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Title: Roy Blakeley, Pathfinder
Author: Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Language: English
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ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER
[Illustration: “I GAVE THEM THE SCOUT SALUTE.”]
ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER
by
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
Tom Slade, Boy Scout, Tom Slade
with the Colors, Tom Slade on
the River, etc.
Illustrated
Published with the approval of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers : : New York
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1920, by
Grosset & Dunlap
CONTENTS
I HELLO, HERE I AM AGAIN
II AN AWFUL WILDERNESS
III UNDAUNTED!
IV GO!
V I GO ON AN ERRAND
VI I DISCOVER SOME TRACKS
VII I MEET THE STRANGER
VIII UP A TREE
IX AWFUL STICKY
X I MAKE A PROMISE
XI SEEING IS BELIEVING
XII MARSHAL FOCH
XIII AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
XIV BUT I DIDN’T WRITE IT
XV NO! NO! NO! GO ON! GO ON!
XVI THE MYSTERY
XVII APPALLING! WONDERFUL! MAGNIFICENT!
XVIII ON TO GLORY
XIX JIB JAB, IS HE HUMAN?
XX THE PARADE
XXI WE VISIT THE SIDE SHOW
XXII BRENT GAYLONG
XXIII BRENT’S STORY
XXIV THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS
XXV IN THE DARK
XXVI DORRY AND I AND THE CRICKET
XXVII WE TAKE HARRY INTO OUR CONFIDENCE
XXVIII IN THE WOODS
XXIX JIB JAB AND HARRY
XXX JIB JAB IS SURPRISED
XXXI JIB JAB’S STORY
XXXII JIB JAB TURNS OUT TO BE HUMAN
XXXIII WE PART COMPANY
XXXIV A GOOD IDEA
XXXV WHAT I HEARD ON THE TELEPHONE
XXXVI UP THE TRAIL
XXXVII A VOICE
XXXVIII WE FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
XXXIX WELCOME HOME
XL MMM-MM-M-M!
ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER
CHAPTER I
HELLO, HERE I AM AGAIN
This story is all about a hike. It starts on Bridge Street and ends on
Bridge Street. Maybe you’ll think it’s just a street story. But that’s
where you’ll get left. It starts at the soda fountain in Warner’s Drug
Store on Bridge Street in Catskill, New York, and it ends at the soda
fountain in Bennett’s Candy Store on Bridge Street in Bridgeboro, New
Jersey. That’s where I live; not in Bennett’s, but in Bridgeboro. But
I’m in Bennett’s a lot.
Believe _me_, that hike was over a hundred miles long. If you rolled it
up in a circle it would go around Black Lake twenty times. Black Lake
would be just a spool—_good night!_ In one place it was tied in a
bowline knot, but we didn’t count that. It was a good thing Westy Martin
knew all about bowline knots or we’d have been lost.
Harry Donnelle said it would be all right for me to say that we hiked
all the way, except in one place where we were carried away by the
scenery. Gee, that fellow had us laughing all the time. I told him that
if the story wasn’t about anything except just a hike, maybe it would be
slow, but he said it couldn’t be slow if we went a hundred miles in one
book. He said more likely the book would be arrested for speeding. I
should worry. “Forty miles are as many as it’s safe to go in one book,”
he said, “and here we are rolling up a hundred. We’ll bunk right into
the back cover of the book, that’s what we’ll do.” Oh boy, you would
laugh if you heard that fellow talk. He’s a big fellow; he’s about
twenty-five years old, I guess.
“Believe _me_, I hope the book will have a good strong cover,” I told
him.
Then Will Dawson (he’s the only one of us that has any sense), he said,
“If there are two hundred pages in the book, that means you’ve got to go
two miles on every page.”
“Suppose a fellow should skip,” I told him.
“Then that wouldn’t be hiking, would it?” he said.
I said, “Maybe I’ll write it scout pace.”
“I often skip when I read a book, but I never go scout pace,” Charlie
Seabury said.
“Well,” I told him, “this is a different kind of a book.”
“I often heard about how a story runs,” Harry Donnelle said, “but I
never heard of one going scout pace.”
“You leave it to me,” I said, “this story is going to have action.”
Then Will Dawson had to start shouting again. Cracky, that fellow’s a
fiend on arithmetic. He said, “If there are two hundred pages and thirty
lines on a page, that means we’ve got to go more than one-sixteenth of a
mile for every line.”
“Righto,” I told him, “action in every word. The only place a fellow can
get a chance to rest, is at the illustrations.”
Dorry Benton said, “I wish you luck.”
“The pleasure is mine,” I told him.
“Anyway, who ever told you, you could write a book?” he asked me.
“Nobody _had_ to tell me; I admit I can,” I said.
“How about a plot?” he began shouting.
“There’s going to be a plot forty-eight by a hundred feet,” I came back
at him, “with a twenty foot frontage. I should worry about plots.”
Harry Donnelle said he guessed maybe it would be better not to have any
plot at all, because a plot would be kind of heavy to carry on a hundred
mile hike.
“Couldn’t we carry it in a wheelbarrow?” Will wanted to know.
“We’d look nice,” I told him, “hiking through a book with the plot in a
wheelbarrow.”
“Yes, and it would get heavier too,” Westy Martin said, “because plots
grow thicker all the time.”
“Let’s not bother with a plot,” I said; “there’s lots of books without
plots.”
“Sure, look at the dictionary,” Harry Donnelle said.
“And the telephone book,” I told him, “It’s popular too; everybody reads
it.”
“We should worry about a plot,” I said.
* * * * *
By now I guess you can see that we’re all crazy in our patrol. Even
Harry Donnelle, he’s crazy, and he isn’t in our patrol at all. I guess
it’s catching, hey? And, oh boy, the worst is yet to come.
So now I guess I’d better begin and tell you how it all happened. The
story will unfold itself or unwrap itself or untie itself or whatever
you call it. This is going to be the worst story I ever wrote and it’s
going to be the best, too. This chapter isn’t a part of the hike, so
really the story doesn’t begin till you get to Warner’s Drug Store.
You’ll know it by the red sign. This chapter is just about our past
lives. When I say, “go” then you’ll know the story has started. And when
I finish the pineapple soda in Bennett’s, you’ll know that’s the end. So
don’t stop reading till I get to the end of the soda. The story ends way
down in the bottom of the glass.
Maybe you don’t know who Harry Donnelle is, so I’ll tell you. He was a
lieutenant, but he’s mustered out now. He got a wound on his arm. His
hair is kind of red, too. That’s how he got the wound—having red hair.
The Germans shot at the fellow with red hair, but one good thing, they
didn’t hit him in the head.
He came up to Temple Camp where our troop was staying and paid us a
visit and if you want to know why he came, it’s in another story. But,
anyway, I’ll tell you this much. Our three patrols went up to camp in
his father’s house-boat. His father told us we could use the house-boat
for the summer. Those patrols are the Ravens and the Elks and the Solid
Silver Foxes. I’m head of the Silver Foxes.
The reason he came to camp was to get something belonging to him that
was in one of the lockers of the house-boat. I wrote to him and told him
about it being there and so he came up. He liked me and he called me
Skeezeks. Most everybody that’s grown up calls me by a nickname. As long
as he was there he decided to stay a few days, because he was stuck on
Temple Camp. All the fellows were crazy about him. At camp-fire he told
us about his adventures in France. He said you can’t get gum drops in
France.
Gee, I wouldn’t want to live there.
CHAPTER II
AN AWFUL WILDERNESS
After he’d been at camp three or four days, Harry Donnelle said to me,
“Skeezeks, are you game for a real hike—you and your patrol?”
I said, “Real hikes are our specialties—we eat ’em alive.”
“I don’t mean just a little stroll down to the village or even over as
far as the Hudson,” he said; “but a hike that _is_ a hike. Do you think
you could roll up a hundred miles?”
“As easy as rolling up my sleeves,” I told him. “We’re so game that a
ball game isn’t anything compared with us. Speak out and tell us the
worst.”
He said, “Well, I was thinking of a little jaunt back home.”
“_Good night_,” I told him, “I thought maybe you meant as far as
Kingston or Poughkeepsie, But Bridgeboro! Oh boy!”
“Of course, we wouldn’t get very far from the Hudson,” he said, “and we
could jump on a West Shore train most anywhere, if you kids got tired.”
“The only thing we’ll jump on will be _you_—if you talk like that,” I
said; “Silver Foxes don’t jump on trains. But how about the other
fellows—the Elks and the raving Ravens? United we stand, divided we
sprawl.”
He said, “Let them rave; I’m not going to head a whole kindergarten.
Eight of you are enough. Who do you think I am, General Pershing?” And
then he ruffled up my beautiful curly hair and he gave me a shove—same
way as he always did. “This is not a grand drive,” he said, “it’s a
hike. Just a few shock troops will do.”
“We’ll shock you all right,” I said, “but first you’d better speak to
Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster), and get the first shock out of the
way.”
“I think I have Mr. Ellsworth eating out of my hand,” he said; “you
leave that to me. I just wanted to sound you and find out if you were
game or whether you’re just tin horn scouts—parlor scouts.”
“Well, do I sound all right?” I said. “Believe _me_, there are only two
things that keep us from hiking around the world, and those are the
Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.”
“Think you could climb over the Equator?” he said, laughing all the
while. And he gave me another one of those shoves—_you_ know.
Then he said, “Well then, Skeezeks, I’ll tell you what you do. You call
a meeting of the Foxes and lay this matter on the table——”
“Why should I lay it on the table?” I said; “you’d think it was a plate
of soup. _I’ll stand_ on the table and address them, that’s what I’ll
do.”
He said, “All right, you just picture the hardships to them. Tell them
that for whole hours at a time, we may have to go without ice cream
sodas. Tell them that we’ll have to penetrate a wilderness where there
is no peanut brittle. Tell them that we’ll have to enter a jungle where
gum drops are unknown. Tell them that we may have to live on
grasshoppers. Tell them about the vast morass near Kingston, where you
can’t even get a piece of chocolate cake; miles and miles of barren
waste where the foot of white man has never trod upon a marshmallow——”
“Sure you can find marshmallows in the marshes,” I said. “We should
worry.”
“You ask Willie and Tommy and Dorrie and the others if they are prepared
to make the sacrifice—and I’ll do the rest. I’ll speak to Mr.
Ellsworth. But remember about the heartless desert with its burning
sands just above Newburgh. Now go chase yourself and round them up. I
guess you know how to do it.”
So I got all the Silver Foxes into our patrol cabin and gave them a
spooch. I guess I might as well tell you who they all are. First there’s
me—I mean _I_. Correct, be seated. You learn that in the primary grade.
I’m patrol leader and it’s _some_ job. Then comes Westy Martin; he’s my
special chum. My sister says he has dandy hair. Then comes Dorry
Benton—he’s got a wart on his wrist. Then comes Huntley
Manners—Badleigh, that’s his middle name. Sometimes we call him Bad
Manners. Then comes Charlie Seabury and then comes Will Dawson and then
come Tom Warner and Ralph Warner—they’re twins. They’re both better
looking than each other—that’s what Pee-wee Harris said. He’s a
scream—he’s in the raving Raven patrol. Thank goodness he isn’t in this
story—not much anyway. Ralph says Tom is crazy and Tom says Ralph is
crazy and Will Dawson says they’re both right. I guess we’re all crazy.
Anyway, Ralph and Tom came from Maine, so they’re both maniacs, hey?
This is the speech I spooched:
Fellow Foxes:
Shut up and give me a chance to talk. Sit down, Bad Manners.
I’ve got something to tell you and don’t all shout at once——
_Good night!_ They all began shouting separately. Then I said:
Harry Donnelle says he’s going to hike it all the way home to
Bridgeboro. He says we can go with him if we want to. Our time
is up Saturday, but we’ll have to start three or four days
sooner.
He said for me to sound you fellows, but believe me, there’s so
much sound that I can’t. I suppose the other patrols will go
back down the Hudson in the house-boat. Every fellow that’s in
favor of hiking it home with Mr. Harry Donnelle, will say
_aye_—but don’t say it yet. He said to tell you that we take
our lives in our hands——
“Why can’t we put them in our duffel bags?” Westy shouted.
“Did you think we’d take them in our feet?” Dorry yelled.
Then they all began shouting, “_Aye, aye, aye!_” even before I told them
about the forests and morasses and jungles and deserts and things.
Honest, you can’t do anything with that bunch.
CHAPTER III
UNDAUNTED! (THAT’S PEE-WEE’S HEADING)
One thing about Harry Donnelle, he was a dandy fixer. When he fixed the
camouflage for us so we could watch a chipmunk, I knew he was a good
fixer. He said he learned how in France. He fixed the chimney on the
cooking shack, too. That fellow could fix anything.
But a scoutmaster isn’t so easy to fix. Lots of times I tried to fix it
with Mr. Ellsworth and I just couldn’t. He’d make me think that I wanted
to do his way. He’s awful funny, he can just make you think that there’s
more fun doing things his way. And I was trembling in my shoes—I mean I
was trembling in my bare feet—for fear Harry Donnelle wouldn’t be able
to fix it with him. But that fellow could fix it with the sun to
shine—that’s what Mr. Burroughs said.
Pretty soon he came strolling down to the spring-board where a lot of us
were having a dip in the lake.
“All right,” he said, “how about you?”
“Did you fix it?” I asked him.
“All cut and dried,” he said; “are you ready for the big adventure?”
* * * * *
That afternoon we had a special troop meeting, to find out how the
fellows felt about splitting the troop for the journey home. Because you
see our three patrols always hung together. Mr. Ellsworth made a speech
and said how Harry Donnelle had offered to lead the fierce and fiery
Silver Foxes through the perilous wilds of New York State. He said that
the journey would be filled with interest and data of scientific value
(that’s just the way he talked) and how we hoped to cross the Ashokan
Reservoir and visit other wild places. He said that we planned to enter
the heart of the Artists Colony at Woodstock and see the artists in
their native state and stalk some authors and poets, maybe, and study
their habits.
Oh boy, you ought to have seen Harry Donnelle. He just sat there on the
edge of Council Rock (that’s where we have important meetings at Temple
Camp) and laughed and laughed and laughed.
Mr. Ellsworth said, “It is hoped that these brave scouts may succeed in
capturing a poet and bringing him home as a specimen, and that they may
find other fossils of interest. Meanwhile, the Ravens and the Elks and
myself will drift down in our house-boat and endeavor to find someone to
tow us from Poughkeepsie to New York and up our own dear river to
Bridgeboro. The Ravens and the Elks wish me to offer the brave explorer,
Mr. Harry Donnelle, a vote of thinks for taking the Silver Foxes away.
They appreciate that he does this for the sake, not of the Silver Foxes,
but as a good turn to the Ravens and the Elks. The Ravens and the Elks
hope to have a little peace meanwhile. They thank him. In the familiar
words of one of our famous patrol leaders, ‘_we should worry._’ And we
wish you all good luck in your daring enterprise.”
