FIRE 87 



sleep of every Forest Service man during the dry 

 season. 



Those of us who had never fought fire in the woods 

 Wallace, Wetherby, Conway and myself, were 

 much excited. We were anxious to meet this 

 dreaded opponent. Tales that we had heard, legends 

 of former conflagrations, buzzed in our brains. 

 The interest we felt in the impending struggle over- 

 came the fear of fatigue the natural physical aver- 

 sion for the gruelling task ahead. 



The older men, by contrast, were silent and seri- 

 ous. They knew what the call meant. They remem- 

 bered similar nights of toil with shovel or rake, wet 

 sack or pine limb flail, by back fire or cleared line, 

 long nights passed in a death struggle with the for- 

 ests' arch-enemy, sometimes conquering, crushing 

 the red terror into the blackness of death, sometimes 

 conquered, driven from the field by the fiery breath 

 of the onrushing flames. These veterans did not 

 lightly join issue again. Their gravity was impres- 

 sive, portentous; their silent, swift preparation in- 

 spired us with the feeling that our waiting foe was 

 worthy of our most earnest efforts, that no man 

 might with confidence foretell the outcome of the 

 night's work. 



There was no confusion, or hesitation, once the 

 warning came. The packers and the cook, detailed 

 to supply water to the fighters on the line, left at 

 once to round up the burros. 



The rest of us started for the scene of action with- 



