The Young Wireless Operator-As a Fire Patrol Part 29

He turned to his wireless, threw over his switch and flashed out the call signal of the Wireless Patrol. In his delight at the power of his new battery he almost forgot his disappointment. In a very short time he got a reply from Henry.

"Don't say anything about that pasteboard," cautioned the chief.

"I don't intend to," answered Charley. "I'm going to write to Lew about it and let you take the letter out in the morning. You never can tell who will pick up a wireless message."

For several minutes Charley chatted briskly with Henry, who said the new battery carried the signals to him as clear as a bell. Charley told Henry about Mr. Morton's accident, omitting reference to his own part in the affair, and then through Henry got into touch with both Mrs. Morton and the a.s.sistant forester at headquarters. Mr. Morton was getting along all right, though he suffered very great pain. The forester's a.s.sistant reported everything quiet in the forest.

Charley turned away from his wireless key, and got out pencil and paper.

By the light of the candle lantern he began his letter to Lew, and had almost finished it when the pup, his hair bristling, ran to the door of the tent, growling savagely. An instant later both the forester and Charley leaped to their feet as the stillness of the forest was broken by an awful scream that rang through the dark and was thrown back by the mountain in a magnified echo even more terrifying than the original cry.

Chapter XX

Charley Wins His First Promotion

With startled eyes, Charley looked at the forester, at the same time reaching for his rifle. To Charley's surprise the forester began to grin.

"I guess you got your cat, Charley," he chuckled. "But it sure did startle a fellow."

The first piercing scream of the wildcat was succeeded by a variety of furious screams. The animal could be heard thrashing about in the leaves, spitting, snarling, growling, rattling the chain, and evidently fighting furiously to free itself from the trap.

Taking both the candle lantern and the flash-light, as well as rifle and axe, the two men started for the cat.

"Grab that dog," said the forester, as the pup darted out of the tent ahead of them.

Charley whistled and called, but the pup was too wild with excitement to heed the command.

"Hurry up," said the forester, "or you won't have any pup left."

They pushed rapidly through the thicket, then ran toward their traps.

Faintly they could see the wildcat. The pup was worrying it. With arched back, hair erect, eyes ablaze, and snarling furiously, the wildcat was waiting its opportunity to strike. The pup circled about it, yelping and barking, every second growing bolder because the animal did not spring at it.

"Give me that rifle, quick!" said the forester. "That cat'll kill the pup in another minute."

He seized the weapon, sank on one knee, quickly sighted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. Even as he fired, the cat leaped toward the pup.

For a second there was a terrific scuffling in the leaves. Then the search-light's beam showed the pup lying motionless, its neck broken and torn, while the cat was clawing the air wildly, and spitting and snarling in fury.

"Don't ever let one of those critters get on your back, Charley," said the forester, as he approached the cat for a final shot. "Sometimes they will follow a fellow in the forest. It's seldom they really attack a man, but if a fellow loses his nerve and runs, they will sometimes leap on him. A single swipe of those claws will cut a fellow to ribbons."

The forester was now close to the cat, which had gotten to its feet and had crouched, snarling, ready for a leap.

The forester circled so as to get a shot at the animal's shoulder. Quickly raising his rifle, he fired. The cat screamed, clawed the air desperately for a few seconds, and lay still.

Charley rushed in and tenderly lifted his motionless pup from the ground.

There were tears in his eyes as he bore the little body to one side. "Poor fellow," he said, "I'll miss you awfully. I was counting on you a lot to help me guard this timber. You did the best you knew how. You thought you were helping me, didn't you?"

He pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes and faced the forester. "It's some consolation to know that that beast paid for this, and paid well. I'm sure glad he's dead. It's a good thing for the forest."

"Yes, that's a good job done," replied the forester, "and a nice skin and a bounty for you. That ought to be some consolation to you. But I'm mighty sorry about the pup. Whenever you can, get rid of those fellows. How many young deer or other harmless animals do you suppose this fellow would have slaughtered before another spring?"

Making sure that the cat was really dead, the forester opened the trap.

Then he picked up the dead cat and led the way back to the tent. "I'll show you how to skin this fellow," he said, and, taking out his knife, began to remove the hide.

"Gee!" exclaimed Charley. "Wouldn't the fellows like to know about this?"

He looked at his watch. "Some of them will surely be listening in," he said.

Then he sat down beside his key, and while he watched the forester skin the wildcat, he kept his spark-gap snapping and cracking with the fat sparks from the new battery. He was calling Lew. He got no answer and flashed out the signal for the Wireless Patrol. Almost immediately Henry answered. His workshop was the headquarters of the Wireless Patrol.

"h.e.l.lo, Henry," rapped out Charley. "Do you know where Lew is?"

"He's right here," came the answer. "So are most of the other fellows."

"Tell them," replied Charley, "that we just caught the wildcat in the traps you sent, and Mr. Marlin is skinning it. I'm going to get him to show me how to tan it. When it's done, I'm going to send it to the Wireless Patrol to help furnish our headquarters. I'm going to add the eight dollars bounty money to the club fund for wireless equipment."

