"How far away is the fire, Jim?" Jack asked, after breakfast.
"Two or three miles to the west, I guess," said Jim, carelessly. "It won't come any nearer, either, Jack."
"I think I'll go take a look at it," said Jack. "Coming, Pete and Chris?"
"Sure we are!" they cried.
Their eyes smarted, and their throats were parched as they made their way toward the burning timber, but they didn't mind such small discomforts, and soon Jack had a chance to see a real woods fire burning at its height.
"This is the real thing, Pete," he said, when they got a good look at the fire from the ridge where they had found Bess Benton on the first night they had been at Eagle Lake, some weeks earlier.
"Gee," said Pete, "I thought that fire we helped to stop near the city was big enough, but this beats it all hollow, doesn't it, Jack?"
"Come on!" said Jack, with sudden determination. "This isn't safe, no matter what the guides say. If the wind changes this fire would sweep right down to the edge of the lake. A little rain wouldn't make any impression on it at all."
Jack, once his mind was made up, wasn't afraid of ridicule or anything else. He went back to camp, and sought out Mr. Benton.
"I think that fire's mighty dangerous, Mr. Benton," he said. "I know the guides say you're perfectly safe here, but I've lived in a place where they had big woods fires nearly every year, and this is the biggest fire I ever saw. It would take a week's soaking rain to stop it, and if the wind turns to the east, even if it does bring some rain, it will turn that fire straight for the lake here, and burn up everything it meets on the way."