I could see that he winked at Harry Donnelle and Harry Donnelle was
laughing so hard that he couldn’t make a speech. So I climbed up on
Council Rock and shouted, “Hear, hear!” Then I made a speech and this is
it, because afterwards I wrote it out in our troop book.
The Silver Foxes thank the Ravens and the Elks for their kind
wishes. I bequeath all my extra helpings of dessert to Pee-wee
Harris of the Ravens—up to three helpings. After that it
reverts to Vic Norris of the Elks. Reverts means _goes to_. Who
ever reaches Bridgeboro, New Jersey, first will send out a
searching part for the others. The searching party will bring
their own eats. If we’re never heard of again, that’s a sign you
won’t hear from us. If we get to Bridgeboro and don’t find you,
that’ll be a sign that you’re not there. If you are there it
won’t be our fault. We should worry. We go forth for the sake of
prosperity—I mean posterity. So please tell posterity in case
we don’t reach home safely. If our friends and parents are
anxious, tell them to wait at Bennett’s on Bridge Street,
because that’ll be the first place we go to.
The next day was Wednesday and we started early in the morning. The
others were going to start down in the house-boat on Saturday. I think
the Ravens and the Elks must have sat up all night making crazy signs on
cardboard just so as to guy us. And Mr. Ellsworth helped them, too. They
had the whole camp with them—even Uncle Jeb; he’s manager. He used to
be a trapper.
When we got out onto the main road, we saw signs tacked up on all the
trees and I guess every scout in camp was there. One of the signs read,
_Olive oil, but not good-bye_. Another one read _Day-day to the brave
explorers_. Another one read, _Don’t forget to wear rubbers going
through the Newburgh morass_. Another one read, _Beware of the
treacherous Ashokan Reservoir_. A lot we cared. Didn’t people even make
fun of Christopher Columbus?
CHAPTER IV
GO!
But remember, I told you that the hike didn’t really begin till we got
to Catskill. The reason I don’t count the hike from Temple Camp to
Catskill is because we were all the time hiking down there. It wasn’t a
hike, it was a habit. I wouldn’t be particular about three or four
miles. Besides, I wouldn’t ask you to take them, because they’ve been
used before. I wouldn’t give you any second hand miles.
When we got to Catskill we bought some egg powder and bacon (gee, I love
bacon) and coffee and sugar and camera films and mosquito dope and beans
and flour and chocolate. You can make a dandy sandwich putting a slice
of bacon between two slabs of chocolate. Mm-um! We had a pretty good
bivouac outfit, because the Warner twins have a balloon silk shelter
that rolls up so small you can almost put it in a fountain pen—that’s
what Harry Donnelle said. Dorry Benton had his aluminum cooking set
along, saucepans, cups, dishes, coffee pot—everything fits inside of
everything else. One thing, we wouldn’t starve, that was sure, because
we had enough stuff to make coffee and flapjacks for more than a week,
counting six flapjacks to every fellow and fourteen to Hunt Manners; oh
boy, but that fellow has some appetite! We had plenty of beans, too.
Don’t you worry about our having plenty to eat.
When we got through shopping, we went to Warner’s Drug Store for sodas.
Harry Donnelle said he’d treat us all, because maybe, those would be the
last sodas that we’d ever have. As we came along we saw Mr. Warner
standing in the doorway and he was smiling with a regular scout smile.
“There’s something wrong,” I said; “there’s some reason for him smiling
like that.”
“Have a smile for everyone you meet,” Will Dawson began singing.
But, believe me, I know all the different kinds of smiles and there was
something funny about Mr. Warner’s smile. When we got inside we saw a
big sign hanging on the soda fountain. It read:
A LAST FAREWELL
TO THE SILVER PLATED FOXES
BEFORE THEY ENTER THE JUNGLE
By that I knew that some of the fellows up at camp had been down to
Warner’s the night before and put it there, because they knew that would
be the last store we’d go to.
Harry Donnelle said, “All right, line up.” So we all sat in a row and
some summer people who were in there began to laugh. What did we care?
One girl said she wished she was a boy; girls are always saying that. So
that proves we have plenty of fun. I could see Harry Donnelle wink at
Mr. Warner while the latter (that means Mr. Warner) was getting the
sodas ready. Then all of a sudden Harry said:
“_Attention! Present spoons. Go!_”
So then we all started at once and that was the beginning of the big
hike. Just as I told you, it started at the top of the glasses in
Warner’s and ended in the bottom of the glasses at Bennett’s. When you
hear me say _M-mm-that’s good_ in Bennett’s, you’ll know the hike is
over.
CHAPTER V
I GO ON AN ERRAND
“Now to skirt the lonesome Catskills,” Harry said.
“Now to what them?” Dorry Benton asked him.
“Skirt them,” he said, “that’s Latin for hiking around the edge of them.
We don’t want to be all the time stumbling over mountains.”
“Believe _me_, if I see one in the road, I’ll tell you,” I said.
“And we don’t want to get mixed up with panthers and wild cats either,”
Harry said. And he gave me a wink.
“There aren’t any wild animals in the Catskills,” Charlie Seabury said.
“There are wild flowers,” I said, “but they won’t hurt anybody.”
“How about poison ivy?” Westy Martin said.
All the while as we hiked along the road toward Saugerties, we kept
joking about the wild animals in the Catskills. Harry Donnelle said
there used to be lots of wild cats and foxes, but not any more. He said
there were some foxes, though.
Westy said, “I bet there are some bears; once Uncle Jeb saw a bear; he
said there weren’t any foxes any more.”
“I guess there are some grey ones and maybe a few silver,” Harry
Donnelle said.
“Silver?” I shouted. “Oh boy!” Then I asked him what they fed on mostly.
“Mostly on ice cream sodas,” he said; “they’re very dangerous after a
half dozen raspberry sodas.”
We didn’t go near Saugerties, because we wanted to keep in the country,
so we hit down southwest along the road that goes to Woodstock. Then we
were going to hike it south past West Hurley so we’d bunk our noses
right into the Ashokan Reservoir. And the next day we were going to
spend trying to keep out of Kingston.
When it got to be about five o’clock in the afternoon, we hit in from
the road to find a good place to camp. Maybe you think that’s easy, but
you have to find a place where the drainage is good and where there’s
good drinking water.
Pretty soon we found a dandy place about a quarter of a mile off the
road, and we put up our tent there.
Harry Donnelle said, “There’s one kind of wild animal that I forgot to
mention and I guess we’ll be hunting them all right; that’s mosquitoes.
I guess one or two of you kids had better hit the trail for the nearest
village and complete our shopping before we get any further. What do you
say? We’re a little short on mosquito dope and we ought to have some
crackers, and let’s see, a little meat would go good. I’m hungry.”
When we turned into the woods from the road, we knew that we were coming
to a village and I guess that’s what put the idea into Harry’s head to
have somebody go there and get two or three things that we hadn’t been
able to get in Catskill. I told him that I’d go, because the rest would
be busy getting in fire wood and I said it would be good if two or three
of them tried to catch some fish in the brook.
Oh boy, I had hardly said that, when Ralph Warner shouted that he had a
perch and that the brook was full of them. Harry Donnelle went over and
saw for himself how it was, and then he came back and said to me that as
long as there seemed to be plenty of fish I needn’t bother about meat,
but that I’d better go and see if I could scare up some more mosquito
dope and some sinkers for fishing and a trowel to dig bait with, because
if we liked the place we might stay there till noon the next day. That’s
the best way on a long hike—take it easy.
“How about Charlie Seabury?” I said; “he doesn’t like fish.”
“All right, get him a couple of chops, then,” Harry said; “now can you
remember all the things you’re going to get? Mosquito dope, fishing
sinkers, a writing pad and some stamps, and let’s see——”
“Some crackers,” I said.
“Righto,” he shouted after me.
CHAPTER VI
I DISCOVER SOME TRACKS
I went back through the woods and when I got to the road I noticed how
it curved, and just then I saw a very narrow path on the opposite side
of the road that led into the woods. I decided it must be a short cut to
the village. So I started along that path.
Pretty soon the woods grew very thick and it wasn’t so easy to follow
the trail, because it was all overgrown with bushes. But I managed to
keep hold of it all right, and after about fifteen minutes I came to a
little stone house with the windows all boarded up and the door standing
a little open. There was a staple on the door with an old padlock
hanging on it, but I guess the padlock wasn’t any good. One thing sure,
nobody lived there. I went and peeked inside and saw that it wasn’t
meant for people at all, because there wasn’t any floor and it was all
dark and damp and there were lots of spider webs around. Even there was
one across the doorway, so by that I knew that nobody had been there
lately.
Right in the middle, inside, were a couple of rocks and water was
trickling up from under them. That’s what made me think that the place
was just a spring house. Anyway, I didn’t wait because I was in a hurry.
When I came out I pushed the door open a little and then I closed it all
but about a foot or so. Inside of an hour I was mighty sorry that I
hadn’t left it wide open, and you’ll see why.
I guess I had gone about a hundred yards further when I noticed
something in the trail that started me guessing. It was the print of an
animal; or anyway, if it wasn’t, I didn’t know what else it was. There
were six prints, something like a cat’s, only the paw that made them had
five toes. The other mark was the paw mark. It was the biggest print
that I ever saw.
The first animal I thought about was a wild cat. But of course, I knew
there weren’t any wild cats right there. Even if there were any in that
part of the country, they wouldn’t be roaming around near villages.
Anyway, the five toe prints had me guessing, because a wild cat has only
four. I could see that the animal must have been crossing the path,
because the print was sideways and the bushes alongside of the path were
kind of trampled down.
You can bet I took a good look in those bushes for hairs, but I couldn’t
find any and I kept wondering what kind of an animal had a paw as big as
a man’s hand and five toes.
After I had gone a little further, I came plunk on a whole line of them
along the path. I wasn’t exactly scared, but anyway, they made me feel
sort of funny, because they were so big and printed so plain. The animal
that made those tracks must have been a pretty big animal, I knew that.
Then, all of a sudden, I discovered something else. Some of the prints
had five toe marks and some of them only four. Maybe that means the
animal was lame, I said to myself, and doesn’t make a full print with
one of its feet. But in a minute I had sense enough to see that wasn’t
the way it was, because there were always two of one kind pretty close
together and then two of the other kind pretty close together. This is
the way it was; there was a five toe print then another one about a foot
in back of it, then about three or four feet in back of that a couple
more about a foot apart with only four toe marks.
Good night! I They had me all flabbergasted.
Pretty soon they left the path altogether and I looked in the bushes for
hairs, but I couldn’t find a single one.
“Anyway,” I said to myself, “one thing sure, that animal has five toes
on his front feet and only four on his hind feet and I never saw any
tracks like that before or even pictures of them.”
I wasn’t exactly scared, but just the same I was kind of glad when I got
to the village.
CHAPTER VII
I MEET THE STRANGER
Anyway, that was the smallest village I ever saw to have such big tracks
right near it. All I could see was two houses and the post office, and
the post office was so small that you could almost put your arm down the
chimney and open the front door. But, one thing sure, you could buy
everything you wanted in that post office. You could buy a plough or a
lollypop or anything. It smelled kind of like corn inside.
I got some lead sinkers and some crackers and a couple of chops for
Charlie Seabury, because it makes him thirsty to eat fish—that’s what
he says. The man didn’t have any mosquito dope, but there were some
boxes of fly paper on the counter and I just happened to think that if
we stayed in our bivouac camp the next morning, it might be good to have
some on account of the flies at dinner time. So I bought a box full.
Then I said to the man, “I guess there are wild animals around here.”
He said, “Wall, I reckon thar daon’t be many no more. Yer ain’t
expectin’ ter catch ’em with fly paper, be yer?”
“Just the same,” I told him, “I saw the tracks of one that must be big
enough to eat this whole village. You’d better put the village in the
safe before you go home. Safety first.” You can bet I know how to jolly
if it comes to jollying. “I want to get some rope, too,” I told him.
He just leaned back and pushed his great big straw hat to the back of
his head and looked over his spectacles and began to grin. He kept his
spectacles ’way down near the end of his nose.
“Ye’re one of them scaouts, hey?” he said. “Yer ain’t thinkin’ to lead
any elephants home with that thar rope naow, be yer?”
I said, “No, I’m going to use the rope to lasso mosquitoes as long as
you haven’t got any mosquito dope.”
He said, “Wall naow, ye’re quite a comic be’nt yer?”
I told him I was a little cut up and my mother and father couldn’t do
anything with me.
“’N what else can I do fer yer?” he said, laughing all the while. “Them
tracks wuz caow tracks, youngster, so daon’t yer be sceered of ’em.”
I told him I wasn’t scared of any tracks, not even a railroad track and
that I’d buy the village for seventy-five cents, if he’d send it C. O.
D. He just stood there laughing. Anyway, it makes me mad when grown up
people jolly scouts about tracking and signaling and all that, just as
if it was only play. Because what do _they_ know about tracks? Who ever
heard of a cow with feet like a cat? _Good night!_ And, besides, often
it turns out that scouts are right. You wait and see.
* * * * *
Now the things I bought I had in a kind of a flat bundle and I hung it
over my back, because I like to have my hands free. What’s the use of
wasting your hands? You’ll never find anything out with your back; all
your back is good for, is bundles.
I didn’t have any adventures on the way back till I got to that spring
house in the woods. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even notice the
tracks again. That’s how much I was afraid of them. When I got to the
spring house, I went in for a drink of water, and believe _me_, it was
good. I squeezed in, instead of opening the door wide, because it
scraped so hard on the ground that it was easier to do that than to open
it; and I did the same coming out.
I was just going to start along the path again, when I got a good idea.
That’s just the way you get them, sudden like. I decided to shinny up a
tree that was there and see if I couldn’t squint our camp over in the
west, because if I could once see it, maybe I’d be able to get to it by
a shorter way than by the path. I did that because it was getting late.
When I got up to the second branch I looked off to the west, but all I
could see was a little smoke curling up into the sky, and I wasn’t sure
whether it was from our camp or from some house. The sun was going down
over that way and all the clouds were kind of red on the edges and the
sky looked dandy. At Temple Camp they’d be just about washing up for
supper then. I thought I could tell about where the road was, but I
couldn’t decide about the camp and I was just going to shinny down and
hit the trail when I heard a kind of a sound like leaves rustling and
then a funny sort of growl, different from anything I had ever heard
before. I looked around and then I saw, coming through the woods, an
animal with big spots on it and a long tail. I guess it was almost as
big as a tiger; anyway, it was a good deal bigger than a wild cat. It
was making a noise as if it was grumbling to itself, then all of a
sudden, it opened its mouth wide, as if it was going to roar, but it
didn’t. It came almost up to the tree and stood still and its tail hung
on the ground and wriggled like a snake.
I have to admit that I was good and scared. I just held onto the tree
and didn’t make a move; I guess I hardly breathed. Then, all of a
sudden, the branch I was standing on cracked.
CHAPTER VIII
UP A TREE
Good night!
