The Normal Record. October 1904

              THE NORMAL RECORD.
the news.   Kindly be "mum" about it. "Novice"
is the signature I shall sign.
It is with great pleasure that I read of the
coming football season. I sincerely hope success shall be yours. I also hope that I can be
of some assistance to the team and the school
during my absence. I dream of the good days
gone by; of the many happy hours spent at the
good, old school; and the pleasures mine when
I see success coming to my old comrades. Some
day I'll wander back again, just to be sorry I
could not have come sooner.
Mr. Editor, give the fallows a helping word
tor me and kindly think of me yourself.
Yours sincerely,
"NOVICE."
BATTLING WITH  THE FLAMES.
We had just finished moving one of the logging engines, commonly known as the "donkey,"
from the Little Summit to Lomo, a distance of
four miles. A little before noon of the second
day, we had the powerful little machine in
place for hoisting logs up a chute that leads
from the donkey used in pulling the logs from
the woods. Two trails of logs were brought
in and then it was noon.
On our way down from the summit, we had
kept a close watch for sparks that were likely
to set fire to the dry leaves, and now, as we
had taken the precaution of having a watchman during our absence, we felt safe in going
a few hundred yards away to dinner.
I had just finished my repast and was leisurely walking about to settle it, as the saying
goes. Suddenly a shout caught my attention;
"Fire!" "Fire!" was the call. I realized the
situation in a minute and knew exactly what
had happened. The engine had thrown sparks
which we did not detect, because they had not
ignited before we left.
The whole little town of Lomo was in confusion in short order. The fire was raging
and it was only a faw hundred yards north
of camp, and situated within the limits of
Lomo. There was a favorable wind for the advancing flaces. Men, women and children darted here and there vainly endeavoring to secure
some of their belongings and escape to the
east to get out of reach of the rapidly advancing flames.
This would not save the camp, nor the hundreds of dollars worth of logging implements,
and perchance the life of some person too ex
cited and nervous to know which way to retreat. A few men still lingered near the dining
room of the hotel, and were gazing anxiously
at the volumes of black smoke as they rolled
up against the western sky.
"To the horses!" I shouted. "We can go down
the road, thence to the engines, get the shovels and axes and back-fire between the camp
and the fire." Not a man hesitated. Each of
us hastily took a work horse from the stables.
In a moment we were charging down the road
at full speed. It was like an akward troop of
cavalry charging the bulwarks of a flaming fortress of a fortified regiment of infantry, for such
was the order as we, some fifteen or twenty,
urged the harnessed horses along toward the
roaring flames. The rattling chains and shouting men might well have been compared with
the clanging swords and blood-thirsty yell of
cavalrymen, as they charged fearlessly into
the front of a deadly firing line.
Our situation was almost as terrible. The
raging flames had covered the hillside from
the chute, where the donkey stood, to the
county road on the north. The red streaks of
fire leaped across the road and made our progress dangerous and almost impossible. It
was no time to stop. Plunge through we must.
My "trusty old charger" had had experience
in other forest fires and did not hesitate to take
the lead on this occasion. He sprang down
the road, through the searing flames at a
break-neck pace.    The rest followed.
We covered the short distance on the road
without a breath. To breathe would have been
disastrous because of the suffocating effects of
the heat and smoke. The chute is at the bottom of the canyon, about two hundred yards
south of the road, and as we were on the west
side of the fire, it was our purpose to reach
the chute, get the shovels and axes, skirt the
south side by way of the tow-path along the
chute, and make a broad path on the east side,
over which the fire could not pass.
The desired position was reached with some
difficulty, as the fire had already traveled about
half a mile. We had to run the whole distance
close to the scorching flames. Had it not been
that the wind was now in our favor, this route
would have been impassable. The fire was on
our left and a high precipice was on our right.
We were now between the camp and the fire,
working hard along an old logging trail that
the logs had dug while being pulled in.    The