Chapter 7

DEFEATING THE FROST

Out across fields and woods, the Forecaster leading on the old mule, the boys followed the direction of the kite. Bob's pocket compass held them true to their course and Tom's keen sense told of any shift of the wind. The boys ran fast, the mule ran faster, and Lassie and Rex ran faster still. Only Anton, the crippled lad, had stayed behind.

Midway up the first hill, Fatty dropped out. His intentions were good, but he was no match for the others in running. Monroe, the athlete of the group, was swinging along in light springy strides; Bob, the silent, ran heavily and mechanically; while Tom, eager for the recovery of his kites, kept to the front with the other two.

The Forecaster checked his mule and let the boys come up to him.

"It's no use trying to outrace the kites, boys," he said, "they're dropping in any case. But as they were three miles up, they were also three miles to leeward, and as they won't fall like a stone but float down gently, it'll be another mile or two at least before they strike ground. So you've a five mile run ahead of you and you'd better settle down into a jog trot, for you can never keep up this pace."

The faces of the boys fell at the thought of a five mile run, for while they were all strong and vigorous, cross-country running was not one of their regular sports.

Ross turned to the younger boys of the party, calling them by name.

"You'd better drop out," he said kindly; "you won't be able to keep it up and there's no use getting yourselves worn out and then having to walk back, half dead. Fred," he continued, turning to the editor-in-chief, "you'd better quit, too."

"Not much," answered Fred, "I've got to write this up for the _Review_."

The Forecaster smiled. He liked pluck.

"All right, my boy," he said, "come along, if you want to. Still, I think Ross is right."

Over fields and woods they ran, but it was an hour before Bob, lean, wiry and silent, pointed to the sky.

"Kite!" he said.

The weather expert pulled up the mule and drew out his field glasses.

"Yes," he said, "that's the string of kites, sure enough. But they're going up, boys, not coming down."

"Going up, sir?" exclaimed Tom. "They couldn't be! They must be coming down. All the kites were out of sight when the wire broke."

"They have come down, of course," the Forecaster replied, "but they're certainly going up now. And, what's more, they're going up fast."

"But they can't be!" the boy protested. "The wire isn't holding on to anything."

"How do you know?" the meteorologist rejoined. "Perhaps the wire has got foul of something. I remember, once, how Eddy of Bayonne had a string of nine kites get away from him. They crossed the water between New Jersey and Staten Island. The owner had to take a train and then a small boat after them. On Staten Island he took another train and then a street car, and another street car, all the time hanging out of the window, to keep track of the fugitives, which were sailing away merrily."

"Chasing a kite with a train and a street-car sounds funny," puffed Tom.

"On Staten Island," the Forecaster continued, "the wire caught in a telegraph post, and, of course, as soon as the wire held, the kites took the proper angle to the wind and shot up in the air again. Before Eddy could reach the place, the wire chafed through and broke again, but the kites had risen another mile or more. Falling diagonally, they crossed the lower end of New York Bay toward Long Island. Eddy had to take a ferry boat, next, to chase the runaways. He crossed to New York and took the elevated railroad to Brooklyn. An hour later, he caught sight of the kites again. One of the groups had reached the ground and dragged. That sent the other six up in the air again. They flew over the whole of Brooklyn and fell again, finally entangling themselves in a telephone wire. When the owner finally reached them, after a chase of thirty miles, in two States, three of the kites, still undamaged, were flying safely in the air, never having come to ground at all."

"I hope mine aren't smashed," Tom said eagerly. The story had given him hopes.

On the boys pounded. Fred was at the end of his strength. Ross, himself, was almost done out, but he felt that, as head of the League, he ought to go on. Seeing, however, that the editor-in-chief might really hurt himself unless he gave in, Ross decided to stop. He knew that Fred would give up if he did.

"I've had enough, Fred," he said at last. "Let the other three go ahead. We can't hope to beat Monroe."

The editor stopped, willingly enough. He looked a little longingly at the other three, as they ran on.

