aid Lew, "you'd be willing
to swear you could hear somebody talking. You can hear voices just as
plain as can be. And you can almost make out what they say. Many a time
I've caught myself listening hard to try to make out the words, when I
heard a brook talking."

"It's no wonder people get scared and pretty nearly go crazy when they are
lost in the forest," replied Lew. "Without half trying, you can imagine
the forest is full of people or spooks or animals or something, creeping
up behind your back."

Lew bent down and once more filled the canteen. He corked it tight and
dipped it bodily into the run to wet the cloth cover, so that the water
within would be kept cool by evaporation. Then he slung the canteen over
his shoulder.

"I never saw a mountain stream so low at this time of the year," he
remarked, as he followed his companion up the trail. "You might think it
was August. But with no snow to melt and no rainfall this spring, it isn't
to be wondered at."

On they went up the trail. For a long time neither boy spoke. The brambles
still tore at their clothes and the bushes tripped them. In places the
young saplings were so dense that to force a way among them was a
difficult task. Their packs began to grow very heavy. But they had one
advantage. As Charley had suggested, the ground was perfectly dry. There
were no slippery sticks to tread on, nor any moss-covered stones,
treacherous with their soggy coats. So they could give more attention to
the obstacles above ground. But at best it was a hard, difficult climb.

As they mounted higher and higher, the stream in the bottom constantly
dwindled. Long before the crest was reached, the brook had become a very
feeble stream, indeed. It had its source near the top of the pass, in a
great spring that welled up under a large rock. A single hemlock had
sprung up here in years past, and, watered by the spring, had grown to
enormous size. For some reason the lumbermen had passed it by. Now it
reared its giant bulk high above the younger growths around it, casting a
dense shade over the spring basin. Practically nothing grew in this deep
shade, so that the space above the spring was open and free from bushes.
On the trunk of this giant hemlock, where it could be seen by all who came
to the spring, was a white sign that read:

<i>Everybody loses when timber burns.</i>
Pennsylvania Department of Forestry.

"After our fight with the forest fire, when we were in camp at