“Talk about the map of Ireland, Billy,” one of the other scouts told him, “you carry it around with you.”
“He certainly came from somewhere near Cork,” remarked another fellow, “because he kissed the Blarney Stone before crossing over. Billy can soft-soap you to beat the band. He gets nearly anything he wants.”
“Oh! heaps more than I want sometime,” laughed the good-natured Billy.
Having gained this hard-fought victory, the boys felt that they must take a rest before starting in again. Hugh surveyed the field, and tried to figure from which quarter the peril might come next.
“I’m afraid there’s getting to be a shift of the wind, Hugh,” remarked Arthur, who, being known as a sort of weather prophet, felt it his duty to observe all such things as clouds and wind.
“That would make it bad for us again,” asserted the scout master.
“You mean the fire is bound to strike us from a new quarter if the wind whips around as it’s trying to do right now; is that it, Hugh?” questioned Arthur.
“It’s moving into the northwest,” Hugh told him. “Which would bring it across that patch of dead grass that up to now seems to have kept from burning. Then the woods are closer on that side, and the heat would be greater on the roofs of the barn and house.”
“Shall we get busy again and try to wet down everything that faces that way?” asked the other, as though grasping the conditions by which they were now confronted.
“It is the only thing we can do,” said Hugh.