“Are you sure it isn’t work rather than the factory you dislike?” demanded the forester bluntly.

“No, no!” protested Charley.  “I’d work day and night gladly if I could do what I want to do.  And there’s nothing I can think of I’d rather do than help take care of the forest.”

“Very good,” said the forester, “but I need patrols now, not after school closes in June.”

“Maybe I could get excused for the rest of the term,” pleaded Charley.

“And throw away your chance to graduate?  I don’t think I want that kind of a boy for a fire patrol,” said the forester with a frown.  “You might decide to quit this job, too, about the time we stacked up against a hot fire.”

Lew spoke up.  “You don’t understand what Charley means, sir,” he explained.  “Charley is away ahead of most of us in his school work.  He’s done enough now to give him his diploma.”

“Indeed!” replied the forester.

Then he turned to Charley in apology.  “I beg your pardon, young man.  I misjudged you.  I should like to have such an exemplary young man for a patrol, but you are too young.  We practically never employ a man not yet of age as a fire patrol.  A boy would have to have very unusual qualifications if we did take him.  I’m sorry, my lad.  I believe you are a fine boy, and I’d like to hire you.  But you are too young.”

Charley turned his head away to hide the tears that he could not keep back as he saw the opportunity slipping away from him.  Then he dashed his hand across his eyes and again faced the forester.

“You do not understand who we are,” he said with determination, “nor what our qualifications are.  I am accustomed to the woods, sir.  I know something of woodcraft.  I have fought fire in the forest.  I have spent weeks in the mountains.  And I am a wireless operator, sir.  Are any of your patrols better qualified?”

The forester looked at him with renewed interest.  “As a patrol,” he remarked, “you would have to deal with grown men.  You would find yourself in many situations that you could not handle.  Grown men do not like to take orders from boys.”

“I have handled men, sir; that is, I have helped to handle them.  I helped to capture the German dynamiters at Elk City, sir, when the Camp Brady Wireless Patrol saved that place from destruction.”

“Are you a member of that organization?” asked the forester with increasing interest.  “I remember reading about that.”

“We both are,” said Charley.  “And I could help you so much with my wireless, sir.  Your ranger told us this morning that if he found a fire he couldn’t handle, he would have to go clear out to the highway before he could summon help.  With the wireless, help could be summoned almost instantly.”