“Guess the breeze is blowing that up the mountain, too,” Harry said.
Then we started up the trail again toward the summit.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A VOICE
It was a jungle of underbrush, that’s what Harry said. Pretty soon the
trail just fizzled out in the bushes. We poked around with our lanterns
and found a spring there. I guess the wood between there and the summit
must have been where the party got lost. Sometimes we could hear the
crackling and sometimes we couldn’t, but we could smell the burning
brush all the time.
“Guess we’re pretty near the summit,” Harry said; “let’s call that we’re
coming. The breeze will carry our voices.”
So we all called together, “Hello, we’re coming.”
There wasn’t any answer, but anyway, we couldn’t have heard on account
of the breeze blowing up the mountain.
That was the only thing we had to guide us now—the breeze. We kept the
scarf in the air and just followed it, pushing through the brush.
Sometimes we had to stop and tear away an opening, so as to get through.
There must have been an easier way or those girls and fellows would
never have managed it, but Harry thought it was better to push right up
than to be groping around for a path.
All of a sudden, Ralph Warner said, “_Look!_”
_Good night!_ A long line of fire was coming up the mountain, maybe a
quarter of a mile in back of us. First it seemed like a dotted line,
kind of, because there were dark spaces. But even while we looked some
of these filled up. The thing it reminded me of most of all was
soldiers; it seemed like a line of soldiers, all bright and fiery,
charging up the mountain. It was coming fast and I have to admit it
scared me. Because even if we could get through the brush fast enough, I
saw we couldn’t get out of range of it. Kind of, the thought came to me
that it was like soldiers who had just scrambled out of the trenches.
That was just how suddenly we saw it. I remember I heard Harry say
something about wind and fire being allies, but we didn’t stop to talk,
only pushed up through the brush as fast as we could, but all the while
it kept gaining on us.
Pretty soon I said, all out of breath, “We can’t keep this up; it’s
gaining; I can even feel the heat.”
“We can’t flank it, that’s sure,” Harry said; “hustle for all you’re
worth; that’s all I can say.”
Gee, I’ll never forget that night. We just pushed on up through the
brush, stumbling and falling and lifting each other and trying to run.
Our clothes were all torn and we were panting like a lot of dogs.
“Watch and see that no fellow is left behind,” Harry panted.
Every minute two or three of us were just dragging some fellow up out of
the brush. I guess it was a case of more haste, less speed; it’s pretty
hard running through brush.
Harry just panted out, “Boys, we’re in a pretty tight place; don’t get
rattled. Lift your feet high with each step and follow right in my
tracks. If anybody falls, _shout_!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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