on't know that there's much to
tell. All we scouts do is to patrol the country and watch for fires. Of
course, in case of a big fire, our duties are more exciting. I remember
one fire," he leaned back in his chair reminiscently and the boys
listened eagerly, hanging on every word. "It was a beauty of its kind,
covering pretty nearly fourteen miles. Thousands of dollars' worth of
valuable timber was menaced. It looked for a time as if it would get the
better of us, at that.

"Men were scarce and there was a high wind to urge the fire on. A
receiving set was rushed to the fire line, some of the apparatus in a
truck and some carried by truck horses. My plane was detailed to patrol
the fire line and give directions to the men who were fighting the
fire."

He paused, and the boys waited impatiently for him to go on.

"The good old plane was equipped for both sending and receiving, and I
tell you we patrolled that fourteen miles of flaming forest, sometimes
coming so close to the tree tops that we almost seemed to brush them.

"My duty, of course, was to report the progress of the fire. Controlled
at one point, it broke out at another, and it was through the messages
from my 'plane to the ground set stationed just behind the fire line
that the men were moved from one danger point to the next.

"Finally, the fire seeming nearly out along one side of the ridge, I
sent the men to fighting it on the other side, where it had been left to
rage uncontrolled. No sooner had the men scattered for the danger point
than the brooding fire broke out again and it was necessary to recall
half the men.

"It was a long fight and a hard one, but with the aid of the blessed old
wireless, we finally won out. As a matter of fact, the wireless-equipped
airplane has become as necessary to the Forest Service as ships are to
the navy.

"In the old days," he went on, seeing that the boys were still deeply
interested, "when they depended upon the ordinary telephone to convey
warnings of fires they were surely leaning upon a broken reed.

"Often, just when they needed the means of communication most, the fire
would sweep through the woods, destroying trees to which the telephone
wires were fastened, and melting the wires themselves. So the eyes of
the Forest Service were put out and they were forced to work in the
dark."

"But I should think," protested Bob, "that there would be times when
even wireless would be put out of the job. Suppose the