"Come on, Pete," said Jack. "They'll be looking for a signal pretty soon. If we don't hurry, it'll be too dark for them to see our flags when we really have something to report."
The fields nearest the mountain and the fire were full of stubble that would burn like tinder, as Jack knew. The corn had been cut, and the dry stalks, that would carry the flames and give them fresh fuel to feed on, remained. Not far beyond, too, were several great haystacks, and in other fields the hay had been cut and was piled ready for carrying into the barns the next day. If the fire, with a good start, ever did leap across the cleared space from the woods it would be hard, if not impossible, to prevent it from spreading thus right up to the outhouses, the barns, and the farmhouses themselves. Moreover, there was no water here. There were the courses of two little brooks that in rainy weather had watered the land, but now these were dried up, and there was no hope of succor from that side.
As they approached the woods, too, Jack looked gravely at what he saw. Timber had been cut here the previous winter, and badly and wastefully cut, too, in a way that was now a serious menace. The stumps, high above ground, much higher than they should have been, offered fresh fuel for the fire, dead and dry as they were, and over the ground were scattered numerous rotting branches that should have been gathered up and carried in for firewood.
"Looks bad, doesn't it?" Jack said to Pete.
"It certainly does," rejoined his companion. "Now we've got to find a place where we can do the signaling."
"I see a place," said Jack, "and I think I can reach it pretty easily, too. See that rock up there, that sticks out from the side of the mountain? I bet you can see that a long way off. You go on up to where the fire's burning. Get as near as you can, and see how fast it's coming. Then work your way back to the rock and tell me what you've seen."
"Right, oh!" said Pete. "I'm off, Jack!"
Though the smoke was thick, now, and oppressive, so that he coughed a good deal, and his eyes ran and smarted from the acrid smell, Jack made his way steadfastly toward the rock, which he reached without great difficulty. He was perhaps a mile from the Scout camp, and there, he knew, they were looking anxiously for the first flashing of his red and white flags to announce that he was ready to report.
He stood out on the rock, and, after a minute of hard waving of his flags, he caught the answer. Thus communication was established, and he began to make his report. He had no fear of being misunderstood, for it was Dick Crawford, the Assistant Scout-Master and his good friend, who was holding the flags at the other end, and not some novice who was getting practice in signaling, one of the pieces of Scout lore in which Jack had speedily become an adept.
"Bad fire," he wig-wagged back. "Seems to be spreading fast. Ground very bad. Likely to spread, I think. Fields full of stubble. No water at all. Brooks and springs all dried up."