First I thought I was going to fall, but I reached up and got hold of
the branch above and scrambled up to it. The animal was crouching on the
ground, looking up, and its eyes were just like fire. Its tail was
wriggling just like a snake. _Oh boy_, I was scared.
But anyway, I wasn’t rattled. There’s a difference between being scared
and rattled. That’s one thing scouts don’t get—rattled. I looked down
and saw him there and I knew I was in a mighty dangerous fix, but that
only made me think harder. It seemed to me that that animal must be a
leopard because he had spots, but of course, I knew there weren’t any
leopards in America. Africa is where _they_ hang out. But you can bet I
didn’t think much about how he happened to be there. He was there, and
that was enough for me. Gee, I like natural history all right, but not
when there’s a wild animal just below me. Nix! He was crouching and he
looked just as if he was going to make a spring for the tree. Mr.
Ellsworth says that most fights are won by quick thinking, so I knew
that if I could only think of something to do quicker than that animal
could spring, I’d be all right.
First I thought I’d just shinny down and run and maybe he wouldn’t
follow me. That was a punk think. All of a sudden he opened his mouth
wide and kind of hissed at me and came just about two or three inches
closer to the tree.
Then, all in a jiffy I had a—you know—what do you call those things?
_An inspiration._ I pulled the bundle around from my back and tore it
open and tore open the paper that the two chops were in. Charlie Seabury
says he ought to have the gold cross because he saved my life, but I
don’t see it. Do you? Just because I was bringing the chops to him. He
says he made a sacrifice. I should worry.
Even the sound of the paper crunching made the animal move a little
nearer and hiss louder and paw the ground with one of its fore feet. I
guess in a couple more seconds he would have had me, but I just threw
one of the chops right at him and he pounced on it.
[Illustration: THE ANIMAL WAS CROUCHING ON THE GROUND, LOOKING UP.]
That gave me two or three seconds to think. Because you can see for
yourself that if an animal is ready to eat a boy scout it wouldn’t take
him very long to eat a chop. Maybe you’ll say it wasn’t good to give him
raw meat, but how about me. Wasn’t I raw meat? It was better to give him
the chop and have a few seconds to think than to let him do the thinking
and get me.
That was the time when I did some thinking in four or five seconds. Gee
whiz, you have to think quick at school exams, but cracky, leopards are
worse than school principals, I should hope. Anyway, they’re just as
bad.
Now was the time I wished that I had left the door of the spring house
open a little wider, because I had a dandy idea. As long as the animal
knew what it was I was throwing, he’d go after the other chop when I
threw it. Because chops were his favorite food, I could see that. So if
I could only just throw the other chop into the doorway he’d go in there
after it, and while he was eating it I’d shinny down in a hurry and shut
the door and wedge a board against it. I said to myself that I could do
that quicker than he could eat the chop, and one thing sure, he wouldn’t
bother with me while he was doing it. An animal can never think about
two things at once and he thinks about food most of all. Maybe scouts
think about food a lot, too, but anyway, they can think about two things
at once. That’s the difference between scouts and wild animals.
Oh, if I had only left that door wide open! Then I could have thrown the
other chop right through the opening and ’way into the house. But now I
had to throw it down and almost around a corner, as you might say; and
even if the meat went in at all, it wouldn’t go in far. But if I could
only throw it in far enough so that I could slam the door shut, that
would be enough.
Anyway, I saw that if I didn’t throw it quick I’d be worse off than
before, because the animal had had a taste of raw meat and he’d be on
the war path. I could see he was looking up at me and his eyes were
blazing and he was making a sound that gave me the shudders. It seemed
as if he was giving me notice that he was going to spring for the tree.
I guess he would have done it that very second, too, only he noticed a
leaf stuck to his paw and I guess it bothered him, because he raised his
paw just as a cat does when she washes her face, and rubbed it off.
Oh boy, that made me think of something, but you can bet there wasn’t
any time to stop and think then. I guess I felt as nervous as William
Tell when he was going to shoot the apple off his son’s head. Only I had
the chop in my hand instead of a bow and arrow. Oh, didn’t I watch that
open space and take a good aim! My heart was just pounding and my wrist
hurt, because my pulse was going so fast. Because, suppose I should
miss? _I’d_ be the third chop, I knew that. I just couldn’t throw the
chop for fear I’d miss. You can see for yourself that was the only
chance I had. All of a sudden I happened to think about tearing the chop
in half and that would give me two chances. But if one of the pieces
landed inside maybe it wouldn’t be big enough to keep him busy two or
three seconds. So I decided to take a good careful aim and throw the
whole chop. If it went in, all right; maybe I’d have time enough. If it
didn’t——
All of a sudden, I heard the animal give a kind of a hissing growl and I
just closed one eye and braced myself against the tree and took a good,
long, careful aim and threw the chop.
It struck the edge of the door and fell outside the little stone house.
Almost before I saw where it landed, the animal had it.
I just crouched there in that tree shuddering and waiting for what would
happen next. First I thought I’d take a chance and drop down and run.
Then I decided I wouldn’t. I didn’t exactly _decide_. I stayed where I
was, because I was too scared to move. I didn’t even dare to climb
higher for fear the animal would hear me and give a spring. I could even
feel my teeth chattering.
CHAPTER IX
AWFUL STICKY
Now that it was too late, I could see that if I had only landed that
meat inside the house, it would have been easy to get away. And the
animal would have been a prisoner, too, because he could never have got
out of that house. The windows were boarded on the inside and the door
was good and heavy. But what was the good of thinking about that when it
was too late?
I have to admit that for about half a minute I wasn’t a good scout. I
was just scared and excited and I didn’t do anything. Then I saw the
animal prowling around the tree and looking up and heard him making that
noise. Oh boy, it was terrible!
Then, _bang_, just like that, I remembered about him wiping the leaf off
his paw by rubbing it on his face. It was lucky for me he did that,
because it put into my head something I had read, about the way the
natives in India catch tigers. I read it in a natural history book.
There’s a kind of a tree in India named the prauss tree; anyway, it’s
something like that. And it has big flat leaves. So the natives spread
gum on those leaves. They get the gum from the trees, too. Then they put
the leaves in the path and when the tiger comes along he steps on them
and rubs his paws over his face, so as to get the leaves off. But that
only makes it worse for him, because they stick to his face and over his
eyes and everywhere. He gets just plastered up with them. Then he gets
excited—gee whiz, you can’t blame him. And he rolls around on the
ground and can’t see and just rolls and rolls and bangs against trees
and gets all played out and then he lies still just like a horse does
when he falls down. And that’s when the natives come and get him. And
it’s easy, too, because he can’t see and all the fight is knocked out of
him.
Oh boy, wasn’t I glad I remembered that! I just tore out that box of fly
paper and pulled the sheets apart and dropped them on the ground. Some
of them fell upside down. I should worry. I tried to drop them so they’d
fall around the foot of the tree and a lot of them did. More than half
of them fell right side up. A couple of them stuck to the trunk, but I
didn’t care. Maybe that would be good, I thought. Believe me, in about
ten seconds I had the ground around the tree covered with fly paper.
He’d have to do a fancy two-step if he wanted to get between them.
All the while he was crouching and watching me with those two eyes that
were just like fire. Pretty soon a sheet of fly paper drifted down right
near him and he pawed it. Maybe he thought it was a chop, hey? It just
caught his paw and he tried to wipe it off against his face. Good night!
There he was with one of his eyes and the whole top of his head
plastered flat. He looked as if he had been in a fight.
Then he came closer to the trunk, pawing at his head all the time and
stepped, kerflop, right on another sheet—plunked his foot right down in
the middle of it. Oh bibbie, then you should have seen him! He tried to
rub it off against his head and it stuck there and then there was a
circus. He rolled over on the ground and caught another sheet against
his side. In another second he had one flopping on the end of his tail
and he kept going around after it until pretty soon it got stuck to one
of his legs. Jiminetty! But you should have heard him howl. I bet he was
mad clean through.
But safety first—oh boy! I dropped another one and it landed right on
his nose; lucky shot.
By now he was acting just like a cat having a fit and howling like mad.
I guess he couldn’t see at all, because he went, kerplunk, up against a
tree and then rolled away and went banging against the spring house. He
had two sheets on his face and another one on his paw and the whole
front of him was all mucked up with gum and the grass and dirt were
sticking to him. Believe me, he was a sight. He didn’t look much like a
lord of the jungle; he looked more as if he was on his way home from the
hospital.
You can talk about tanks and machine guns and poison gas and hand
grenades, and all the other new fangled weapons, but tanglefoot for
mine; that’s what _I_ say. If the Allies had used tanglefoot, the war
would have been over three years ago. And if they had spread it all
along the banks of the Marne, the Germans would never have gotten
across, that’s one sure thing.
CHAPTER X
I MAKE A PROMISE
Honestly, inside of five minutes that wild animal was a wreck. Every
time he tried to claw the paper from his head he howled, because it
pulled his hair and hurt him. I don’t say I was glad to sit up there and
watch him, because there isn’t much fun in seeing animals suffer. Maybe
he wasn’t suffering, but anyway, he was half crazy. But how about me?
Safety first.
Pretty soon he kind of half rolled and half staggered over against the
trunk of my tree and I knew he couldn’t see at all. Then he lay there
with his back up against it trying to rub the sheet off his back, and
all the while he kept pawing his head and making it worse for himself. I
guess even if he had gotten the paper off, he’d still be blind, because
the gum would keep his eyes shut.
By that time I knew I was safe, because he was even more helpless than
he would have been if I had shot him and not killed him. It was mostly
because he couldn’t see, and that got him rattled, and you’re no good
when you’re rattled. All I wanted was for him to get away from the tree
so I wouldn’t have to be too near him, and then I’d shinny down and hit
the trail for camp.
But just then I had another thought. Maybe you won’t believe me, but I
felt sorry for that wild animal. I knew how _I’d_ feel if I was in such
a fix as that. If I had only had a pistol I would have shot him, but boy
scouts don’t carry pistols—only in crazy story books. We never shoot
anything, except the chutes in Coney Island, and you can’t call that
cruelty to animals.
And if I just went off and left him there, maybe he’d stagger around in
the woods and claw at himself and tear himself all to pieces and get all
bloody and just die. That wouldn’t be much fun, would it? As soon as I
wasn’t scared any more I felt sorry for him—that’s the honest truth. I
saw how he was beaten and I felt sorry for him. I knew he was really
stronger than I was, and that it wasn’t a fair fight. I don’t care what
he intended to do, it wasn’t a fair fight. Even if I had shot him he
might have looked brave and noble, kind of. But with all that stuff on
him and the dirt and grass sticking to his fur, I just sort of felt as
if nobody has a right to make an animal look like that.
So I took the rope and made a lasso knot in it and let myself down the
trunk as far as I dared. I have to admit I was sort of scared, but you
have to be decent when you win. You have to be, even if it’s only a wild
animal.
I tried two or three times to get the noose over his head, but I
couldn’t, because he wasn’t still enough. But after a couple of minutes
I managed it and then I tied the other end of the rope to the tree.
After that, I climbed away out to the end of the lowest branch and it
bent down with me and I dropped to the ground.
First I thought I’d go over and touch him to see how he felt, but I just
didn’t dare to. I was scared of him even then. So I just started off
along the path, going scout pace, and when I got a little way off so I
_knew_ I was safe, I looked back and said, “You stay where you are and
don’t get excited, and I’ll fix it for you.”
Because anyway, I hadn’t done my good turn yet and it was pretty near
dark.
CHAPTER XI
SEEING IS BELIEVING
The fellows were just thinking about sending a couple of scouts to hunt
for me when I went running pell-mell into camp, shouting that I had
captured a leopard.
“A what?” Westy asked.
“A leopard,” I shouted, “as sure as I stand here. Come and see for
yourselves. He’s tied by a rope; he’s got fly paper all over him!”
“How many sodas did you have?” Harry Donnelle asked me.
I said, “That’s all right, you just come and see. It’s a leopard; you
can see it for yourself.”
Harry said, “Sit down, Kiddo, and rest and have a cup of coffee. Guess
you fell asleep by the wayside, hey? Tell us all about your dream.
Here’s a plate of beans. Did you see any mermaids?”
“Never you mind about beans and mermaids,” I told him; “one man told me
already that they were cow tracks I saw. I guess he wouldn’t want to go
through what I’ve been through since then. The animal had five toes on
his fore feet and four on his hind feet—that’s a leopard, I’m pretty
sure. Anyway, he’s got spots. You come and see.”
“You don’t think it could have been a spotted calf, do you, Kid?” Harry
said in that nice easy way he has of jollying. “I don’t know much about
calves’ toes, but I’ve eaten calves’ feet.”
Even after I had told them all about it, they all said I must have been
seeing things and that probably the animal was a raccoon or maybe
_possibly_ a wildcat. Anyway, Harry Donnelle said they’d all go back
with me to the place, because they thought maybe we’d get in trouble on
account of plastering some honest, hard working calf with fly paper. But
just the same he took his rifle, I noticed that. I carried the lantern.
All the way through the woods they were jollying me and calling me _Roy
the Leopard Killer_, and Harry Donnelle said I must have been carried
off on the magic carpet to India, just like the people in the Arabian
Nights. All the while I didn’t say anything and when we came to the tree
and the spring house, I went ahead and saw that the animal was lying
close to the tree, as if he were asleep. I guess he was all exhausted.
The rope was fast around his body just behind his fore legs where it
couldn’t choke him and where he couldn’t get free of it. He started up
when I went near him, but didn’t seem to get excited.
I just held the lantern and said, “You see what a fine calf this is. He
ought to win a prize at the County Fair. He’s disguised as a leopard,
but he can’t fool us—I mean you fellows. You can bet boy scouts know a
calf when they see one.”
They just stood there about fifteen or twenty feet off, staring. Even
Harry Donnelle stood stark still, staring. “What’s the matter?” I said.
“Are you afraid of a poor calf? Come down in the front row; I won’t let
him hurt you.”
Then Harry came nearer, but the other fellows stood over near the spring
house, so they could scoot inside, I suppose. The Safety First Patrol!
Harry Donnelle just looked and then he said,
“By—the—great—horn—spoon! It’s a _leopard_.”
“I thought maybe it was a nanny goat,” I said.
He just shook his head and looked at the animal all over and said,
“Jumping Christopher! That’s a _leopard_, as sure as you live.”
“Well, if you insist,” I said.
“I never heard of a leopard on the North American Continent,” he said,
shaking his head.
“I guess he swam over, hey?” I said.
“Jingoes, I hate to shoot him,” he said.
By now all the bold, brave, heroic Silver Foxes began coming closer to
get a good pike at the leopard. Every time the animal stirred, they’d
back away again. Once the leopard stood up and pulled against the rope
and rubbed his paw over his face, and gee whiz, you should have seen
that bunch scatter. Dorry Benton went scooting into the well house.
But pretty soon they all saw that there wasn’t any fight left in that
wild beast. He wasn’t suffering, but he was blind and all exhausted.
Even still none of us exactly liked to touch him and we didn’t get too
near; even I didn’t, I have to admit it.
