r fires. Up on the high peaks they have signal
stations, with semaphores and telephone wires, and men with telescopes
who look out all day long for the first sign of smoke."

"I think that must be a great life. They call them forest rangers,
don't they?"

"Yes. And it is a great job. Those fellows have to know all the
different trees by sight. They have to be able to plant new trees, and
cut down others when the trees need to be thinned out. Forestry is a
science now, and they're teaching it in the colleges. An awful lot of
our forests have been wasted altogether."

"They'll grow again, won't they, Jack?"

"Y-e-s. They will if the work is done properly. But you see those
great big mills, that use up thousands of feet of timber every
season--even millions--don't stop to cut with an idea of reforestation.
They just chop and chop and chop, and when they've cut all the timber
they can, they move on to another section, where they start in and do
it all over again. I'm working to get a Conservation badge, you know.
That's how I've happened to read about all these things."

"I'm going to try to get a Conservation badge, too, Jack. I can start
working for it as soon as I'm a First-Class Scout, can't I?"

"Yes. And this hike will be one of your tests for your First-Class
badge, too. You're only supposed to have to go seven miles, and we'll
make a whole lot more than that. How about your other qualifications?
Coming along all right with them?"

"Yes, indeed. I think I can qualify in a couple of weeks."

"That's fine, Pete! You know I enlisted you, and a Scout is judged
partly by the sort of recruits he brings into the Troop. They'll never
have a chance to blame me for enlisting you if you keep on the way
you've begun."

They were going along at a good pace all this time, not too fast, but
swinging steadily along. The road did not seem long, because their
hard, young bodies were used to exercise, and they took the walking as
a matter of course.

"They'll be expecting us up at the Bentons, won't they, Jack?"

"Dick Crawford said he would write and let Jim Burroughs know we were
coming, Pete. So I guess they'll be on the lookout all right."

"Do you remember the night we got to the lake, and Jim Burroughs and
Miss Benton were lost in the woods?"

"I certainly do! They would have had a bad night of it if we hadn't
found them, I'm afraid. But all's well that ends well. It didn't hurt
them at all,