The Young Wireless Operator--As a Fire Patrol | Page 9

continued. At first it was choked with briars and bushes. But
suddenly they found the trail open. It had been cleared of all
obstructions and enlarged until it was several feet wide. Even the roots
of the bushes had been grubbed out, so that the path was smooth and
clean. The cut saplings and brush had been burned in the trail itself, but
the work had been done so carefully that never a tree had been scorched.
Even the marks of fire had been obliterated by the subsequent grubbing
of the roots.

"Bully good!" cried Lew, when he saw the path lying smooth and open
before him. "The forest rangers have been making a fire trail of this old
path. We can make great time here."
He pushed on at top speed. Charley hung close at his heels. Neither boy
said a word, each saving his breath for the task in hand; for with the
packs on their backs even a down-hill trail was not easy.
"We can go scout pace here," said Lew over his shoulder, and suiting
his action to his words, he broke into a trot. Fifty steps he went at that
gait, then walked fifty. Then he ran fifty more. So they went down the
mountain in a mere fraction of the time it had taken them to ascend.
But long before they reached the bottom, Lew dropped back to a steady
walk.
"We've got to save our wind for the climb up Old Ironsides," he said
over his shoulder.
It was well he did so. Before them a long, high mountain stretched
across their way, like a giant caterpillar. No notch cut through its
rugged side, to give an easy way to the valley beyond. Only by
climbing directly over the rugged monster could the two boys reach the
snug little valley on its far side, where they expected to find the trout
teeming tinder the dark pines. Old Ironsides was the rocky barrier that
confronted them. Even Stone Mountain was not more rugged and rocky.
Like Stone Mountain it seemed to be a mammoth rock pile. Rocks of
every size and description covered its steep slope. Mostly the mountain
was shaded by a good stand of second-growth timber; but in places
there were vast areas of rounded stones, like flattish heaps of potatoes,
that for acres covered the soil of the hill so deeply as to prevent all
plant growth. Old Ironsides could have been called Stone Mountain as
appropriately as its neighbor, for truly it was rock-ribbed. But the
stones on its slopes, unlike those of Stone Mountain, contained a small
percentage of iron. Hence its name. The nearer slope of this hill was as
dry as it was stony. Not a spring or the tiniest trickle of water wet its
rocky side for miles. But part way down the farther slope a splendid
stream gushed forth among the rocks. It was this spring, or the stream
issuing from it, that Charley and Lew hoped to reach before they made

their camp for the night.
Thanks to the work of the forest rangers in clearing the fire trail, it
looked as though the two boys would reach their goal before dark.
Could they have gone straight up the slope of Old Ironsides, they
would have come almost directly to the spring itself. But the grade was
far too steep to permit that. They would have to zigzag up the hill and
find the stream after they topped the crest. Because of the peculiar
formation of the land below this spring, the water did not run directly
down the hill toward the bottom, but flowed off to one side and made
its way diagonally down the slope.
At the bottom of the fire trail Lew and Charley sat down and rested for
five minutes. Then they began their difficult climb upward. And
difficult it was. There was no semblance of a path. The way led over
jagged masses of rock, through dense little stands of trees, and among
growths that were hard to penetrate because of their very thinness; for
where the stand was sparse the trees had many low limbs to catch and
trip and pull at those who sought to pass through.
There were great areas of bare stones to be crossed--stones rounded and
weathered by the elements through thousands of years, and finally
heaped together like flattish piles of pumpkins on a barn floor. Acres
and acres were covered by these great deposits of rounded, lichened
rocks.
In crossing these rocky areas it was necessary to use the greatest
caution. Many of the stones rested so insecurely that the slightest
pressure would send them rolling downward. If one stone started,
others might follow, and great numbers of rocks might go rushing
down the