Charley Wins His First Promotion
With startled eyes, Charley looked at the forester, at the same time
reaching for his rifle. To Charley's surprise the forester began to grin.
"I guess you got your cat, Charley," he chuckled. "But it sure did startle
a fellow."
The first piercing scream of the wildcat was succeeded by a variety of
furious screams. The animal could be heard thrashing about in the leaves,
spitting, snarling, growling, rattling the chain, and evidently fighting
furiously to free itself from the trap.
Taking both the candle lantern and the flash-light, as well as rifle and
axe, the two men started for the cat.
"Grab that dog," said the forester, as the pup darted out of the tent
ahead of them.
Charley whistled and called, but the pup was too wild with excitement to
heed the command.
"Hurry up," said the forester, "or you won't have any pup left."
They pushed rapidly through the thicket, then ran toward their traps.
Faintly they could see the wildcat. The pup was worrying it. With arched
back, hair erect, eyes ablaze, and snarling furiously, the wildcat was
waiting its opportunity to strike. The pup circled about it, yelping and
barking, every second growing bolder because the animal did not spring at
it.
"Give me that rifle, quick!" said the forester. "That cat'll kill the pup
in another minute."
He seized the weapon, sank on one knee, quickly sighted along the barrel,
and pulled the trigger. Even as he fired, the cat leaped toward the pup.
For a second there was a terrific scuffling in the leaves. Then the
search-light's beam showed the pup lying motionless, its neck broken and
torn, while the cat was clawing the air wildly, and spitting and snarling
in fury.
"Don't ever let one of those critters get on your back, Charley," said the
forester, as he approached the cat for a final shot. "Sometimes they will
follow a fellow in the forest. It's seldom they really attack a man, but
if a fellow loses his nerve and runs, they will sometimes leap on him. A
single swipe of those claws will cut a fellow to ribbons."
The forester was now close to the cat, which had gotten to its feet and
had crouched, snarling, ready for a leap.
The forester circled so as to get a shot at the animal's shoulder. Quickly
raising his rifle, he fired. The cat screamed, clawed the air desperately
for a few seconds, and lay still.
Charley rushed in and tenderly lifted his motionless pup from the ground.
There were tears in his eyes as he bore the little body to one side. "Poor
fellow," he said, "I'll miss you awfully. I was counting on you a lot to
help me guard this timber. You did the best you knew how. You thought you
were helping me, didn't you?"
He passed his hand across his eyes and faced the forester. "It's some
consolation to know that that beast paid for this, and paid well. I'm sure
glad he's dead. It's a good thing for the forest."
"Yes, that's a good job done," replied the forester, "and a nice skin and
a bounty for you. That ought to be some consolation to you. But I'm mighty
sorry about the pup. Whenever you can, get rid of those fellows. How many
young deer or other harmless animals do you suppose this fellow would have
slaughtered before another spring?"
Making sure that the cat was really dead, the forester opened the trap.
Then he picked up the dead cat and led the way back to the tent. "I'll
show you how to skin this fellow," he said, and, taking out his knife,
began to remove the hide.
"Gee!" exclaimed Charley. "Wouldn't the fellows like to know about this?"
He looked at his watch. "Some of them will surely be listening in," he
said.
Then he sat down beside his key, and while he watched the forester skin
the wildcat, he kept his spark-gap snapping and cracking with the fat
sparks from the new battery. He was calling Lew. He got no answer and
flashed out the signal for the Wireless Patrol. Almost immediately Henry
answered. His workshop was the headquarters of the Wireless Patrol.
"Hello, Henry," rapped out Charley. "Do you know where Lew is?"
"He's right here," came the answer. "So are most of the other fellows."
"Tell them," replied Charley, "that we just caught the wildcat in the
traps you sent, and Mr. Marlin is skinning it. I'm going to get him to
show me how to tan it. When it's done, I'm going to send it to the
Wireless Patrol to help furnish our headquarters. I'm going to add the
eight dollars bounty money to the club fund for wireless equipment."
