The Boy Scout Fire Fighters; Or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed

pending a Saturday afternoon in camp. They had been hard at work at signal practice, semaphoring, and acquiring speed i

ing gradually upward from them toward a wooded mountain. The smoke came from the mountain,

bs, a Tenderfoot Scout, to his chum, Jack Danby, head

said Jack, looking

id Pete. "I've heard about them, but we nev

the looks of that fire a bit. It's burning slowly enough now, but if they don't

to be more careful there in the farmhouses. There's some

who was in charge of the Troo

I want you to examine the situation and report if there seems to be any da

ntion as the Scout-Master, the highest officer of the Troop of Scouts, spoke to him. His

there. I don't know much about it. What we want to find out is whether the ground is bare, and so like

s,

so bad that there is almost no water left. A great many springs, even, that have never failed in the memory of the oldest inhabitants, have run dry in the last month or so. The wi

ps running, then fifty steps walking. That is a better pace for fast travelling, except very short distances, than

said Pete, as they went along. "It isn't bald a

es, just the same way that people do. It doesn't mak

ed a queer look on his chum's face, and he remembered something tha

went, and that one a man who was his bitter enemy, and far more bent on harming him than doing him the favor of clearing up the mystery of his birth and his strange boyhood at Woodleigh. There Jack had lived in a cab

before he had struck up a great friendship with one of them, little Tom Binns, and so had been allowed by Durland to join the Scouts. More than that, Durland had persua

first gentle rise at the foot of the mountain, though it

ff that burns with the dry wood. Leaves that lie on the ground and rot make a good deal o

r there is when the rain falls and keep it f

, but I don't know that it's so bad, at that. It is rat

ndifferent to the danger that Durland feared. One boy not much older than

, "ain't you afraid of s

urself!" Pete flamed back, bu

said. "We're on Scout d

y met an older man, who

ay spread this way?" asked Ja

e here yet. Reckon it

id Jack, secretly annoyed at the stolid indifference of the farmer

who were not working. He forgot that Pete and Jack, coming from the city, might work almost as hard th

you'd like to know there was a good chance that your place might b

l pretty soon. If we don't hurry, it'll be too dark for the

aystacks, and in other fields the hay had been cut and was piled ready for carrying into the barns the next day. If the fire, with a good start, ever did leap across the cleared space from the woods it would be hard, if not impossible, to prevent it from spreading thu

oo, in a way that was now a serious menace. The stumps, high above ground, much higher than they should have been, offered fresh fuel for the fire,

esn't it?" Jac

ompanion. "Now we've got to find a

from the side of the mountain? I bet you can see that a long way off. You go on up to where the fire's burning. Get

said Pete. "I

ck made his way steadfastly toward the rock, which he reached without great difficulty. He was perhaps a mile from the Scout camp, and

e his report. He had no fear of being misunderstood, for it was Dick Crawford, the Assistant Scout-Master and his good friend, who was holding the flags

. Ground very bad. Likely to spread, I think. Fields full o

ve you warned men wo

"But they think it's all right, and

f his desire to stop for a minute, and

ere. There's no green stuff at all to hold it in check. If those people

on, too, and then came o

and men of danger. Suggest a back fire in their fields, to give cle

a waste of bre

outs to tell me how to look after my property. Be off with you, now, and don't bother us! We

He didn't know anything about the Boy Scout movement and the new sort of boy that it has produced and is pro

n't work on that theory. And there are others who would suffer, too, and that

ly big fire like this awoke all the enthusiasm of the Scouts of the three Patrols, the Whi

nt, with Durla