Fort Brady,
they don't need to tell any member of the Wireless Patrol to be careful
with fire," observed Lew. "But there are lots of people who do need to be
warned."

He dipped the canteen in the spring and passed on. "We're almost at the
top," he said, "and I'm not sorry."

"The light is already growing fainter," said Charley, "and it will bother
us to see before so very long. It's going to get dark awful early
to-night. We'd better hustle."

They reached the summit of the pass and started down the other slope. The
trail continued. At first it was choked with briars and bushes. But
suddenly they found the trail open. It had been cleared of all
obstructions and enlarged until it was several feet wide. Even the roots
of the bushes had been grubbed out, so that the path was smooth and clean.
The cut saplings and brush had been burned in the trail itself, but the
work had been done so carefully that never a tree had been scorched. Even
the marks of fire had been obliterated by the subsequent grubbing of the
roots.

"Bully good!" cried Lew, when he saw the path lying smooth and open before
him. "The forest rangers have been making a fire trail of this old path.
We can make great time here."

He pushed on at top speed. Charley hung close at his heels. Neither boy
said a word, each saving his breath for the task in hand; for with the
packs on their backs even a down-hill trail was not easy.

"We can go scout pace here," said Lew over his shoulder, and suiting his
action to his words, he broke into a trot. Fifty steps he went at that
gait, then walked fifty. Then he ran fifty more. So they went down the
mountain in a mere fraction of the time it had taken them to ascend. But
long before they reached the bottom, Lew dropped back to a steady walk.

"We've got to save our wind for the climb up Old Ironsides," he said over
his shoulder.

It was well he did so. Before them a long, high mountain stretched across
their way, like a giant caterpillar. No notch cut through its rugged side,
to give an easy way to the valley beyond. Only by climbing directly over
the rugged monster could the two boys reach the snug little valley on its
far side, where they expected to find the trout teeming tinder the dark
pines. Old Ironsides was the rocky barrier that confronted them. Even
Stone Mountain was not more rugged and rocky. Like Stone Mountain it
seemed to be a mammoth rock pile. Rocks of every size and description
covered its ste