



Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Rick Morris
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









                             THE BOY SCOUTS
                                   AS
                          FOREST FIRE FIGHTERS


                                   BY
                       SCOUT MASTER ROBERT SHALER

       AUTHOR OF "BOY SCOUTS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS," "BOY SCOUTS OF
       PIONEER CAMP," "BOY SCOUTS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY," "BOY
         SCOUTS OF THE LIFE SAVING CREW," "BOY SCOUTS ON PICKET
            DUTY," "BOY SCOUTS OF THE FLYING SQUADRON," "BOY
             SCOUTS AND THE PRIZE PENNANT," "BOY SCOUTS OF
            THE NAVAL RESERVE," "BOY SCOUTS IN THE SADDLE,"
                "BOY SCOUTS FOR CITY IMPROVEMENT," "BOY
                SCOUTS IN THE GREAT FLOOD," "BOY SCOUTS
                  OF THE FIELD HOSPITAL," "BOY SCOUTS
                    WITH THE RED CROSS," "BOY SCOUTS
                      AS COUNTY FAIR GUIDES," ETC.


                                NEW YORK
                            HURST & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS


                            Copyright, 1915,
                                   BY
                            HURST & COMPANY




                                CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
  I. Oakvale's One Wise Man                                            5
  II. What Presence of Mind Meant                                     16
  III. The Threatening Peril                                          27
  IV. The Call of Duty                                                39
  V. Carried to the Front                                             48
  VI. The Burning Forest                                              59
  VII. As Busy as Beavers                                             73
  VIII. Back-firing                                                   85
  IX. Peter, the Bound Boy                                            96
  X. At the Dry Spring                                               105
  XI. Babes In the Woods                                             116
  XII. When the Rain Came Down                                       130
  XIII. Right-about Face!                                            142




                The Boy Scouts as Forest Fire Fighters.




                               CHAPTER I.
                        OAKVALE'S ONE WISE MAN.


"Don't believe in it, I tell you! All a humbug! No boy of mine will ever
fool away his time strutting around and wearing soldiers' clothes when
he ought to be doing his chores at home! Take that from me, young
fellow!"

"But Mr. Prentice, if you care to ask any one of the best citizens of
Oakvale----"

"Foolish of them to be so blind, I tell you, boy!"

"There's Mr. Hayward, the minister, sir!"

"A good man, but an easy mark all the same!"

"And Judge Marshall!"

"Surprised to hear that a long-headed man like the judge should allow
his name to be used in connection with such utter foolishness. If he had
boys of his own instead of three girls he might see things in a
different light."

"There's Dr. Kane, and--well, the father of every one of the thirty boys
in the troop. In fact, Mr. Prentice, I think you're almost the only
prominent man in or around Oakvale who hasn't enthusiastically endorsed
the local scout troop, which they believe has made good."

Perhaps this little shaft of flattery told. At any rate the man called
Mr. Prentice allowed a glimmer of a grim smile to flit across his stern
face as he observed:

"All I can say then, Hugh, is that the prominent men of this section are
a short-sighted lot when they allow themselves to be so easily led by
the nose, and humbugged by a parcel of prank-loving boys!"

Billy Worth nudged the leader of the Wolf Patrol, Hugh Hardin, in the
side. He acted as though it might be on the tip of his tongue to say
something saucy; but for fear he might thus injure the cause Hugh was so
manfully representing, Billy managed to remain silent.

Hugh made a final appeal, as he saw the man was about to leave them.

"But surely, Mr. Prentice, you must have heard _some_ good things said
about the scouts, haven't you?" he asked, with one of his most
persuasive smiles; which, however, in this case, seemed to be wasted on
the one-idea man.

"Oh! yes," carelessly replied the other, gathering up his lines
preparatory to starting his horse, "a lot of _won_derful stories have
come floating over to my house, but I set most of them down as
exaggerations. When I was a boy I read the 'Arabian Nights,' 'Baron
Munchausen,' 'Sindbad the Sailor,' and 'Gulliver's Travels.' I know how
proud fathers like to boast of their smart sons. I've had my eye-teeth
cut