"I'd have liked to be there, so as to write it up," he announced wistfully.

"You can't be everywhere, Fred," Ross answered, and the two boys turned homewards.

Monroe, Bob, and Tom, with Monroe leading, swung on their way. Twenty minutes more passed. Tom's heart was beating like a trip-hammer and there was a drawn look about his face which showed that he was nearly done. Bob, who had not uttered a word since he first saw the kite, and who had not varied his pace by a fraction since he began, was jogging along as though he were a machine. Monroe still ran springily and with the jauntiness which betokened the practised runner.

Then, suddenly, the Forecaster pointed ahead.

"There's something caught in that tree!" he said.

In another minute the kite wire could be seen. It had hooked its coils into a bale of barbed wire, and in trying to lift this had entangled the bale in the branches.

As though he were starting for a hundred yard dash, Monroe sped ahead. Grimly, Bob tried to catch up to him, but it was like a bull-dog chasing a deer. Tom, his face in the tense grin of exhaustion, struggled bravely, but dropped behind step by step.

Monroe was within fifty feet of the tree when a sudden thought struck him. He slowed down, and as Bob caught up to him, said in a low voice:

"Tom's made a great run! Let him be the first to get there."

Bob nodded.

As the pace slowed down, Tom, his gait a little staggering, caught up with the other two and passed them. He reached the tree first and looked up.

"My kites!" he cried. "And I got the amateur record!" and he collapsed on the ground at the foot of the tree, worn out but supremely happy.

With the approach of winter, kite-flying became less popular as a sport, but two or three times a month Tom sent up one of his kites with the meteorograph, and the observations were faithfully forwarded to Osborne, whose original gift of the two kites had been the stimulus to the Mississippi League of the Weather.

The first few flakes of snow turned the attention of the boys to an entirely new line of weather observations. Many and many a time had the boys noticed the strange shapes of snow-flakes, but without paying much attention to them. On the first Saturday after the light snow-fall, however, three different boys brought in rough drawings of star-like and feather-like snow forms that they had noticed.

"I've been wondering," said Anton, thoughtfully, "what makes snow-flakes take those shapes? Hail comes down in lumps, and rain-drops must be round, because when you see the first heavy drops of a shower they make round blobs on the ground with pointed splashes at the side."

"A snow-flake," the meteorologist replied, "is a collection of icy crystals. If you could look at one under the microscope, Anton, you'd see that every little projection that goes to make up the shape of the flake, is a six-sided crystal. You've eaten barley-sugar from a string some time, haven't you?"

"Sure!" said several of the boys, and one added, "Mother often makes it."

"How does she make it?" queried the Forecaster.

"Melts up some sugar and water and, as when it begins to cool off, she hangs a string in the middle of the pot and the sugar settles on that."

"It settles in regular shapes, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, those are crystals. When water cools into ice, boys, it does the same thing. Haven't you sometimes seen, after a cold night, a lot of needles shooting out from the sides from a puddle?"

"Yes, sir, often."

"Those are all six-sided crystals. Frost on the window pane is made in the same way. All those designs that look like lace work or trees or ferns are six-sided crystals produced by water-vapor, in the air, cooling and crystallizing on the cold glass. Ice crystals grow from each other quite readily. This is called twinning."

"But why are they always so regular?"

The Forecaster shook his head.

"You're always expecting everything to be regular, Ross," he said. "They're not regular at all. There are thousands of different forms. The United States is fortunate in having one man who's the world's expert on snow crystals, and he examines and photographs thousands every year and adds, perhaps, two or three new examples each season."

"Who's that, sir?" asked Fred.

"Wilson A. Bentley, of Jericho, Vermont," the Forecaster answered. "He's made thousands of photographs of snow crystals through a microscope. What's more, he's done it for the love of the work. Why don't you send him a copy of the _Review_, Fred? I'm sure he'd like to see it. Perhaps he might send you some prints of his snow crystals. He'd appreciate a plate of Cæsar's sunsets and Ralph's clouds, I'm sure."

