The Young Wireless Operator-As a Fire Patrol Part 2

"I thought Pennsylvania was a great lumbering state," protested Lew.

"For a good many years it led the nation in the production of lumber, young man, but now it ranks twentieth among the states. If only fire could be kept out of the forests, we might some day raise our own timber again.

But the lumbermen chopped down the big trees and fire has destroyed the little ones and even burned the forest soil so that nothing grows in it again. We have not only destroyed our forests, but we have so injured the land that new trees do not grow to take the place of those we cut."

The two boys stared at the lumberman in amazement. "Where do we get our lumber from?" demanded Lew.

"Practically all of it comes from the South. That's one reason lumber costs so much here. The people of Pennsylvania pay $25,000,000 a year in freight charges on the lumber they use. That's one of the reasons those cedar boards you were looking at cost so much. When the new freight rates go into effect the cost of hauling our lumber to us will be something like $40,000,000 a year."

The two boys were very thoughtful as they made their way back to Charley's shop.

"What are people going to do for wood pretty soon?" Lew inquired of his companion. "If we can't build a little boat because the wood costs too much, how are people going to get homes and furniture and wagons and motor-cars and a thousand other things? Seems to me pretty much everything we use is made of wood."

"I don't know," replied Charley. "But what bothers me more just now is to know what we are going to do during Easter vacation. It may be the last vacation I shall ever have, and I'd like to have a good time."

"Why not follow the lumber dealer's suggestion and go out to the forests?

Easter doesn't come this year until after the trout season opens. We could go out to our old camp in the mountains and spend the vacation there, fishing and hiking."

"That's a mighty good suggestion, Lew. If we have our packs ready, we can start from high school the minute it is dismissed. We can make that early afternoon train and get off at that little flag-station at the foot of Stone Mountain. Then we can hike through the notch and reach the far slope of Old Ironsides before dark. We shall have to camp overnight along the run from the spring there, as it is the only water for miles around. Then the next day we can go on into that little valley where we saw so many trout. That is so hard to reach that not many fishermen ever go there. The little stream from the spring on Old Ironsides runs into that brook. Do you remember what lots of little trout we saw not far below the spring?

They will have become big fellows by this time and moved down into the larger stream. There ought to be some fine fishing there this spring."

"They say it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good. I'm sorry we can't build the boat, but we shall have just as good a time in the mountains as we should have had on the river. We'll borrow that little pup tent of Johnnie Lee's, and take our blankets, hatchets, fishing-rods, and grub."

"I'd rather leave the tent at home and build a lean-to after we get there.

Then we could take a portable wireless outfit and talk to the fellows at home here in the evening. Half a dozen dry cells would give us one-sixth of a kilowatt of current, and that ought to carry a message twenty-five or thirty miles easily. At night we might be able to talk fifty miles. We can carry six cells easily. The remainder of the outfit won't weigh much.

We'll have to go as light as we can, for it's a mighty tough hike over Old Ironsides and on into that little valley."

"Shall we take our pistols?" asked Charley.

"We'd better have at least one. You never can tell when you're going to need a pistol in the forest. Remember the time that bear treed me on the first hike of the Wireless Patrol? I don't ever want to get into another situation like that without something to shoot with."

Charley chuckled. "It wasn't a pistol that saved you then," he smiled, "but Willie Brown and his spark-gap."

"Then we'll be doubly armed," replied Lew. "Since you have so much faith in wireless, you can carry the outfit. I'll pack the gun. We're almost certain to have some kind of adventure, for every time the Wireless Patrol or any of its members venture into the woods, something exciting happens."

Chapter III

Off to the Mountains

Busy, indeed, were the succeeding ten days. The outfit that the two boys were to carry was packed and repacked several times, and each time it was overhauled something was eliminated from the packs; for both boys knew well enough that the trip before them would test their endurance even with the lightest of packs. Finally their outfit was reduced to two fishing-rods, one hatchet, a first-aid kit, a flash-light, the necessary food and dishes, one canteen, and one pistol, with the wireless equipment.

This was made as simple as possible. Six new dry cells were to be taken to provide current. Then there were a spark-gap, a spark-coil, a key, and a detector, with the receiving set, switch, and aerial. To be sure, the entire aerial was not packed, but merely the wires and insulators, as spreaders could be made in the forest. Then there was an additional coil of wire to be used for lead-in and suspension wires. No tuning instrument was necessary, because the wireless outfits of all the members of the Camp Brady Wireless Patrol were exactly alike and so were already in tune with one another. Without a tuning instrument, to be sure, it might not be possible for Charley and Lew to talk with anybody except their fellows of the Wireless Patrol, but in the present circ.u.mstances that made no difference to them. They had no intention of talking to anybody else.

The various instruments were carefully packed so that they could be carried without injury. The dishes were nested as well as possible. Then all were stowed away in the pack bags, together with the food supplies.

The two blankets were tightly folded and tied, ready to be slung over the shoulders. Long before that last session of school, everything was in readiness. When finally that last session was over, the two lads had only to strap their packs on their backs, sling their blankets into place, and pick up their little fishing-rods, unjointed and compactly packed in cloth cases. Lew buckled the pistol to his belt and suspended the canteen from his shoulder, while Charley sheathed his little axe and hung it on his hip. Then, completely ready, the two lads waved farewell to their envious comrades and hastened away to the train. In less than an hour the train stopped to let them off at the little flag-station at the foot of Stone Mountain. In a moment more it had gone whistling around the shoulder of the hill, leaving the two boys alone on the edge of the wilderness.

Quickly they adjusted their packs and started back along the railroad-track toward the gap through which they were to pa.s.s to Old Ironsides. Rapidly they made their way along the road-bed.

