"I'll let you or Rifle-Eye know as soon as I do," called back the prospector, "an' you folks can pan out some samples. If I find it, we'll make the Yukon look sick."
Merritt laughed as they cantered down the trail to headquarters.
SAND BURYING A PEAR ORCHARD.
Almost too late to save a fine plantation which a suitable wind-break of trees would have guarded.
Photo by U. S. Forest Service.
CHAPTER XIV
A ROLLING CLOUD OF SMOKE
The days became hotter and hotter, and each morning when Wilbur rose he searched eagerly for some sign of cloud that should presage rain, but the sky remained cloudless. Several times he had heard of fires in the vicinity, but they had kept away from that portion of the forest over which he had control, and he had not been summoned from his post. The boy had given up his former schedule of covering his whole forest twice a week, and now was riding on Sundays, thus reaching every lookout point every other day. It was telling upon the horses, and he himself was conscious of the strain, but he was more content in feeling that he had gone the limit in doing the thing that was given him to do.