The young Scout built his fire on the summit of the highest bit of ground he could find. It was a bare hillock, rocky and bleak, rising amid the trees.
The fire Hiram constructed was, properly speaking, composed of two piles of sticks and dry leaves and bark. Close at hand he piled a big armful of extra fuel to keep it going. For he had determined to watch by the fires all night, if necessary. It was, he felt, his last hope.
The fires arranged to his satisfaction, the boy set a match to each pile in turn. From the midst of the forest two columns of smoke ascended. The afternoon was still. Not a breath of wind ruffled a leaf. In the calm air the columns of smoke shot up straight. Hiram piled green leaves on his blazing heaps and the smoke grew thicker.
The message the two smoke columns spelled out, in Scout talk, was this:
“I am lost, help!”
Hiram knew if there were any Scouts within seeing distance of the two smoke columns, that he would be saved. If not—but he did not dare to dwell on that thought.
The late afternoon deepened into twilight, and still Hiram sat on, feeding his fires, although the flames of hope in his heart had died out into gray ashes of despair. As the darkness thickened and a gloom spread through the woods, his fears and nervousness increased. It is one thing to have a companion in the woods and the surety of a camp fire and comfort at night, and quite another pair of shoes to be lost in the impenetrable forest. Anybody who has experienced the dilemma can appreciate something of poor Hiram’s state of mind.
It grew almost dark. The two fires glowed in the twilight like two red eyes.
All at once Hiram almost uttered a shout of alarm. Then he grew still, his heart beating till it shook his frame. Somewhere, close to him, a twig had cracked. He was certain, too, that he had seen a dark form dodge behind a tree.
“Who’s there,” he cried shrilly.