The Young Wireless Operator-As a Fire Patrol Part 17

"Let's tie the rope fast and take our packs some distance away. She won't strangle for a while. Then we can come back and free her. I think she will not attack us, for she is too much afraid of the dog. We'll keep him on a leash and beat it the minute we get the rope."

"But how are we going to get the rope?" demanded Charley.

"Gee! You've got me. Maybe we'll think of something while we're carrying the packs away."

The two boys got their packs and hurried along their route for some hundreds of yards. Then they laid their packs down and ran back. But Charley carried his rifle on the return trip.

The bear was still pawing at the rope when they got back. The hair on her neck was worn off by her violent struggles, and the skin was bleeding freely.

"That bear will wear a collar on her neck for life," said Charley. "If we ever see her again, we'll know her."

An idea came to him. "I've got it," he said. "I'll cut that rope with a bullet. You stand ready with the dog, and I'll be ready for a second shot, if necessary. We're not going to take a chance of being badly hurt, law or no law."

Lew untied the dog from the tree and held the leash with his left hand.

Charley handed him the axe, and Lew stepped a little aside where he could use it, if necessary. But it was one thing to talk about cutting the rope with a bullet and another thing to do it, for the bear kept the rope in motion continually. Charley leveled his weapon and tried to get a bead on the rope. It seemed to him that the bear would never stand still. But the beast had nearly reached the limit of endurance. Her tongue was protruding from her mouth, her eyes seemed ready to pop from her head. She was gasping pitifully. Her own struggles were slowly strangling her. Suddenly she stopped fighting and hung limp. The rope stretched like a rod.

Instantly Charley's rifle cracked. The line was severed as though some one had cut it with a sword. It flew upward into the tree and the bear dropped to the ground. The noose about her neck came loose and she breathed freely.

"Quick!" cried Lew. "She'll be on her feet in a second."

Charley untied the rope from the tree, drew the severed end to earth, and gathering up rope and rifle, fled toward his pack, with Lew at his heels, dragging the frantic dog by main force, for the animal was wild to charge the fallen bear.

As they ran, they glanced back over their shoulders. At first the bear did not move. Then she stirred uneasily and a second later, rose to her feet and ran madly away. The boys stopped running.

"I guess both parties had a lesson," said Lew.

Chapter XI

The Secret Camp in the Wilderness

Their encounter with the bear made the two lads forget for a while their weariness. They made fast time along the fire trails. After a long tramp, they topped the final ridge and paused to rest and study the country. This they could do with ease, for the summit of the mountain was rather spa.r.s.ely timbered. A very little search disclosed a tree that was at once tall and easy to climb, and that was surrounded only by low brush that would not obstruct the vision. From this lookout they gained a wide view in every direction.

"We can see for miles and miles," said Charley. "The forester was right in telling us to come often to this lookout. We can discover more from here in a minute than we could by a week of wandering about among the trees."

Slowly the boys swept their vision around the horizon. Everywhere the mountains appeared to bask in the warm spring sunlight, seemingly as secure as cats dozing by a fireplace. The fleecy clouds, pa.s.sing across the face of the sun, threw shadows on the hillsides, making beautiful patterns of light and shade. The fresh, young growths gave forth a soft green tint, in pleasing contrast to the darker colors of the pines.

Brooks sparkled in the bottoms. Far as the eye could reach this gorgeous panorama extended.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Charley, after the two boys had surveyed the scene in silence. "The forest is one of nature's very finest gifts. And to think what we do to it by our carelessness. At any minute this green paradise may become a very h.e.l.l of roaring flame, just because some smoker is too careless to blow out his match before dropping it, or some camper too lazy to make sure his fire is extinguished. Why, it seems to me that a murderer is an innocent angel compared to such a man. Think what he does!

He kills the fish and the birds and the animals and perhaps some human beings, and he destroys not only the wood that civilization must have, but he ruins the very ground so that it cannot produce another forest. It seems to me that a man who does that ought to be punished more severely than any mere murderer. Why, a murderer kills only a single being. The man who starts a forest fire kills countless living things. I tell you, Lew, it makes me mighty proud to have a part in protecting this grand forest."

