“What did you think you heard?” asked Hugh, when all of them had strained their hearing for a full minute without catching any sound out of the ordinary.
“I must have been mistaken,” admitted Ralph, “but it was like someone calling!”
CHAPTER IX.
PETER, THE BOUND BOY.
“Oh! what if somebody was caught in that fire-trap, and so mixed up he couldn’t tell which way to go?”
It was Billy who said this. Always tender-hearted, the stout scout was appalled at such a dreadful thing happening. They all stood there and stared hard at the smoke-filled forest. Here and there flashes of flame could still be seen, and in more than one place a tree burned fiercely.
“Let’s hope it isn’t as bad as that,” said Hugh.
“The people up through this section had plenty of warning to get away, from what I heard,” remarked Ned Twyford.
“But some of them would sooner stay and take the chances, just as Mrs. Heffner here did,” Monkey Stallings suggested.
“You could hardly blame them, either,” another boy interjected.
“It’s hard to desert your property,” the widow told them, “especially when you’ve got a family of children to bring up, and no husband or father to lean on. But I didn’t dream the danger would be so great.”