men would be found and killed before they could do further damage to our forest! It was bad enough to see the great trees burning from a fire started by lightning or by some careless traveler; but to see them destroyed – deliberately destroyed-by enemies of our country was unbearable. I took up my rifle and said to it: “Partner, how I would like to empty you into those two Hun helpers down there!”

I was very uneasy; too worried to search for more beads. I went outside and walked around and around the lookout, stared now and then at the Sheep Springs fires, saw that the smoke from them was increasing instead of diminishing in volume. Well, the patrols had not had time to arrive there and begin fighting them. It was going to be a big fight, for a strong west wind was blowing. Hannah now came in sight, up on top from the cave hole, and ran toward me, stopping now and then to wave her hands to me and point to the fires, until, at last, she was near enough to hear me shout: “Yes. I see them. I have reported them!”

She came up into the lookout, out of breath and almost crying: “Those awful I.W.W. men! They set those fires!” She gasped.

“Sure they did! And will set more if the patrols don't kill them,” I answered, and proceeded to tell her what was going on down there.

“I can't understand how men can be so bad!” she exclaimed.

An hour passed. Two hours, and we saw that the smoke of the two fires was dying out. The patrols had them under control, would soon extinguish them. Anxiously we waited to listen in at the telephone, and learn if the two firebugs had been given what was due them.

We began talking of other things. Of the cave, of course. Hannah thought that it was a wonderful find I had made; that we might find some very wonderful things in it left there by the ancient people. A prospector who had once stopped a few days with us had told us about caves in Old Mexico in which had been found gold idols and dishes, along with pieces of beautiful pottery. Here, too, was pottery. Might we not also find gold with it in our cave? The very thought of it was exciting. We knew a little, a very little, about those old pottery-makers. Five miles down the Little Colorado from our home we had seen the tumbled-down rock walls of their ancient homes, with great quantities of broken pottery scattered about. There, too, could be traced the courses of their irrigating ditches; and upon the faces of some near-by rocks we had seen pictures that they had cut in. Pictures of men, animals, and of things which none of the settlers could understand. Some said that they were not Indians who had lived there, and evidently raised some kind of crops which they irrigated; that they must have been one of the lost tribes of Israel, gone long before the Indians came. Well, we talked and talked about all that we had heard, and wondered if any of it was true, and planned just how we would go down into my cave and explore it. And so the afternoon wore on, and at five o'clock I informed the Supervisor that I could see no more smoke from the Sheep Springs fires, nor any fresh fires starting.

“Good. But you just stay where you are until nine o'clock. Remember, a whole lot depends upon you and Green's Peak lookout. I don't believe that the patrols have caught those firebugs, else they would have been 'phoning about it.”

He was right. Not fifteen minutes after he hung up, we heard one of the patrols telephoning him that they had the fires completely out, but had been unable to find the men who had set them. We learned, too, that there was to be an all-night guarding of the mill, and that the deputy sheriff had started with a posse of men from Springerville in search of the two fire-setters.

We had brought up but a light lunch at noon and were no very hungry. But that shouldn't happen again, we said. In the morning we would bring up a sackful of provisions and dishes and frying-pan, so that we could cook meals upon the lookout stove whenever we wanted to.

The evening wore on, and at seven-thirty, by my time, there was the most beautiful sunset that we had ever seen. Then the darkness began to come up out of the deep canyons under us, and up and up the steep slopes of our mountain until, at about eight-twenty, we were in darkness in the lookout. Said Hannah then, with a little shiver: “I don't fancy going down to the cabin in this awful dark. With old Double Killer wandering about, and maybe worse than he, it will be no fun stumbling down the trail.”

Neither did I fancy it, but I wouldn't say so: “Pooh! We shall be save enough going down; we shall just have to be careful not to stumble on the rocks and get a bad fall,” I told her, and stood up. And at once I saw the bright red glow of a small fire down in the Black River Canyon! Right where I had twice thought that there was smoke! “Oh!” I gasped.

“What?” Hannah cried, springing from the chair.

“The ham-stealer! Look down into the canyon! See the fire!”

She looked, and gave a little squeal of fright.

“What shall we do?” she presently whispered.

I had been watching the fire; now and then it became suddenly obscured; by some one passing in front of it, of course. “It is a cooking fire, no doubt about that!” I said. “And whoever is down there has known my hours of duty as well as I do, and has never had a fire going when I have been up here. But on two mornings I have imagined that I saw a faint haze down there. Now I know that it really was smoke.”

