“How does it happen that you have the position of lookout?” asked Bill.
“My husband had the position first, and he was killed in fighting a fire,” she explained. “I then took the examination and secured the position. I liked the woods so much that I could not give it up. I can think of nothing more beautiful than the sunlight on the leaves of the forest. This is my lifework and I will never willingly give it up.”
“Do you stay up here all year around?” asked Breene.
“No,” replied Mollie. “That would be too much of a good thing. This peak is cut off from the valley lands after the first hard snow in the Winter. I usually come up during the last of May or the first of June, depending on how hard the preceding Winter was. Sometimes we have had to blast the snow out of the roads with dynamite to get through in June. That is more particularly true of the Sierras down in California than up here.”
“Did you have a lookout in California?”
“I had one near Tahoe for a long time, but I decided that I wanted a change and was transferred up here,” replied Mollie.
“Don’t you get awfully lonely?” asked Breene.
“Never. There is always something to occupy the time. If it isn’t forest fires, it is the wild life of the woods. I have seen deer, mountain lions, porcupine, coons, grouse, eagles, and I don’t know what else right out here in the open near my shack. Once I saved a fawn from a fire and made a pet out of him. I put a bell on his neck and he stayed around for quite a while. When he was about two years old he started wandering about the forests. He would come back here occasionally, but his visits were shorter and shorter. I haven’t seen him now since last Fall. I hope that no one has shot him.”
“Have you picked up many fires this season asked Bill.
“This has been the worst season that I have known for many years,” answered Mollie. “We haven’t had any rain since the middle of May and the woods are awfully dry. It doesn’t take much to start a fire. Most of those that I have picked up have been small ones, which were quite easily put out. We are lucky down here in that the smoke pall hasn’t reached us yet. It will be down here before the season is over, though, unless we have rain.”