“Smoke!” exclaimed Billy Worth. “Then, as they expected, the forest has been set afire. Is that what you mean, Alec?”
“Well, where there’s smoke it stands to reason there’s likely to be a fire back of it,” Alec told him, a little sarcastically it must be admitted.
“What do you know about it, Alec?” demanded Dale Evans.
“Yes, open up and tell us, like a good fellow,” added Blake Merton.
A clamorous circle of eager faces met Alec’s eye as he looked around. It pleased him to be the center of attraction, even in such a small matter as this, for Alec had not wholly mastered his love for power, which in the old days had been his besetting sin.
“Well, it was in this way I learned about it,” he began, deliberately. “I had occasion to go down to the post office just before school this morning, and there was a crowd of people around police headquarters. I thought the Chief might have been arresting some negro kid for playing craps, or something like that, so I stepped over just out of idle curiosity.”
“And what was it all about?” asked one of the others, as Alec purposely stopped so as to further arouse their eagerness.
“Why, messengers had come in from up north, asking for help to fight the forest fires that were getting more furious every hour. All sorts of stories were told about farms being burned over, people having to flee in the night with what clothes they had on their backs, and others being trapped in the burning woods.”
The boys exchanged looks of sudden anxiety. It was no laughing matter then, this having a forest fire sweep down upon a little settlement or community, with everything dry as tinder, and ready to burst into flames.
They turned as if by one impulse and looked long and earnestly toward the north. Some of them began to sniff the air suspiciously.