“Who can he be? And why hiding down there?” Hannah wondered.

“Maybe they, instead of he. Maybe a lot of white law-breakers or renegade Apaches in hiding down there. I'm going to report it,” I said, and rang the office, in Springerville, rang and rang, and got no answer. Then I tried to get Green's Peak; the sawmill; C. C. Ranch; the Indian Agency. None of them answered my call, and I knew that something had gone wrong with the telephone line. The firebugs, or other bad men infesting the forest, had probably cut it. Of course the telephone line men would be out to repair it as soon as possible, but in the meantime so many fires might be started that they never could be got under control.

Said Hannah: “This is terrible. I am not going down to that cabin, not if I starve! I would not sleep down there for all the mines of Arizona!”

“We just have to go to it, and I believe that we shall be safe enough. But we shall come right back, with our bedding. Then We'll bring up the food, all of it, if we have to make four trips with it, and we'll make the lookout our little fort until this trouble is over,” I told her.

She hesitated, and finally said: “The telephone line is cut, you can do no good here until it is repaired, and the repairers will have to pass our home. Let us go down there. Let us start right now. Not by the trail, but down by the way of the West Fork. That will be best, George. Then, when the repair men come along, you can return here with them.”

“I promised the Supervisor that I would stick to this place during the season, and right here I stick just as long as I can,” I told her. “Come. We'll begin bringing our outfit up here. We can do it safely enough. The ham-stealer is cooking his supper: He can't be down there in the canyon and at the cabin at the same time.”

“All right! Lead!” She cried, and without another word followed me from the lookout. I was proud of her, but did n't tell her so. Not many girls, I'll bet, would have had the courage to follow me down that dark mountain-side, where old Double Killer's tracks were almost fresh in the trail, and where, at the cabin, we might meet with worse than he!

We descended the trail as noiselessly as was possible, but for all our care, we now and then dislodged rocks that rattled down the slope with a noise that seemed like thunder in our ears. We stood a long time at the edge of the clearing, looking, listening, then silently sneaked across it to the cabin, itself a black blur in the darkness. I unlocked the door and we went in: “We can't pack up without a light,” I said, and put a match to the lamp on the table and stared about the place: everything was apparently as we had left it - no! some sugar was scattered upon the floor in front of the food chest. I flung up the cover and we saw at once that some one had tumbled its contents about. The sugar sack was half emptied; some bacon had been taken; also a pound can of coffee; a can of baking-powder; some dried apples and part of the sack of salt. We stared at the walls and the floor of the cabin. I went to the windows; found them still nailed fast. And then we stared at one another: “Sister,” I said, “ who ever the thief is, he has a Forest Service key!”

She nodded. Her face was dead white in the lamplight; ere eyes full of fear. “let's hurry!” she whispered.

We sure did hurry! With two sweeps of my arm I got the dishes, knives, forks, spoons, and things on the table into a sack, then rolled our bedding while Hannah put the food in the chest into three large sacks and the cooking-vessels into another sack. Then, in three trips, we got everything but one roll of bedding well up the trail beyond the clearing. I went back for it, and put out the light and locked the door. But we could not carry all that stuff up the terribly steep trail to the summit in three or four trips: seven times we went up it with our loads, puffing, sweating, straining every muscle of our bodies; and when, at last, we got everything up to the lookout, our strength suddenly went from us; we sank down upon the rocks outside, and Hannah almost at once fell sound asleep.

The fire in the canyon had gone out. I looked at my watch: twelve o'clock and past. When I had rested somewhat, I got a pailful of snow from a near bank, set it on the little stove in the lookout and built a fire. How glad I was that there was plenty of snow; we should have to depend upon it for all the water we used. As soon as the fire was going well, I opened our bed rolls and with blankets and quilts completely shaded the windows of the lookout. I then lighted a candle, got Hannah in-side, and prepared a good meal. I had to waken her again when it was ready. How we did eat; never in our lives, we thought, had we been so hungry. And for the time we felt quite safe where we were. Not a ray of our light could be seen from the out-side of the lookout; no one would think of looking for us there that night.

“That grub thief, how surprised he will be when he comes again to the cabin,” I laughed.

“You need n't laugh: he will be sneaking up here,” said Hannah.

