Chapter XIII
Spying Out the Land
All too rapidly the days passed. Occasionally a shower moistened the surface of the ground, but for the most part the dry weather continued, with every hour increasing the fire hazard. During the first few days Charley was never free from a feeling of dread. Every time he awoke he expected to smell fire. Every trip to the watch tree was made in the fear that somewhere within his vision there would be telltale clouds of smoke arising. A nervous apprehension seized upon him, and a mortal fear of fire; and a growing disbelief in his own power kept him in a state of unconquerable anxiety.
All these were sensations new to Charley, though they were normal enough. The natural result of responsibility, they were coupled with Charley's keen realization of the insignificance of his own or any one else's powers as opposed to the vast forces of nature. Had Charley never seen a forest fire, had he never done battle with the raging flames, he could not have had this sharp realization of the insignificance of his own strength. But the recent struggle with the forest fire and that far more desperate battle with the same enemy years before, when the Wireless Patrol was in camp at Fort Brady, had given Charley a true estimate of the well-nigh irresistible fury of a fire in the forest, should conditions be favorable to the flames.
Only luck, Charley realized, and the best of luck, had brought him and Lew out victorious in their recent contest. The next time fire started--and he knew well enough that there would be a next time--there might be a strong wind, or to reach the blaze might take him hours, or he might not be able to summon help with his wireless, or other unfavorable conditions might arise to render his efforts useless. Then the forest would go roaring up in flame. And even though he might not have been unfaithful to his trust, the result would be the same. The timber would be destroyed. This great forest would be consumed. And he, especially selected to guard and protect it, would have failed. The thought was overwhelming.
More and more Charley turned to his wireless as a drowning man clutches at a straw. He saw that when Lew had gone and he had nothing but his own powers to depend upon, the wireless was going to be like a life-line to him. He realized that to have the powerful battery he wanted was imperative, if he was to have even a chance to make good in his efforts to protect the forest. And as he and Lew patrolled the timber, he made it evident to his chum what a vital part that battery would play in his success. But neither of them saw any way for Charley to come into immediate possession of it.
As the days passed and the forest still slumbered in safety, the sharp edge of Charley's anxiety wore off. That, too, was normal, for he could not naturally remain at such a pitch of emotion. So his interest in the life about him gradually returned. And indeed there were innumerable objects to interest a nature lover like Charley.
The country itself was enough to make a nature lover happy. When Charley climbed his watch tree and looked about, he could see nothing but forest. East, west, north, south, league upon league, far as the eye could see and much farther, stretched the forest, like a huge green sea. The mountains rose like great waves; and from his lofty perch Charley could see several parallel ridges rearing their crests aloft on either side of him. Distinctly he could see the two bottoms at the foot of the mountain on which stood his watch tree. Splendid stands of timber filled these valleys with swelling streams of water that flashed in the sunlight here and there through little openings in the trees. But what lay in the farther valleys he could only guess, though he knew that each must have its stream and some timber. What else there might be Charley did not know.
It was part of his work as a patrol to find out. And eagerly he looked forward to the daily hikes that would take him here or there or elsewhere in the great forest. Already he loved it; and he wanted to share all its secrets. Had Charley but known it, that very attitude of mind made him more valuable both to his ranger and to the forester. It meant that his work would not be done in a perfunctory manner, but with that genuine interest born of love that alone leads to perfect service.
The two chums made themselves familiar with their own valley from the border line of the state lands above the beaver dam, to a point many miles below their own camp. They found that they were in the heart of the stand of virgin timber, and that the location of their camp was by far the best that could have been chosen for the purpose of guarding the stand.
Charley thought it wonderful that the forester could offhand select such a strategic point. He felt more certain than ever that Mr. Marlin must have an intimate knowledge of the territory over which he had jurisdiction. Could Charley have known how intimate that knowledge was, he would have been amazed. And what he did not even guess was the fact that the forester had planned just such a secret watch on the big timber as Charley was now keeping, and that he had selected the camp site only after days of investigation.
Nor did Charley so much as dream that for some time Mr. Marlin had been looking about for some one he could trust to do the work. The native mountaineers did not command Mr. Marlin's entire confidence, nor did many of them possess the intelligence or education he desired in the man he selected.
Yet his sudden choice of Charley was characteristic of the forester. He always acted quickly when he thought the time for action had come. Charley's grit and pluck in voluntarily fighting the fire, coupled with his membership in the Wireless Patrol, were the factors that led Mr. Marlin to engage him at once. Had Charley known these facts, he might have felt a bit conceited or at least elated over the situation. But his belief was, as Mr. Marlin wished it to be, that the forester had taken him only as a last resort. And Charley was working hard to make good. He could hardly have taken a better way than the road he had chosen--to make himself familiar with all the territory he was to guard, and so to prepare himself for the emergencies that lay ahead of him.
