Chapter XV: The Dog’s Parachute

By this time you are wondering what had happened to Florence. She had paused to consider her own plight. She had lost all trace of the trail, was surrounded by smoke and flames and knew of no certain way of escape. The only answer to such a problem was retreat.

But which way? Up the ridge perhaps. She resolved to try this. The wall of rock was all but perpendicular. At times she was obliged to find a toe hold in a crack between rocks, then to grasp the root of a tree that, like herself, clung precariously, then drag herself up. Always there was the danger of a fall. A broken leg might mean a terrible death by fire.

The girl was strong and steady of nerve. No cigaret smoking, no fasting to attain a perfect figure had sapped her strength. All this stood her in good stead at this moment. It saved her from possible accident. It could not, however, change the course of the fire. To her further consternation she discovered as, all but exhausted, she threw herself upon the crest, that the fire was on its way up the opposite slope to meet her.

“Oh! Oh-a!” she breathed in dismay. How the fire roared and crackled! Already great waves of heat were wafted up to her.

Turning wearily she began letting herself back down the slope.

“I must not allow myself to grow desperate,” she told herself. “I _must_ not.”

Forcing herself to unusual caution she held her nerves steady and step by step made her way down.

One other way of escape seemed to present itself—a narrow, dry swamp ran between two ridges. It was filled with smoke but there were no flames. It might still be open. Daring to hope, she went hurrying over its brush-entangled bed of leaves and moss. The smoke was stifling and all but blinding. At times she found herself fairly groping her way.

There came a time when it seemed she could no longer breathe. A peculiar brown smoke appeared to rise from the very ground. This, she discovered to her despair, was exactly what it was doing. At this point the ground was on fire. Isle Royale, in the beginning, was a barren rock. All its soil is of vegetable origin. Here in the narrow valley a form of peat lay some three feet thick. Dry as tinder it had ignited. To attempt to pass over it would be to find oneself floundering in masses of burning peat. This was unthinkable. Once again the way was blocked.

Wearily she turned back to retrace her steps to higher ground and clearer air. Scarcely had she reached her starting point when, to her great surprise, she heard her name called. A great wave of joy swept over her as she answered, “Here! Here I am!”

Call answered call until at last Mike and Tony burst into view.

“Oh! It—it’s you,” she faltered.

“Sure it’s us,” Mike agreed. “Who’d you t’ink? We may be tough, miss, but we know real coin when we see it. You come from right down our alley. Come on, we’ll git y’ out a’ here.”

“Not so fast,” a voice might have whispered. The boys had been too intent on getting over the trail to note that a wall of fire was at that very moment fast closing the trail. They had retraced their steps only a matter of two hundred yards when they found themselves face to face with that wall of fire.

“All right fer you,” Mike shouted defiance at the flames. “We’ll find a way out. Never doubt that!”

It was not long before even Mike did doubt this. Florence had warned him of danger in two directions. All others seemed blocked.

This was the state of affairs when Jeanne and the captain flew over them for the first time. At sight of the plane Florence took courage. She was sure they would try to help. But how? They could not land. There was no lake in the fire-encircled area. What could they do? She was to know.

In the meantime, on a very high point of Greenstone Ridge, perhaps a mile away, there stood a solitary figure. He wore a crimson sweater and carried a high-powered glass at his side. Three times he lifted the glass to study the spot where Florence and the two boys stood. At last he turned and took three steps in their direction. Then he stopped. A sound had reached his ears, the drum of an airplane motor.

He did not go on, but, as the airplane circled toward him, dropped from sight behind some low-growing fir trees. Who was he? Why was he here? Did he know a safe way back to the spot where Florence and the boys stood? Who could answer these questions?

Florence and her companions, too, heard that motor. It was the plane’s second trip. Their hopes rose. They might receive aid. But how?

Twice, as they stood watching, the plane circled. Then a spot of white appeared at the side of the plane. In the rear seat a slim figure stood erect. It was Jeanne. She was saying, “Poor Plumdum.”

The spot of white detached itself from the plane. The girl sat down.

“A parachute!” Florence murmured hoarsely.

“It ain’t big enough,” said Mike.

“There’s something dark—” Florence did not finish.

“Oh—ah! Gone into a cloud of smoke,” Tony groaned.

“It—it’s a message or something. I—I’ll get it. I’ve got the direction. You stay right here,” Florence was away.

Dashing through brush, over fallen trees and around giant boulders she had covered half the distance when to her vast astonishment she began hearing strange sounds.

“What can it be?” she asked herself. She stopped dead in her tracks.

What indeed? Now it was like the ki-yi of a badly frightened dog and now like the roar of a mad bull.

As she stood there the sounds grew louder until the whole air seemed filled with them. Then, to her utter consternation she saw poor little Plumdum racing toward her. And after him, tongue lolling, massive antlers tossing, came a giant bull moose.

For ten seconds, her whole body paralyzed with fear, she stood there motionless. Then her alert mind began to work. Full well she knew the hatred every moose bears for every creature of the dog and wolf family.

To stand there and gather the small dog in her arms would have been a gallant but fatal gesture. She would have been torn in pieces.

She did not pause but fled down the way she had come. Realizing that the moose was much faster than herself, she began dodging to the right here and the left there. The moose, she knew, had poor eyesight. She was putting low-growing spruce trees between herself and her pursuer. This gave her added time. Twice the moose, coming head on into the sturdy limbs of a tree, was obliged to back away before continuing the chase.

Plumdum had dodged off into the brush. Mike and Tony, hearing the roar of the moose had climbed trees. It was Florence and the moose for it. Or was it?

She had gained considerable distance, had raced past the spot she had left without seeing the boys in the trees and was hoping to elude her pursuer when catastrophy befell her. Her boot caught in a vine and sent her sprawling. Worst of all, she fell on a half rotten stump which knocked the breath out of her. In agony she tried to rise. It was impossible.

Tony was slim, agile as a cat, a typical Italian. His dark eyes had taken it all in. His trigger-like mind had formed a plan. The moose would pass beneath his tree. And then—

Something hit the moose squarely in the back. Something seized his antlers in a grip of steel. Thrown into sudden panic, he forgot Florence to go bolting down the slope toward the swamp where the ground was on fire.

Neither Mike nor Florence saw this last bit of wildwoods drama. They were astonished when Tony did not at once answer their call. But here was Plumdum whimpering at their feet. And there, safely tied to his collar was a precious message.