Then came a long pause. Finally this message came back to Charley. "The
Wireless Patrol thanks you, Charley, but we want you to sell the skin and
use the money and the bounty to pay for the field-glasses you need."
Charley turned away from his instrument with a suspicious moisture in his
eyes. It touched him deeply that his fellows were so solicitous concerning
his welfare and success. He did not realize that he was merely reaping the
reward of his own kindly good nature, that had made him a general favorite
with the boys of the Wireless Patrol.
There were no further alarms that night. Early in the morning the ranger
started back to his office, taking with him the letter to Lew. Charley
accompanied him part of the way. Then he continued on his patrol.
The next time Charley met the forester he received Lew's answer to his
letter. Lew had addressed the box, but several of the boys of the Wireless
Patrol had helped to pack it. The piece of green pasteboard proved to be
from a box in which Henry had gotten shoes by mail. The box came from
Carson and Derby, a big New York mail-order concern. Almost everybody in
the country around Central City bought articles from mail-order houses, so
Lew's letter threw no light on the problem. There might be a green
pasteboard box of that particular pattern in every farmhouse in the
county. Yet as Charley thought the matter over, he recalled that almost
everybody he knew who shopped by mail traded with Slears and Hoebuck, of
Chicago.
The days passed. Little happened to vary the monotony. Yet the sameness of
life in the forest was far from being bothersome to Charley. On the
contrary, he found new delights every day.
Spring was now well advanced. The trees would soon be in leaf, the flowers
were coming along in rotation, and the forest fairly pulsed with life. Now
Charley found a gorgeous bed of blood-root. Again he came on great patches
of arbutus. Here the Dutchman's-breeches grew in rich clumps. There
spring-beauties fairly whitened the earth. Violets, Jacks-in-the-pulpit,
marsh-marigolds, and dozens of other familiar and lovely blooms he found
as he wandered through the forest.
There was nothing Charley liked more than the flowers. He determined to
know every bloom in his section of the forest. So he divided his territory
into definite strips, patrolling a different strip each day. Thus he
became intimately acquainted with every part of his district.
There were more objects than flowers, however, to delight him. The birds
and the animals were a constant source of pleasure. Often he had
opportunity to study their actions and their habits. The mating season
brought a wealth of pleasing experiences. Sometimes he came across a
mother grouse with her brood of little ones. It pleased Charley to see how
the tiny creatures scattered and hid among the leaves, making themselves
invisible at the first warning note from the mother, while she fluttered
along before him, dragging a wing as though it were broken, and drawing
him farther and farther from her little ones. Wild turkeys, too, he saw,
and many other feathered inhabitants of the forest.
Perhaps nothing touched Charley so much as an incident that occurred late
one day when he was fighting a small fire. The fine, spring weather
brought out regiments of fishermen, and numbers of them got deep into the
woods. Whenever he possibly could, Charley avoided meeting them. Sometimes
Charley could not avoid a meeting. Then he always posed as a fisherman.
He never moved abroad these days without his rod. The rifle he had
temporarily laid aside. More than one little fire, started by careless
fishermen, Charley detected and extinguished.
One day he saw smoke at a considerable distance. By the time he could
reach the spot, the fire had a good start and had already burned over
several acres. It was blazing briskly and Charley was at first uncertain
as to whether he should attempt to fight it alone or call help. But night
was at hand, the wind was already falling, and Charley decided that he
could conquer the blaze single-handed. He judged that the best way to do
this was by beating it out with brush.
Quickly chopping a pine bough, Charley attacked the fire. It was not a
fierce blaze, though when the fitful wind blew strong it flamed up
savagely. Even the tiniest of forest fires is hot enough, and Charley
found it trying work. He had many hundreds of yards of flame to beat out.
