The creek bed was plainly in evidence. Years before there must have been quite a lovely little stream of clear ice-cold water gurgling between those moss-covered stones. That was before the spring had stopped, owing to some interior convulsion of Nature or rock “slip.”
It was very hot and almost suffocating in the midst of the forest through which the devastating fire had so recently passed. It would have been much more so had the trees been included in the general conflagration.
Frequently one of the scouts would feel the necessity for taking a mouthful of cold water, because he believed himself to be perilously near the choking stage. One and all were glad they had been wise enough to carry those canteens along with them.
There was no sign of animal or bird life anywhere about them. Perhaps many of these perished in the fire. Most of them, however, must have found some means for escaping through flight, or failing that, taken refuge among the rocks, perhaps in hiding places under the roots of trees.
“Must be pretty near there I should say, Hugh?” ventured Jack.
“We’ve certainly covered half a mile of territory since starting out,” Bud Morgan asserted, using his bandana freely in order to mop his streaming face.
“Not quite that much yet,” Hugh told them. “You know, in a case of this kind, it’s easy to think you’ve gone further than you really have. But we are coming close to where the spring ought to be located, and we’ll all be on the watch for the signs.”
“It’ll never give us the slip,” ventured Don Miller confidently.
“I don’t see how it could very well,” the scout master told them, “because when the spring was working it fed the creek, so we should easily tell where they joined forces.”
“Unless I miss my guess,” ventured Bud, “we’re going to strike that junction right away.”