Making an Investigation
The fire crew, hardy woodsmen and rangers, accustomed to severe toil, soon
beat out what was left of the fire. Then they went over the entire line of
the fire to make sure every spark was extinguished. The forester and
Charley found Lew, and the three crossed the valley to the brook where the
two boys had begun their battle with the flames. When the fire crew had
returned and the forester was satisfied that there was no further danger,
he turned and held out his hand.
"Report to me at my office at the earliest possible moment," he said. "If
I dared risk being away from my headquarters so long," he added
regretfully, "I'd stay here and make an investigation. But a fire may
start somewhere else, and here I'd be with my fire crew. A thousand acres
might burn over before I knew it."
"Isn't there anybody in charge at headquarters?" asked Charley.
"Sure. I have an assistant there. But if an alarm came in he wouldn't be
of much use without a fire crew."
"Send your fire crew back," said Charley. "You can stay here and make
your investigation, and we can keep you in touch with your office easily."
"Are you sure?"
"There isn't any doubt of it. Willie said he would listen in every few
minutes, and Willie always does what he says he will. You instruct your
fire crew to tell your assistant to keep in touch with Willie by
telephone, and we'll tell Willie to keep in touch with us by wireless.
It's as easy as rolling off a log."
The forester looked doubtful. "I'd like to stay," he said. "Are you
positive you can do this?"
"Of course," said Lew. "We do that sort of thing right along."
"Well," said the forester, still hesitating, "I'll risk it. It is of the
utmost importance that an investigation be made at once. It might be days
before the chief forest fire-warden could come here. You are absolutely
certain about this wireless business?"
Charley smiled. "Absolutely," he said. "But to make sure, we'll go to our
camp and talk to Willie. You can send a message to your assistant
yourself."
"That'll settle it," said the forester.
He called his fire crew together. "Hustle right back to headquarters," he
said. "The motor-truck will hold you all, though you may be a bit
crowded. Leave my car where it is. I'm going to look around a bit. I'll
follow you as soon as possible. Tell the assistant forester to call up the
boy in Central City who telephoned us about the fire and arrange to keep
in communication with him. We will communicate with that boy by wireless.
If fire occurs anywhere, let me know at once."
The fire fighters looked their astonishment, but made no comment. They
were accustomed to obeying orders. Soon they were gone and the forester
and the two boys headed up the run toward the little camp by the windrow.
"I guess we might as well get better acquainted," said the forester. "My
name is Marlin--James Marlin."
"And mine," replied Charley, "is Charley Russell. This is Lew Heinsling.
As we told you yesterday, we are from Central City and belong to the Camp
Brady Wireless Patrol."
"That is why you are now a fire guard," said the forester. "You don't
suppose I would appoint an unknown boy to such an important post, do you?
To be sure, I don't know you personally, but I know about your
organization and some of the things you have done. I know your leader,
Captain Hardy, very well. You see your membership in that organization is
recommendation enough for me."
"But I thought you suspected us of setting fire to the forest," said
Charley.
"I never said so," replied Mr. Marlin. "I merely asked you if you had
started the fire."
"It's pretty much the same thing," said Charley.
"Not at all, young man. Not at all. I did not really suspect you. But I
saw there was a possibility that you might have done just what I
suggested. I wanted to see what you would do when I suggested that you
were the culprit. I could have told if you had lied to me."
"How?" demanded Charley.
"Never mind now," smiled the forester. "But while we are on this subject,
I want to say this to you: when you are trying to solve a crime, you must
forget your prejudices. You must look at the facts and not at the people
concerned. You must take the attitude that anybody may be guilty until he
is proved innocent. In short, you must be ready to suspect anybody. You
must not assume, for instance, that because I am the forester I would not
set the forest afire, or because my rangers are connected with the Forest
Service they would never start a fire."
Charley looked almost startled. "Why, it would be the worst sort of crime
for a forest protector to set a fire in the woods," he cried.
"Of course it would," replied the forester. "But in this world almost
everybody acts according to his own interests or his own passions. If a
man could earn more money by setting fires than by preventing them, there
are many men who would take the chance. Or a man might set fire to the
forest to be revenged on somebody--possibly on me; for a forester can
hardly avoid making some enemies."
