"Oh, Dick, give that cat-call again so they will know we're on our way," asked Julie, anxiously.
So Dick gave his ear-splitting whistle by placing his fingers between his lips and blowing through the crevices. In less than ten seconds afterwards, two shots sounded in quick succession.
"That means they've heard us and are waiting," cried Dick. "Come this way,—that echo is misleading."
So the girls followed their young guide, and soon they broke through the fringe of great trees into the clearing where the rest of the party stood. Alec gave them no time to explain. He was angry, and no mistaking it!
"Dick, can you tell me of any concession made to you that allows you to start two fires and then go away and leave them to work their will in these forests? If we had not found the fires you left, what might have resulted to this area of mountain land?"
The girls and Dick stood amazed, for they had forgotten all about the fires started as smoke signals.
"When I broke through the underbrush into this clearing, the fires were blazing away like fury. They had encroached upon all the brush and handy leaves, and were eating a way to the timber-line. In half an hour more those same little fires would be raging over the crest and destroying acres and acres of forest-trees, to say nothing of causing the work all the farmers and forest-rangers would have in trying to control it. Just because a brainless scout forgot his duty!" The scorn in Alec's last words was cutting.
Dick began to apologize, but Alec held up a hand. "No apology will answer for such a thing." Then he turned to Ned and said: "Put Dick down for penance at camp."
"We ought to be punished as well as Dick," said Julie. "We never remembered the fires, either."
"That's up to your Captain,—I am merely doing my duty to my Troop," returned Alec.