The west slope of that mountain was easy, once we got down a ways from the top. That’s the way it is with most all the mountains near the Hudson; the steep side faces the river. Pretty soon we were hiking across pastures and then we came to a road. We didn’t bother with the brook after we passed the steep part. I don’t know where it went, but it did us a good turn, that’s one thing. Some fellows like fire better than water, and I’m not saying anything against camp-fires. And I don’t say that water is always a friend, either, because look at floods and things like that. But I like water better. Only, gee whiz, I don’t like it to rain in vacation. CHAPTER XXXIX WELCOME HOME Now this chapter goes from the bottom of that mountain to the top of a pineapple soda in Bennett’s. That’s in Bridgeboro where I live. The first house we came to along the road we got the farmer up and told him about the fire on the east side of Eagle’s Nest, and how we got away from it. He asked us if it was very bad. “Jiminetty!” I said, “I don’t know how bad it is, but I hope the eagles up there have their nests insured.” Harry asked him if he had a telephone and he said, “No.” “We probably couldn’t get a number if you did,” Harry said; “the telephone company reminds me of Rip Van Winkle; they seem to have gone to sleep at the switch-board for twenty years. Have you got a flivver?” We kind of knew he had, because they raise flivvers on all the farms up that way. But he was a _regular_ farmer—he had a Packard, 1776 model. And, believe me, we packed that Packard, and in ten minutes we were rolling over the road that runs around the mountain, headed for Haverstraw. Harry kept talking to the girls; it was awful funny to hear him. Those other two fellows didn’t have a chance at all. Gee, I was glad of it, because what right did that fellow have to say I was just a kid? That girl that helped us, said we were _just wonderful_. Cracky, I wouldn’t say that we’re so smart, but when there’s a fire we don’t stand wringing our hands as if they were a fire bell. When we came into Haverstraw, we found the streets full of people, everybody watching the fire on the mountain. We could see the east side of Eagle’s Nest and the fire, just as plain as if it were all on a movie screen. It seemed kind of funny, because while we were up there we never thought about how it would look from the village. The fire was right up on the top of the mountain now, with little patches in other places, and we could see a great big burned space. I guess that was the very part we had passed through on our way up. I could see now, even better than before, the danger we had been in. I guess everybody in the village thought we were dead, because when we looked away up there it just seemed as if nobody could have escaped out of all that.