Every day, and every hour of each day, the two boys found much that excited their wonder, for now they were studying nature at first-hand. Taking their dog, they one day climbed the mountain beyond the one on which their watch-tower stood, and came down into a lovely valley. But what instantly arrested their attention was the face of the mountain on the far side of this valley.
Instead of being a timbered slope, this mountain was a sheer precipice of rock that rose abruptly a thousand feet in air. Its rugged sides were seamed and scarred. Here and there a projecting ledge offered a scant foothold, but mostly the face of the cliff was one vast, frowning rock that rose almost perpendicularly. On tiny ledges and in crevices of the rock little ferns grew in masses, hanging down the face of the cliff like green fringes. Wild flowers had taken possession of the crannies. In precarious footholds, where it seemed impossible for them to exist, a few trees had sprung up, their roots crawling fantastically over the rocks in search of bits of earth to grow in, while the tops of the trees stood up slantingly against the face of the cliff. Mostly they were evergreens, and their scraggly branches made irregular dark masses on the face of the precipice.
As the two boys made their way toward the foot of this cliff, a great bird came soaring over the top of it, and sailed in lofty circles over the valley.
"Look at that hawk!" cried Lew. "Isn't he a whopper? Look at the spread of his wings. And see how he soars, without ever moving a muscle. I wonder if he can see us."
Evidently the bird saw something, for suddenly it tilted downward, shot toward the earth like a flash, and was lost to sight behind the trees.
"Whew!" cried Charley. "Did you see that drop? It almost took my breath away to watch him."
A moment later the bird rose into sight again, bearing in its talons a dark-colored animal of some sort. Though the animal was not large, it must have weighed many pounds. Yet the bird flew upward swiftly, lifting himself rapidly with strong strokes of its wings.
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Charley, after watching the bird a moment. "That's no hawk! That's an eagle. It's a bald eagle, too. See his white tail and head and the bare shanks?"
"Are you sure?" demanded Lew. "I've always wanted to see a bald eagle. It's our national emblem, you know."
"I'm pretty sure that's one," replied Charley. "I've read about them and seen pictures of them, and that bird's exactly like the pictures. We can see his legs well because he's holding them straight down. They're bare. The golden eagle has feathers all the way to his toes."
"Gee! I'm glad we saw him," exclaimed Lew. "Look where he's going."
The bird flew straight toward the cliff, climbing upward with tremendous speed. He flew directly to a ledge far up the precipice, where he vanished from sight.
"That's where the nest is. I'll bet anything on it," said Charley. "We'll keep an eye on this place and see if there are any little eagles later in the season."
For some time they watched the ledge to which the eagle had flown, but the bird did not again come into sight. Evidently the ledge was much wider than it appeared to be from the bottom of the valley, and perhaps the face of the cliff was worn away, cave like, at that point, affording a secure retreat. At any rate, the eagle was seen no more.
"Well," said Lew, after a time, "if we can't see the eagle again, perhaps we can find out what sort of an animal it was he got. I think I can pretty nearly point out the spot where he landed."
They started toward the point at which the eagle had come to earth. When they thought they were near the place they began to search the ground carefully for some signs of the tragedy that had occurred. They looked in vain. Nowhere could they find any telltale marks.
"I suspect it must have been a coon," suggested Charley. "It looked like it to me. We know there are lots of them in this forest."
Just then the excited chattering of squirrels attracted them. They began to examine the trees about them. Presently they came to one around which were scattered innumerable shells of nuts that had been gnawed into and eaten.
"There must be squirrels in that tree," said Lew.
Now muffled squeaks of fear or pain were audible. The two boys looked at each other questioningly.
"There are squirrels up there all right," agreed Charley, "and something's wrong. That's exactly the way a squirrel sounds when it's in trouble. Yes; there are some squirrels in the tree top. They're terribly excited over something."
The boys began to examine the tree. It was an old oak. Well up its trunk a limb had broken or rotted away, and the resulting decay of the stub had made a hole in the tree itself. What instantly riveted the attention of the two boys was something black and tapering that projected from the hole and that slowly waved in the air.
"A blacksnake!" cried Charley. "He's probably eaten the little squirrels."
In a second Charley was shinning up the tree. Not far below the squirrel hole the stub of another old limb projected. Charley pulled himself up and got a footing on it. He drew his little axe from his hip, and, yanking the snake half-way out of the hole, broke its back with a sharp blow of the axe, and then threw the reptile to the ground. Lew was on it like a flash with his feet, tramping it to death. In the snake's mouth was a small squirrel still kicking and making muffled noises.
Charley slid to the ground, drew his knife and slit the snake's head, releasing the young squirrel. It was hurt and terribly frightened, but was apparently not really injured. Charley kept it in his hand, feeling for broken bones.
