Foraker caught him by the wrist and swung him about to face her.
"Stay here!" she cried, and shook him. "I need you. There's no danger to you and we've got to try again!—Won't you stay?" to another man, "And you? I need you!"
Others came up, singed, shaken men and assembled about the car as Helen started her motor. They recovered some of their balance when they saw that she was not afraid.
"Get aboard, all of you!" she cried and they scrambled up eagerly, for she was headed away from the monster that raged eighty rods from them—
She drove through the smoke, stopping at another tool cache, swinging into the next fire line, half a mile to the eastward. The men ran forward after Goddard, axes and saws and shovels ready for the new attempt. The fire which had leaped upward and swept onward with such initial savagery, hesitated when it entered the trees that stood above cool ground. No draft held it aloft there and a mighty draft dragged from behind. A puff of cooler air slapped downward, driving a point of the fire from the top in which it burned to the ground. It found hold in the duff about the trunk—The crowns about it burned out, the fire dribbled to the dead needles again. Once more men had their chance. The fire was again a ground fire, no longer breaking through the canopy of tops!
Along the new line of defense trees fell, tops into the forest. Axe and saw slashed and bit, leveling the outer rows to make the break from canopy to canopy wider—And to the windward of these axemen others again started fire to burn out and meet and check fire.