"I'll send them to him right away," the editor answered.

"Why is it," queried Anton, "that when snow-flakes fall slowly and only a few of them at a time, they are big, but when there's a heavy snow-storm the flakes are small?"

"Because they are manufactured in different layers of the air," the Forecaster answered, "in the upper air, eight or ten miles up, where the faintest cirrus clouds are, they are not flakes at all, but tiny needle-like crystals, called spicules. In the depth of the Arctic winter, near the North Pole and especially on the Greenland ice-cap--one of the coldest regions of the world--the wind is full of these spicules, which one can't very well call snow.

"Snow-flakes that come from the cold regions of the air, three or four miles high, generally have a solid form. All, of course, show the six-sided form of the snow crystals. Being smaller and heavier in proportion to their surface they fall more quickly. In the layers of the atmosphere, one or two miles high, where the air is not as cold and where the content of water vapor is higher, the flakes have more opportunity to grow as they slowly sink through the air. Snow-flakes that have been formed only a short distance above the ground become large and feathery, the kind of which northern peoples say that 'the old woman of the sky is plucking her geese.'"

"I suppose, in the northern part of the country, sir," Ralph suggested, "snow has to be measured, as well as rain."

"Certainly," the Forecaster answered, "otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell the precipitation of a region at all. There is a regular instrument for it, called a shielded snow-gauge. This is like a rain-gauge, boys, only it stands ten or twenty feet above the ground, to avoid surface drifting. The snow caught is melted and expressed as so many inches of precipitation. Sometimes the depth of snow is measured by thrusting a measuring stick down to the ground.

"Of course, that's not nearly all that the Weather Bureau has to do with snow. In the northern states, especially of the Pacific Coast, snow surveys are of great importance. The Weather Bureau often sends men to determine the amount of snow that has fallen over a given area, in order to find out how much water may be expected. This is needed in flood forecasts and irrigation projects. Some of our men, boys, can tell you thrilling tales of their expeditions on snow-shoes up snow-covered slopes where there is never a trail.

"Railroads whose tracks run through the regions of heaviest snowfall build snowsheds to keep their lines from being buried in avalanches, and these sheds are built to withstand pressures calculated by the Weather Bureau. Where drifting occurs and the railroad tracks are being covered with the drifting snow, it is the combined snow and wind records of the Weather Bureau which form the basis for the work of the rotary-snow-plow.

"Even so, boys, the value of the work of the Weather Bureau in snow surveys is very small compared with the importance of frost warnings. These save the country tens of millions of dollars every year, especially in the fruit sections."

"You mean by smoking them?" queried Ross. "Father heard about that a couple of years ago and bought a lot of fire-pots for his orchard."

"How did he succeed?" asked the Forecaster.

"He didn't succeed at all," the boy answered. "There were only two bad frosts that spring, and both times the evening before had been so warm that no one suspected that there would be frost before morning. The one night that he did start the fires, it turned warm towards midnight and we wouldn't have needed the fires any way. Old Jed Tighe, who's got the biggest fruit farm here, has made fun of Father's fire-pots ever since."

"Now, if your father had received the Weather Bureau's frost warnings in advance," the Forecaster said, "he wouldn't have wasted fuel on the night that there wasn't a frost and he wouldn't have let his crop freeze on the nights that the temperature really did drop below the danger point. For example, boys, if the League of the Weather had been in existence at that time and could have given good frost warnings, all that crop would have been saved, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, sir," said the boys, "it would."

"Of course," the Forecaster continued, "a really progressive fruit-grower ought to make himself partly independent of the Weather Bureau. He can put up frost-alarm thermometers."

"What are they, sir?" asked Anton.

