“Do you suppose we could catch any of those messages on our set?” put in Amy, curiously.
“All you have to do is to tune in properly,” answered Mr. Halsey, with a pleasant laugh. “Our messages are your personal property. I’ll give you the wave length,” and he did so.
“How thrilling! Then if there were a fire in the forest we would know all about it!” cried Nell.
“Indeed you would. And there are occasions when it is quite necessary to locate a forest fire,” returned Mr. Halsey, seriously. “These fires sometimes travel with, seemingly, the swiftness of lightning, and it takes good work to outdistance them.”
“Have there been many fires lately?” asked Jessie, with interest, and was conscious of a distinct disappointment when he laughingly shook his head.
“Not many, luckily. And I can only hope that we continue immune. I can remember the time,” he continued, seriously, “when a great fire, sweeping northward, encroached so perilously upon this station that we were forced to dismantle our apparatus and take to the water. That was in the old days when radio was in its infancy and we had not yet learned to make airplanes the eyes of the service.”
“I have heard about that—about the use of airplanes in the service of the forest rangers, I mean,” said Darry, “and I have heard the pilots do a noble work.”
“They do,” said Mr. Halsey emphatically.
“Must be a lot of excitement,” observed Fol.
“Excitement—and danger,” amended Mr. Halsey. “Our airmen have to fly so low in order to observe the progress of the fire that often they are in the midst of a rain of burning embers. Plenty of chance for heroism in the flying service of the rangers.”