ever, “yes, we are going in.”

“You’ll blow this can of yours sky high and all of us with it.”

“Not you,” said Dave with a touch of scorn. “See! There’s a fisherman’s boat coming to meet us. We’ll send you on to Chippewa with it.”

At that the man subsided into silence. As the small boat pulled closer, Dave saw that Captain Frey, in charge of the camp, was on board.

“We’re coming in,” Dave shouted cheerfully. “We’ve a good pump and an inch-and-a-half hose.”

“That’s great,” was the young captain’s heartened response. “You might save us. But is it safe? How about the passengers?”

“Whose boat is that?” Dave asked, pointing to the small fishing schooner.

“Holgar Carlson’s, from Chippewa,” Frey answered.

“Hello, Holgar!” Dave called. “How much to carry ten passengers to Chippewa?”

“Oh, I tank mebby ten dollar,” Holgar drawled.

“All right. Come alongside.”

“Here.” Dave waved a greenback when all passengers had been transferred.

“No you don’t. This is on us,” and Captain Frey slipped a bill in the fisherman’s hand.

“You don’t know,” he commented a moment later, as he stood beside Florence on the Wanderer, “you’ll never know what this means to us. We’ve worked so hard getting a camp. Rain, cold, swamps, mosquitoes—it sure has been tough on the boys, and now this!” His arms swept a wide circle. “We’re not to blame for the fire. The boys were here, all of them. They didn’t set it. It just came creeping down upon us from nowhere. The boys have been fighting it for hours.”

For a time after that, as guided by Indian John’s skillful hand the boat glided shoreward, nothing further was said. Once, as the wind veered, a heavy cloud of yellow smoke engulfed them.

“Oh-o,” Florence gasped, trying to breathe. “This—this is terrible.”

“It’s what the boys have been up against for hours,” Captain Frey said quietly. “We’ll be out of it in a moment.”

As Florence looked at the captain she thought, “Efficient, brave!”

Then a spectacle of the great fire caught her eye, and she gasped with astonishment. One moment a great fifty-foot, moss-covered spruce tree stood proudly against the sky, the next, with a loud roar, flames rushed from its roots to the topmost branch. “Alight, like a giant candle,” Florence exclaimed, “and there are thousands of them on the island!” “Yes,” the young captain replied. “Close to our camp they stand some distance apart. If only we can wet down the earth about the camp, keep the fire from creeping, then turn the hose on it when it comes, we’ll win.”

“And we will,” Dave exclaimed. “We’ve got a marvelous pump. If only—”

“If only you can get in close enough.” The captain stood up and stared ahead. “How large is this boat?”

“Sixty feet long, by twenty wide.”

“Good!” the captain replied. “I’m sure there is room. The water along the shore is deep, thirty feet. A little way out are shoals.”

“We’ll slide right in there near shore,” Dave took the wheel.

“It’s a close little berth,” he said five minutes later, as Rufus, their young engineer, suddenly put the engine into reverse. “Rocks before us, rocks to right and left. It’s like cruising in a bath tub.”

They dropped anchor, let down their lifeboat, sent the hose ashore, then started the pump. At once a powerful stream of water was busy soaking down the dry, moss-covered earth. At times it set up a terrific sizzling sputter, as it played on a tree that had just caught fire.

Encouraged by these reinforcements, the loyal band of camp workers, toiling with ax and shovel, redoubled their efforts.

“Will we make it?” Florence asked anxiously.

“I hope so,” was Captain Frey’s reply. “If the fire gets by us here, the whole island may go. Think what that means! A forty-mile long island covered with virgin timber, last stand of primeval beauty, future playground of thousands!”

“Yes,” Florence agreed, “it does mean a great deal.” Then, and for weeks to come, she forgot her own disappointments, her lost hopes, whenever she thought of this larger cause which meant so much to many.

For two long hours, with the heat at times growing all but unbearable, with the peril of a gasoline explosion ever threatening, the boat’s pump chugged on.

There came a time at last, however, when the weary fighters leaned on shovel handles and watched the flames fade. Then there rose a glad shout: “The wind! The wind! It’s changed. It will drive the fire into the bay!”

This was true. The wind had changed. But Dave’s brow wrinkled. He and Florence were for the moment on shore. “Come on,” he exclaimed. “We’ve got to get the boat out of the bay. In a half-hour that fire will be dangerously close to the boat and our gasoline. It’s swung round their camp—that’s safe. But it’s coming our way with the wind up. Our pump won’t stop it. In an hour—”

He did not finish. Instead, he rowed swiftly across to the Wanderer.

“Rufus!” he called. “Cut off the pump. Their battle’s won. Pull in the hose. We’ll back out of here in a jiffy and be away.”

“Thanks. Thanks more than we can say,” Captain Frey shouted hoarsely from the shore.

“Say-ee!” Dave stared down at the water before the prow. “We’ve shifted. Current carried us in. I wonder—”

He did not have long to wonder. As Rufus set the motor roaring, the boat’s propeller stirred up a great, white mass of foam, but the boat moved never an inch.

“Grounded!” Dave groaned. “Stuck between two rocks. We’ll never get off with our own power.”

“How terrible!” Florence was almost in tears. “We’ve tried to help, and now this! The fire is coming! The boat—”

“What’s up?” Captain Frey shouted from the shore.

“Aground,” Dave called back.

“Wait!” The captain sprang toward the slope where the campers were resting.

A moment later, Florence felt her throat tighten as she watched the weary boys swarming shoreward. The hose was carried to land, and this time the pump did double duty. The boat rocked with the throbbing of its motors. With a heart that at all times seemed to stand still, the girl saw the bravest of the boys in blue overalls force the nozzle of the hose almost upon the onrushing fire.

Was the stream of water large enough? Would the fire be stopped before it was too late? For a time it seemed that, with the hose alone, the fire might be conquered. Then, of a sudden, a fresh and stronger gale sweeping across the bay sent bright flames leaping along the spruce trees and into the sky.

“We’ll lose,” Florence choked.

“Try the motor again!” Dave ordered. “We might get away now.”

The engines were accelerated, but in vain.

“Getting pretty hot down there.” Rufus mopped his brow as he came up from below.

A wave of despair overwhelmed Florence. What would be the end? Then a thrilling sight met her gaze. Fifty boys, each carrying a shovel or an ax and each with his head covered by a damp cloth, marched out of the camp cabin and straight toward the conflagration. “To do or to die for us,” she thought.

Then the boys struck up a song.

CHAPTER II
THE BATTLE OF SISKOWIT

The “Battle of Siskowit,” as the boys