"They're thermometers with an electrical attachment, something on the principle of the thermostat, which you see nowadays in big buildings. A thermostat is electrically connected with a tiny lever, and when the air of a room gets to a certain heat, the increasing temperature operates a lever and closes the steam pipe which brings the heat. When the temperature falls below a certain point, the lever is released and the steam rises again. The same principle is used as a fire alarm. When the air inside a building rises to a point hotter than it could naturally do, it operates a lever which rings an alarm bell. The frost thermometer acts exactly on the same principle. When the temperature of the air, near a fruit orchard, falls to within three or four degrees of the point at which the fruit will be harmed, the fall of the mercury breaks an electric circuit which starts an alarm bell ringing in the owner's house, perhaps a half mile away."

"I've been wondering," began Anton in his meditative way, "whether it wouldn't cost more to heat all the out-of-doors than it would be to lose some of the fruit."

"You haven't got the idea of it at all," the weather expert said briskly. "It's got nothing to do with heating the whole of out-of-doors."

"Then what are the fires for?"

"Just to heat a very small section of the air on the ground. Don't forget, boys, that a fruit tree ten feet high may have all the fruit on its lower branches, up to five or six feet, absolutely killed off, while the top branches are unharmed."

"How's that?" queried Ross in surprise. "I thought frost came down from on top, and that the higher up you went the colder it would be."

"Not at all," the weather expert answered. "Frost comes from down below. When the air is still and clear, the earth loses heat by radiation. The heat goes up and up and through the air to higher levels, the cold earth cooling the air below. Therefore, on a frosty night, in a region where frosts are rare, or at a time of year when frosts are few, a still clear night will cause a belt of cold air perhaps only a few inches in depth, perhaps ten or twenty feet in height, this belt being several degrees colder than the air overhead.

"Now, Ross, you can see that to light huge fires, with the intention of warming up all the air, would be foolish and unnecessary. All that is needful is to heat this lower cold belt of air, a few feet in depth, and only to heat it the three or four degrees necessary to bring it to the warmth of the air above."

"But suppose a wind comes up and blows the heat away?" asked Anton.

The Forecaster smiled at the question.

"If a wind comes up," he answered, "you wouldn't need to use any heat at all, because the wind would mix the warmer air overhead with the cooler air below and there couldn't be any killing frost."

"But doesn't it cost an awful lot?"

"It costs less than to lose your crop," the weather expert replied. "Usually you can figure that a frosty night will take a gallon of oil per tree, or from twenty to twenty-five cents. In a fruit growing section a grower is unlikely to have more than four or five still, freezing nights a year when his crop may be ruined by frost, so that he will spend a dollar or so per tree in protecting his orchard. As there are few fruit trees which bring in a profit of less than ten dollars during the season, and some a great deal more--according to the nature of the crop--the proportionate expense of heating is small compared with the amount of fruit saved."

"Then you think that heating an orchard will save the fruit?"

"Absolutely without any question," the weather expert answered. "And, if the fruit-grower will keep in close touch with the Weather Bureau, he will know when precautions are necessary. Of course, boys, it's especially important for this work that there are a number of co-operative observers, because frost is not a widespread general phenomenon. You could have a fearful killing frost down in the hollow where Anton's house is, or in the low ground near your house, Ross, and still Tom's place, on that little hill, would be quite safe. One of the things that the League of the Weather ought to be able to do this winter and spring is to see that frost is fought. Even when your fathers haven't got regular oil-pots, boys, a few smudges with heavy smoke, drifting over the orchards or the truck fields, if started early enough in the evening may check a freeze."

"Why, sir?" asked Ross. "Smoke isn't hot."

"No, my boy. But you remember that I told you that the cold was caused by the radiation of heat from the earth escaping into the air and through it. If there's a steady layer of smoke, like a blanket, floating across the land, the heat radiating from the earth will not have a chance to escape to the upper air. It will stay in the lower layer of the air and thus keep it from dropping to the killing temperatures of a true freeze. That's what the Indians of the pueblos used to do."

