“No,” Sandy protested, even though his knees were threatening to buckle. “I’ll stick it out with you fellows.”
“Me too,” Jerry said valiantly.
Macauley smiled. “You boys are all right. But you need to rest. We all do, for that matter. Suppose you make tracks back to headquarters and tell the chief to get another crew in here to relieve us.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Sandy said, with undisguised relief. “I guess we should report back to Dick Fellows, anyway.”
“He was down here himself just a while back,” one of the men volunteered. “Looking for you boys, I think.”
“Come on, let’s go find him,” Sandy said.
By the time they got back to the command post at the other end of the ridge, it was broad daylight. Dick Fellows was directing a crew fighting a small brushfire at the edge of the clearing. Beyond them the woods was a charred, smoldering carpet. The tree trunks were blackened and burned for about ten feet up their trunks; but the fire had not crowned.
“Heard you were looking for us,” Sandy announced. “We were fighting a fire.”
The ranger grinned. “So I heard. How do things look up there? Does Macauley think she’ll hold?”
“He’s got his fingers crossed. He wants to know when his men are going to get some relief.”