Harry Donnelle held the lantern over toward the animal and looked at him
ever so long, as if he just couldn’t believe his eyes. “He’s a
magnificent specimen,” he said; “I’d give a good deal to know how he
happened in these parts.”
“Oh,” I said, “the woods are full of them, they were prowling all around
here when I came through. One of them was about twice as big as that.”
Oh boy, you should have seen those fellows look around through the
woods. Will Dawson went into the spring house to get a drink of water;
he was thirsty all of a sudden.
All the while Harry Donnelle was kind of pondering and then he said, “A
couple of you kids go into the village and get a wheelbarrow or a cart
or something. I don’t think this fellow is in pain; I’m going to take
him alive. I can’t put a bullet into him. I never saw such a magnificent
specimen.”
“Suppose we should meet some more,” Hunt Manners said, just as he and
Westy were starting along the path.
“Take some fly paper with you,” I said, “and think of your brave patrol
leader.”
“You won’t meet any more,” Harry Donnelle said; “this fellow must have
strayed down out of the mountains. There is a species of leopard found
in America, but I never knew they grew to such a size as this, or had
spots either. Trot along and get back as soon as you can.”
While the two fellows were gone, Harry tied the leopard’s fore feet and
then his hind feet together with rope. He wound it around good and
plenty and tied it fast, you can bet, and then we just sat around
waiting.
Pretty soon along came the whole village, postmaster and all, and Hunt
and Westy with a wheelbarrow. Some escort! You’d think Westy and Hunt
were General Pershing getting home from France. I should think they
would have been afraid someone would steal the village while they were
gone. Because you know yourself that there are lots of robberies and
hold-ups and thefts and things since the war.
CHAPTER XII
MARSHAL FOCH
I was sitting up on a branch of a tree when they came along and I heard
the postmaster saying that Cy Berry had lost his heifer and he guessed
maybe now it was found.
I shouted, “You have one more guess. I think the leopard ate his heifer;
he was terribly hungry.”
Well, you should have heard them as soon as they had a look at the
animal. One of them said, “I haint seed no leo-pods around these
parts—_neverrr_. And I been livin’ here nigh on to forty year.”
Harry Donnelle said, “Well, the animal is a leopard just the same.
Either you’ve been staying home most of the time or else he has.” I had
to laugh, it was so funny the way he said it.
Another one said, “There be’nt no leopards in the Catskills, that’s
sartin.”
“Well, maybe he was just spending the summer here then,” Harry said;
“but here he is, anyway, and I’d like to get him away from here.”
“Yer be’nt goin’ ter try to keep him, be yer?” the man asked.
Harry said, “Yes, I’m just that reckless. I think he’s worth more alive
than dead, if I can spruce him up a bit.”
“Ye’ll get yer hand bit off,” one of the men said.
Then Harry said that all he wanted was a place to put the animal till
morning, and he’d see if he couldn’t get some kind of medicine to dope
him with, while he tried to get the fly paper off. I guess they didn’t
like the idea very much, but one of the men whose name was Hasbrook,
said we could put the leopard in his barn till morning if we wanted to.
So they got him into the wheelbarrow and it wasn’t hard doing it on
account of his legs being tied. Then we all started back to the village.
While we were going along Harry said, “I’ve often heard of a man having
an elephant on his hands, but never a leopard. Maybe we’ll have to shoot
him, but I just hate to do it. I have an idea that gasoline will melt
that stuff, only we’ll have to be careful about his eyes. I’d try it
to-night, only I’m afraid to use the gasoline near a lamp. I’m going to
send a line to the Historical Museum people though, to-night, and one of
you kids can drop it at the office. I daresay there’s a train out of
this burg in a few days.”
I just couldn’t help saying to him, “I’ll be glad if you don’t shoot
him—I will.”
He laughed and gave me a rap on the head and said, “You see I know what
it is to be shot, Kiddo. I was shot twice in France. Maybe I’m not much
use, but I’d be less use if I was shot, wouldn’t I? Nobody’s much good
after they’re shot. Ever think of that?”
“Maybe I didn’t,” I said, “but anyway, I know you’re right. I guess
you’re always right. Anyway, I think the same as you do.”
“Shooting is no fun,” he said; “don’t shoot till you have to. What do
you say?”
I said, “You’re right, that’s one sure thing and I’m glad I met you, you
bet.” And you bet I was glad, because he was one fine fellow. Maybe he
was kind of wild sort of, but he was one fine fellow. Mr. Ellsworth said
so, and he ought to know.
When we came into the village, there was a Fraud car standing in front
of a house and a man just getting out of it.
“Whatcher got thar, Cy?” he called.
“A leo-pod,” Cy called back, “an honest ter goodness leo-pod.”
“Who’s them fellers? The posse?” the man asked.
“What posse?” Cy called.
“I thought mebbe you’d caught up with that beast from Costello’s. That
you, Hiram? Taint no reg’lar leo-pod is it?”
“Reg’lar as church goin’; look on ’em yourself.”
Harry Donnelle just stood there smiling. Then he said, “Have a look; it
won’t cost you a cent.”
After the man had looked and Harry had told him all about it, he hauled
out of his overalls a newspaper and said, “Lookee here.”
We all crowded around him and Harry held the lantern so we could see the
paper.
“Jest fetched it from Kingston,” the man said.
Then Harry began reading out loud. This is what he read, because I
pasted that article in our hike record book:
WILD ANIMAL AT LARGE
INFURIATED LEOPARD ESCAPES FROM VISITING
CIRCUS—ARMED POSSE SEARCHING WOODS
While transferring one of the leopards from a cage to a parade
wagon at Costello’s Circus yesterday, the animal becoming
frightened at the sudden striking up of the brass band, forced
his way between the two barred enclosures and made its escape
from the circus grounds.
An attempt to shoot it as it crouched beneath a Roman chariot in
panic fright was unsuccessful, and before its keeper was joined
by others with revolvers, the animal had sped through the
adjacent fields, frightening some boys who were playing ball,
and was last seen at the foot of Merritt’s hill, near the west
turnpike road. It is supposed that the animal entered the woods
and made for the mountains where a party of circus attaches and
volunteer citizens, fully armed, hope to encounter and destroy
it.
No serious damage was done by the animal, except the tearing of
a tent which had not yet been raised, as it tore at a rope in
which its leg became entangled.
When seen this morning Mr. Rinaldo Costello, owner of the
circus, said that no fear need be entertained by citizens, as
the animal would undoubtedly avoid human haunts. He added that
little hope is entertained of catching the beast alive, as these
animals are always taken when cubs, and when grown, fight to the
death all efforts to capture them. The escaped animal, a
magnificent specimen of the leopard family, was imported by Mr.
Costello at a cost of more than six thousand dollars. In
captivity it was said to be comparatively docile. The leopard is
distinctive among animals of the cat family, in having five toes
on its fore paws and four on its hind paws, this being its
unique characteristic. It is said that few full grown leopards
have ever been captured by man, and their value is hence greater
than that of all other animals save the giraffe, which is said
to be all but extinct. This leopard was known as Marshall Foch,
and was a favorite with all the circus people.
CHAPTER XIII
AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
As soon as we got the leopard into Mr. Hasbrook’s barn, we made a hay
bed in one of the stalls and laid him there. I felt awful sorry for him
now that I knew about his history. And I wished that he had never come
near me, but got away into the mountains. Harry Donnelle held the
lantern into the stall and he looked so helpless lying there, with his
feet tied together and grass and dirt all over him and the fly paper on
his face, that I kind of blamed myself. Anyway, I was glad that his
people liked him and missed him. Maybe he’d be glad to get back, hey?
Harry said, “Good night, Marshal Foch, and good luck to you. Just have a
little patience.”
He was awfully nice, Harry was. That was just the way he talked.
Before we went into the house he said, “Suppose three or four of you
kids go back and bring our stuff here and we’ll camp right here on the
spot till we get through with this business.” So the Warner twins and
Will Dawson went back by the road and the rest of us went in the house
with Harry and Mr. Hasbrook.
When we got in the parlor, Harry looked over the paper and found a big
ad. This is how it read:
COSTELLO’S MAMMOTH SHOW!
THREE DAYS IN KINGSTON.
BEASTS OF THE JUNGLE.
WORLD’S CONGRESS OF FREAKS.
DARING ACROBATS.
JIB JAB, THE WORLD’S MYSTERY.
SEE HIM!
IS HE HUMAN?
GRAND STREET PARADE TO-MORROW.
AT THREE P. M. SEE THE ELEPHANTS.
FREE! FREE! FREE!
TWO PERFORMANCES DAILY.
COME!
GRANDEST COMBINATION OF WONDERS
EVER GATHERED UNDER CANVAS.
SUPERB SPECTACLE
GORGEOUS! STUPEFYING!
ASTOUNDING!
Harry Donnelle said, “I rather like Mr. Costello already; he’s so
modest. I bet he’s one of those quiet, retiring little ‘_after you,
please_’ men that blushes when you speak to him. We’ll just drop him a
line and one of you kids can hike it over to Saugerties and catch an
early train down to Kingston and hand it to him.”
I said, “I’ll go.”
But he said, “No, you’ve had adventures enough and if they ever get you
in a circus they’ll keep you there in the _congress of freaks_.” So it
was decided that Dorry Benton would go.
While we were waiting for the fellows to come back with our stuff, Harry
wrote the letter and this is what he said. It’s copied word for word out
of our hike record:
Mr. Rinaldo Costello, Proprietor,
Costello’s Mammoth Show.
Kingston, N. Y.
Dear Sir:
This is to inform you that your leopard, Marshall Foch, has been
captured by a boy scout and is alive and well, save that he is
suffering from nervous shock and requires to have his face
washed.
You may call in your armed posse. You are greatly mistaken in
supposing that leopards may not be captured alive. It requires
only the proper apparatus.
The bearer of this letter will give you any further information
which you may require, and we shall be glad to see you here, as
soon as it may be convenient for you to call.
Respectfully,
HARRY C. DONNELLE,
In charge of Boy Scouts en route. Silver Fox Patrol,
Bridgeboro, New Jersey. Stopping on farm of Mr. Silas
Hasbrook, Bently Centre, N. Y.
After a little while the fellows came back with our stuff and we put up
our tent between a couple of trees in Mr. Hasbrook’s orchard. He said we
could camp in the house if we wanted, but how can anybody camp in a
house, I’d like to know? You might as well talk about going swimming in
a bath tub. No siree, the orchard for us. Mr. Hasbrook said we could eat
all the apples we wanted to, but we didn’t eat many. I ate five—that
isn’t very many.
We gathered some sticks and started a camp-fire and I made coffee and
flapjacks and scrambled eggs with egg powder. Mr. Hasbrook’s daughter
brought us out some pie and _um_, _um_, wasn’t it good! Oh boy, it was
nice sprawling around there. But anyway, we turned in early—one o’clock
in the morning is early. You couldn’t turn in much earlier or it would
be the night before. I guess we wouldn’t have turned in then, except
that Dorry had to roll out at about six, so as to catch the train down
to Kingston.
Harry Donnelle said, “I suppose Mr. Rinaldo Costello will send a
mammoth, astounding, bewildering, astonishing, amazing, stupifying,
extraordinary, remarkable, dazzling, baffling, cavalcade after Marshal
Foch, as soon as he gets our staggering, unbelievable, incredible
letter.”
We were all of us just sprawling around the fire and Harry was sitting
on a little three legged milking stool and kind of guying Costello’s
mammoth show, in that funny way he had, and saying that Mr. Costello
would probably say I was a matchless, intrepid, dauntless, fearless hero
and adventurer, when all of a sudden that word adventurer put a thought
into my head.
I said, “When it comes to being a dauntless, fearless adventurer, I
guess nobody has anything on you, that’s one thing sure.”
“Oh, I’ve had a few games of basketball,” he said.
“I bet you’ve been to lots of places,” I told him.
He said, “Well, I’ve attended one or two pink teas and strawberry
festivals. Once I was usher at a concert in an Old Ladies’ Home. The
wildest time I ever had was umpiring a game of checkers.”
“You didn’t win that Distinguished Service Cross umpiring a game of
checkers,” Westy said.
“No, I won that playing hide and seek with Fritzie in No Man’s Land,” he
said. “Chuck a little more wood on the fire, Roy.”
I said, “There’s one thing you never told me about, and you promised to
tell it, too. It’s an adventure, but it’s a kind of a mystery, too.”
“Well,” he said, “adventures aren’t so much, but I’ll have to make an
extra charge for mysteries. The high cost of mysteries is something
terrible. I don’t know what the mystery may be, but if you’ll go in the
house and get my cigarette case out of the pocket of my coat that’s
hanging in the sitting room, I’ll let you have any mystery I happen to
have in stock at the wholesale price.”
Oh bibbie, didn’t I scoot in after that cigarette case. He was always
smoking cigarettes, that fellow. He told us never to do it, but he was
always doing it himself. He said he was too old to reform.
When I came back I said, “It’s about that money of yours—that two
hundred dollars that we found in the locker of the house-boat. It made a
lot of trouble in Temple Camp, that’s one sure thing. Don’t you remember
how you said that you’d tell me all about how you got it, some day?”
He said, “Oh that; that wasn’t an adventure; that was just an episode.”
“I know what episodes are all right,” I told him; “didn’t my father have
a couple of them. If there’s a narrow escape, that’s a sign it’s not an
episode; it’s an adventure. You can have episodes any day.
“Well, there wasn’t a very narrow escape to that one, anyhow,” he said,
laughing all the while; “it was about six feet wide, I guess. But here
goes, if you want it. Gather closer around the fire, because this
adventure is mighty wet.”
“That’s a sure sign it’s an adventure,” I told him, “because how can an
episode get wet?”
“I guess you’re right,” he said; “it might get a little damp, but not
really wet. Anyway, do you think you can keep still for about ten
minutes?”
CHAPTER XIV
BUT I DIDN’T WRITE IT
The reason I said that about the two hundred dollars causing a lot of
trouble at Temple Camp was, because a little fellow there named Skinny
McCord (you’ll see him after a while) was suspected of stealing it. A
lot of fellows thought he took it from a fellow while he was saving the
fellow from drowning and then hid it in the house-boat. They thought
_that_ just because he went to the house-boat, and because they found
out that he had a key to the locker. But all the while that money
belonged to Harry Donnelle and he came up to Temple Camp and claimed it,
after I wrote and told him all about Skinny. That’s how he happened to
visit Temple Camp and you can bet I’m glad he did. Anyway, that’s all
part of another story, and maybe you read it.
Now part of the story that Harry Donnelle told us, I knew already, but
the other fellows didn’t, because I never told them how I had met him
before. So this is the story just the way he told it to us that night,
because afterward I got him to write it out for our hike record. And the
reason I put it in here is, because it has something to do with the
story that comes after this. So here it is, and oh boy, didn’t we listen
as we sat around that camp-fire in Mr. Hasbrook’s orchard. That’s where
stories are best—around the camp-fire.
