59 
American Agriculturist, July 26, 1924 
Swift 
Currents 
By Edwin Balmer 
(By arrangement with William Gerard Chapman 'l 
» 
i'elicia Selby and Tony Crandall were boy and 
girl friends until she 'prevented his daring at¬ 
tempt to shoot the rapids of the Acheron in a boat 
he built. Then Tony went east to college and to 
war as an aviator and Felicia stayed in her 
mountain home. One summer forest fires are 
very severe and she watches in a government 
tower. Crandall, just returned to his old camp, 
volunteers to fly over the range and send back 
wireless information to the fire fighter's. His 
greeting to Felicia is friendly but the old argu¬ 
ment springs up. 
A DRONING, undeniable, rose out of 
the north, and Felicia stood up. It 
diminished, increased, lessened again. 
Tony was returning, but he was swinging 
back and forth, “feeling” his way through 
the smoke. The droning ran with staccato 
interruption; a cylinder or so of the engine 
was missing, but he veered closer. Felicia 
stifled her will to shout; he seemed now to 
make out the mighty bulk of the moun¬ 
tain and steer directly for the summit. 
She could see the doubled line of 
wings appearing, now the whirring of the 
propeller, and behind it, Tony bent. He 
circled low and close, not merely to make 
certain of the distinguishing mark of the 
mountain. He could have seen the V 
with its point to the south, from much 
higher up; he seemed to wish to make 
certain of her, at least he waved an arm. 
Did he see her and know her from 
Julia? She raised her arm to him, not 
thinking, then she turned and pointed to 
the camp. “That way; east; that way, 
Tony!” she cried, and she shook in im¬ 
patience to make him go away, for, with 
his engine throttled down, the halt of the 
motor was dismayingly plain. 
He waved once more and was off, 
flying up-wind now so that she heard him 
long after he disappeared, and when the 
last sound was gone, she went to her 
telephone and reported; “Mr. Crandall 
passed here, and went on in the direction 
of the camp.” 
“Yes,” said headquarters. “He has 
just landed there. Keep your strips dis¬ 
played; he will fly again as soon as he has 
got gas.” 
Half an hour later, motor explosions 
drummed down the wind. “He’s fixed 
that miss,” Felicia said; but before he was 
beyond hearing, “There’s that cylinder 
gone out again, but he’s keeping on. He 
would.” And she sat on the rocks again, 
helplessly listening. Now the wind from 
the southwest w T as stronger; he remained 
far down the wind and she could hear 
nothing at all; she could see barely a few 
hundred yards, for the smoke from the 
fires to the south had doubled in density; 
and north and east, by Kalispel, the fire 
was far beyond control. 
“It’s burning on a five-mile front with 
a depth of about two miles now, Mr. 
Crandall reports.” So said headquarters 
when Felicia took up her telephone again. 
“Everything’s going—ground, brush and 
crown.” 
“Where’s Mr. Crandall?” Felicia de¬ 
manded. 
“Oh, he’s all right; we talk to him 
every few minutes.” 
Felicia hung up. “I’m not doing any¬ 
thing here, Julia,” she announced to her 
companion. “I’m going down to head¬ 
quarters.” 
CEVERAL times during the hour it took 
^ her to scramble down the mountain 
path she wished she had not started, for at 
the telephone on the summit she at least 
was in touch with know r able events, but 
during the hour nothing happened except 
the spread of the fire. 
At the supervisor’s office she found a 
ranger who had been burned so as to be 
temporarily laid up, sitting beside a 
metal box with wires going to receivers 
clamped to his ears and to a transmitter 
before his lips; and she knew it was the 
wireless telephone, and that when he 
spoke it was to Tonv^ TTh^ w ben he lis¬ 
tened it was to Tony’s voiC e - 
I erhaps the ranger actuality was wear y> 
raore probably he saw the‘\ earnm § m 
tehcia’s eyes. “Want to taF e a tn ck? 
It’s just like any other telephoning.” 
Felicia put on the harness. “West of 
Salishan,” said Tony’s voice presently, 
“the wind backs from the mountain, and 
a few men might cut a line which would 
save the stand of fir to the w r est. Farther 
north it’s no use; it’s jumped both 
‘breaks,’ ” and his voice went on: “Did 
vou get all that?” 
“Yes,” said Felicia. “West of Sali¬ 
shan—” and she repeated. 
“All right. Hello, Felix!” said Tony’s 
voice. 
