Jack and Bud even began to sing one of their school songs as they ambled along in the wake of the leaders. The obstacles they had met no longer impeded their path, and being young and free from cares it did not take much to start them going.
“This sure is a queer experience for us to have, Hugh,” Don was remarking as he looked around at their strange surroundings, with the many columns of smoke rising from stumps, half-decayed logs and deposits of dead leaves, which, being somewhat damp underneath, had not burned as readily as other batches.
“Well, it counts with a lot of others we’ve passed through in our time,” the other told him. “When you stop to think of it, Don, we’ve been a pretty lucky bunch of scouts to go through with all we have since the troop was first formed.”
“I often have to smile when I think how queer it seems that our fine scout master, Lieutenant Denmead, is nearly always away on some trip whenever these big things are pulled off. This time we’ll have another adventure to tell him, of how we were called by duty up into the burning forest, and what a glorious time we had of it beating the fire away from the widow’s farm buildings and hay-stacks.”
“Yes, and bringing in these tots who were the waifs of the fire,” added Hugh, as he looked fondly down at the sturdy curly-headed chap who was so manly trudging alongside, with not a single murmur, though the way was far from easy for his little feet.
“If we didn’t do a single thing besides this,” Don asserted in a way that told how he meant every word of it, “I’d feel that it was worth our trip up here ten times over. I never ran across such a fine little bunch of kids before. No wonder Mrs. Heffner turned white in the face when she thought of them being left there in charge of only little Peter.”
“Everything is all right now, it looks like,” remarked Jack, who, of course, had been listening to what the others said, for he was close behind them.
“There, I felt it!” burst out Bud, and when they turned to look at him he was found to be holding his face upward as though searching the bare treetops for something.
“Another drop of rain, do you mean, Bud?” asked Don, with considerable eagerness.
“It certainly was,” came the reply. “Oh, why does it wait to be squeezed out in driblets that way? There’s a heap of wet due us by now, and the old weather clerk up yonder had better give it to us from the bung-hole and not by way of the spigot. We want it, and we want it bad.”