Then came a long pause. Finally this message came back to Charley. "The Wireless Patrol thanks you, Charley, but we want you to sell the skin and use the money and the bounty to pay for the field-gla.s.ses you need."

Charley turned away from his instrument with a suspicious moisture in his eyes. It touched him deeply that his fellows were so solicitous concerning his welfare and success. He did not realize that he was merely reaping the reward of his own kindly good nature, that had made him a general favorite with the boys of the Wireless Patrol.

There were no further alarms that night. Early in the morning the ranger started back to his office, taking with him the letter to Lew. Charley accompanied him part of the way. Then he continued on his patrol.

The next time Charley met the forester he received Lew's answer to his letter. Lew had addressed the box, but several of the boys of the Wireless Patrol had helped to pack it. The piece of green pasteboard proved to be from a box in which Henry had gotten shoes by mail. The box came from Carson and Derby, a big New York mail-order concern. Almost everybody in the country around Central City bought articles from mail-order houses, so Lew's letter threw no light on the problem. There might be a green pasteboard box of that particular pattern in every farmhouse in the county. Yet as Charley thought the matter over, he recalled that almost everybody he knew who shopped by mail traded with Slears and Hoebuck, of Chicago.

The days pa.s.sed. Little happened to vary the monotony. Yet the sameness of life in the forest was far from being bothersome to Charley. On the contrary, he found new delights every day.

Spring was now well advanced. The trees would soon be in leaf, the flowers were coming along in rotation, and the forest fairly pulsed with life. Now Charley found a gorgeous bed of blood-root. Again he came on great patches of arbutus. Here the Dutchman's-breeches grew in rich clumps. There spring-beauties fairly whitened the earth. Violets, Jacks-in-the-pulpit, marsh-marigolds, and dozens of other familiar and lovely blooms he found as he wandered through the forest.

There was nothing Charley liked more than the flowers. He determined to know every bloom in his section of the forest. So he divided his territory into definite strips, patrolling a different strip each day. Thus he became intimately acquainted with every part of his district.

There were more objects than flowers, however, to delight him. The birds and the animals were a constant source of pleasure. Often he had opportunity to study their actions and their habits. The mating season brought a wealth of pleasing experiences. Sometimes he came across a mother grouse with her brood of little ones. It pleased Charley to see how the tiny creatures scattered and hid among the leaves, making themselves invisible at the first warning note from the mother, while she fluttered along before him, dragging a wing as though it were broken, and drawing him farther and farther from her little ones. Wild turkeys, too, he saw, and many other feathered inhabitants of the forest.

Perhaps nothing touched Charley so much as an incident that occurred late one day when he was fighting a small fire. The fine, spring weather brought out regiments of fishermen, and numbers of them got deep into the woods. Whenever he possibly could, Charley avoided meeting them. Sometimes Charley could not avoid a meeting. Then he always posed as a fisherman.

He never moved abroad these days without his rod. The rifle he had temporarily laid aside. More than one little fire, started by careless fishermen, Charley detected and extinguished.

One day he saw smoke at a considerable distance. By the time he could reach the spot, the fire had a good start and had already burned over several acres. It was blazing briskly and Charley was at first uncertain as to whether he should attempt to fight it alone or call help. But night was at hand, the wind was already falling, and Charley decided that he could conquer the blaze single-handed. He judged that the best way to do this was by beating it out with brush.

Quickly chopping a pine bough, Charley attacked the fire. It was not a fierce blaze, though when the fitful wind blew strong it flamed up savagely. Even the tiniest of forest fires is hot enough, and Charley found it trying work. He had many hundreds of yards of flame to beat out.

The smoke and the heat were stifling and exhausting, and every little while Charley had to turn away from the fire to rest and get his breath.

During such periods, Charley would walk back along the fire-line to make sure that the blaze was extinguished behind him.

Darkness came quickly in the deep valley, and before Charley had the blaze half extinguished, he was unable to see distinctly. Indeed he could hardly have seen anything at all had it not been for the fitful light of the flames; and this dancing light made objects appear uncertain and unreal.

In one of his trips back along the line, Charley came to a stump that was ablaze. In beating out the flames just here, he had failed to extinguish some tiny sparks in a hollow place at the base of the stump. The wind had fanned these into life after Charley had pa.s.sed on, and the fire had communicated to the stump. Now the stump was a pillar of flame. At any moment sparks might fly from it and rekindle the fire.

Charley beat at the stump with his brush until the flames had entirely disappeared. But fearing that sparks might yet be smouldering under the bark or in the dry wood, Charley began sc.r.a.ping the sides of the stump. As his hand reached the top of the stump, there was a sudden startling whir of wings and something shot upward into the dark. Charley recoiled as though shot. His heart beat a tattoo against his ribs. His first thought was of the sudden blow the rattler had given the ranger. Yet he knew it was no rattler that had suddenly sprung upward into the night. He drew forth his flash-light, which he always carried, and turned the beam of light on the top of the stump. There lay two little turtle-doves, unharmed despite the fierce flames that had played about them. They had been protected by the mother dove's body.