Dean, who was always a cautious lad, feared it was not just the right thing to do, without his uncle's permission; but at last he gave in to the other boys.
Broken boughs and bark were quickly piled up, a match was lighted to kindle the fire, and in a few minutes the flames were leaping over the dry wood. The boys were delighted with their bonfire, and they ran here and there among the trees collecting more fuel for the flames.
Suddenly they began to realize that the fire was spreading. It had run along through the dry grass and pine needles, and the wind was blowing it straight toward the woods, where they had had so many good times, and where their friends the birds and squirrels had their homes.
At first the boys thought they could put out the fire with pails of water; but they soon saw that it was beyond their control, and they stood still, too frightened to do anything but scream.
Their cries brought Uncle Joe, and some fishermen from the other camps, to fight the fire, and for more than an hour the men worked valiantly. They chopped off great green branches and beat out the flames, they threw on buckets of sand from the beach, they chopped down trees and made a broad path in front of the fire, and finally they dug a trench to keep it from running along the grass.
At last the fire was declared to be all out; but it was not until the men's hands were blistered, and their faces burned and blackened with the smoke. This was not the worst of it, however, for nearly an acre of valuable timber had been destroyed, and the dead trees held out their stiff leafless branches like ghosts of the beautiful pines and firs that had stood there in the sunshine that very day.
The boys went back to their camps very soberly. How their hearts ached at the mischief they had done! They could think of nothing, talk of nothing, but the fire. Dean and Gordon sobbed themselves to sleep, feeling sure that Uncle Joe would send them both home in the morning.
But the next day good, kind Uncle Joe, whom everyone loved, called the boys around him and gave them a long talk about forest fires.
He told them he hoped this experience would teach them never to build a fire anywhere unless men were near to guard it carefully, and not even then if the grass were very dry, or there was the least breath of wind to carry the flames and sparks.
He explained that thousands of dollars' worth of property might have been destroyed, and possibly lives might have been lost by their carelessness. He told them stories of the terrible forest fires that have raged for days in the timber lands of the Northwest. When at last he asked for their promises, the boys gave them readily, for they had learned how very dangerous a fire can be; and for the rest of that summer, at least, there wasn't another bonfire at Silver Lake.