ened, desolate area that stretched the remainder of the way
to the summit. Fire had swept over the spot. But it was not the fact that
fire had been through the region that made Lew cry out. Fire and
subsequent storms had practically leveled the stand of trees between the
spot where Lew stood and the summit. Here and there a blackened tree
thrust its bare trunk upward, limbless, its top gone, a ragged, spectral,
pitiful remnant of what had been a beautiful tree. But mostly the thick
stand of young poles had been laid low even as a scythe levels a field of
grain. And these fallen poles lay in almost impassable confusion, twisted
and tangled and in places heaped in towering masses. A barbed wire
entanglement would hardly have been a worse obstacle. To penetrate the
mass, even in the light of noon, would have been no easy work; but to
cross the area now, with dusk fast deepening to darkness, was indeed a
difficult task.

"Well," said Lew, after a few searching glances at the burned area, "we've
got to go on, and we might as well plow straight through it. I can't see
that one way looks any easier than another."

They went on, slowly, painfully. Now they were forced to crawl underneath
a fallen tree, now to climb over one. Again and again their way was
completely blocked by high barriers of interlocked trunks and branches.
Sometimes they had to mount the fallen trunks and cautiously walk from one
to another. Darkness came on apace. They could hardly see. The flash-light
was brought forth, the last drop in the canteen swallowed, and they
started forward on their final push.

"It's only a few hundred yards to the top, now," said Lew. "It will be
easier going down the other side."

Painfully slow was their progress. More than once each of them tripped and
fell. The sharp ends of the broken branches tore their clothes and
scratched them badly. But silently, doggedly, they pushed on. At last
there remained but one barrier between them and the summit. It was a
great pile of fallen trunks that had no visible ending. There was nothing
to do but go over it. From one log to another they scrambled up, each
helping the other, advancing a foot at a time, feeling the way with hands
and feet and searching out a path with the little light. So high were the
trees piled that at times the boys walked ten feet in air, making their
way gingerly along the slender trunks. Eventually they got beyond the log
barrier and the remainder of the way to