id a great heap of 'em on the table.
I thought of it while we stood there, but it never occurred to me
to tell you to stow them away."

"I remember now!" Sandy said regretfully.

"Well," Thede responded cheerfully, "I've got just one match. I
wonder if you can light a fire with that!"

"You just wait a minute and I'll tell you!" replied Sandy.

Thede heard him moving about over the limbs of the tree, his every
motion being punctuated by growls from below. Then came an
exclamation of satisfaction from the darkness, and Thede heard the
boy declaring that it was a dead tree they were in, and that there
was plenty of dry wood.

"All right, start your fire, then," suggested Thede, "and we'll see
if we can't burn the backs off some of those bears!"

"Perhaps we can break off enough dry limbs to make a rousing old
fire that will keep till morning," Sandy said in a moment. "If
this old tree is really dead to the heart, it'll make quite a
blaze."

Sandy gathered a great handful of twigs not more than a couple of
inches in length and placed them in a sheltered position in the lee
of the tree. Then he added dry boughs of larger size and made
ready to use the precious match.

"Now you know what'll happen if that match goes out!" said Thede.

"This match," said Sandy confidently, "is not the kind of a match
that goes out. I'd be a healthy old Boy Scout if I couldn't build
a fire in the top of a tree with one match!"

The boy waited until there came a brief lull in the wind, then with
the match protected as much as possible by his hat he struck it.

The flame spluttered for an instant, died down, crawled around to
the windward side of the stick, crawled back again, and then flared
up gloriously. At first the dry twigs refused to ignite, but
presently one caught the blaze, then another, and directly Sandy
was obliged to draw his face away from the growing heat.

"There!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you I could do
it?"

"You said you could," answered Thede, "but I didn't believe it!"

"Look here," Tommy said in a minute, sheltering his face from the
smoke. "First thing we know, we'll have this whole blooming tree
on fire."

"If it gets good and hot, we can fry fish after the bears go away,"
suggested Thede. "I'm hungry! By the way," he added with a grin,
"where are those fish?"

"Do you think I brought 'em up in the tree?" demanded Sandy.

"You never left 'em down there?" asked Thede.

"