and gooseberry bushes
and other brush were screen enough; we swung down along the opposite
side, and the smoke grew stronger. But still we could not hear a sound.
We closed in, peering and listening--and then suddenly I wasn't afraid,
or at least, I didn't care. Through the stems of the trees was an open
park, at the foot of the gulch, and if there was a camp nobody was at
home, for the park was afire!

"Come on!" I shouted. "Fire!" and down I rushed. So did Carson and Jed
Smith.

We were just in time. The flames had spread from an old camp-fire and
had eaten along across the grass and pine needles and were among the
brush, getting a good start. Already a dry stump was blazing; and in
fifteen minutes more a tree somewhere would have caught. And then--whew!

But we sailed into it, stamping and kicking and driving it back from the
brush.

"Wet your blanket, Jed," I ordered, "while we fight."

A creek was near, luckily; Jed wet his blanket, and we each in turn wet
our blankets; and swiping with the rolls we smashed the line of fire
right and left, and had it out in just a few minutes.

Now a big blackened space was left, like a blot; and the burning and our
trampling about had destroyed most of the sign. But we must learn what
had happened. We got busy again.

We picked up the cow-path, back in the gulch, and found that the burros
had followed it this far. We found where the burros had been grazing and
standing, in the brush, near the burned area, and we found where horses
had been standing, too! We found fish-bones, and coffee-grounds dumped
from the little bag they had been boiled in, and a path had been worn to
the creek. We found in the timber and brush near by other sign, but we
missed the second warning sign. However, where the fire had not reached,
on the edge of the park, we found several pieces of rope, cut, lying
together, and in a soft spot of the turf here we found the hob-nail
prints of the Elk Patrol! By ashes we found where the main camp-fire had
been, and we found where a second smaller camp-fire had been, at the
edge of the park, and prints of shoes worn through in the left sole--the
shoes of the beaver man! We found a tin plate and fork, by the big
camp-fire, and wrapped in a piece of canvas in a spruce was a hunk of
bacon. By circling we found an out-going trail of horses and burros. We
found the out-going trail of the beaver man--or of a single horse,
anyway, but no shoe prints with it. But look