The pack tried hard to catch up on their sleep during lunch and study periods. It didn’t make up for the night of lost sleep, but it was enough to keep them all going for the next little while.

When school ended, Ranger Brock was in his 4 × 4 waiting for them in the parking lot.

“I heard you had a late night yesterday,” he said, as they neared his vehicle.

“Not that late,” offered Tora.

“Yeah,” said Harlan. “We were in bed by…well, before breakfast, anyway.”

The ranger nodded as if he were unconcerned. “I’m heading up to the protest site. Willie is going to do another press conference and I thought you might want to hear what he has to say.”

“You bet.”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go!”

It was a ten-minute drive on the highway, and then another ten minutes along the narrow dirt road. If the logging company wanted to use this road on a regular basis, they were going to have to widen it.

Long before they reached the site, they noticed additional cars parked along the right side of the road. “Where did all these cars come from?” asked Argus.

Harlan cracked a smile. “I hear there’s a factory that makes them in Oshawa…That’s in Ontario.”

Argus made a fist and punched his smaller brother in the arm.

“Ow.”

The closer they got to the site, the more cars there were.

“I expected more people here today,” said Ranger Brock, “but I had no idea there’d be this many.”

“Maybe something happened in the night,” said Noble, sitting in the front passenger seat of the 4 × 4. As he spoke, he turned to look at the others in the backseat, then gave them a smile and a quick thumbs up.

“Gee,” said Harlan, still rubbing his arm. “I wonder what it could have been.”

“Look!” cried Tora.

They were still nearing the site, but even at this distance the two overturned cars could clearly be seen, looking for all the world like two fish out of water.

Ranger Brock found a spot to park and all five of them got out of the vehicle. Willie was standing at the podium just like he’d done the day before, but this time there were all kinds of microphones and tape recorders in front of him. Other reporters stood close by with pens and notebooks in hand, frantically scribbling Willie’s words down as if they were prophecies about the end of the world.