"I don't believe this squirrel is really harmed a bit," he said finally, "but it was a pretty close call. I'm going to put it back in the nest again."
He put the little creature in his pocket, then again shinned up the tree, and placed the squirrel in its nest. Meantime, the old squirrels in the tree top chattered incessantly.
"Nobody's going to hurt you," said Charley, looking upward through the branches. "We're only trying to help you."
When he came to earth once more he examined the snake. "He's a big fellow," he said, stretching the reptile out straight. "He's a good deal more than six feet long. I guess we'll take his skin and make a belt of it."
As he drew out his knife again and proceeded to skin the snake, he continued, "I don't believe in killing snakes as a general rule, but blacksnakes do more harm than good, I believe. It's true they kill rats and mice, but they also eat birds' eggs and young birds and squirrels, and no end of other useful creatures. And they are so active that one snake will kill a great number in the course of a year."
"I don't understand how they can eat anything so big as that young squirrel," said Lew, "but I know they do."
"Really they don't," laughed Charley. "They drag themselves outside of their prey. You know their jaws are loose so they can spread them, and their teeth point backward. What they do is to work the upper jaw and then the lower, hooking their teeth into their food, pulling back with each half of the jaw in turn. You see they literally pull themselves over their prey. Well, I'm glad we got that fellow. I suppose it's my business to kill all the blacksnakes I can. Whatever harms the squirrels, hurts the forest."
"What do you mean?" asked Lew.
"Why, you know that squirrels help to plant the nut trees in a forest. Some tree seeds, like pine and maple seeds, are so small or light that they are carried easily by birds and winds, and so scattered about. But acorns and nuts are so heavy that they fall straight down to the earth. If the squirrels didn't carry them away and bury them in such quantities, how could we ever have had these great stands of nut and oak trees?"
"I never thought of that," said Lew.
"It looks as though what Mr. Marlin said was right--walking about through the forest is only a small part of a forest guard's work. He's got to know an awful lot about things before he can be sure just what he ought to do."
"I never had any idea how big a job it is, Lew. And think what a forester must have to know. I tell you it takes a man to fill a job like that."
Noon came. The boys grew hungry. "I could eat all the sandwiches we have myself," smiled Charley. "I wonder if we couldn't catch some trout to help out. It would be all right to make a fire over here, I'm sure. And we'll keep it so small it won't make any smoke. And even if it did, it couldn't possibly betray the location of our camp."
They made their way to the stream in the middle of the valley, baited their hooks, and dropped them into the water. In no time they had half a dozen fine trout.
"You clean 'em, Lew," suggested Charley, "and I'll make a little fireplace."
He selected a little shoulder of earth close to the run and began to dig into it with a stick. In a moment he had uncovered a deposit of solid clay. The clay was hard to dig, but he could shape his fireplace in it exactly as he wanted it. When the task was completed, he started a very small fire with leaves and small branches. By careful feeding, he kept the flames burning clear, with almost no smoke. Presently he had a bed of glowing coals that almost filled the little fireplace.
Lew, meantime, had cleaned the fish and cut some black birch branches which he thrust through the fish lengthwise. Squatting beside the little fire, the two boys now held the fish over the coals, turning them slowly, and roasting them thoroughly. With the addition of the trout, their meal was ample.
They ate slowly, and after their meal sat for a time beside their fire in the warm sun, watching the forest life about them, and listening to the song of the brook and the myriad other sounds of the woods. Finally they prepared to leave. The fire had shrunken to a white bed of ashes.
"We'll make sure that it is out," commented Charley. And he stepped to the run and got a hatful of water, which he poured on the ashes. To his astonishment the ashes were washed away, leaving the fireplace bare. The fireplace had changed color and looked as though made of brick. He touched it and found it as hard as stone.
"Fire-clay," he said. "That's probably worth something. I'll take a sample along."
He dug away more top-soil and scooped out a big ball of clay. Then he filled in the holes he had made, covering up all traces of the clay deposit, and blazed a tree near by to identify the spot.
The journey back to the camp was made by a route different from the one taken in the morning, the boys following the stream down the valley for a distance before crossing back to their own valley. The first fishermen they had encountered were seen on the return trip. The men were wading in the stream below the boys and so did not observe the young fire guards behind them. Charley and Lew instantly slipped behind trees, and after watching the men until they were lost to sight, struck off toward their camp. They got there shortly before sunset. While Lew prepared supper, Charley once more made his way up to the watch tree, where he remained until dusk.
Early in the evening they got into touch with their friends at Central City, and through them sent a reassuring good-night to the forester. Then, too tired to listen to the night's news, they wrapped themselves in their blankets and were soon sound asleep.