The forester paused. "Somebody has three times set this part of the forest
afire," he continued after a moment. "We have no clue as to who did it. So
it is our business to suspect anybody and everybody that circumstances may
point to. But that doesn't mean we must condemn a person merely because
circumstances point to him. We must study the facts and either condemn or
acquit him according to the facts. I say this to you because you have
probably had little or no experience in tracing crime and, like most young
folks, are prone to trust people too far."
Charley's face was very serious. He had not thought of detective work as a
possible part of his duties.
"Don't take what I say too seriously," laughed the forester, when he
noticed Charley's expression. "You will really have very little of this
sort of thing to do. Most fires come through the carelessness of campers.
To warn them to be careful, to try to put out fires as soon as you
discover them and notify me if you fail, will be about all you will
ordinarily have to do. The chief forest fire-warden will attend to
investigating fires. But in this case, I especially want to know how this
fire started. Sometimes boys, if they are shrewd enough, make the best of
all agents for watching folks. People don't take boys seriously, and will
often do or say incriminating things before boys that they would not
dream of doing in the presence of grown men. If you keep your eyes and
ears open and your mouth shut, you may be very useful. And the less you
appear to know, the more useful you will be."
Charley looked at his watch. "Willie will be at his instrument in three
minutes, sure," he said. "He might even be there now."
He drew the pack bags from the wireless instruments and sat down, watch in
hand, beside them. The forester looked on with keenest interest. He no
longer regarded the wireless outfit as a mere plaything. If the boys could
do what they said they could, he saw what a help wireless communication
might be in protecting the forest. He had always considered the telephone
as about the last step that could be made in quick communication in the
forest. But his telephone was miles away and he had to get to it before he
could talk with his office. Here was a boy who could sit down anywhere and
instantly talk to a wireless operator anywhere else within a reasonable
distance--that is, he could, if all that Charley said was true. Of course
the forester knew about radio-telegraphy, but he was like many other
people who have not actually seen persons talk by wireless. It seemed as
though it could hardly be.
But he was not to remain long in doubt. When the three-minute period had
elapsed, Charley threw over his switch, and sent Willie's call signal
flashing abroad. Hardly had he taken his finger from his key when the
answer buzzed in his ear.
"Got him," said Charley.
"Who?" asked the forester in astonishment.
"Willie Brown, at Central City. I'm telling him to get your assistant on
the telephone." And he made the sparks fairly tumble over one another, so
rapidly did he manipulate the key.
"Willie's going to get him," he announced, a moment later.
They sat silent for several minutes. Then a signal once more sounded in
Charley's ear.
"Willie's got your assistant on the 'phone," said Charley a little later.
"Tell him to tell my assistant that the fire is out, with little damage
done; that the fire crew is on the way home, and that I have decided to
remain here to look around a little. Tell him that if he needs me he shall
call your friend at Central City. He'd better arrange with the telephone
people for quick connections if he needs to talk to me. I guess that's
about all."
Charley flashed out the message to Willie and soon the assistant
forester's message came back. Everything was O.K. and he would do as
directed. Then Charley talked to Willie on his own account, telling him
they were going to move their aerial and asking Willie to listen in often.
Willie said he would sit by the wireless table and keep the receivers on
his ears so that Charley could get him at any time.
While Charley was talking with Willie, Lew had been collecting and
packing the camp utensils. Now the wireless instruments were quickly
uncoupled and stowed away in a bag, and the aerial taken down and loosely
rolled around the spreaders so that it could be hoisted in a moment's
time. Then the little party set off swiftly down the valley toward the
point at which the fire started.
Walking rapidly, they arrived at the edge of the burned area in half an
hour. Smoke was still rising from smouldering embers at various points in
the burned area; but there was no danger to be feared, for everything
inflammable about these embers had been consumed. Even should the wind fan
them into a flame again they could do no harm, for there was nothing for
them to feed upon. Along the entire edge of the burned area the fire crew
had made sure there was a wide belt of ground in which no spark remained.
Thus, though these glowing embers might continue to smoulder for hours,
they could do no harm. The quantity of smoke arising was still
considerable, but it did not shut off the vision as the dense clouds of
smoke had done during the fire. So the onlookers could get a fair idea of
the extent of the blaze.
The blackened area on which they looked, they were relieved to find, was
not of great width, though it stretched from the edge of the brook on one
side almost to the mountain on the other. Altogether, the fire had swept
over not more than a hundred acres. Had it not been for the presence of
the two boys, it might easily have destroyed thousands of acres. The fire
had started in a cut-over tract just below the edge of the virgin timber.