“He will; and I shall be watching for him,” I answered. “You are going to watch during the day while I sleep, and at night I'11 stand guard. I don't care how dark it is, he can't approach this little rock butte without me hearing him, and if he comes up right close I can see him and he will get what is due him!”

I went for more snow, and when we had melted it and washed the dishes, we put out the light, took down the window coverings, and Hannah made her bed inside, and I crawled into my sleeping-bag out on the north side of the lookout, at the head of the trail. I fell asleep wondering what would happen on the marrow; if we should see the line repairers and learn that the fire-setters had been killed or captured? And most I wondered who it was that had a Forest Service key and had stolen my food? The padlocks and door locks of the Service were of especial make, all alike, and could be opened only with the keys that came with them. Had some discharged employee held out one of the keys and turned bad man?

When we awoke, at dawn, a fire was again burning down in the Black River Canyon, and without doubt more of my food was being cooked over it. I told Hannah that I believed I could sneak down there and see who the thief was, and get safely back. But at that she made a great outcry: she would not stay there alone in the lookout for a moment; if I went down into the canyon she would go, too.

The fire in the canyon went out so suddenly, at sunrise, that we were sure it had been quenched with water. I swept the great forest with the glasses and was glad that there was not anywhere the least signs of a fire. We had our breakfast, washed the dishes, piled all our things close up against the lookout – there was n't room for them inside – and then time hung heavy upon our hands. We had too many worries to continue gathering beads and arrow-points or to explore my cave hole.

From the south side of the little rock butte upon which the lookout is perched, the mountain makes a long and very steep drop to a narrow, bare ridge running south and separating the forks of Black River and White River. We happened to be looking down upon it, soon after breakfast, and saw three large deer – all bucks, apparently – come tearing out of the timber upon its east slope, pause for a moment on top, looking back whence they had come, and then race on down into the timber of the west slope.

“A mountain lion must have frightened them!” Hannah exclaimed.

“More likely our grub thief; they came up from his canyon,” I told her, and turned my glasses that way just in time to see two big turkey gobblers come running up on the bare slope, spring into the air and sail off, down over the timber. Hannah saw them, too, although she had no glasses, and cried: “Now we shall see what frightened the deer, and them !”

But we did n't, although we closely watched the place for a long time. And finally I said: “It was man that frightened the deer and turkeys; had it been a lion, it would have come out on their trail, a little way, anyhow. The chances are that right now that grub-stealer is there near the edge of the timber, staring up at us!”

And at that Hannah shivered. “How dreadful to think that one is being watched by the snake eyes of a robber – murderer, maybe! I just can't bear it!” She sprang up and went into the shelter of the lookout. I followed, and tried the telephone, got no answer to my calls, and went outside to watch again.

The morning dragged on, oh, how slowly! We be came so nervous that we could n't sit still; we just milled around and around the lookout, staring down, and now and then trying the silent telephone. And then, near noon, we shouted and waved our hands, and Hannah danced, for there was Uncle John hurrying toward us in the trail up from the cabin.

“So! You've moved camp, I see!” he exclaimed, coming up on top and staring at our outfit pile against the lookout. “Well, how goes it? We went over to Riverside Station, found that the telephone was n't working, and your mother got to worrying

and sent me up to learn how you are?”

“Oh, such a time we have had! Terrible!” Hannah cried, and told him all our troubles, I putting in a word now and then.

He looked very solemn when we had finished, asked some questions, and then said; “I guess your camp robber is Henry King.”

“Henry King!” we cried. Did n't we know him – know of him I Wife-beater, lazy, drinking, gambling man who had drifted into Nutrioso – a settlement a few miles east of us – several years back, married Jennie Ames, and treated her so badly that she had left him !

“Yes, Henry King!” Uncle John went on. “He enlisted and was sent to Camp Kearny, and about a month ago deserted. Well, at daylight, about ten days ago, his nearest neighbor there in Nutrioso, old Mr. Jacobs, saw him sneaking away from his cabin with his rifle and a pack on his back –”

“And he was once a fireguard – I'll bet he kept a Forest Service key, and claimed that he lost it,” I said.

“No doubt. He would do that all right. Well, we'll just go down in the canyon and get Mr. King, and give the fifty dollars reward for him to the Red Cross,” said Uncle John.

“But he will fight! You will be killed!” Hannah cried.