The smoke and the heat were stifling and exhausting, and every little
while Charley had to turn away from the fire to rest and get his breath.
During such periods, Charley would walk back along the fire-line to make
sure that the blaze was extinguished behind him.
Darkness came quickly in the deep valley, and before Charley had the blaze
half extinguished, he was unable to see distinctly. Indeed he could hardly
have seen anything at all had it not been for the fitful light of the
flames; and this dancing light made objects appear uncertain and unreal.
In one of his trips back along the line, Charley came to a stump that was
ablaze. In beating out the flames just here, he had failed to extinguish
some tiny sparks in a hollow place at the base of the stump. The wind had
fanned these into life after Charley had passed on, and the fire had
communicated to the stump. Now the stump was a pillar of flame. At any
moment sparks might fly from it and rekindle the fire.
Charley beat at the stump with his brush until the flames had entirely
disappeared. But fearing that sparks might yet be smouldering under the
bark or in the dry wood, Charley began scraping the sides of the stump. As
his hand reached the top of the stump, there was a sudden startling whir
of wings and something shot upward into the dark. Charley recoiled as
though shot. His heart beat a tattoo against his ribs. His first thought
was of the sudden blow the rattler had given the ranger. Yet he knew it
was no rattler that had suddenly sprung upward into the night. He drew
forth his flash-light, which he always carried, and turned the beam of
light on the top of the stump. There lay two little turtle-doves, unharmed
despite the fierce flames that had played about them. They had been
protected by the mother dove's body.
"Little turtle-dove," said Charley, "I take off my hat to you. When
anybody tells me about a deed of heroism hereafter, I'll tell them about
you and how you hovered over your young ones while the flames were slowly
roasting you. I'm certainly glad I got here when I did. You would have
been burned in another five minutes and your little ones with you."
Charley started back to the line of flames again. "If a turtle-dove can do
a thing like that," he muttered to himself, "you're a poor thing if you
can't face a little blaze like this."
He cut a new bush, once more fell on the fire, and never ceased his
efforts until not a single blaze lighted the forest. Then he stepped
inside the burned area and made his way completely around the edge of it.
The ashes were hot and Charley knew that they might scorch the leather in
his shoes. But he also knew there would be no rattlesnakes where the fire
had burned. When Charley came to the stump again, he turned his
flash-light on its top. The dove had returned and was once more hovering
over her little ones.
When he was certain that the fire was absolutely extinguished, Charley
made his way through the dark forest to his tent and made his nightly
report. It gave him great happiness to be able to report that the fire was
extinguished and that once more all was well in the forest.
Mr. Marlin had sent out to Charley a package of books that dealt with
various phases of work in the forest. Night after night, by the light of
candles, Charley sat in his tent studying his texts. He found them
fascinating. Here in the forest, where every day he could see illustrated
the truth of what he had read the night before, he learned, with
unbelievable rapidity. Whenever he came to anything in his texts that he
did not understand, he made a note of it. Sometimes at night he got Lew on
the wireless and through him questioned the forester. He did not want to
bother the government wireless men except in case of necessity.
Two or three times a week the forester came out to see Charley and to keep
an eye on this, his finest stand of timber. From time to time he brought
supplies and more books. Indeed Charley's capacity to acquire what was in
the books astonished the forester. He knew that Charley understood because
of his intelligent questions and his increasingly intelligent practices;
for, without orders to do it, Charley was voluntarily doing many of the
tasks that Mr. Morton should have done in the forest. As he grew in
comprehension of the needs of the forest, Charley began to make
suggestions to the forester. More than one of these proved practicable,
and Charley was given permission to go ahead with the proposals. Before he
knew it, Charley found himself working sixteen hours a day and regretting
that the days were not longer. And as always happens to people who are
busy about work they love, Charley was supremely happy.