Had the morning proved windy, instead of calm, the flames would have gone
racing into the big timber, with the chances good for a disastrous
crown-fire, when the flames would have gone leaping from tree top to tree
top, utterly consuming the forest, as the previous fires had destroyed the
timber on Old Ironsides. A lucky combination of circumstances alone had
prevented a holocaust.
Climbing upon a high rock, the forester searched for the point at which
the fire had originated. Prom his pocket he drew some powerful
field-glasses, and again and again swept his vision over the farther edge
of the burned area. Presently he closed his glasses and leaped to the
ground.
"Come on," he said, and headed diagonally across the burned tract.
In a few minutes the three stood on the unburned forest floor on the
farther side of the strip of black.
"We must get our aerial up at once, Lew," said Charley. "It's been
three-fourths of an hour since we talked to Willie."
They glanced about, selected two suitable trees, and had the supporting
wires attached to them in no time, with the aerial dangling aloft between
the trees. It took only a moment more to couple up the instruments.
"CBWC--CBWC--CBWC--CBC," rapped out Charley, as soon as the outfit was in
readiness.
Almost instantly Willie replied to the signal.
"Any message for us from Oakdale?" inquired Charley.
"Not a word. What are you doing?"
"We are investigating the cause of the fire. Have moved our aerial down
past the burned area. Forester and Lew and I alone. Fire crew on way back
to Oakdale."
"Have you found cause of fire?"
"No. Just got here. Haven't investigated yet. Will listen in every quarter
hour, beginning with the hour."
"All right. I'll be here. Good-bye."
The minute Charley finished talking with Willie, the three investigators
set about their work.
"We'll walk along the edge of the burned area," said the forester, "and
try to find the point of origin."
He went ahead, the two boys following. They were facing toward the brook.
The line was irregular, like a huge saw-blade, with little jutting, black
teeth here and there, where the flames had crept out in advance of the
main line. The wind that had come up when the boys were fighting the fire
had driven the flames back upon the area they had already consumed and the
blaze had died out of itself. It could not eat its way to windward out
here in the open, as it could have done in the dense timber where the wind
was broken. From their starting-point they walked to the brook, finding
nothing to enlighten them. They then retraced their steps, walking along
the windward edge of the fire. Yet they found nothing to show them how or
where the fire originated.
"Evidently the flames have eaten their way some distance to windward of
the point of origin," said the forester. "We shall have to look within the
burned area."
As he started to cross the black strip, the forester continued: "Perhaps I
had better go through the burned strip alone. I want things disturbed as
little as possible, and three will stir up the ashes a good deal more than
one. You keep looking along the edge, and I'll search among the ashes."
"Is there anything in particular we are to look for?" asked Charley. "Is
there any special way to distinguish the starting-point of the fire?"
"If this blaze started at a camper's fire, there ought to be some trace of
that fire discoverable. If it began with a lighted match, the stem of that
match might not be entirely consumed. If blazing paper created the fire,
there may be a scrap of paper left unburned. And even the ashes might show
that paper had been burned. That's why I don't want the leaves disturbed
any more than we can help. We shall quite likely find our clue, if we find
it at all, in the ashes themselves."
The forester started slowly across the valley.
"I don't see where he has anything on us as observers," said Lew. "If our
drill at Camp Brady didn't make competent observers of us, I don't know
what it did do. Captain Hardy drilled us and drilled us in noticing even
the most minute things. Let's go along the line again and look more
carefully. We've got a better idea now of what we're looking for."
They started once more along the edge of the black belt. The forester was
walking well within the burned area. The two boys centred their attention
on the strip between the forester's tracks and the edge of the black area.
This was a strip roughly fifty to seventy-five feet wide. Practically
everything was blackened in this area. A piece of unburned paper would
have shown with startling distinctness. But there were no pieces to show.
The forester crossed the black belt from brook to mountain, and the boys
kept pace with him for a little. Then Lew turned back in order to listen
in, while Charley went on with the forester. For a long time the two
searched among the leaves, but found nothing to indicate where or how the
fire had started.
"The fact that we can't find where it started," said the forester at last,
"is what makes me suspicious. A fire can generally be traced. I guess
we'll have to give up. I'll get back to headquarters, and you go home and
make your arrangements as quickly as possible. Then report to me."
