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As quickly as he could, he gathered up the seven other members of the patrol for an impromptu meeting at the home of Professor George Griffin, the scoutmaster, to consider the proposals of the letter, which was from the Panther Patrol of the Boy Scout troop at Hood River, Oregon, and which read as follows:

Will the Pelican Patrol climb Mt. Shasta to light red fire on the summit at exactly ten-fifteen the night of July Fourth ? If so, this patrol promises to be on top of Mt. Hood at exactly ten o'clock the same night to signal with fireworks. The quarter of an hour interval will keep each party from being blinded by its own light.

This proposition is made for two reasons: One is to clear up a scientific point. No one has ever seen Mt. Shasta from Mt. Hood or vice versa. They are two hundred and fifty miles apart and the question is : Does the natural curvature of the earth bulge up the intervening Cascade Range so as to break the line of vision? In daytime, the snow-covered tops are not bright enough to focus the sight to the best advantage at so great a distance. But brilliant fireworks at night would make the peaks visible from each other if the roundness of the earth doesn't interfere, and to find out definitely whether it does interfere is one reason for this climb.

The other reason is that we can furnish a Fourth of July spectacle which has never been equaled anywhere. Portland's 260,000 inhabitants and many smaller towns in Oregon, Southern Washington and Northern California can see one or the other illuminated mountain, so that more than half a million people will enjoy the fireworks we put on. Druggists will mix up red fire for about seventy-five cents a pound. We'll need close to a hundred pounds for each mountain. But the celebration committees of Portland and the other towns ought to be willing to finance the trips. If you wish, our scoutmaster, Sheriff John Taylor, will see what can be done about this.

Only six of us can make the climb : John Taylor, scoutmaster, Jess Wilson, Ben Clark, Jack Sutton, Gus Peterson and Andy Applegate.

We have only about six weeks before the Fourth, so if you can't climb Mt. Shasta let us know by return mail if possible and we'll submit the proposition to one of the patrols of Medford, Oregon, or Sacramento, California.

Yours very truly,
(Signed) JESS WILSON,

Leader Panther Patrol,
Hood River, Oregon.