HARRY DONNELLE’S YARN
Well, messmates, when my father told you that you could have the old
house-boat for the summer, you never knew he had a son in the army, now,
did you? But just the same, little Harry was trotting around in Camp
Dix, all dolled up in his lieutenant’s uniform, waiting to be mustered
out. Little Harry had just come home from France where he had been mixed
up in the big—_episode_.
One fine day I said to myself, “While I’m waiting here, I guess I’ll go
home.” So I got a short leave and the next that was seen of me I was
stepping off the train in Bridgeboro. That was early in the morning; the
dawn was just breaking. Pretty soon it broke. Just as it was all broken
I saw Jake Holden, the fisherman, standing near the milk train. You’ll
see that this is a fish story. It is a fishing _episode_.
That man persuaded me to go fishing with him. I knew that if I went home
I’d have to meet all my sister’s friends and maybe drink tea and play
tennis. So I decided to go fishing with Jake. I thought I’d be safer. I
was a coward. I was afraid to go home and drink tea and play tennis. So
I went up to the old house-boat where the governor had it tied up in the
creek near home. The scene was dark and gloomy. It was early in the
morning. Even the swamp grass wasn’t up; it was all trampled down. Not a
sound could be heard—except the milkman rattling bottles up near the
house.
I crept into the house-boat, took off my uniform, put it into a locker
that I had the key of, and togged myself out in a set of old rags which
I found there. Many were the times I had fished in those rags. I don’t
know how long I stayed in the house-boat. Jake was to come through the
creek in his motor boat and I was to meet him. But I was foiled—foiled
by the Boy Scouts. I heard voices in the distance and pretty soon I
recognized my father’s voice and the voice of Skeezeks Blakeley and the
uproarious clamor and frantic utterances of Pee-wee Harris. I can hear
it now, it haunts me night and day.
I didn’t wait to meet those unexpected guests. I didn’t know that the
house-boat was to become theirs on an extended loan. I sneaked out and
beat it through the marsh grass for all I was worth.
I love, I love, I love my home,
But, oh, you yellow perch!
So now you know of my miraculous escape from the boy scouts and the
awful peril I averted of drinking tea and playing tennis. I am now
approaching the darkest scenes of that frightful adventure.
After my escape from the boy scouts and my honored parent, I went
fishing off the bleak and barren coast of Coney Island. I was swept by
ocean breezes and the smoke from Jake Holden’s pipe. In the distance we
beheld the wild and rugged scenery of Luna Park. I caught some perch,
some bass, a couple of crabs, an eel, two blue fish and a bad cold. We
landed at the iron pier and sold our catch to a man who keeps a
restaurant and serves shore dinners.
Then we went forth again. The wind was starting to blow a gale and the
smoke from Jake Holden’s pipe enveloped me like a fog. The sky grew
dark. Jake wanted to lift anchor and go ashore, but I said, “No, let’s
stay out, because the fish are biting.”
What happened next was my fault, not his. We stayed out there fishing in
a blinding gale, the sea coming in in great rollers. Pretty soon the
Luna Park tower was ’way around the corner. Either they had moved it or
else our anchor was dragging.
“Jake,” I said, “we’re tearing the bottom of the ocean all to pieces;
it’s a shame. We’ll be off Rockaway in about ten minutes, if this keeps
up.”
“The boat’ll be all tore to pieces, you _mean_” he said, “and _we’ll_ be
in the bottom of the ocean if this keeps up. We’re shipping water by the
bucketful. Let’s get out of this.”
So we hauled in the anchor and tried to get our power started, but it
was too late. Our plug was short circuiting, the coil was gone plumb
crazy, and most of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to be in the carburetor.
The rest of it was on the floor. Besides all this, the pump was on a
strike—shorter hours, I suppose.
Kids, we were in one dickens of a fix. It was late afternoon and there
we were blowing around the ocean, bailing to keep on top, and with the
land moving farther and farther away all the time. By dusk the shore was
just a misty line, that was all. Every wave that hit us, meant bailing
like mad to keep our gunwale above water. We took off the muffler and
used it to bail with.
A dozen times we lighted our lantern and a dozen times the wind or the
sea put it out. It was water-soaked, useless. I said, “Jake, it’s all up
with us,” and he said he guessed it was.
Boys, I’ve gone forty-eight hours without sleeping, in France. I’ve gone
three days without food. I’ve seen a shell burst into smithereens ten
feet from me. But I’d rather go through all that again, I’d rather play
tennis and drink tea, even, than to go through another night like that.
All night we couldn’t so much as see each other’s faces. Our arms were
stiff. We just bailed, bailed, bailed and kept her from swamping.
In the morning the weather eased up a little and if we had only had her
running, she would have taken the seas all right. She’s a filthy little
boat, but game. But an engine is never game; it’s always the boat that’s
game. A gas engine is a natural born coward and a quitter. A hull will
fight to the last. If our engine hadn’t lain down, we could have hit the
sea crossways and we’d have skimmed over it like a car on a scenic
railway. But the swell got us sideways and we swung like a hammock.
Anyhow, we could ease up a little on the bailing and before the sun was
well up, we were able to use the oar. We had only one, because the other
one was carried away. But we managed to keep that little jitney head-on,
and pretty soon we knew it wasn’t a case of drowning, but more likely a
case of starving. There wasn’t a speck of land in sight. We might have
been half way to Europe for all _I_ knew.
Well, after a while Jake said, “What’s that? Looks like a log floating.”
It didn’t look like anything much, but it wasn’t the ocean, that was
sure, and we tried to make it with our oar. The thing was drifting in on
us, so we didn’t have to do all the work—just get in its path. We could
slacken our own drifting with the oar, so pretty soon we were alongside
it and saw it was a swamped life boat. There was one man floating around
in it-dead. That two hundred dollars belonged—or rather was in his
pocket. There were some other things in his pockets too; some things
that started me guessing. I think you kids had better tarn in now; it’s
getting late.
CHAPTER XV
NO! NO! NO! GO ON! GO ON!
All right, there isn’t much more. We had no guess how long the man had
been in the boat or whether he had starved or what. He might have been
dead several days, I thought. The life boat was awash. There was the
name of some ship or other on the bows, but the boat had been painted
since the name was printed there, and all I could make out was a few
indistinct letters under the fresh paint. I made out an L, then DY, then
NNE. I have a hunch the name was _Lady Anne_, but maybe not.
The man must have been a pretty rough character from all I could judge;
a sailor, I daresay. It was out of the question rescuing the body. Every
ounce of weight in our own boat made it worse for us, and we couldn’t
have hauled it over the side without danger. So we did the next best
thing and that was to go through his pockets in the hope of finding
something to identify him.
You getting sleepy? No? Well, we found a weather wallet on him. Know
what that is? It’s a pocket-book made of rubber. You can see them in
ship supply stores all along South street in New York. In there he had
two hundred and seven dollars and a letter. The writing was all smeared
and some of it I couldn’t read at all. I couldn’t make out the address,
but I _think_ it was signed “Father.”
That was no place to be doping things out, with the seas rolling us
goodness knows where, so I just stuffed the money in my trouser pocket,
because it made too big a wad to go in my wallet. But I dried the letter
as best I could and put it away in this little case I always carry.
Here’s the case and here’s the letter now. And I suppose that if there’s
any mystery, as you call it, why this is _it_.
Now just wait and don’t get excited and you’ll see the letter. Just let
me finish. We pushed off from the life boat and I think it must have
sunk soon afterward. The sea got pretty calm after a while and late that
afternoon we were picked up by a schooner and set ashore.
Jake and I agreed to say nothing about our discovery; I’ll tell you the
reason in a minute. He forgot and blurted out something about our
finding a life boat and it got into the newspapers, but no harm was
done, because after our rescue we gave the names of Mike Corby and Dan
McCann and after we had started home, no one knew who to hunt for, even
if they wanted to.
But the principal reason we gave false names was, because my leave from
camp was already up and I didn’t want anybody, my own folks especially,
to know that I had sidestepped home and mother to go off on a crazy
fishing trip. Get me?
Jake went home and I haven’t seen him since. I hustled to Bridgeboro by
train, sneaked over to Little Valley in a big hurry to change my duds
and—the house-boat was gone. The boy scouts had carried away my uniform
and Lieutenant Donnelle was a ragged outcast, a couple of days overdue
at camp.
How to get my uniform, that was the question. The boy scouts had done me
a bad turn. I traced the fugitive house-boat to St. George, Staten
Island. I lurked near shore till dark, and when a party of you kids came
ashore and one of you mentioned to another that a certain Roy had
remained on board, I said, “Here is my chance.”
I rowed over, made his acquaintance, took him into my confidence,
obtained his promise of silence, and changed my clothes. I found him a
bully little scout. The old rags which went by the name of trousers I
put into the locker, forgetting in my hurry, to take the two hundred and
seven dollars. After fastening the locker I took some change out of my
uniform to reward our young friend, but he spurned my offer. I must have
dropped the locker key when I pulled the change out of my pocket. As you
all know, little Skinny found it and got himself suspected of hiding the
money in the locker. So much for that. I returned to camp and got
slapped on the wrist for being late.
But the letter which I had taken from that dead man I had with me, and
here it is now. When I visited Temple Camp upon the urgent plea of my
old pal Skeezeks, I claimed the two hundred and seven dollars, but it
was not mine.
_It wasn’t the dead man’s either._
Now listen to this water-soaked letter, or as much of it as I can make
out:
—hundred dol—is a good deal of money. — to —be careful.
—such places— are likely —get robbed.
thought you—glad—get the ring. —wear —on second finger of
left hand —war. —these fifty years. —real cameo—head—
Lincoln. —getting along—to—make two ends meet—to each one
who left our village——
There is quite a lot more, but I can’t make it out.
Well, kids, I’ve studied that letter like a spelling lesson and this is
what I make out of it. I can kind of see a picture of an old fellow that
fought in the Civil War. I don’t know who he is or where he is. But I
can see him in an old faded blue uniform. I kind of like him. Look in
the fire, every one of you, and keep your eyes fixed on the blaze. See
him? I do. I can see him just as plain—poor old codger. Funny thing, a
camp-fire, isn’t it? I can see him better now than I could before. He’s
got white hair and he’s writing a letter to that kid of his in France
and telling him to be careful of that money. He’s having a hard time
trying to make two ends meet. Poor old fellow, he’s warning that son of
his about places in France where soldiers get robbed. I’ve seen some of
those places, sailors’ hang-outs, in Brest, and I can back him up there.
I have a kind of hunch that the old fellow—put some more wood on,
Roy—I have a kind of a hunch that he sent the kid a ring, a cameo ring,
with the head of President Lincoln on it. I can see old honest Abe
now—right there where the new sticks are blazing up. Huh? Maybe it’s
only a crazy notion; what do you say? But I’ve doped out a kind of a
notion that that old fellow got the ring when he started off to war;
that somebody or other presented one to each fellow that left the
village. I’d give a doughnut to know where that village is.
Anyway, the old man wore it on the second finger of his left hand and I
kind of think he wanted that kid of his to do the same—over there in
the trenches.
Maybe I’m just a sort of a day dreamer, but that’s the picture I’ve had
in my mind ever since I was fishing with Jake Holden. And it seems to
all fit together now when I look right there in that blaze. Pretty good
camp-fire yarn, hey? Not so worse? Just look into the fire yourselves
and think about that letter. Nothing but a kind of fancy, hey? Faces in
the blaze and all that sort of stuff. Never saw me get sentimental
before, did you—Skeezeks?
The funny part of the whole thing is that the man we saw in the boat
_didn’t have any second finger on his left hand_. It couldn’t have been
his finger the writer of the letter meant.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MYSTERY
Gee whiz, I didn’t even know that he had stopped talking. I was just
looking into the blaze and I could see the whole thing right there.
Maybe it wasn’t true at all, but anyway, I could see it. Especially I
could see the old man. That’s just the way it is with camp-fires.
Then, all of a sudden Harry Donnelle poked up the fire and began to
laugh. “Funny, hey?” he said.
I said, “Do you think the dead man in the boat stole the money and the
letter?”
“The letter happened to be with the money,” Harry said; “I don’t know
that I think anything in particular. But how did a sailor with the
second finger of his left hand gone, happen to have a letter asking him
to wear a ring on that finger. How about the soldier who is warned
against going where he will get robbed? Maybe he went, after all, and
got robbed. We might start a search for a soldier who happens to have a
second finger on his left hand. But then, quite a few soldiers enjoy
that distinction. So there we are—up a tree. But here is a sailor with
two hundred odd dollars and a letter referring to two hundred dollars.
There is something about him wearing a ring on a certain finger and he
doesn’t happen to have that finger. Funny.
“Well then, here’s a query—as long as queries don’t cost anything.
Might not the sailor have robbed the soldier of his two hundred and odd
dollars? And just neglected to destroy the letter that was with it? You
see, kids, I just ran plunk into the middle of the thing and I’d like to
get hold of one end or the other. Somebody or other got a ring when he
went away to war fifty years ago. He lived in a village. Who was he?
Whoever he is, he’s having a hard job making two ends meet. If I could
find him I think I’d turn over this money to him. Now at the other end
of the line, somewhere, is a fellow that ran chances of being
robbed—reckless, like your Uncle Dudley. He’s got a ring with President
Lincoln’s face cut on it—a cameo. I’d like to find _him_.
“But you see I haven’t any way of finding either of them. The only thing
I’m sure about is that the dead sailor couldn’t have worn the ring. His
finger had been gone many years, that’s sure. So what are we going to do
about it? I guess we’ll go to bed. But that isn’t getting us anywhere,
is it?”
“Funny, hey? Kind of a mystery after all—Skeezeks.”
* * * * *
I guess every one of us lay awake thinking about it that night. Anyway,
I know I did. And most all the time till the day we got home, we kept
talking about it. Harry Donnelle would always laugh and say maybe there
wasn’t anything to it at all and that if he knew who the sailor was,
he’d go and give the money to his people—probably.
He said he guessed the camp-fire up at Temple Camp was what started him
seeing pictures. But always he would say how it was funny that a man
without his second finger should have that letter on him. But he said
that as long as there wasn’t any finger, it couldn’t point anywheres,
and we should worry.
But just the same all the way home, whenever we started a camp-fire,
we’d look into it and kind of see an old soldier with white hair and a
blue coat and then we’d see a young fellow, wearing khaki, and a ring
with Lincoln’s head cut on it.
In the fire we made near Orange Lake just before we hit Newburgh, we saw
a soldier in a kind of a restaurant where there were a lot of sailors
and we saw them take something away from him. But that’s always the way
it is with camp-fires. Mostly we saw the old soldier.
Harry Donnelle always laughed about it and said the camp-fire was a
regular art gallery and he guessed he’d give that unlucky two hundred
dollars to an orphan asylum, or to the widows and orphans of the poor
garage keepers or to the destitute Standard Oil Company. So it got to be
a kind of a joke, and that’s the way it was till the whole thing was
solved. And I’m going to tell you all about it, too, but I can’t bother
now, because I have to tell you about our hike and the crazy thing that
happened next day.