"We'd better hustle while the going's good," commented Lew, glancing at the heavy clouds that obscured the sun, "for it will get dark early to-night. It'll be slow enough going once we leave the track."

"There's one thing sure," replied Charley. "We won't be bothered with wet ground. I think I never saw the earth so dry at this season of the year.

There was almost no snow last winter and we've hardly had a rain this spring. Usually it rains every day at this time of year."

Charley's prediction proved true. When the boys at last reached the notch in the mountains and left the railroad-track, they found the way almost as dry as a village street. Years before, the timber had been cut from Stone Mountain, and a logging trail had pa.s.sed up the very gap through which the boys were now traveling. But brush and brambles had come in soon after the lumbermen left and now a thick stand of saplings also helped to choke the path. The briars tore at the boys' clothing and blankets. The bushy growths caught in their packs and straps and wrapped themselves about their feet and legs. Very quickly it became evident that a hard struggle lay before them.

Back from the trail, in the forest proper, there was little underbrush, but the stand of young trees was dense and the way underfoot was so rough and uneven that it was almost impossible to make any headway there. For Stone Mountain was a stone mountain in very truth. It appeared to be just one enormous heap of rocks and boulders. In a very little while both boys were perspiring profusely from their efforts, and both were conscious that they were tiring fast; for the grade up the notch was steep.

"Gee!" said Lew, at last. "This is tougher than anything I ever saw when I was in the Maine woods with Dad. We've got to take it easy or we'll be tuckered out before we get through this gap. Let's rest a bit."

He sat down on a stone and Charley followed his example. As they rested, they looked sharply about them. They could see for some distance through the naked forest. The tree trunks stood straight and tall, and seemed to be crowded as close together as pickets on a fence.

"This sure is a fine stand of poles," remarked Lew, "but it's just as that lumber dealer said. There isn't a tree in it that would make a board wider than six inches. But there's some good timber farther back in the mountains. Do you remember the fine stand of pines in that little valley we're heading for? When we were there three years ago there hadn't been a tree cut in that valley. There must be millions and millions of feet of lumber there."

"And do you remember," replied Charley, "how dark it was under those pines, and how cold the water in the run was, and what schools of trout we saw? Gee! I wish it had been trout season then! But we ought to get'em now. Oh boy! I can hardly wait to get there."

"Then we had better be jogging on. It'll be dark before we know it."

"All right," returned Charley, "but I'm going to get a drink before I go any farther."

"I want one, too. Guess I'll fill the canteen. Then we won't have to, stop every time we want a drink."

The two boys scrambled down the slope to the brook. The lumber trail was near the bottom of the notch and they had only a few yards to go. The little run was rushing tumultuously down the notch, splashing over rocks, scurrying over little sandy stretches, ever singing, ever murmuring, in its downward course. Their packs and blankets made it difficult to stretch out flat and drink from the stream, so Lew rinsed out the canteen, filled it, and handed it to his companion. Charley took a good drink and pa.s.sed the canteen silently back to his chum.

"If you didn't really know it was the brook," said Lew, "you'd be willing to swear you could hear somebody talking. You can hear voices just as plain as can be. And you can almost make out what they say. Many a time I've caught myself listening hard to try to make out the words, when I heard a brook talking."

"It's no wonder people get scared and pretty nearly go crazy when they are lost in the forest," replied Lew. "Without half trying, you can imagine the forest is full of people or spooks or animals or something, creeping up behind your back."

Lew bent down and once more filled the canteen. He corked it tight and dipped it bodily into the run to wet the cloth cover, so that the water within would be kept cool by evaporation. Then he slung the canteen over his shoulder.

"I never saw a mountain stream so low at this time of the year," he remarked, as he followed his companion up the trail. "You might think it was August. But with no snow to melt and no rainfall this spring, it isn't to be wondered at."

On they went up the trail. For a long time neither boy spoke. The brambles still tore at their clothes and the bushes tripped them. In places the young saplings were so dense that to force a way among them was a difficult task. Their packs began to grow very heavy. But they had one advantage. As Charley had suggested, the ground was perfectly dry. There were no slippery sticks to tread on, nor any moss-covered stones, treacherous with their soggy coats. So they could give more attention to the obstacles above ground. But at best it was a hard, difficult climb.

As they mounted higher and higher, the stream in the bottom constantly dwindled. Long before the crest was reached, the brook had become a very feeble stream, indeed. It had its source near the top of the pa.s.s, in a great spring that welled up under a large rock. A single hemlock had sprung up here in years past, and, watered by the spring, had grown to enormous size. For some reason the lumbermen had pa.s.sed it by. Now it reared its giant bulk high above the younger growths around it, casting a dense shade over the spring basin. Practically nothing grew in this deep shade, so that the s.p.a.ce above the spring was open and free from bushes.

On the trunk of this giant hemlock, where it could be seen by all who came to the spring, was a white sign that read:

Everybody loses when timber burns. Pennsylvania Department of Forestry.

"After our fight with the forest fire, when we were in camp at Fort Brady, they don't need to tell any member of the Wireless Patrol to be careful with fire," observed Lew. "But there are lots of people who do need to be warned."

He dipped the canteen in the spring and pa.s.sed on. "We're almost at the top," he said, "and I'm not sorry."

"The light is already growing fainter," said Charley, "and it will bother us to see before so very long. It's going to get dark awful early to-night. We'd better hustle."

They reached the summit of the pa.s.s and started down the other slope. The trail continued. At first it was choked with briars and bushes. But suddenly they found the trail open. It had been cleared of all obstructions and enlarged until it was several feet wide. Even the roots of the bushes had been grubbed out, so that the path was smooth and clean.