“Hello, Tony. How’s the engine?” 
“All right; why?” 
“I heard it missing when you passed.” 
“I’m all right, I tell you. Give that 
back to Henderson, Felix. I’m working.” 
“Tony, take care of yourself!” 
Then she obeyed him; but all the same 
she remained very close to the metal box. 
F OR half an hour more Henderson took 
reports and directions which Felicia 
helped to record. Then the reports 
ccciscd 
“Hello!” called Henderson. “Hello, 
Crandall! Hello!Hello!” 
“Let me try!” Felicia begged; and so 
she tried and tried until Henderson 
mercifully stopped her. 
“His phone’s out of order, that’s all, 
Felicia. It’s a new-fangled contraption.” 
Felicia looked up, calm but very pale. 
“He’s down,” she said. 
“Salishan reports,” announced the girl 
at the forest-line switchboard, “that up 
to ten minutes ago they heard faintly 
the noise of Mr. Crandall’s engine, which 
was not running very regularly. And 
about ten minutes ago it suddenly ceased; 
they have not heard it since.” 
Felicia went back to the forest map. 
“He made his last report from right off 
the river. He’s down there; down!”* 
And she went out of the office into the 
smoky air. Between her and Tony lay 
probably eight miles of forest, five of it 
safe and unkindled, protected by fire¬ 
breaks and the wind; then lay a great 
band all burning—ground, brush and tim¬ 
ber—and beyond this, straight in the 
sweep of the wind, lay' dry lodge-pole 
pine, into which Tony must have fallen. 
Perhaps already he was dead; but 
though terror of that flashed over her,' 
yet her mind told her it was not most 
likely. A pilot such as he, even though 
falling into forest, would be able to save 
himself somewhat. Possibly—just with¬ 
in the range of chance—he had saved 
himself whole and free; but that was even 
more unlikely. What she knew to be 
most sure was, that falling in his “ship,”, 
he was living but injured; how badly it 
was useless to wonder. In any case, he 
was before the forest fire. 
A view from a war-time photograph 
visioned before her; it showed a pilot who 
had fallen in a forest, with limbs broken 
and helpless under the wreck of his plane. 
She saw Tony, with the leaping, gale- 
blown blaze of the timber fire licking 
toward him, helpless, unable to move. 
A man on horseback—Henderson, now 
disregarding his hurts—galloped by. “I’ll 
tell the boys!” he shouted to her. He 
meant the men in the parties following 
the fire and trying to beat it back upon 
its nearer edges—men all on this side of 
that tremendous two-mile-deep mountain 
furnace. 
Felicia knew what they would try to 
do—the only thing they could attempt; 
that w r as to work around the fire five 
miles out and five miles back up and 
down rough mountain trail around 
Salishan; miles that would take—hours! 
She ran to the corral and caught a 
horse, galloped to the bridge over the 
Acheron, crossed and rode through the 
camp. She saw girls gathered on the 
porch—girls in light, cool summer things, 
trying to stare through the smoky sky. 
Alarm evidently had spread to them. 
Felicia pulled up only long enough to 
call to a servant to fetch her an axe. She 
took it, and cried her horse on down the 
river road. For five miles it was clear— 
the five miles to the top of the run; then 
the burning band began—blazing ground, 
blazing bush and flaming trees—four miles 
away to the right and nearly as far to the 
left, all consuming, impassable save for 
the gorge of the river dividing it and 
through which dashed the whirling, 
leaping cascade of the run. Far-away 
mountain snow, still melting in the 
summer sun, fed the River of Grief even 
through drought, and fed it deadly full. 
Felicia was riding now with the river 
beside her, with the roar of the nearing 
run loud in her ears; but above the noise 
of the waters rose the blazing, bellowing 
fury of the forest flames. She could feel 
the heat in the smoke through which she 
galloped; gases, evil and stifling, eddied 
upwind, and the pall of smoke thickened 
and blinded her, blinded and frightened 
her horse, so that he reared and turned 
when she urged him on, She leaped 
down, and let him run away on the river 
road. 
Axe in hand and head down against the 
heat and smoke, with her aching eyes 
streaming tears, she reached the top of the 
ravine where Tony had built his boat. 
She found the shed under the trees at the 
water’s edge, found the door still latched 
and padlocked, just as he had left it five 
years before; she raised] her axe and 
smashed in the door. 
