at you can tell whether a felled tree is on state land
or on private property. Your maps show you where the lines run, and you
will find the trees along these lines blazed. If you find lumbering
operations going on within the state forest, do your best to stop the
cutting and report the matter at once. You may find traps set out of
season. And it is practically certain you will have to deal with fires and
perhaps the men who start them. Being a fire patrol involves a whole lot
more than merely walking about through the woods. I can't give you rules
that will cover all the situations you will find yourself in. Common sense
is the best rule. The chief has given you a very important post here. It's
an unusual responsibility for one so young. But we both expect you to make
good. I'll be disappointed if you don't. You know if you fail, I'll have
to take part of the blame." He shook hands with both boys and was gone.

"He's a prince," said Charley, after the ranger had left the thicket. "He
knows just how to treat a fellow. Why, I've simply got to make good now.
I'd get my ranger in bad if I didn't."

Quickly they put their camp to rights, then slipped their pistols into
their pockets and got their fishing-rods.

"What is the first thing on the programme?" asked Lew.

"We'll go up to the top of the hill and have a good look over the
country," replied Charley. "It's just about time for campers to be cooking
their breakfasts. If there are any of them near us, we might see the smoke
from their fires and locate them. You know the ranger wants us to keep tab
on everything that's going on in our district."

They ascended the mountain and climbed the tree from which they had viewed
the country on the preceding day. The sun was just coming over the eastern
summits, sending long, level rays of light flashing among the dark pines,
making beautiful patterns of sun and shade. In the bottoms the night mist
had gathered in little pools, in places completely blotting out the
landscape. The tree tops, upthrusting through these banks of fog, looked
like wooded islets in tiny gray lakes. In every direction the two boys
scanned the country, looking sharply for slender spirals of smoke. But
they saw only mist curling upward.

"It looks to me," said Lew, "as though mighty few people ever get into
this valley. It's such a hard journey to get here that I suppose the
fishermen will stop at the streams in the valleys nearer the highway, and
nobo