CHAPTER XVII
APPALLING! WONDERFUL! MAGNIFICENT!
Anyway, there was one person we never saw in the camp-fire blaze and
that was Mr. Costello. If we had, we wouldn’t have seen the blaze. He
was so big that he would have filled the whole fire. Harry Donnelle said
he could even have blown a camp-fire out if he wanted to—even the big
one at Temple Camp.
I wasn’t awake when Dorry started for Kingston in the morning, so I
didn’t hear him go. But I knew when he came back all right. If I hadn’t
known it, it would have been because I was dead.
He got back before noon and the first I saw of him he was sitting on a
big, high fancy seat of a cage wagon, wedged in alongside a great big
man with a high hat on and a cutaway coat and a red vest. The big man
was driving and the two horses had sleigh bells on them and fancy
harness and they made an awful racket. They were dandy white horses,
though. Dorry looked awful scared and little alongside the big man. The
cage wagon was all gold color and fancy on the top and the wheels looked
like Fourth of July pinwheels.
Harry said, “Mr. Costello doesn’t exactly look as if he had sneaked off,
does he? He’s not ashamed to be seen. What’s that, a searchlight?”
I said, “No, it’s a diamond; he’s got diamonds all over him. Somebody
must have sprinkled him with diamonds before he started. He had them
everywhere except on his feet. He had a big long whip in his hand, too.
There was a man in the cage, besides; I guess he was a keeper.”
Harry said, “Get me a pair of smoked glasses, will you?”
As soon as the big man got down he took off his high hat and waved it
and said, “How do you do, sir.” He said it in a big round voice, kind
of.
Then he said, “I am Mr. Rinaldo Costello, proprietor of Costello’s
Mammoth Show.” He talked so loud that he almost scared us.
Harry just said, “When I saw you coming I thought it was the village
undertaker. We’re glad to welcome you to our temporary camp. We are also
touring the country; this is my mammoth show.” Then he pointed to all of
us fellows who were standing around, and Mr. Costello took off his hat
again and waved it and bowed very low and held his whip so that I
thought he was going to give us a crack with it, only he didn’t. I guess
he was used to cracking that whip. It was awful funny the way Harry sat
on the fence talking to him. I don’t know how it was, but that fellow
could be awful funny.
Mr. Costello said, “This young gentleman who you were kind enough to
send, has told me a very _thrilling_ story. If it is all true I must pay
my tribute to the dauntless young scout whose valor in combat is truly
matchless.”
“Excuse me while I blush,” I said. I just couldn’t help saying it.
“He is known as Roy the Leopard Catcher,” Harry said. “In the wilds of
Catskill village he is known by the natives as Skeezeks—Skeezeks the
Bold. Allow me to introduce him.” Then he grabbed me by the hair and
shoved me right out in front. Then he said, “Like all true heroes, he is
modest. But perhaps you will wish to see Marshal Foch. We shall be sorry
to part with him.”
Then they all followed Mr. Costello and Harry to the barn. Mr. Costello
walked as if the whole world was looking at him. He looked awful funny,
all dressed up that way in the country. I bet he was hot. I didn’t go,
because I wanted to look at that cage wagon. It had gold mermaids on the
corners of it, and oh boy, wasn’t it fancy. The mermaids’ tails went all
along the sides. Inside there was hay on the floor. I bet it was fun for
Dorry, riding on that thing. Every time the white horses stamped the
bells would jingle afterward. Harry said it sounded like a junk wagon,
but _I_ liked them anyway.
I wished I was the man to ride inside of that cage with Marshal Foch. I
guess he knew how to handle leopards all right, hey? Maybe they were
good friends even. Gee whiz, I like hiking better than anything else,
except apple pie, but anyway, I’d like to be in a parade, that’s one
thing. That’s just what I said. I said it out loud to myself.
CHAPTER XVIII
ON TO GLORY
When they came back the keeper was leading Marshal Foch with a rope, and
the fly paper was gone from his head and his body. Harry Donnelle said
they melted the stickum with gasoline and that it didn’t hurt the
leopard much. He said it came off easier than a porous plaster does. You
bet I was glad; because that leopard and I were kind of friends. Anyway
I would have been glad. The keeper had a pistol but I guess it was just
safety first because the animal walked along by him just as meek as
could be and walked right up the slanting board into the wagon. I guess
he knew that keeper all right. His eyes were kind of half shut and all
sticky like, and his nice fur was all stuck up but the men said they
could fix him all right as soon as they had time.
I just couldn’t help saying, “So long, Marshal Foch, I’m sorry I had to
do it; see you later.” He just walked back and forth in the cage, awful
graceful, as if he was looking to see if everything was all right, and
maybe he was glad to get back, hey?
Then Mr. Costello said in his big loud voice, just as if he was making a
speech, “I am going to give the people of Kingston, _absolutely free_,
an opportunity to view for the first time in America, the dauntless
young hero of two continents.” I don’t know why he said two continents,
because I only live on one, and believe me, that’s enough.
But most everything he said had _two continents_ in it. Harry said it
was a wonder he forgot Mars and the Moon. “The dauntless young hero
scout, pride of two continents,” that’s what he said. Oh boy, didn’t I
blush! And didn’t Harry Donnelle laugh!
“May I ask your name, sir?” Mr. Costello said.
I told him, “Roy Blakeley.”
“I would like you to ride with Marshal Foch in the parade,” he said,
“and later at the performances. I think I will call you _Roy the
Redoubtable_; or perhaps _Blakeley the Bold_ would be better. This is an
opportunity of a lifetime to the people of Kingston. It will rejoice the
scouts of two continents to see their intrepid young hero riding in
triumph with the savage, man eating, beast that he subdued.”
Harry said, “That would be delightful. What do you say, Roy?”
I said, “_Good night_, I won’t have to ride in the cage with him, will
I? I like him all right, but—but we’re not—kind of, we’re not yet well
acquainted yet.”
Mr. Costello said, “You will ride on the seat outside, as his triumphant
conqueror. You will outrival the gladiators of ancient Rome. You will
listen to the plaudits of the multitude. Are you able to look fierce?
Just a little fiery? Just a little suggestion of fearless courage and
intrepid power in your eyes? Something like _this_.” Oh boy, he gave me
a look that nearly knocked me over.
Harry said, “Try it, Roy.”
I looked as fierce as I could, and all the fellows broke out laughing.
“That will be fine,” Mr. Costello said; “just a little glance of the eye
to strike terror as you look from left to right. Our advance agent will
do the rest. There is not much time, but he will see that the people are
advised of their opportunity. The boys of Kingston will thrill with
pride and glory. Step up to the seat, my young friend.”
I said, “I don’t believe I can look fierce enough, honest I don’t.”
Harry Donnelle was just sitting there on the fence laughing so hard I
thought he’d fall off. All of the fellows began guying me and saying I
was a fool to be scared and that they wished they had the chance. But
gee whiz, I was never part of a circus before, and I didn’t want to sit
’way up on the top of that fancy wagon and just look fierce. I bet you
wouldn’t, either.
Pretty soon we were driving away and Mr. Costello looked awful big
sitting there beside me. He kept cracking his whip all the time.
“So long, see you at the parade!” the fellows shouted.
“Don’t get nervous,” Harry called.
“I should worry,” I called back; “I don’t care what becomes of me now.”
* * * * *
They had big red shutters with gold designs to cover up the cage so no
one could see Marshal Foch, and the keeper sat on the step in back. Oh
boy, how that Mr. Costello did drive; and he could crack the whip so it
sounded like a rifle going off.
Pretty soon we came pell-mell into Kingston and I could see the circus
posters in all the store windows and on the fences. The pictures of Mr.
Costello looked just like him, kind of brave and bold like, and he
always had a whip in his hand. I guess he slept with that whip under his
pillow, hey?
While we were passing along one of the streets, a half a dozen scouts
shouted to me and I gave them the scout salute.
Mr. Costello said, “Those intrepid young gentlemen will be proud of
their young comrade; the whole city will do you honor for your daring
and dauntless deed.” I noticed that whenever he strung together a lot of
words they all began with the same letter. It sounded fine, too.
I said, “I know one thing, and that is I’d like to have a rich, red,
rare, racy, raspberry soda, just now.”
“You will soon be able to regale your ravenous and rapacious capacity
among the freaks of two continents who will accord you a warm and
wonderful welcome,” he said.
Gee, you couldn’t beat him at it, that was one sure thing.
CHAPTER XIX
JIB JAB, IS HE HUMAN?
Jiminy crinkums, I may be a nut (that’s what the troop calls me anyway),
but I’m not a freak and, believe me, when I saw who I was going to have
dinner with that day—_good night!_
They all sat around a big mess board that stood on horses just like at
Temple Camp. It was in a side tent. Judge Dot sat right next to me; he
was a midget. I guess he was only about three feet high, and he had a
special chair. On the other side of me was Lieutenant Lemuel Long; he
was the thin man. He was about as fat as a clothes pole. He didn’t eat
much, but it wasn’t because he didn’t have any appetite. He said he had
a contract with Mr. Costello not to eat much, because that would make
him fat. He said he had a contract not to weigh more than eighty pounds.
Gee, you’ve got to keep a contract if you make one, that’s one thing.
[Illustration: HE TOOK THE FUR RIGHT OFF HIS HEAD.]
But anyway, Madame Whopper could eat all she wanted to; she was the fat
lady. She was a marvelous mammoth—that’s what it said under the
picture. She ate nine pieces of pie. I ate four, but anyway, she was a
professional. They kept bringing her more pie. Judge Dot said once she
ate eleven pieces. I liked Judge Dot, because he said he was sorry about
Marshal Foch. He gave me his picture with his name on. He said if it was
anyone else but me, it would cost a quarter.
But anyway, the one I liked best was Jib Jab, is he human? He had fur
just like a bear, but a head like a man, only his face was brown and it
had long hair on it. His face didn’t look exactly like a man and it
didn’t look exactly like animal. First I was kind of scared, because in
the pictures he was in a cage and he was grabbing hold of the bars and
glaring awful fierce and wild. And, gee whiz, I didn’t want to eat
dinner with a wild animal. Oh boy, didn’t I have a good scare when I saw
him coming to the table!
He jumped over the board seat and sat down right opposite me and took
the fur right off his head, just as if he was scalping himself and laid
it on the ground. He looked more like a man then.
He looked across and said to me, “Hello, old top, how are they treating
you?”
I said, “I’m feeling pretty well.”
“Going into the parade, I hear,” he said. “That was quite a stunt you
pulled. You’d never catch me like that if I once broke loose. Think you
could?”
I said, “Maybe I couldn’t, but anyway, I guess you’re human, all right.”
Then he began to laugh and said to the thin man, “How goes it, Skinny;
you going to ride?”
I guess he meant the parade. The fat woman said, “I wouldn’ do no ridin’
fer no proprietor, not me. The public has got to come to _me_; I wouldn’
never go to _them_.”
Jib Jab said, “All in the game.”
Judge Dot said, “It’s different with you, Jib; you ain’t human and you
can’t say for yourself. You’re in the menagerie class. You got to ride
in your cage. You ain’t a regular freak. I never heard of no parade work
in a freak contract.”
Madame Whopper said, “I wouldn’ do parade work fer no proprietor, ride
or walk, I wouldn’ not even Barnum hisself, I wouldn’.”
Jib Jab said for me to pass him the butter and then he winked at me and
he said, “You’re too particular, Ma. Parade work is all right. I like
parade work, except I can’t smoke. How about it, Kid?”
I said I didn’t mind being in a parade, but I wouldn’t want to ride in a
cage like he had to do.
He laughed and said it was all in the game. He said if he ever broke out
of that cage, I’d never capture him until he came back for his money on
Saturday night.
I said “Sometimes boy scouts find people; sometimes they hunt for people
that are lost. In our magazine there’s always a notice if a scout is
lost and all the scouts are on the look out for him.”
“Yes, but those people are human,” he said.
I said, “Gee whiz, I can’t deny that.”
“You never hunted for a _what-is-it_, did you?” he asked, awful funny
like.
I told him, “No, I never did, but once a troop of scouts found a girl
that was lost on a mountain, and there was another troop that found a
fellow just from seeing his name in the newspapers.”
He said, “You’re a wide awake bunch, you kids. They don’t have any boy
scouts in the jungle where I was captured alive. If you ever get on my
trail, I’d give you a run all right.”
I asked him where that jungle was where he was captured alive, and he
said it was on Washington Avenue in the Bronx.
He was an awful nice fellow.
CHAPTER XX
THE PARADE
Before we were finished I could hear the band playing outside and when I
went out all the wagons and chariots and things were in a line ready to
start. There were two elephants, a big one and a baby one, and about a
half a dozen cage wagons with animals in them and a steam calliope and a
lot of things, all gold and red. There were some dandy white horses.
On Marshal Foch’s cage was a big sign that said:
MARSHAL FOCH
THE RETURNED LEOPARD
AND
SCOUT BLAKELEY
PRIDE OF TWO CONTINENTS!
HIS DARING AND DAUNTLESS CAPTOR.
I climbed up to the seat and sat by the driver. He had an awful fancy
hat and kind of tinsel stuff all over him. He had a tassel on his hat
and it kept blowing in my face. I didn’t know what they were waiting
for, but pretty soon Jib Jab came out and he had a chain around his leg.
He looked pretty fierce and savage. A keeper was holding the chain and
Jib Jab pulled and jerked on it, so a lot of people who were standing
around backed away. The wagons were all around in a circle so I could
see him in his cage, and he winked at me while the keeper was fixing the
chain to one of the bars.
Oh boy, but that was some parade! The streets were all full of people
and the steam calliope made so much noise you’d think you were in a
boiler factory. Oh, didn’t everybody stare at me! I guess my face was as
red as the fancy wagons, but what did I care? On one of the streets I
saw Harry Donnelle and the other fellows coming out of a candy store.
They were all wiping their mouths with their handkerchiefs and Westy was
rubbing his stomach with his hand, as if he had been eating something
good. They just did that to jolly me, I bet. I should worry about them.
Then they all began laughing at me, because I was trying to look fierce
and bold. Maybe you think that’s easy.
Gee, I guess we went through every street in Kingston, with people
staring at me all the while, and kids hooting, but I didn’t care.
Anyway, I was proud to ride on that wagon.
Just when we were coming back into the circus grounds, I saw Harry
Donnelle and the patrol and some other scouts waiting, so I climbed
down, because I wanted to be with them. Mr. Costello came out and talked
to us and said that I did fine. He said I was the idol of thronging
multitudes—that’s just what he said. I was good and thirsty, I know
that. Gee, didn’t Harry Donnelle laugh.
Mr. Costello said, “The boy scouts are an honor to this great and
glorious country and I should like to take our intrepid young friend to
Europe to appear before the high nobility.” Harry said that I was a
modest kid and that he guessed one continent was about all I could carry
in my pocket. He said that some day maybe I’d pick up Europe if I
happened to be passing that way.
