not
pleasant, for from time to time he scowled.

"Lew," he said, at length, "I never realized until this minute just what
that sign on the old hemlock meant." And he quoted: "'Everybody loses
when timber burns.' It's true. <i>Everybody</i> loses--positively everybody.
The sportsmen lose game, the fishermen lose fish, the towns lose their
water-supply, the mills lose their water-power, civilization loses wood.
Why, Lew, civilization's built of wood. How could we live without it? And
as for me, think what I've lost through forest fires. I've lost an
opportunity to own half of a boat. I've suffered from thirst. I've lost a
chance to catch some fish. And, Lew, I've lost a college education! I
never understood it before. If the cost of lumber hadn't gone up so much,
Dad could have paid for his house easily and helped me through college.
Now I've got to give up going to college. I've got to work two or three
years for Dad and if ever I get married and want to build a home, I see
where I've got to slave for the rest of my life to pay for the lumber
that's in it, and the wooden furnishings inside of it. Think of it, Lew!
You and I and all the rest of us have to work for years and years just to
pay for what a lot of reckless people did before we were born. It's
terrible, Lew, terrible. I've got to spend three years in a factory
because of it. I thought for a minute that I might get a job here in the
forest. That would have been grand. But there's no such luck. It's the
factory for me. I'm sure of it. I don't know how I'll ever stand it, Lew."

Chapter V

A Lost Opportunity

Half an hour later the two boys were all but ready to go on. Before
rolling his pack, Charley filled his coffee-pot in the run and thoroughly
soaked the last embers of their fire.

"You'll never burn any timber," he said, as he poured on the last potful.
Then he stowed the coffee-pot in his pack and in a few moments the two
boys were once more afoot.

They struck directly for the top of the knob, as the ranger had told them
to do. The slope of the ground alone guided them. So dense was the stand
of timber that the huge trunks shut off the view in all directions. It was
almost as though they were encircled by palisades. And so thick was the
shade that rarely did a sunbeam reach the earth. They were in the forest
primeval, a land of perpetual gloom. There was no underbrush and they
could travel rapidly. In a very short time they came to the top