Ewa had been the fire lookout on Cedar Hill for twenty years. She lived in a wooden tower with eighty-two steps and watched the forest for smoke. It was the dry end of summer. At six o'clock the radio said that a school group, eight children and their teacher, Mr. Dufour, had not come back from a hike in the Black Valley. The search would start at dawn.
At ten past nine, with storm clouds gathering, Ewa saw a tiny flame deep in the forest, about six kilometers away. Afraid of a wildfire, she called the fire brigade at once. Then a second flame appeared, ten steps from the first, and a third: three small fires in a triangle.
Ewa froze. Three fires in a triangle is an old signal: "We are lost. We are here." She had taught it to children at the tower's open day last summer. This was not a forest fire. It was the children.
For three hours she kept her binoculars on the fires and guided the rescuers by radio as they closed in from two sides. She also turned the big lamp towards the valley, so the children would know that someone could see them. When the rain began, the fires went out, but the lamp kept shining.
A little before midnight the radio spoke: "We have them. Nine of nine. Cold and wet, but fine." Nico, who was eleven, told the rescuers that they had lit the fires on bare rock beside a stream, with water ready. "A lady at a tower told us: one fire is a mistake, three fires is a message." Ewa sat down on the top step and laughed and cried.
