ay over at the Hudson," Harry said; "shows you how far sound will
carry in the night."

Just then I looked at Dorry's scarf that was tied on the stick, and I saw
it was blowing the way we were going--up the mountain.

I said, "That's why we hear the train; the breeze is blowing from the east.
But I can't hear the crackling now."

"Guess the breeze is blowing that up the mountain, too," Harry said.

Then we started up the trail again toward the summit.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A VOICE

It was a jungle of underbrush, that's what Harry said. Pretty soon the
trail just fizzled out in the bushes. We poked around with our lanterns and
found a spring there. I guess the wood between there and the summit must
have been where the party got lost. Sometimes we could hear the crackling
and sometimes we couldn't, but we could smell the burning brush all the
time.

"Guess we're pretty near the summit," Harry said; "let's call that we're
coming. The breeze will carry our voices."

So we all called together, "Hello, we're coming."

There wasn't any answer, but anyway, we couldn't have heard on account of
the breeze blowing up the mountain.

That was the only thing we had to guide us now--the breeze. We kept the
scarf in the air and just followed it, pushing through the brush. Sometimes
we had to stop and tear away an opening, so as to get through. There must
have been an easier way or those girls and fellows would never have managed
it, but Harry thought it was better to push right up than to be groping
around for a path.

All of a sudden, Ralph Warner said, _"Look!" Good night!_ A long line of
fire was coming up the mountain, maybe a quarter of a mile in back of us.
First it seemed like a dotted line, kind of, because there were dark
spaces. But even while we looked some of these filled up. The thing it
reminded me of most of all was soldiers; it seemed like a line of soldiers,
all bright and fiery, charging up the mountain. It was coming fast and I
have to admit it scared me. Because even if we could get through the brush
fast enough, I saw we couldn't get out of range of it. Kind of, the thought
came to me that it was like soldiers who had just scrambled out of the
trenches. That was just how suddenly we saw it. I remember I heard Harry
say something about wind and fire being allies, but we didn't stop to talk,
only pushed up through the brush as fast as we could, but all the while it
kept gaining on us.

Pretty soon I sa