Copyright, 1915,
BY
HURST & COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Oakvale’s One Wise Man 5

II. What Presence of Mind Meant 16

III. The Threatening Peril 27

IV. The Call of Duty 39

V. Carried to the Front 48

VI. The Burning Forest 59

VII. As Busy as Beavers 73

VIII. Back-firing 85

IX. Peter, the Bound Boy 96

X. At the Dry Spring 105

XI. Babes In the Woods 116

XII. When the Rain Came Down 130

XIII. Right-about Face! 142

The Boy Scouts as Forest Fire Fighters.

CHAPTER I.
OAKVALE’S ONE WISE MAN.

“Don’t believe in it, I tell you! All a humbug! No boy of mine will ever fool away his time strutting around and wearing soldiers’ clothes when he ought to be doing his chores at home! Take that from me, young fellow!”

“But Mr. Prentice, if you care to ask any one of the best citizens of Oakvale——”

“Foolish of them to be so blind, I tell you, boy!”

“There’s Mr. Hayward, the minister, sir!”

“A good man, but an easy mark all the same!”

“And Judge Marshall!”

“Surprised to hear that a long-headed man like the judge should allow his name to be used in connection with such utter foolishness. If he had boys of his own instead of three girls he might see things in a different light.”

“There’s Dr. Kane, and—well, the father of every one of the thirty boys in the troop. In fact, Mr. Prentice, I think you’re almost the only prominent man in or around Oakvale who hasn’t enthusiastically endorsed the local scout troop, which they believe has made good.”

Perhaps this little shaft of flattery told. At any rate the man called Mr. Prentice allowed a glimmer of a grim smile to flit across his stern face as he observed:

“All I can say then, Hugh, is that the prominent men of this section are a short-sighted lot when they allow themselves to be so easily led by the nose, and humbugged by a parcel of prank-loving boys!”

Billy Worth nudged the leader of the Wolf Patrol, Hugh Hardin, in the side. He acted as though it might be on the tip of his tongue to say something saucy; but for fear he might thus injure the cause Hugh was so manfully representing, Billy managed to remain silent.

Hugh made a final appeal, as he saw the man was about to leave them.

“But surely, Mr. Prentice, you must have heard some good things said about the scouts, haven’t you?” he asked, with one of his most persuasive smiles; which, however, in this case, seemed to be wasted on the one-idea man.

“Oh! yes,” carelessly replied the other, gathering up his lines preparatory to starting his horse, “a lot of wonderful stories have come floating over to my house, but I set most of them down as exaggerations. When I was a boy I read the ‘Arabian Nights,’ ‘Baron Munchausen,’ ‘Sindbad the Sailor,’ and ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ I know how proud fathers like to boast of their smart sons. I’ve had my eye-teeth cut, Hugh. You’re a clever lad, I know, but if you talked until doomsday you couldn’t change my mind about the folly of this Boy Scout game.”

He spoke to his horse, and the two boys saw him go down the road in a cloud of dust, for it was the driest fall ever known about Oakvale.

Billy Worth—who was a pretty ample sort of a boy—a good-natured expression on his face most of the time, doubled up like a hinge, so far as his girth allowed, and seemed to be quivering with mirth.

Hugh Hardin was shaking his head as though he fancied he had run across about the hardest nut to crack of all his experience.

“What is there so funny about it, Billy?” he asked, for he was thinking how sorry he would be to report an utter failure to poor Addison Prentice, who was really wild to join the scouts, and had begged Hugh to intercede with his parent for him.

“I’ll tell you,” gasped Billy, trying hard to catch his breath. “When you said he was the only prominent man around here who didn’t think the scouts worth their salt, he had nerve to say he pitied them all for disagreeing with him. He made me think of a story I heard long ago.”

“Well, go on and tell it,” said Hugh, “for I know you’ll not be in shape to talk straight again until you get it out of your system.”