In the mild winters and early springs of Issaquena County, there seemed little reason for the boys of the League to trouble themselves with frost warnings, but, at the Forecaster's urgency, the boys kept wide awake for it. It happened, though, that the lads had talked so much about their frost protection plans that several of the farmers decided to get some oil-burning fire-pots for use that spring, in the event of a freeze. Jed Tighe, however, one of the few people of the neighborhood who had shown but a perfunctory interest in the League, laughed to scorn the idea of buying the fire-pots, as Fred had suggested in a recent issue of the _Review_. Even Jed Tighe read the little sheet every week, in spite of his alleged scornfulness.

One afternoon, when Ross was over at the club-house, where he spent so much of his spare time, Anton pointed out that the conditions were ripe for a killing frost.

"The hottest to-day was sixty-two degrees," he said, "and you remember Mr. Levin told us that one wasn't ever safe unless the maximum was sixty-four. There's not a cloud in the sky anywhere and there's practically no wind, and what there is, Tom told me over Bob's wireless, is from the northwest, and that's the worst quarter. I was just going to take the dew-point when you came in."

"Let's do it now, Anton," said Ross. "Got the cup?"

For answer the crippled lad took down from the shelf a small tin mug. It was already bright and shining, but he polished it until it looked like silver.

"I've got the jug of ice-water ready," he said.

Pouring some tap water into the cup, and filling it about one third full, he began to stir it round and round with a thermometer. The mercury in the tube quickly dropped, until it read 50°, showing the temperature of the water.

"Now, Ross," said Anton, "pour in the ice-water slowly."

Ross picked up the pitcher and began to let the water trickle in a tiny stream into the bright tin cup. Anton went on stirring.

Steadily the mercury descended in the tube as the water in the cup grew colder and colder. Ross poured in more and more slowly. Then suddenly, quite suddenly, while both boys were watching, the brightness of the tin cup clouded over, as though with a sudden fog. Anton drew out the thermometer and looked at it.

"The dew-point's only thirty-four," he cried, "and as we've got to figure frost at three or four degrees lower, it'll be so cold that there won't be any fog to stop a freeze. Ross, it's just the night for a killing frost. What do you think we'd better do?"

The older lad hesitated.

"If you don't mind, Anton," he said, "I'll stay to supper, and we'll see what your night observations say."

By evening the threats of a frost were even more definite and the two boys consulted what had best be done.

"I can easily get Father to start his fire-pots," said Ross, "we got them all fixed up this winter. Bob's dad has got some fruit, and we can warn him by wireless, and we could get a lot of the fellows together. I don't want to make a mistake, though. If we suggest that the fire-pots ought to be started and then it doesn't freeze, we'll hurt the League a lot more than we'll help it."

"I wish we could talk it over with Mr. Levin," said Anton, "but he's down with one of his sick spells and we oughtn't to disturb him. Whatever we do, we've got to do it on our own."

"Let's get Bob here," suggested Ross, "he's got a steady head."

"And Fred," Anton added, "he's read all the Weather Bureau stuff on Frosts, I know. He's been writing his articles for the _Review_ from them."

"All right," said Ross, "I'll slip over and call for Fred and you get Bob on the wireless and ask him to come over here."

An hour later, the four boys were poring over the weather maps, comparing notes and observations and trying to decide whether they ought to do anything. Fred, always ready to take up something new, was for plunging ahead, on the chance that there might be frost, but doubted whether a frost was likely. Ross, as head of the League, was a little timid and afraid to make a serious mistake. Anton was firmly convinced that a killing frost would come before morning. Bob settled it.

"Better for the League to be laughed at than chance having the crops ruined," he said.

This turned the scale, and from a discussion of the advisability of frost warning, the question turned to the best way of letting people know. It was decided that Bob should return to his wireless, get as many of his connected operators in touch as possible and get them to warn their districts. Fred, who had persuaded his father to install a 'phone, was to get in touch with the few farmers in the district who had telephones and ask them to spread the warning. Anton was to borrow his father's buggy and drive to points not reached in any other way, and Ross was to go on his pony. By this means, the county would be fairly well covered. The boys were just separating, when Bob stopped.

"Jed Tighe!" he said.

