The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol: Or, The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire PatrolTheiss, Lewis E. (Lewis Edwin)
General
The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol: Or, The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol
Theiss, Lewis E. (Lewis Edwin)
Forest fires -- Prevention and control -- Juvenile fiction; Radio operators -- Juvenile fiction
"I don't care to let anybody know where your camp was," said the forester.
"I may want to use this site again. So we'll have to pack our stuff out
ourselves, at least part of the way. I am going to put a crew of men in
here to-morrow and they can finish carrying out the duffel if we cave in
before we reach the road. It will be a pretty good load."
Each of them strapped a big pack to his back. The rifle and the
fishing-rod had been fastened to the battery, which in turn was roped to
poles for handles. In this way it was possible for the two to carry all
Charley's outfit. By sun-up the two were already on the trail. They toiled
up the slope and crossed the ridge close to Charley's watch-tower. The way
was rough and the going hard. But once they struck a fire trail, the path
was easy. Yet at best it was a hard and toilsome hike, and several hours
elapsed before they reached the forester's motor-car, which he had
concealed in the pines. Both of them were tired, and Charley felt as
though his arms were about ready to part from his shoulders.
Most of their journey had been made in silence. But now that they were
seated comfortably in a motor-car, they once more began to talk.
"I had to bring you in from the forest, Charley," explained Mr. Marlin,
"because as a ranger it will be necessary for you often to be at
headquarters. I have arranged for you to live with Ranger Lumley. His
district adjoins yours, and his house, right in the forest, is near the
dividing line. So it will be about as convenient for you as it is for him.
He is to be at the office to meet us and look after you. We'll pick him up
and go on to his house with your things."
Ranger Lumley was on hand as the forester had said he would be. Charley
had found Ranger Morton and his wife so likable that he was glad indeed of
the opportunity to become acquainted with this second ranger. But the
minute he laid eyes on him, he felt a chill of disappointment. Yet he
could not have told exactly why. Somewhere, too, he felt sure, he had seen
the man before; though he could not remember when or where.
Lumley was a man small of stature, with a hooked nose, fishy blue eyes, a
thin, hard mouth, and a face seamed and wrinkled. Yet he was quite
evidently not an old man. Charley had noticed that some of the tough
characters in his home town looked like that, and the more he studied
Ranger Lumley's face, the less he liked the man. Particularly did he
dislike his eye. Once he caught the ranger looking at him slyly, and the
gleam in the ranger's eye reminded Charley of the vicious look of a horse
when he shows the white of his eye. It seemed to Charley, too, as though
there was something suggestive of craftiness and cunning in the man's
countenance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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