The boys were silent, wrapped in thought, until Lew suddenly pointed to a dense growth of evergreens directly below them, and not very far down the ridge. "That must be our camp site," he said. And both boys examined the spot with interest.

"That must be it," said Charley. "It's dense enough, goodness knows! And there is a little stream of water stealing out of the lower side of the thicket. So there is a spring in there. Let's go down and take a look at it."

They shouldered their packs, whistled the pup to their heels, and went down to the thicket. In a s.p.a.ce not less than a hundred yards in diameter rhododendrons grew in indescribable density, while above them towered some huge hemlocks. The two boys came close to the thicket and peered into it.

Even now, in the bright glare of the full sun, deep twilight reigned beneath the rhododendrons. Evidently they were growths of great age. Their stems were like young saplings. Their tops rose high and spread wide. And their branches were laced and interlaced and twisted and grown together so as to make a ma.s.s almost impenetrable.

"Great Ned!" cried Lew. "A pa.s.ser-by would have about as much chance of seeing us in there as we have of discovering China from this hillside. The question is, how are we going to get into the place?"

Charley dropped on his hands and knees and crawled slowly under the low rhododendron branches.

"Keep right in my tracks, Lew, if you come in," warned Charley. "If there are any snakes in here, they'd bite a fellow before he could see them.

I'll look sharp for them and if you follow me, you won't run any risk."

He picked up a fallen branch, trimmed it, and crept on, stick in hand.

Suddenly he crowded back hard on Lew, almost kicking him in the face. At the same time he began to thrash about in the leaves ahead of him.

"Great Caesar!" he exclaimed. "I almost crawled on a big rattler. He was so near the color of the ground that I didn't see him until he coiled and raised his head. Gee! That was a close shave."

"As long as you didn't get bitten," said Lew, "It's a good thing it happened. We'll be on our guard now."

"Yes, indeed. Did you put the pota.s.sium permanganate in the first-aid kit, and the hypodermic syringe?"

"Surest thing you know."

"We'll just carry them with us, Lew. We won't take any chances on death by snake-bite. These mountains are full of rattlers and copperheads."

"And we won't take any chances on being bitten in this thicket, either,"

answered Lew. "We'll put the pup in ahead of us."

They whistled in the dog and sent him scouring through the thicket. But either there had been no more snakes within it or else all had fled, for the dog raced eagerly about but found nothing to alarm him.

Confidently the boys now pushed into the interior of the thicket. At the very heart of it lay the spring. It came bubbling up through pure, white sand, and had formed a deep basin, over the lower edge of which the crystal water went rippling away through the thicket.

"We'll put our tent right here," said Charley, indicating a level spot beside the spring basin. "We'll have to clear away some of the bushes to make room for it. We can use what we cut as a screen, though n.o.body would ever see a tent away in here, especially one of brown khaki, like ours."

He drew his little axe and began clearing a s.p.a.ce for the tent, cutting the rhododendron stems a little below the surface of the ground. Lew piled the branches at one side. Then the tent was dragged in and set up, the rope being used as a ridge and tied to two strong saplings. The sides of the tent were squared and pegged down.

"Drive the pegs tight, Lew," directed Charley. "We don't want to have anything crawling under the sides. Thank goodness, we have a sod cloth."

After they had completed this task and set about bringing in the duffel, Charley remarked, "We can't go in and out this way, on our hands and knees. We've got to make a path. We'll find the best way out and trim the bushes so that we can walk upright."

"We'd better not make the path straight," said Lew. "If we zigzag it, n.o.body will know it really is a path."

After they had picked out a level route they trimmed back the rhododendron branches so that they could walk through the thicket, though the branches at the very edge were left undisturbed. The cut branches were added to the screen about the tent. Then the duffel was carried in and stowed in the tent.

"What bothers me," said Charley, "is to know how to put up our aerial. We don't dare hang it up where it can be seen, and I don't know how well it will work among these hemlocks."

"All we can do is to put it up and try it," said the ever practical Lew, "and the sooner we do it the better."

Quickly they had their wires suspended between two hemlock trees. The aerial reached almost from trunk to trunk, and the wires were completely hidden by the branches that stood out all about them.

"If she'll work," commented Charley, "it's a peach of an arrangement.

n.o.body would discover that aerial in a hundred years. I can hardly wait until evening to test it out."