camel?"

"That's a funny idea, Pete, comparing a tree to a camel, but I don't
know that it's so bad, at that. It is rather on the same principle,
when you come to think of it."

Men were working in the fields as they approached the fire. They
seemed indifferent to the danger that Durland feared. One boy not much
older than themselves stared at the carroty head of Pete Stubbs, and
laughed aloud.

"Hey, Carrots," he cried, "ain't you afraid of settin' yourself on
fire?"

"You ain't so good lookin' yourself!" Pete flamed back, but Jack put a
hand on his arm.

"Easy there, Pete!" he said. "We're on Scout duty now. Don't mind
him."

A little further on they met an older man, who seemed to be the farmer.

"Aren't you afraid the fire may spread this way?" asked Jack, stopping
to speak to him.

"Naw! Ain't never come here yet. Reckon it won't now, neither."

"There always has to be a first time for everything, you know," said
Jack, secretly annoyed at the stolid indifference of the farmer, who
seemed interested in nothing but the tobacco he was chewing.

"Tain't no consarn of your'n, be it?" asked the farmer, looking at them
as if he had small use for boys who were not working. He forgot that
Pete and Jack, coming from the city, might work almost as hard there
through the week as he did on his farm, without the healthful outdoor
life to lessen the weariness.

"Sure it ain't!" said Pete, goaded into replying. "We thought maybe
you'd like to know there was a good chance that your place might be
burnt up. If you don't care, we don't. That's a lead pipe cinch!"

"Come on, Pete," said Jack. "They'll be looking for a signal pretty
soon. If we don't hurry, it'll be too dark for them to see our flags
when we really have something to report."

The fields nearest the mountain and the fire were full of stubble that
would burn like tinder, as Jack knew. The corn had been cut, and the
dry stalks, that would carry the flames and give them fresh fuel to
feed on, remained. Not far beyond, too, were several great haystacks,
and in other fields the hay had been cut and was piled ready for
carrying into the barns the next day. If the fire, with a good start,
ever did leap across the cleared space from the woods it would be hard,
if not impossible, to prevent it from spreading thus right up to the
outhouses, the barns, and the farmhouses themselves. Moreover, there
was no water here. There were the courses of tw