6. In windy weather and in dangerous places camp-fires should be confined in trenches, or an open spot be chosen and the ground first cleared of all vegetable matter.
7. Never leave a fire, even for a short time, until you are certain that it is out. Wet it thoroughly, to the bottom, or else stamp it out and pile on sand or dirt.
8. Never pass by a fire in grass, brush, or timber, which is unguarded and which you can see is likely to spread. Extinguish it; or if it is beyond your control, notify the nearest ranch, town, or forest official.
These regulations are for Boy Scouts to remember and to observe, no matter where the trail leads.
CHAPTER XIV
Note 53, page 161: A fire line is a cleared strip, sometimes only ten, sometimes, where the brush is thick, as much as sixty feet wide, running through the timber and the bushes, as a check to the blaze. An old wood-road, or a regular wagon-road, or a logging-trail, or a pack-trail is used as a fire line, when possible; but when a fire line must be cleared especially, it is laid from bare spot to bare spot and along the tops of ridges. A fire travels very fast up-hill, but works slowly in getting across. Scouts should remember this important fact: The steeper the hill, the swifter the fire will climb it.
There are three kinds of forest fires: Surface fires, which burn just the upper layer of dry leaves and dry grass, brush, and small trees; ground fires, which burn deep amidst sawdust or pine needles or peat; and crown fires, which travel through the tops of the trees. Fires start as surface fires, and then can be beaten out with coats and sacks and shovels, and stopped by hoe and spade and plow. The ground fire does not look dangerous, but it is, and it is hard to get at. Crown fires are surface fires which have climbed into the trees and are borne along in prodigious leaps by the wind. They are the most vicious and the worst to fight.
The duty of Scouts is to jump upon a surface fire and kill it before it becomes a sly ground fire or a raving crown fire.
Note 54, page 171: Even the best surgeons nowadays "fuss" with deep wounds as little as possible. They clean the deep wound, by washing it as well as they can, to remove dirt and other loose foreign particles; then they cover gently with a sterilized pad, and bandage, to keep microbes away, and Nature does the rest. In the days when our fathers were boys, salves and arnica and all kinds of messy stuff were used; but the world has found that all Nature asks is a chance to go ahead, herself, without interference.
Unless a bullet, even, is lodged where it irritates a nerve or a muscle or disturbs the workings of some organ of the body, the surgeon is apt to let it stay, until Nature has tried to throw a wall about it and enclose it out of the way.