BEATEN BY A NECK.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16625, 22 October 1925, Page 7

BEATEN BY A NECK.

THROUGH FIERY FURNACE. DRAMA- OF A LUMBER CAMP. The scene of the following story is a lumber camp in the iorests below Mount Baker, in the Far "West of the American continent, and the month is August, when the hot sun burns the undergrowth to tinder which a spark will set alight. It is. the season, therefore, of forest fires, and daily an airplane circles high above .trees of Bellingham, not far from V ancouver and the Canadian border ,to give warning to the forest fireguards ol a spreading conflagration. But neither airplanes nor the forest-guards can be everywhere, and so the lumber camps have to keep a sharp look-out. One hot morning when the early breakfast had been eaten, and the women who cook for the camp were washing up the dishes, word was hurriedly brought in that a lire in the upper ranges seemed to be spreading downward. Would the breeze bearing in from the Sound carry the fire away from the area of felled trees, or would some blaze creep towards the lumbermen ? That often happens. But the lumbermen were calm about it. There was no need to run away if the fire was going to miss them, and no chance of fending it off if it meant to catch them. They got up steam in the puffing locomotive which brings up suplies over the one-track railway, and waited. They were not going to leave the valuable log-sawing ..plant in the engine-house and sheds if they could help it. ' TERRIBLE BARRIER OF FIRE. It was a man’s job to hold on while the forest fires, creeping nearer, threatened, for they stood by without any fainting or fear, and with words of encouragement. But the pitiless fire came on and on. There was a crackling rush beyond the clearing, fire suddenly ran up a tree as if it had been a torch, and a shower of sparks whirled into the camp. It tell on the dry roots and on the machinery house, a burning, smoky blast from the underwood followed the sparks, and in a moment the camp was afire. Had they waited too long? Nobody troubled to ask the. question. Lumbermen manned the camp locomotive. taking the women with them for greater safety. Others packed themselves into the couple of freight cars behind it, and awav the party started down hill to safety. But the bumping, rocking little train had gone a very short way when they had reason to ask if they would ever get out alive from the trap the fire had laid for them. It had crept round behind them, and was walling them in. SAFELY OUT OF THE TRAP. With coats wrapped round their heads driver and stoker, lumbermen and lumber women, drove straight at the flames, and went through the first harrier of fire. Scorched and burned, they emerged on the other side of the furnace, but they were not yet safe. There were bridges to cross, and,these were made of wood. Would the fir© have caught them. But there was no turning hack. The freight train drove on.

The train went on .and it a,rived at Bellington. Not a woman or a man was lost. Not one had escaped burns, but they were safe. Their arrival was a miracle. One jf the wooden bridges they crossed was already alight. The flames had been Iwafen bv a neck.