Then Mr. Costello gave us all tickets to the show that night and after
that he made me a speech and said how I was beloved by all the world
renowned personages in the side show. He said that Madame Whopper told
him I was a little gentleman. A scout is courteous—oh joy. Then he put
his arm over my shoulder and walked away with me and told me not to talk
very much about Jib Jab being human, because he wanted the people to
decide for themselves. He said it wasn’t telling a lie, because he never
said Jib Jab wasn’t human. He just said, “Is he human?”
He said it’s all right to ask a question.
Gee whiz, nobody can deny that.
CHAPTER XXI
WE VISIT THE SIDE SHOW
Those scouts that we met were nice fellows. They were hiking back to
Newburgh; that’s where they lived. They told us they had hiked up along
the river to visit a place named Elm Center, about ten or fifteen miles
west of Kingston. They said they had a bivouac camp just outside the
city and that they had stayed there for a couple of days, so as to take
in the circus.
We all went to the show together that night, and I sat on Marshal Foch’s
cage wagon and rode around in the parade at the beginning of the show.
All the fellows cheered me, even those new fellows. After the show I
told them all that I wanted to go into the side show and say good-bye to
my friends. We were all standing outside and Dorry Benton said, “I’ll go
with you.”
Of course, as soon as he said that, they all wanted to go, but Harry
said he guessed two were enough. So Dorry and I went in and made a call.
The freaks were getting ready to go to bed, but anyway, they were glad
to see us. I guess Madame Whopper slept in another tent; anyway, we
didn’t see her. Maybe she had a whole tent to herself.
Mr. Lemuel Long said he was hungry and he wished he could eat a lot like
scouts do. Gee, I have to admit that scouts eat a lot—especially
dessert. You can bet I wouldn’t want to be a human skeleton. Judge Dot
said he should worry, because he couldn’t grow any taller no matter what
happened. He said he was fifty-two years old and after you get to be
fifty-five you begin to shrink. He said everybody does, mostly. He said
if he shrunk, he was going to make Mr. Costello give him more money. Gee
whiz, I couldn’t blame him, especially on account of the high cost of
living. He said Madame Whopper had gained fifty pounds and she made Mr.
Costello give her a raise.
While we were talking with Judge Dot, Jib Jab came in and said, “Hello,
Scouty, how did you like the show?”
I said, “You looked good and wild, that’s one thing, especially with
that chain on.” He said that chain was his own idea.
I guess he had just been washing his face, anyway, there wasn’t any hair
on it and the brown was all cleaned off. I could see now that he was a
mighty nice looking fellow. His hair was kind of curly and his eyes were
awful bright. He took off his fur covering and put on a kind of a bath
robe and then sat down on a chair and stuck his feet up on Madame
Whopper’s platform. Oh boy, you should have seen Dorry stare. First he
looked at the fur covering. It had paws and claws on it just like an
animal. Then he looked at Jib Jab. I guess he didn’t know what to make
of him.
Jib Jab said, “Now for a smoke,” and he lighted a cigarette; “nothing
like a quiet smoke after the day’s work is over. Back in the jungle I
never had all this bother of dressing and undressing. Civilization is
just killing me. Fact is I can’t be tamed. Anybody got a newspaper? I
suppose I ought to be thankful I haven’t got my face all plastered up
with fly paper. Where’s old Sky Scraper?” That’s what he called the
giant.
“Gone to bed,” Judge Dot said.
“How about you, Shorty; got a match?” he asked Judge Dot.
Judge Dot just said very stiff like, “I’ll bid you good night, sir.”
“Happy dreams, Shorty,” Jib Jab called after him. Then he said, “That’s
the trouble with all these freaks—uppish, especially the giant. Why he
looks down on everybody. Ma’s about the best of the lot. Shorty thinks
he’s the whole circus just because he has three rings on his hands. Same
with Skinny. I’d rather be back in the jungle than living with this
bunch. Half the time they don’t speak to me. You see I’m not a regular
freak; they look on me as a kind of a butt-in.”
I said, “Gee, I’m sorry; I should think they’d like you.”
“They’re all jealous,” he said; “that’s the trouble. They’re all down on
parade work, even Ma. They couldn’t stand for me making a hit with that
chain. Last week, up in Albany, I started to growl just as Shorty
started selling his photographs. The louder he piped away with that
silly little squeaky voice of his, the more I roared. When it comes to
roaring, I’ve got even the lions jealous. Fact is I’m not liked; they
are all jealous, even the animals. And I feel it, too; any honest hard
working _what-is-it_ would. Especially if he’s human. The little
two-headed boy we had was about the best of the lot, only he was double
faced. He’s with Barnum’s now—fifty a week and overtime.”
“I don’t see why you want to be a _what-is-it_,” I told him; “especially
if they don’t treat you right.”
He just went on smoking, awful funny, kind of. Jiminy, I couldn’t make
him out at all.
He said, “Now you take Teddy Roosevelt, the elephant. He’s what you’d
call a big attraction—very big. Do you suppose he’d refuse to pal with
me just because I’m a poor, neglected _what-is-it_? Only this morning we
had a bag of peanuts together; he and I and little Ruth. He’s just as
plain and democratic as he can be. But you see my position isn’t easy.
I’m human and yet I’m not. I don’t know where I fit in. The animals are
kind of leary; you can’t blame them. And the freaks are as stuck up as
poor old Marshal Foch was. Sometimes I wish I was back in the jungle.”
Jingoes, I didn’t know how to take him at all, and I could see Dorry was
just staring at him as if he didn’t know whether he was jollying us or
not.
“Anyway, we have to be sorry for you,” I said. He just kept puffing on
his cigarette and he said, “Well, it’s good to sit back here when the
freaks have turned in and have a quiet smoke. Pretty strenuous work
jerking and pulling on that chain. It’s a hard life being a question
mark.”
“You said something,” I told him; “cracky, I wouldn’t want to be a
_what-is-it_.”
He just said, “No, when you grow up, make up your mind whether you’re
going to be human or not. Don’t try to be two things. Don’t be a
question mark. Why away down in my savage, primeval heart, I wouldn’t
hurt a kitten. Yet here I am growling and roaring and wrenching at my
cage bars and straining at that old chain, and the children and old
ladies back up on the street when they see me, frightened out of their
lives. I’m not loved by anyone. It’s mighty hard. Either one of you kids
got a cigarette about you?”
I told him no, that scouts didn’t smoke cigarettes.
He said, “Well, drop in and see me down at Poughkeepsie or Newburgh if
you happen in when we’re there. You’re always welcome.”
Gee, we just couldn’t make heads or tails of that fellow. Anyway, I
liked him. And I had to admit that that was good advice he gave me about
making up my mind whether to be human or not.
CHAPTER XXII
BRENT GAYLONG
The fellows were all waiting for us when we came out and we hiked out to
where those scouts had their camp. There were only five of them, one
patrol, and the biggest one was a kind of scoutmaster and patrol leader
rolled into one. His name was Brent Gaylong. I walked with him behind
the others and he told me all about his patrol and the troubles they
had. He was an awful nice fellow, kind of quiet like; but he was funny,
too. Christopher, that little troop must have been started on Friday the
thirteenth, that’s one thing sure.
I said, “What’s the name of your patrol?”
“Well,” he said, “we call ourselves the Church Mice, because we’re so
poor. First we were going to call ourselves the Job’s Turkeys, but we
decided that a church mouse was poorer than Job’s turkey.”
I had to laugh. I said, “I’ve heard of most every kind of an animal’s
name used for patrols, but never a church mouse. My patrol is the Silver
Fox.”
“That’s a bully name,” he said.
“Anyway,” I told him, “the name hasn’t got so much to do with it. There
was a patrol up at Temple Camp named the Pollywogs and they were all
nice fellows. But they couldn’t keep still, they were always wriggling.
Maybe they’re frogs by this time, hey? A fellow up there told me about a
patrol named the Caterpillars and afterwards they changed it to the
Butterflies. He said there’s a patrol out west named the Mock Turtles.
There’s a lot of crazy fellows come to Temple Camp. One of them said
there was a fellow in his troop named Welsh and he was chosen leader of
a new patrol and they wanted to call it the Welsh Rabbits. Church Mice
is all right, I think.”
He said, “It’s appropriate anyway. I’d like to see a camp like that
Temple Camp; it must be great. Trouble with us is we’ve had such plaguey
hard luck. I guess there’s only one thing harder than our luck and
that’s the biscuits we make.”
I said, “I can make hard ones.”
Then he said, “You see, first our scoutmaster had to go to war. We were
just starting then. It hit us a good whack. We tried to get another, but
scoutmasters were pretty scarce; they were scarcer than coal and sugar.
They were all in France. So I took the job. I suppose we could get one
now, but since we’ve worried along all this time without one, we decided
to wait till our scoutmaster gets back. He’ll be back in a couple of
weeks, I understand, and we want to give him a welcome. We’ve got two
dollars and fourteen cents toward it so far—two dollars and four cents,
really, because there’s a Canadian dime. If there are any Canadian dimes
around, we’re sure to get them. Then our little shanty burned down. It
was about the best camp-fire I ever saw, only it left us without a
meeting-place. We still have our scout smiles; they don’t cost anything.
If they did, we couldn’t afford them.”
I said, “That’s one thing about scout smiles; they’re the only things
that haven’t gone up.”
“So here we are,” he said, “hiking back home after one of our fool
enterprises. We intended to go down on the train, but we went to the
circus instead.”
“It’s about thirty miles down to Newburgh,” I said; “you’ll have to
bivouac twice anyway.”
He said, “I guess we’ve got eats enough.”
“We might as well all hike that far together,” I told him.
“Good idea,” he said, “if you don’t mind chumming up with a travelling
poor-house.”
“We should worry about being poor,” I said; “I know a man that’s rich
and he can’t hike at all. He goes on crutches. How would you like to be
him? Anyway, don’t you fellows get discouraged.”
“Don’t worry,” he said; “first it was hard, but now we’ve come to like
it. You can get a lot of fun out of hard luck. And all we need is time,
I suppose. This winter we’re all going to work on Saturdays. Trouble is
that isn’t going to help us give our scoutmaster a _welcome home_. We’ve
done more crazy things this summer trying to get a little money
together! I guess it would have been better if we’d all knuckled down to
jobs. But I wanted these poor kids to get a taste of scouting. Too late
now, anyway. Why if I told you why we hiked up to Elm Center, you’d just
laugh in my face. You’d say we were crazy. But we’ve had a good time
anyway.”
I said, “One thing sure, everything will come out all right and it’s
better to go on a hike and camping and all that in the summer than to be
working in the city. One of those fellows ahead of us is named Dorry
Benton and he’s kind of—not exactly poor, but—Anyway, he’s crazy to
get a motorcycle and he was going to stay home and work this summer, but
Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster) told him no, that it was better for
him to go up to Temple Camp. That big fellow with us isn’t our regular
scoutmaster. Anyway, Dorry is crazy to have a motorcycle and you can bet
he’ll have more fun with it if he has to wait for it, won’t he? Anyway,
I wish you’d tell me what you came up this way for. I won’t tell any of
the follows if you don’t want me to.”
“Oh,” he said, “they might as well all have a good laugh. And I don’t
want you to think that I’m grouching about hard luck, either. We’ll land
right side up—scouts mostly do. The woods are free, thank goodness. All
that’s troubling us is that when Mr. Jennis went away he gave us a
spread and presented each one of us with a scout knife and we’d like to
return the compliment, that’s all. We’d like to show him how much we
think of him. I had a crazy notion we’d all go down to New York and meet
him and give him something or other when the transport arrives. Happy
dreams. I guess all we’ll give him is the scout salute. But we’ll come
out right side up yet, even if we have to sweep up the streets in
Newburgh. Principal trouble with us is that we’re a lot of dreamers; I
guess I’m the worst of the lot. Not much money in adventures. So now
we’re up against it. You don’t make money _scouting_, you make it
_working_.”
I said, “I wish you’d please tell me why you came up this way, will
you?”
“Sure I will,” he said; “it’s a joke—it’s a peach of a joke. Only I
tell you beforehand, we’re a band of wild adventurers. Here we are at
our luxurious camp. Pretty big tent, hey?”
“I don’t see any tent,” I said.
He said, “Don’t you see that big blue tent?”
“Where?” I asked him.
“With the little gold spots all over it?”
“Oh, you mean the sky?” I said.
“Some tent, hey?” he said. And then he began laughing.
“There’s no man can make a tent like that,” I told him.
“It’s only intended for rich scouts,” he laughed; “we don’t even bother
to take it with us when we go; we just leave it here. Oh, we’re a
reckless, extravagant bunch.”
CHAPTER XXIII
BRENT’S STORY
The Church Mice didn’t even make up a full patrol, because there were
only five of them counting Brent Gaylong. Maybe the rest of them stayed
home. Only three of them had the uniform, and Brent didn’t have any.
They didn’t even have duffel bags or a camp kit and when I saw how it
was with them, I just had to admire that fellow who was keeping them
together. Especially I felt sorry for them, because our troop has about
everything and that’s mostly the way it is with all the troops that go
to Temple Camp.
Anyway, we made up some pretty good late eats and after that we got a
good big fire started and all sat around it. Brent lay on his back near
the blaze and had his knees drawn up and was looking up at the sky.
That’s just the way he lay all the while he was telling us about his
patrol and why they came up that way. It seemed as if he thought it was
all just a big joke, but I could see he thought a good deal about
scouting and about those fellows. I had to laugh at him, but I liked him
a lot just the same. He was kind of happy-go-lucky, I could see that.
Harry Donnelle liked him, that was sure. I guess it was because he was
kind of happy-go-lucky, too.
“Buried treasure is all right,” that’s what he said, “and so are missing
people, and people lost in the woods and all that; and liberal rewards
are very nifty. But if you’re after fifty or so buckarinos, the best
thing is driving a grocery wagon or selling the Saturday Evening Post on
street corners. You don’t get much adventure mowing people’s lawns, but
it’s sure money. The trouble with us is we’ve been speculating in
adventure and now we’re going to walk back home. Take a lesson from our
terrible example—and don’t read the newspapers.”
Harry Donnelle said, “There’s seventy-five per cent profit in
adventures. I’d go to South Africa if I thought there was a ten cent
piece buried there.” That was just exactly like him.
“Anyway,” I said, “I’d like to know why I shouldn’t read the
newspapers.”
“Because they will lead you astray. They sent us off on a get-rich-quick
enterprise,” Brent said.
Of course, I knew he was half joking, but that was always the funny way
he talked. He reached over and held a stick in the fire till the end of
it was all flaming, then he stuck it in the ground near his head and
pulled a clipping out of his pocket. He kept lying on his back all the
time and he looked so funny, I just had to laugh.
Then he said, “Well, now, this is what brought us up into these woolly
wilds”, and he began to read the clipping. This is it, because he gave
it to me afterwards:
BOY SCOUTS ASKED TO SEARCH FOR MISSING DOUGHBOY.