Not the least part of his happiness came from his wireless talks with the
ranger's wife. With a speed that surprised him, Mrs. Morton learned both
to read and send. On the very first evening after the doctor brought her
dry cells, Mrs. Morton managed to tick out an acknowledgment of Charley's
call. And though it was faltering and uneven, Charley read it and smiled
with delight. As he slowly ticked off the letters of the alphabet and the
first ten numerals, Mrs. Morton listened intently, jotting down the dots
and dashes on a bit of paper.
When Charley had repeated his message according to promise, he flashed out
the call signal for the Wireless Patrol and promptly got a reply from
Henry. Through Henry he made his nightly report to the forester, and
through the forester sent his congratulations to Mrs. Morton on the
success of her initial attempt at radio communication, and inquired after
the sick ranger. So both Charley and his new friend were happy that night.
It was quite evident to Charley, when he called Mrs. Morton on the
following night, that she must have spent much of the day practicing at
her key; for the certainty and assurance with which she transmitted her
brief message this time could have come only from hours of practice. Now,
in addition to acknowledging Charley's call, she added the simple message,
"Jim is improving." Charley did not guess that she had practiced that
short message for an hour. Even if he had, he would have been none the
less pleased; for practice was the very thing needed to make her an
efficient operator. By the time three weeks had elapsed, Mrs. Morton could
communicate with Charley readily. Also her husband was improving every
day, though it would still be weeks before he could resume his duties.
Altogether, Charley's cup of happiness seemed full to overflowing.
There was still more happiness in store for him, however,--a happiness he
had not dared to hope for. One day Mr. Marlin appeared at Charley's camp
just at dusk. Charley was about to cook his supper. At once he doubled the
portions of food to be cooked, and while he worked over his fire, he
reported to his superior on the condition of the forest under his charge.
By this time Charley knew every inch of it intimately. He had just
completed an inspection, lasting several days, of the entire area. He was
enthusiastic about his work and full of plans for the future. Practically
all his suggestions were good, and the forester smiled and smiled with
approval, as he sat back in the shadow, listening.
When Charley had completed his statement, the forester said, "Charley,
your report is very satisfactory, and I am especially pleased with the way
you comprehend the needs of the situation and plan for improvements. I
approve of practically all your suggestions. How would you like to go
ahead and work them out?"
"They ought to be done," said Charley impetuously. Then he stopped. "I
mean," he corrected himself, "that it seems to me they ought to be. But to
do most of them would require a ranger with a crew of men."
"But you haven't answered my question," said the forester with a kindly
smile.
Charley looked puzzled. "I told you I think that they ought to be done."
"Still you haven't answered my question."
Charley stopped a moment to try to recall exactly what the forester had
said. Then he went on. "Of course, I should like to work them out, for
they ought to be done. But I also told you it would need a ranger and a
crew of men. I <i>couldn't</i> do all those things alone."
The forester began to laugh. "Charley," he said fondly, "the Bible tells
us there are none so blind as those who won't see. If you were the ranger
in charge of those men, would you still like to do the work?"
"Oh! Mr. Marlin," cried Charley, "you don't mean----"
"Yes, I do. Your service as a fire patrol ends to-night. To-morrow you
take charge of this section as temporary ranger, pending Jim Morton's
recovery. I just can't get along without a ranger in this district. Work
is being neglected, the big lumber operation has already commenced in
Lumley's district, and things are piling up here too deep. I can't get
along another day without a new ranger."
Charley was too happy for words. "I'll do my best," he said, with
quavering tones. But in a moment he got command of himself. "You told me I
couldn't handle a crew of men," he said.
"Maybe you can't, Charley, but you've handled everything else and handled
it well. It is plain that you love the forest and understand as much about
its needs as any ranger I have. A little experience is all you need to
make a first-class ranger. I'll give the men a talking to. When I get
done, they'll know it won't pay to monkey with you, even if you are only a
high school boy. Now, Ranger Russell, I think we had better turn in and
get some sleep, for we'll have to pull foot early to-morrow."