The trail was easy to follow, only we had
to go in single file, the first fellow (that was Harry), keeping it by
holding a lantern low.
Pretty soon he stopped and said, "There's brush burning somewhere around
here; I can smell it."
Ralph Warner said, "_Listen_."
We all stood stark still and just as plain as could be, I could hear a
crackling sound quite a way off.
"I don't smell it now," I said; "I did a little while ago."
"Wait till the breeze is this way," Harry said, and then, in just a minute
we got a good whiff of it--strong, just like when I burned the leaves on
our lawn at home. Then all of a sudden I couldn't smell it at all. Dorry
tied his scout scarf on a stick and held it up, and when it blew out
straight we got a strong whiff, and the crackling was louder. Sometimes it
blew around the other way, up the mountain. Sometimes we couldn't smell
anything at all, but mostly we could hear the crackling a little. It was
too dark to see any smoke and there wasn't any blaze. Harry said he guessed
it was pretty far away. He said the breeze could carry the smell a long
distance.
"It couldn't carry the sound so far, though," I said.
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