“Forest fires!” exclaimed Judy.
“Are you a forest ranger?” Paul wanted to know. “Did you help put out the fire that burned Uncle Paul’s house down?”
“I’m afraid I was too late for that,” replied Peter, “but I did volunteer to help the chief deputy and his forest rangers. They had to keep the forest fire from spreading. The control of forest fires,” he continued, “is everybody’s business. Even boys and girls can help by reporting any brush fires they see.”
“We didn’t see the fire. We just saw the Destroyer,” Paul said.
“Paul means the statue on his uncle’s tomb,” Judy put in quickly. “I recognized it and told him what it was.”
“You recognized it? Were you there?”
Peter had abandoned his soup-making to listen.
“We all were,” Honey answered. “Mrs. Riker was on the way to visit her uncle—”
“He is my husband’s uncle, not mine,” Helen Riker pointed out. “That makes him the children’s great-uncle.”
Judy laughed. “Little Paul ran up to the vault and knocked, and he thinks he heard someone say ‘Go away!’ And, honestly, Peter, there was no one inside. We looked, and it was empty.”