T HERE lay his boat; dry in seams, she 
knew, but air-tanks of tin were in bow 
and stern. She knew that, though the 
boat filled, these would keep it afloat. 
From’the hook in the roof of the shed hung 
the block and tackle by which she had 
strung Tony up. She lowered it and 
passed a line under the hull, which she 
raised and thrust out over the water. She 
snatched up the paddle, launched his boat 
and leaped in, pushing out from the edge 
to the full catch of the swift suck toward 
the cascades. 
Smoke shut the rapids from her sight; 
the frightful crackle and roar of the blaz¬ 
ing pine dulled the tumult of the waters; 
she drifted and swirled, spinning dizzily; 
heat assailed her, now on one side, now on 
the other; there ceased to be respite from 
the heat, though still she spun and turned. 
The flames no longer were only ahead; 
they were on both sides, behind her; 
water filled the boat up to her waist; but 
she thrust herself farther into it, curling 
down in the cockpit till the water covered 
Draw through the dots in sequence to complete the question. 
her to her throat. In this position she 
could not possibly use her paddle, yet she 
clung to it. The boat spun on, sodden, 
sunken almost to the water’s level, only 
the air in the metal tanks keeping it 
afloat. 
Flame-darting red fire, not merely heat, 
flashed at Felicia; she saw the flare 
through her closed eyes and she shrank 
down farther, with her head under the 
water. 
Some sudden power tore the paddle 
from her hand; some tremendous violence 
drew her and the boat down, drew her 
under, and turned the boat above her; it 
released her suddenly for a catch of half a 
breath; it gurgled into her mouth with 
the hot gasp of gaseous air, a tremendous 
blow battered it out of her and she sucked 
in against all her will. 
W ATER choked her; but now air— 
hot, burning fumes, but air! air! 
The water leaped by her; its crash and 
suck became again audible as something 
outside of herself, like the bellow of the 
forest fire. The boat had grounded upon 
a rock on the edge of an eddy of the run. 
She lifted her head and instantly shrank 
down to the water; a rill of air, bearable 
to the throat, followed the current; above 
it were yellow fumes, through which the 
ground glared; the bush glared and the 
crowns of the blazing pines crashed con¬ 
flagration onward. 
She thrust her hand against a rock to 
push the boat again into the river, and 
the heat of the stone seared her palm and 
fingers, but the water whirled the boat 
out and carried her on. 
As she crouched under, she began to 
believe, for the first time, that she would 
survive the run. God was guiding her, 
she thought; God, the giver of Destiny, 
had prepared it all long ago. She felt 
understanding, at least, of that wild, 
seemingly senseless fascination of self- 
destruction in the run w'hich had seized 
Tony when a boy. 
God had foreseen this day, and so had 
prepared rescue for him. The idea gave 
her comfort and confidence, not only that 
she would get through, but that she would 
find Tony alive—then the cascade drew 
her under, overturned her, sucked down, 
down; released and spewed her up to 
half gasp for breath and catch herewith 
lungs empty and draw her down; batter 
her; bruise her—something drummed, 
drummed in her head. Not the forest; 
not the river; her own pulses were shutting 
them out; her head seemed bursting. 
“He couldn’t have made it,” the 
thought spread through the drumming. 
“He’d have killed himself; I’m glad I 
stopped him—” 
The river bore her unseeing, unhearing, 
through the burning furnace of the pine 
forest; on past the edge where the ground 
fire at last ceased and only the brush and 
the timber blazed; on past the edge 
where the brush had not yet caught and 
only the pine-crowns flamed; on, at last, 
past the leaping, roaring line where the 
blaze jumped from pine-crown to pine- 
crown yet unconsumed and before which 
blew the gases and the smoke. 
T HESE in themselves threatened death; 
and Tony, breathing them, well knew 
the danger. The fire itself was yet more 
than a mile away, though its heat made 
such calm estimate incredible. 
He was beside the river, lying on the 
rocks with his face over the water; his 
head was cut and still bleeding a little; 
his right arm was “dud”; but only a 
strain, he thought. His right leg plainly 
was broken between the knee and thigh, 
and dragging himself over the quarter- 
mile of forest from the point where he had 
fallen, had not eased the pain. 
He really had no idea that he could 
succeed in standing, one-legged, in the 
w r ater when the flames came closer, but 
that offered his only chance. This was 
below the run, but the current was more 
than swift enough to sweep him down; of 
(Continued on page 61) 