"Oh, let the old skinflint go," said Fred, "there isn't any way of reaching him, any way."

"That doesn't seem quite fair," said Ross, dubiously, "he's got more fruit than anybody else."

"It isn't fair," said Bob.

"I've been wondering," said Anton, "if we oughtn't to notify Jed Tighe somehow."

"We've got to," said Bob.

"And only get rowed at for our pains," declared Fred.

This was so likely that all the boys felt the truth of the remark and there was a moment's silence.

"Play square," said Bob.

"Jed Tighe has never done anything to help the League," said Fred. "I don't see why we should do anything to help him."

"Well," said Ross, "we can't take that stand. Any chap that needs help ought to be warned. If you saw his house on fire, Fred, you wouldn't hesitate to tell Jed Tighe, would you?"

"No," answered the editor doubtfully, "I wouldn't, but this seems different, some way. We might be making fools of ourselves and he'd have the laugh on us for ever."

"Better be laughed at for trying to help than blamed for not trying," repeated Bob.

This was unanswerable and to Ross was deputed the dubious pleasure of notifying the hard old farmer. As the boys separated, Anton looked at his watch.

"It's going to be all hours before you get home to your own place, Ross," said Anton, "it would be a shame if your fruit ran a risk by your being late. Your dad hasn't got a 'phone."

"That's easily fixed," said Ross.

He went to the door and whistled. Rex came bounding up. Ross went to the table and scribbled on a piece of paper:

"Frost to-night! Light the pots!"

This he fastened securely to the Airedale's collar.

"Home! Rex!" he said.

The terrier looked up in his master's face to make sure that it was an order, and not a game, and evidently being satisfied, started down the road at a long sweeping trot. About a hundred yards away he stopped and turned round to look. Ross was expecting this, so raised his arm and pointed. Quite satisfied, Rex swung round to the road again and galloped out of sight.

The boys separated at once, Bob to his wireless outfit, Fred to his 'phone. Anton, however, did not get in the buggy, as arranged. Instead, his father, knowing that the lad was frail, packed him off to bed and drove in the buggy himself, warning all his neighbors. Ross, on his little pony, riding like another Paul Revere, covered many miles. It was well on towards midnight when he reached Jed Tighe's house. The dogs broke out into a furious barking, and, wakened by their tumult, the old farmer with his thin scraggly beard, came to the door.

"What do you want, coming to my house at this hour of the night?" he began, not recognizing his visitor.

"It's me, Ross Planford," the boy answered. "I came to tell you that it's going to freeze tonight."

"That's a nice reason for getting a man out of his bed! Besides, it ain't so. There's never been a frost in this county later'n April 3." He snapped his fingers at the boy. "That's how much you know about it."

Ross found it hard to keep down his temper at this discourtesy.

"It's going to freeze, just the same," he retorted.

"Well, let it freeze, and you, too."

The old farmer began to close the door.

"But your fruit'll all be frosted!"

"Save it yourself, then," snapped Jed Tighe and slammed the door.

Ross dug his heels into his pony and started for home. The ride had taken him six miles out of his way and he was anxious to get home to make sure Rex had delivered his message. Still, as he rode, his pony's hoofs seemed to beat out the message:

"Save it yourself, then!"

Why should he?

Again--

Why shouldn't he?

The gallop came down to a trot and then to a walk, as Ross brooded over what he should do. As it chanced, his path lay near one of the younger members of the League, who had bought a small wireless outfit, similar to that of Anton's. Ross reined in.

As at Jed Tighe's, the hounds announced his arrival and the farmer poked his head out of the window. He recognized the boy at once.

"What's up, Ross?" he asked. "Anything wrong?"

"There's a killing freeze coming tonight, Mr. Lovell," the boy answered. "We're warning every one with fruit trees to start a smudge going. And, Mr. Lovell, can I use the wireless for a minute?"

