As he stared out over the gently waving tree tops, he could see only endless ridges of hills, one beyond another, above which the red torch of the sun blazed like a burning ship. They must have circled around too far, until now they were on the other side of the slopes that guarded Lake Moosehorn. He turned his face upward, where the summit of the mountain showed against the sky. As he looked, a pale spark came into being against the dimming sky. It was a star. No! Could it be——
He cried out, and shook Brick’s shoulder in a sudden frenzy. “It’s not a star!” he screamed. “It’s—it’s a light! A light up there, Brick!”
“Never get back,” moaned the injured boy drearily. “It’s a long way from Lenape we are——”
“Wake up, Brick! I tell you, I see something up there. It looks like a tower of some kind. Brick, we’ve got to get there now!”
But Brick Ryan was beyond caring. He did not even stir as he was lifted in the arms of a haggard, wild-eyed lad whose heart burned with new hope. Saving his breath, Dirk made no further effort to speak. The body of his comrade hung in his arms, a leaden weight, as he stumbled forward, his muscles crying out in weariness, his teeth clenched in a last despairing endeavor.
A few hundred yards up the slope his feet touched a worn path, along which was strung on tree-trunks a line of black wire, leading upward. It was a telephone line. Somebody was up there, somebody who could give them food, and fire, and a place to lie in peace and safety!
“Cheer up, F. X. A. Ryan, my son!” Dirk murmured. “You’re safe now, old lad! Up we go!”
In the deck-house of the fire tower at Lookout, young Ugly Brown was staring through the gathering twilight, scanning the slopes below through a pair of field glasses lent to him by the young warden who stood at his side. He was startled to hear a ringing cry from below, among the trees bordering the trail. He could not make out the words, but the tone was desperate. He was out through the trap-door in an instant, and was half-climbing, half-sliding down the iron ladder that hung from the steel cross-pieces of the tower.
“Hey, go slow there, youngster!” the warden shouted down after him. “You’ll break your monkey neck!”
Ugly did not answer. He had a feeling that he knew the voice that had uttered the cry that had come floating up to him through the dusk.