greater than ever as new arrivals constantly augmented it. A buzz of tongues told that the women were trying to explain how matters stood to those who could not understand what all this excitement meant.

Hugh was keeping count of the boys as they came up. He had them ranged alongside the wall of the church, so that he would know when the full quota had arrived. It pleased him to see how anxious they all were to join their fortunes with the expedition that was about to set forth, bent on a new work of usefulness.

It still lacked five minutes of the appointed time, and yet Hugh believed that every member of the troop who might be expected to gather had done so. Two boys he knew were sick at home, and another was away from town; but the rest were on hand.

“There’s no use waiting any longer, Hugh!” called out Billy Worth. “We’re all on deck, you see.”

Everybody stopped talking when Hugh was seen to step forward again, and raise his hand. This boy had won the respect of Oakvale through his manly qualities. He had even managed to disarm the enmity of certain boys who at one time had striven to throw every obstacle possible in his path.

“We’re going to start off, fellows,” he announced, cheerily; “and it isn’t too late yet for any one who isn’t in good shape to do a lot of work to drop back. Fall in, double file, and we’ll be moving!”

Quickly they obeyed. Not a single boy dropped out of line; indeed, just then it would have required a most powerful lever to have dragged any of them aside. They did not know what awaited them up where that billowing smoke came from; possibly it might mean danger, and surely suffering from the pungent vapor that smarted the eyes, but they believed duty called them, and they were wild to go.

The crowd parted to let them pass through. Other boys who did not belong to the troop cheered them as they walked smartly along, keeping excellent military step.

There were no inspiring notes of the bugle to cheer them this time, no exhilarating throb of the drum to enliven their steps; but nevertheless every boy’s face was an index to the feelings of his heart, and they shone with delight.

On down the street they went, followed by the crowd that seemed bent on seeing the last of them. Never had the scouts presented a more manly bearing, though all of them were shabbily dressed, a few in cast-off khaki suits, others wearing such garments as they could find around home of the kind that it would not matter if they were utterly ruined in the fire-fighting.

Now they had passed beyond the outskirts of the town. The crowd had left them with a parting cheer. Ahead lay the road leading to the region being devastated by the furious flames. Sturdily they set out to walk all the way up to the burning woods in order that they might be of some assistance to those in distress.

CHAPTER V.
CARRIED TO THE FRONT.

“It’s going to be something of a hike for us, I reckon,” Billy Worth remarked, as they covered the first half mile of ground.

While Billy’s ambition knew no bounds, and he was always ready to attempt any feat which others, who were much more nimble, could accomplish, he was often sadly handicapped by his extra weight. Although the rest of the boys were swinging lightly along, and thinking nothing of the exertion, Billy was puffing like a porpoise. He was also secretly mopping his face with his red bandana handkerchief, which he had knotted loosely around his neck, cowpuncher fashion, a trick most scouts are fond of emulating.

“Yes, and we’re all sorry on your account, Billy,” ventured Buck Winters. “Hiking never was your best hold. If a prize was offered to the longest sitter, you’d come under the wire a victor every time.”

“It’ll be a good thing to cut down your heft some, too, Billy,” another scout told him. “Nothing half so fine as sweating it off. That’s what all the prize fighters do when they have to get into trim.”

“Hugh,” called out Alec, for they were not trying to keep any sort of order now, each tramping along with some comrade he had picked out, though not strung out over more than ten yards of road, “have you been able to learn what sort of a fire it is up here?”

“Only that the woods are ablaze for a long distance,” replied the scout master. “Some accounts say the fire front is five miles long, and growing every hour.”

“I asked,” continued Alec, “because there are two kinds of forest fires. One, and the most terrible, is where the trees themselves are burning, and that means the utter ruination of the whole tract. I’ve seen miles and miles up in Michigan where only stumps stand up like fingers. I certainly hope that isn’t going to be the case here, for we’d miss those woods the worst way in summertime.”

“But you spoke of another sort of fire, Alec; tell us about it?” asked Shorty McNeil, whose hobby lay in collecting strange plants, and who on that account would be very sorry to see the forest ruined, since he spent much of his spare time under the trees, searching for new varieties of wild flowers.

“Why, at this time of the year,” Alec went on to explain, “when most of the leaves have fallen, if a spark drops among them and a fire follows it runs along the ground, eating up all the dead stuff. It makes a terrible smoke, and lights up the sky nights, but it isn’t so dangerous as the other sort of fire.”

“Which kind would you think this one will turn out to be, Alec?” asked Billy.

“I’d rather believe it was the bush sort, though it may turn out some of the trees are ablaze, too. You see, all sorts of logs lying on the ground, dead stumps, piles of wood cut for fence rails and that sort of stuff gets to going with the rest, so it makes a fierce blaze.”

“And with this strong wind blowing it must travel pretty fast at that, I take it,” remarked Bud Morgan.

“Look out back there!” shouted Ralph Kenyon, “some sort of car coming along in a big hurry; don’t block the road. Perhaps it’s the Oakvale fire department starting on to lend a hand at putting the blaze down!”

Ralph had once upon a time spent much of his time in the woods. In summer he had hunted for places where patches of wild ginseng or golden rod grew, the roots of which he dug up in season, dried, and sold at a good profit.

Then, too, in the winter, he had been wont to trap all sorts of small fur-bearing animals for the sake of their pelts, which brought him in a fair price when sent to a dealer in the city.

Ralph had seen a great light after he joined the scouts. Nothing could tempt him nowadays to injure an innocent little animal, merely in order that he might increase his savings bank account. He had even grown to enjoy watching them frolic in their native haunts which he knew so well.

While others were thinking wholly of human misery apt to follow this sweep of the fire, Ralph had an aching heart for the wood’s denizens who, caught in the trap, were apt to perish miserably.

The tooting of an automobile horn told that the car coming behind them was close to the bend they had just recently turned. Warned in time, the scouts crowded to the side of the road and left an open space for it to pass through.

No sooner did they glimpse the car than the boys started shouting.

“Why, it’s Mr. Lewis, the liveryman!” one called out.

“And he’s got his big rubberneck twenty-passenger car, too!” cried a second.

“Hey! it’s empty, don’t you notice, fellows!” came from a third