“We’re never going to do it,” panted Charley, after a while.  “The wind is blowing harder all the time.  We must call help.”

He looked at his watch.  “Twenty minutes of seven!” he ejaculated.  “How far do you think we are from camp?”

“Two miles, anyway,” answered Lew.

“If I can make it by seven, I may be able to get Willie.  He said he would listen in every hour.”

“Hurry,” said Lew sharply.  “I’ll keep at work here.”

“If it gets too hot for you,” said Charley, “go right back to the brook, and come up along it to camp.  That’s the way I’m going back, and I’ll return that way after I get Willie.  Good-bye.”

He started off at a fast pace.  But his exertions and the heat and smoke had so weakened him that he quickly saw he could not maintain such a gait.  He dropped to a steady jog.  Even that taxed his strength.  But he gritted his teeth and clenched his hands and kept on.

The forest was now full of smoke.  The dense cloud completely hid the sun.  Among the great pines it was almost like twilight.  Charley pushed on as fast as his weary legs could carry him.  More than once he tripped and fell.  He could no longer see distinctly.  Fatigue and the smoke in his eyes blurred his vision.  He was scratched and torn and his hands were a mass of little burns.  Charley scarcely noticed them.  His mind was wholly intent on getting help and saving the forest.  Nothing else mattered.  So he staggered on through the dusky woods.  He glanced at his watch.  Ten minutes had passed.  He felt sure he had been running an hour and that his watch had stopped.  He held it to his ear.  The steady ticking somewhat reassured him.  After what seemed like another long interval he ventured to look at it again.  Five minutes more had elapsed.  Five minutes remained before Willie would be at his post waiting for a possible message.  Charley crowded on all the speed that was left in him.  But his feet seemed to be made of lead.  His heart pounded painfully against his ribs.  His lungs seemed nigh to bursting.

“Five minutes more,” he kept muttering to himself.  “Only five minutes more.  I’ve got to make it.  Only five minutes more.”

Suddenly he came to their camp.  In his weariness he had not recognized any landmarks.  He could hardly believe it was their camp.  But there were the grub bag hanging on a wire, the dishes piled by the fire, and the wireless instruments protected by the pack bags.

“Thank God for the wireless!” gasped Charley, as he threw himself on the ground beside his key.  He tried to flash a call, but his hand trembled so he could not form the letters correctly.  He dropped flat on his back to rest for a moment, glancing at his watch as he lay there.  It lacked one minute of seven.

For sixty seconds Charley lay prostrate, looking at the second-hand on his watch as it went round.  Then he sat up.  The minute’s rest had steadied him wonderfully.  He moved his switch, pressed his finger on the key, and sent the bright sparks flashing between his gap points.