"We'll go right back with you," said Charley. "That is, we will if Lew is
willing. It would hardly be right to ask him to give up his fishing trip.
And, anyway, two of us could guard the forest better than one."
"That's true, but until you are regularly sworn in you will not have the
legal authority you should have as a fire patrol."
"Then if Lew is willing, we'll go right out with you. We can take the
train at Oakdale."
They returned to Lew and explained the situation. "Of course we'll go
home," protested Lew. "This is your chance, Charley. You don't think I'd
stand in your way, do you?"
"Thanks, Lew," said Charley, holding out his hand to his chum. "But I hate
to cut your trip short."
"That's easily fixed," said the forester. "Go home and make your
arrangements and bring Lew back with you for the rest of the vacation if
he wants to come. You can do your patrol work and still catch some fish.
And I'd feel a lot easier to know two of you were here. You've proved that
you are good fire fighters."
Charley called up Willie and told him they were about to leave the forest
and would be in Oakdale in about four hours. Then the wireless was quickly
dismantled and packed, and the little party started across the burned area
once more, on their way out to the distant road.
They did not forget to examine the ground as they went. They had gone
perhaps a hundred feet when Charley noticed a heap of burned leaves. They
were in the cut-over area, and the floor of the forest had apparently
been carpeted thinly and evenly with leaves. So the little mound caught
his eye. At first he thought nothing of it. But when his glance swept the
surrounding ground and he saw how very thin the ashy coating was, and what
a dense pile of ashes was in this little heap, he wondered why the leaves
should have collected in this way. Without as yet really suspecting
anything, he walked over to the heap and began to rake the ashes from one
side of it with a little stick. Many of the burned leaves still retained
perfectly their shape and outline. The serrated edges and the feathery
veining were distinct in the ashy residues. They were interesting to see.
Charley continued to level the burned leaves on one side of the pile. At
the touch of his stick they lost their shape and crumbled into formless
ashes, even as fairy crystals of snow turn to water beneath a warm current
of air.
Suddenly Charley stopped dead still. Among the ashes turned over by his
stick was a long, thin sheet of ash. Charley looked at it a moment in
astonishment. Then he knew that it was pasteboard. He sank to his knees on
the blackened earth and with his fingers carefully worked in the still
warm ashes, raking off the upper layers of leaves gently, so as not to
disturb the bottom of the pile. Carefully he worked, until he had laid
bare a long strip of what had been pasteboard. At his touch this, like the
leaves, crumbled. But one end of it did not disintegrate. A tiny piece was
unconsumed. From the ashes Charley drew forth a charred bit of greenish
pasteboard. Swiftly but carefully he raked aside the burned pasteboard.
Then he gave a little cry. On the ground, in the very bottom of the heap,
was some candle grease. His startled exclamation brought Mr. Marlin and
Lew running to his side.
"What have you found?" asked the forester sharply.
"A piece of unconsumed pasteboard and some candle grease," said Charley
slowly. "They were under this mound of burned leaves."
"We need look no farther for the starting-place of this fire," said the
forester, his face very sober. "It is just as I suspected. This fire was
of incendiary origin. Whoever set it, placed a lighted candle inside a
pasteboard box, partly filled the box with leaves, heaped some leaves on
top of it, and hurried away. The candle probably burned for hours before
it burned low enough to set fire to the leaves. By that time the culprit
was far away and could prove an alibi."
Charley drew from his pocket the little microscope he used in his class in
botany in the high school. Over and over he turned the scorched scrap of
pasteboard, studying it intently.
"The fibers are arranged in a peculiar way," he said, "and there's an
almost invisible machine marking of a peculiar pattern. The color of the
pasteboard was a dark green."
The forester took the microscope and examined the charred fragment,
handing both, when he had finished, to Lew.
"This is our clue to the incendiary," he said slowly. "We must find where
pasteboard like that comes from and who had some of it. Meantime, do not
breathe a word of this to any one. Do not let a soul know that we have
discovered how the fire originated. Let them think we know nothing. And
bear in mind what I told you before: suspect anybody that circumstances
point to, no matter who he is. Now remember! Not a soul outside of the
three of us must know about this. We've got a long trail ahead of us, but
we have at last got a clue. Sooner or later, if we keep our eyes and ears
open and our mouths shut, we'll find the man who set this forest afire."