uch. When the new freight rates
go into effect the cost of hauling our lumber to us will be something like
$40,000,000 a year."

The two boys were very thoughtful as they made their way back to Charley's
shop.

"What are people going to do for wood pretty soon?" Lew inquired of his
companion. "If we can't build a little boat because the wood costs too
much, how are people going to get homes and furniture and wagons and
motor-cars and a thousand other things? Seems to me pretty much everything
we use is made of wood."

"I don't know," replied Charley. "But what bothers me more just now is to
know what we are going to do during Easter vacation. It may be the last
vacation I shall ever have, and I'd like to have a good time."

"Why not follow the lumber dealer's suggestion and go out to the forests?
Easter doesn't come this year until after the trout season opens. We could
go out to our old camp in the mountains and spend the vacation there,
fishing and hiking."

"That's a mighty good suggestion, Lew. If we have our packs ready, we can
start from high school the minute it is dismissed. We can make that early
afternoon train and get off at that little flag-station at the foot of
Stone Mountain. Then we can hike through the notch and reach the far slope
of Old Ironsides before dark. We shall have to camp overnight along the
run from the spring there, as it is the only water for miles around. Then
the next day we can go on into that little valley where we saw so many
trout. That is so hard to reach that not many fishermen ever go there. The
little stream from the spring on Old Ironsides runs into that brook. Do
you remember what lots of little trout we saw not far below the spring?
They will have become big fellows by this time and moved down into the
larger stream. There ought to be some fine fishing there this spring."

"They say it's an ill wind that blows nobody good. I'm sorry we can't
build the boat, but we shall have just as good a time in the mountains as
we should have had on the river. We'll borrow that little pup tent of
Johnnie Lee's, and take our blankets, hatchets, fishing-rods, and grub."

"I'd rather leave the tent at home and build a lean-to after we get there.
Then we could take a portable wireless outfit and talk to the fellows at
home here in the evening. Half a dozen dry cells would give us one-sixth
of a kilowatt of current, and that ought to carry a message twenty-five or
thirty miles easily. At