"Of course. Much obliged for the tip, my boy, I'll get right up and attend to things. Of course, I don't know as it'll do any good, if it's a goin' to freeze; to my way o' thinkin' it's goin' to freeze and nothin'll stop it. But no one can say that Tim Lovell was too lazy to try an' save his crops."

Ross tied his pony and hurried up to his friend's room. In a minute the wireless was buzzing and presently, back came the answering buzz. Georgie sat up in bed and listened.

"I'll go with you to Jed Tighe's," he said, "that is, if Father'll let me."

"Try it," said Ross, "if he will, you can jump on the pony behind me."

Permission was readily granted, for the farmer was grateful for his own warning, and in less than ten minutes' time the two boys were galloping back along the frosty road to the old skinflint's place.

"Aren't you going to tell him about the frost?" asked George, as Ross turned his pony off on the windward side of the orchard.

"I have told him," answered Ross, and he related the story of the meeting, gathering together dry twigs and branches as he talked.

George waxed indignant.

"I'd let him go to grass!" he said.

"That's what I thought at first," Ross replied, "but if you saw a chap drowning, you'd jump in and save him without waiting to find out whether he was delirious and didn't want to be saved."

"Of course," George answered, "any fellow would jump in."

"That's what we're doing, we're jumping in."

Minutes were precious and the two boys worked with all their might, gathering piles of twigs and dry sticks. There was a heap of straw and stable manure a field or two away, and Ross rolled several wheelbarrow loads of it across the fields. After two hours' work, the boys had a row of little piles of fuel, covering one quarter of the length of the orchard.

"You light the first one, Georgie," said Ross, wanting to give the younger lad the honor, for he had worked pluckily and hard.

The lad went down and touched a match to the first pile. It blazed up merrily, and just as the smoke began to rise, the wheels of a buggy were heard along the road. A moment later Bob jumped out.

"Hello!" was all he said.

He cast one glance at the piles and commenced to work with a will. Presently a shout was heard and Ralph, the photographer, appeared on his wheel.

"There's a bunch more coming," he said, and he, too, set to work.

"Frost!" said Bob suddenly, as he pointed to a small glistening crystal of hoar frost on a blade of grass.

The boys cheered. Their prophecies were justified, and they plugged at the work harder than ever. Bob, who feared neither Jed Tighe's tongue, nor anything else, opened the farmer's stable, harnessed and hitched up a team, and commenced to draw the manure and straw to the edge of the orchard. It was now three o'clock and the frost was beginning to form rapidly.

"We can't save the rest of it," said Ross, as he looked longingly at the far quarter of the orchard; "we've got all we can do to keep going what we've got."

Four o'clock and five o'clock passed. The sun rose. Promptly at five-thirty, his regular hour, old Jed Tighe got up and walked to the window to see what kind of a day it was. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, astonished.

There, on his land, using his team of horses, was a group of eight boys, their forms only occasionally seen through the blanket of smoke which drifted sluggishly over and through the trees of his orchard. The ground was white with hoar frost and the lower branches of the trees in the yard had frost crystals on them. The farmer dressed hurriedly and went out.

A dead silence fell along the boys as the tall spare form of the farmer was seen approaching. Georgie and some of the younger ones shrank back. Ross stood his ground. Bob lounged forward.

Jed Tighe said never a word. He cast a shrewd glance at the fruit trees in the orchard which had been nearest to the fires and the smudges, and then, still silently, walked down the entire line of the fires until the end of it, and beyond. On the unprotected stretch, the frost lay thick. He stood thoughtfully a moment and then walked back up the line, more slowly, until he came to where Ross stood, watching him.

"So you did save it, eh?"

"Yes, Mr. Tighe," the boy said, "I did."

"And I suppose you think I told you to?"

"Yes, you did."

"I'm not any fonder of being made to look like a fool than most men are," the farmer said, "but I'm fair." He turned on his heel and started to walk away. Over his shoulder he snapped:

"Twenty-five per cent of the value of the difference between the fruit on the protected and the unprotected parts of my ground goes to the League. And I'll let my boy, Bill, join you."