"I certainly will," agreed Charley. "But I'd like to know this. Who <i>is</i> profiteering in lumber? Who is responsible for such terrible prices?" "Well, there <i>has</i> been profiteering in lumber, as in everything else. But there is a real reason why the price of lumber is so high, and that is the scarcity of timber." "Scarcity!" cried Charley incredulously. "Why, the forests are full of timber." "And what is it like?" demanded the lumber dealer. "Go out to the forests and look at it. There's nothing but little poles that will scarcely make six-inch boards. We don't produce one-fourth of the lumber we use in this state, and we are using wood ten times as fast as our forests are growing it." "I thought Pennsylvania was a great lumbering state," protested Lew. "For a good many years it led the nation in the production of lumber, young man, but now it ranks twentieth among the states. If only fire could be kept out of the forests, we might some day raise our own timber again. But the lumbermen chopped down the big trees and fire has destroyed the little ones and even burned the forest soil so that nothing grows in it again. We have not only destroyed our forests, but we have so injured the land that new trees do not grow to take the place of those we cut." The two boys stared at the lumberman in amazement. "Where <i>do</i> we get our lumber from?" demanded Lew. "Practically all of it comes from the South. That's one reason lumber costs so much here. The people of Pennsylvania pay $25,000,000 a year in freight charges on the lumber they use. That's one of the reasons those cedar boards you were looking at cost so much. When the new freight rates go into effect the cost of hauling our lumber to us will be something like $40,000,000 a year." The two boys were very thoughtful as they made their way back to Charley's shop. "What are people going to do for wood pretty soon?" Lew inquired of his companion. "If we can't build a little boat because the wood costs too much, how are people going to get homes and furniture and wagons and motor-cars and a thousand other things? Seems to me pretty much everything we use is made of wood." "I don't know," replied Charley. "But what bothers me more just now is to know what we are going to do during Easter vacation. It may be the last vacation I shall ever have, and I'd like to have a good time." "Why not follow the lumber dealer's suggestion and go out to the forests? Easter doesn't come this year until after the trout season opens. We could go out to our old camp in the mountains and spend the vacation there, fishing and hiking."