slowly the pure air revived him and his powers came back. He sat up, then
rose unsteadily to his feet. In a few moments he felt all right. He began
to look about him. The fire he had been fighting was extinguished. He
ascended an easily climbed tree and saw that the third fire in the valley
was also out. He knew that the fire fighters had gone on to the next
valley to subdue the blazes there. The wind was still no more than a
zephyr and he knew they would succeed. The forest was saved. A feeling of
great relief came to him.

He sat down and rested, thinking what he ought to do. He remembered what
the forester had said about the desirability of an immediate investigation
of incendiary fires. Here was his job.

He made his way to the blackened area where he had put out the first fire.
The space burned over was small. Charley stood and looked at it for some
moments, thinking the problem over. Then he walked slowly around the
burned area, examining it closely, but not stepping within the fire-line.
Then he wet a finger and held it aloft. Unmistakably the light breeze was
from the west. It had doubtless been blowing from that quarter all the
morning, though this particular fire had been extinguished when there was
hardly more than a suspicion of a breeze. The fire would have spread in an
elongated circle, or more exactly an oval. Charley tried to figure out the
exact starting point. He felt sure he could estimate it within a few
yards.

When he had decided about where the fire must have originated, he made his
way cautiously, a yard at a time, toward that point. He was careful not to
disturb the leaves any more than was necessary in putting down his feet.
Carefully he scrutinized every inch of the ground he covered. He was
looking for a mound of burned leaves or any other suspicious thing. But he