Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/162

 like all tarnation if it didn’t amount to much, but this is too serious. Now let’s profit by it by making it a lesson to ye. Of all things a man should be careful of in the woods is fire, especially in May and in the fall. Last year a couple of city chaps went out trout fishing at about this time of year. They built a campfire and then left it. Within three days nearly forty square miles of timber had burned. All the timbering operations throughout the years had just made some little open patches on them ridges. Now they are swept clean as a hound’s tooth, except where a dead pine remains standing, a roost for crows.”

“And that’s why the state has fire wardens stationed on all these mountains,” added Bub. “What Abner tells you is just one sample. Every spring and fall the sky is heavy with smoke from burning timber. We lose more lumber by fire every year than is cut by man, I guess.”

“Have ye noticed that I ain’t been smoking since we struck the woods?” asked Abner. Then without waiting for a reply he explained, “It’s because I am afraid of fire, as careful and experienced as I am.”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” humbly assured Stanley. Then with an irrepressible glint of