“Yes,” he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused.  Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a gun:  “Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a forest-fire.  Shut down the machinery.  Get all the able-bodied men ready in gangs of seven.  Perkins, you ’phone Tim O’Keefe to bring my car here at once.  And get Pat’s and Tom’s and the two at the hotel.”

“Tools?” said Molly.

He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car:  “There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door.  Better take some axes too.”

In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia had her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men in overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board.  Back of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of disaster.  Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain.  There was no soul in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant.

Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along the dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer.  The men stared up at it with sober faces.  “Pretty hot fire!” said one uneasily.

They reached the place where the man had yelled to them—­ten minutes exactly since they had left it.  Molly turned the car into the steep sandy side-road which led up the mountain.  The men shouted out in remonstrance, “Hey, lady!  You can’t git a car up there.  We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.  They don’t never take cars there.”

“This one is going up,” sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed.

The sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it.  Molly dropped into low.  A cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke rose up from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance.  Rising steadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, quivering—­the car continued to advance.  A trickle of perspiration ran down Molly’s cheeks.  The floor was hot under their feet, the smell of hot oil pungent in their nostrils.

They were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire.  Over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner and came through this, they saw that they had arrived.  Sylvia drew back and crooked her arm over her eyes.  She had never seen a forest fire before.  She came from the plain-country, where trees are almost sacred, and her first feeling was of terror.  But then she dropped her arm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight which was to furnish her with nightmares for months to come.