Boy scouts in all sections of the country have been asked to
watch for Horace E. Chandler, late of the American Expeditionary
Forces in France, who has been missing since his discharge from
Camp Upton several weeks ago.
Private Chandler was mustered out on August third, having served
with great courage and distinction in the Argonne Forest, where
he received honorable mention for unusual heroism in raiding
single handed an enemy machine gun nest.
Private Chandler’s home is in Greendale near Plattsburg in New
York. He is reported to have been seen in Albany several days
after the date of his discharge, by several young men who had
known him formerly, but on being questioned they were not
certain of the identity of their former friend.
His whereabouts are now a mystery and no reason can be ascribed
to his disappearance.
It is thought that he may have been the victim of foul play
while on his journey home.
A wealthy and public spirited citizen of Greendale, Mr. Horace
E. Wade, whose namesake Private Chandler was, has offered the
sum of one hundred dollars for any information leading to the
discovery of young Chandler’s whereabouts.
Boy scouts have often succeeded in discovering missing persons.
Their large organization, covering as it does, the entire
country and their predilection for long tramps and journeys
afford them some of the best facilities for such quests.
Mr. Wade has offered his reward after the futile efforts of the
police in many large cities to locate the returned soldier.
“And here’s his picture to go by,” Gaylong said; “good looking chap,
huh? Here’s what it says underneath it, ‘_Private Horace E. Chandler
from a photo taken the week before he sailed for France._’”
Nobody said anything for a minute and Dorry, who was nearest to Brent
Gaylong, leaned over and looked at the picture. “I’d like to read it
over in a better light,” he said.
Brent said, “Take it; it’s no use to us. It gave us a good hike, that’s
all. We thought we might come back with the hundred. We had scout
uniforms and everything all bought—in our minds. We had a sumptuous
gold headed cane for Mr. Jennis. We had a meeting shack all furnished
up. Oh, we were regular prosperous scouts for a couple of days—in our
imaginations. I think I ought to have the badge for day dreaming, if
there is one. I think I could get a job in a dime novel. Up to Elm
Center and back again chasing a rainbow!”
He was so funny about it that I didn’t know how disappointed he really
was. He was kind of funny and serious at the same time. But I could see
they were all disappointed.
All of a sudden Harry Donnelle said, “What started you up to Elm Center
near Kingston, when our wandering warrior lived away up near
Plattsburg?”
“Oh, yes,” Brent said; “I forgot the best part of it. Quite some time
after we read that accursed article, little Willie here and I happened
to drop in at a movie show in Newburgh—ten cents counting the war tax.
Cheap but filling. There was a picture in the Pathe jigamerig of an
aviator landing in the village of Elm Center near Kingston, New York. I
had never heard of Elm Center before. But anyway, an aviator had to come
down there and so Elm Center got on the screen. There were a lot of
people standing around looking at the machine and little Willie
wide-awake here, said to me, ‘Do you see that soldier in the film? The
one leaning against the fence and kind of glancing this way? He’s the
fellow whose picture was in the paper.’ I took a good squint at him and,
by jingoes, it was! It was Horace E. Chandler. ‘Caught at last,’ I
said.”
“So here we are on our way home from Elm Center. It’s a pretty little
village—post office, two stables, a hardware store where you can buy
cake, and a watering trough. One of the nicest watering troughs I ever
saw.
“And Horace E. Chandler? Oh, they never saw him or heard of him. Maybe
he went up in the airplane, huh? If I only had a Curtis biplane, I’d
search the skies.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS
Gaylong just rested his leg on his other knee and clasped his hands in
back of his head and kept looking up at the sky. He said, “So that’s the
story of the adventurous Church Mice. The next time we go in for a
hundred dollars, we’re going to get jobs in grocery stores. Hey, kids?”
I could see he thought an awful lot of those fellows.
All the while Harry Donnelle was whistling to himself, as if he didn’t
care much. Pretty soon he said, “You had your fun; what more do you
want? What’s a hundred dollars?”
“It’s a good deal to _us_,” Gaylong laughed.
“You said something about treasure hunting,” Harry said; “you don’t
suppose anybody ever goes treasure hunting on account of the treasure,
do you? They go on account of the adventure. So treasure hunting is
_always_ a success; even if you only find a tin spoon. You had your
hike; you had your fun; you made a hundred per cent profit. That’s the
difference between a scout and a detective. It’s _going after_ something
that makes the fun; not _getting_ it.”
Brent Gaylong said, “I get you.”
“I’ve flopped around all over the world and I haven’t got a cent to show
for it,” Harry said, “and if anybody told me there was a lead pencil
buried up near the North Pole, I’d go after it. What fun is there buying
a lead pencil in a store? Poor old John D. Rockerfeller could do that
much.”
“I get you,” Gaylong said.
“Besides, didn’t you meet _us_?” Harry said. “We’re better than a
hundred dollars, I hope. Fun hasn’t cost a cent; it’s the only thing
that hasn’t gone up in price. Maybe the wandering warrior is having the
time of his life, too. And you’d go and spoil it all for him. Maybe he
doesn’t want to be found. Never thought of that, did you? What you
fellows need is not a hundred dollars. You need the scout idea.
Adventure!”
“Righto,” Gaylong said.
“But we’d like to have that hundred dollars,” the little fellow named
Willie piped up.
“True again,” Gaylong said—awful funny.
* * * * *
Of course, I knew that was the way Harry would think about it, because’s
he’s one of that reckless, happy-go-lucky sort. I guess Brent Gaylong
was kind of the same way. Anyway, before we lay down to go to sleep, I
said to Gaylong:
“Would you mind letting me have that article to read by our lantern
while you fellows are spreading the balsam?[1]”
He said, “Sure,” and began feeling in his pockets. “Guess that other
fellow has it,” he said, sort of careless; “it’s no use anyway.”
Pretty soon we were all fixed for the night. We made those Newburgh
scouts sleep under our balloon silk shelter. They didn’t want to, but we
told them we’d like to sleep in the open for a change.
I guess I must have been asleep for an hour or so, when all of a sudden
I was awake again. Anyway, it couldn’t have been more than an hour,
because the wood from our fire was still warm. It was awful nice and
dark and quiet. There wasn’t any sound at all, except a cricket. Pretty
soon I could hear the whistle of a train very far away; I guess it was
way over at the Hudson. I just lay there kind of thinking and wondering
what made me wake up. Because, oh boy, I’m usually dead to the world
when I sleep outdoors.
All of a sudden I saw a little light not very far away, in among the
trees. As soon as I saw it it went out, and then it came again. First I
thought it was a fire fly. Then I knew it couldn’t be—it was too big.
Then I saw it steady for about a minute and then it went out.
I sat up and just stared at the spot where I had seen it and I didn’t
make a sound. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I wondered what it could be.
Then I crept away and started over that way in the dark. I wasn’t
scared, but I was kind of nervous, sort of.
-----
[1] Balsam is used for making beds.
CHAPTER XXV
IN THE DARK
Just then I heard a rustle and I could see a black form quite near. I
saw it move behind a tree.
“Who’s there?” I said; but there wasn’t any answer.
I stopped for two or three seconds, because I didn’t know just what to
do, then I walked up to the tree and just as I came near, the form
stepped out from behind it.
Then I heard a voice say, “What do _you_ want here?”
I said, very surprised, “Dorry? Is it you?”
He said, “What do _you_ want here?”
“I don’t want anything,” I said; “I just saw a light and I came to see
what it was. What’s the matter?”
He said, “Nothing, I’m going to bed.”
“Did you have the light?” I asked him. “Maybe you only saw it same as I
did. Only you act awful funny, sort of.”
He said, “I’ve got as much right to be up as you have. Nobody can sleep
on that hard ground.”
“Why didn’t you dig a hollow for your hip?” I asked him, “same as I do.
Hard ground will never keep a fellow awake. It’s your hip. Gee, you’re a
scout; you ought to know that.”
“Come on back,” he said.
I don’t know, but something about the way he acted made me feel sort of
funny—suspicious, kind of.
I said, “Were you hunting for something with your flashlight? What’s the
matter? Why don’t you tell me what you came out for?”
“There isn’t any reason, and why should I tell you anyway?” he said.
“Well,” I said, “because I’m your patrol leader for one thing. And as
long as Mr. Ellsworth isn’t here, I have a right to ask you. I’m not
mad. Only I wonder why you got up and came away, that’s all. Anyway, I
got a splinter in my finger grabbing one of these trees, I know that.”
“You want to find out if I’ve got the flashlight?” he said.
“No, I don’t want to find out if you’ve got your flashlight,” I said,
“because I know you have. I’m not that kind. First you have to say I
didn’t speak about the splinter for that reason,” I said; “you have to
take back what you said.”
“I never said you were sneaky,” he said; “here, take it.”
“It’s no crime to have a flashlight, I hope,” he said; “here take it.”
“I wouldn’t try to find out that way,” I told him.
“I know you wouldn’t,” he said.
So then he held his flashlight to my finger and I said, “What do you
know about that? I’m carrying a lumber yard around with me. I _thought_
I felt kind of heavy.”
“Have you got a needle?” he asked.
“A crowbar would be better,” I told him.
“Hold still,” he said, and then he just pulled it out with his fingers.
“That ought to be worth a couple of dollars, hey?” I said, “with the
high cost of timber.”
So then we both laughed. Anyway, Dorry and I were always good friends,
you can bet.
He was just going to turn off the flashlight, when I noticed that piece
of newspaper sticking out of his jacket pocket and I pulled it out, just
kind of half joking, and I said, “Here’s what I want. Gaylong said I
could read it.”
Gee whiz, there wasn’t any harm in that. Oftentimes I’d do things like
that with fellows, and especially Dorry, because I’d known him so long.
“You put that back,” he said, kind of mad.
“What’s the use of getting mad?” I said. “You’re grouchy because you
can’t sleep. Here, let’s have your flashlight.” And I just grabbed that
out of his pocket, too.
I guess he was going to grab them both away from me; anyway, it seemed
that way for a couple of seconds.
Then he said, “Now you’ll go and spoil it all.”
“Spoil what?” I asked him.
“Go on, read it,” he said.
“Sure I’ll read it,” I told him; “what’s all the excitement about?”
“I hope you can keep your mouth shut,” he said.
But, believe _me_, I didn’t read very much of it, because all I could
see was the picture. I held the flashlight on it and just stared and
stared and stared.
Then I said, “Dorry!—You know—?” I was just flabbergasted and I could
hardly speak.
“Sure I know,” he said; “it’s Jib Jab. I’m going to get my motorcycle
after all.”
CHAPTER XXVI
DORRY AND I AND THE CRICKET
For a couple of minutes I could hardly speak, I was so surprised. The
picture in that article was the picture of _Jib Jab, is he human?_ I
knew by the wavy hair and the look he had, that made me not know whether
he was jollying me or not. He had that very same look in the picture. I
could almost hear him speak to me. And I just couldn’t take my eyes off
it. Even that funny kind of twinkle in his eye was there, just the same
as when he made Judge Dot mad.
“You and I are the only ones that saw his real face; that’s one good
thing,” Dorry said; “It’s Jib Jab all right, hey?”
“Yes, it’s Jib Jab,” I said, kind of half dreaming, I was so surprised.
“And that’s why you came out here; so as to read it and look at it all
alone. Dorry, if you got the hundred dollars and bought a motorcycle,
you’d fall off it and break your neck. You’d never get any fun out of a
motorcycle you bought that way.”
“Give me the paper,” he said.
“Here,” I said, “take it.”
I guess neither of us spoke for about a minute. All the while I could
hear the cricket chirping, it was so quiet.
“You heard what Harry told him about how they’d had their fun already,”
Dorry said; “you heard what he told them—about how they’d had their fun
already—didn’t you? Now it’s _our_ turn. If we can find him——”
“Shut up,” I said.
“You heard him,” he just kept up, “and you know it’s true. They had
their adventure. They had their hike—didn’t they?”
All the while I could hear the cricket, just chirping, chirping,
chirping. It was awful dark and quiet.
I said, “Dorry, don’t talk like that, because you know you don’t mean
it. If you meant it, you wouldn’t be a Silver Fox, you wouldn’t. And
it’s just the same as telling lies about Harry Donnelle. I dare you to
go and ask him about it; I _dare_ you to; and see what he says. Maybe
he’s reckless and crazy about adventures and doesn’t care anything about
having money, and maybe he’s kind of as you might say wild. Maybe he
flirts a lot with girls and likes to risk his life, maybe, but anyway,
he’s fair and square, and he never did a mean thing in all his life. Mr.
Ellsworth said so, and I guess he ought to know. If you think you’ve got
a right to do that, go and ask Harry Donnelle. I _dare_ you to. Go and
tell him you know where that soldier is and that you’re going to notify
his people up there near Plattsburg and claim the hundred dollars so you
can get your motorcycle. Just go and do that.”
“Why should I do that?” he asked me. “What’s that noise?”
“It’s a hawk,” I said; “he’s after little birds in their nests. Don’t
you remember how we wouldn’t name our patrol the Hawks, because they
sneak— You voted against it yourself—you did.”
“I mean that other——”
“It’s just a cricket,” I said. “I’m glad we’re out here all alone. I’m
glad it’s so quiet and dark. Maybe you can’t see in the dark, but you
can see what’s right or wrong better in the dark, because I’m not
mad—honest I’m not. You know what Tom Slade said about trails. Maybe
he’s dead now, over in France; but anyway, you know what he said about
trails.”
“He wanted a motorcycle, too,” Dorry said.
“Yes, but you know what he said about trails? How if you get thinking
about doing something that isn’t fair and square, it just means you’re
on the wrong trail. And you know yourself how hard it is to find the
right trail if you once get started on the wrong one? Maybe you don’t
think much about Tom Slade, these days, but I do. Often when nobody
knows it, I do.”
“I don’t see anything wrong in it,” Dorry said; “we were the first to
see him.”
“Then what makes you feel so mean about it?” I asked him. “What makes
you ask me about a little sound like a cricket? It’s because you’re kind
of rattled and you’re not sure, that’s why. Once a murderer went and
confessed after hearing a cricket all night. Maybe you don’t know that
it’s in a book how crickets start your conscience—maybe you don’t.
Listen!”
He said, “You mean you’ll tell and you won’t help me?”
“No, I won’t tell,” I said, “and I _will_ help you. I’ll help you to put
the Church Mice on their feet. I’ll help you to give that scoutmaster a
good welcome. I’ll help you to fix it so those poor little codgers all
have uniforms. I’ll help you to fix it so you can look Harry Donnelle in
the face—and Mr. Ellsworth, when you see him. And Tom Slade. And if
it’s a case of sneaking, I’ll help you with that too. We’ll make those
fellows think that _they_ discovered Jib Jab, otherwise satisfactory,
you can go and ask Harry Donnelle they’d never take the reward. And if
that isn’t if it’s all right for you to get the reward. And if he says
yes, I’ll say so too. I bet he has no use for motorcycles anyway.”
Dorry didn’t say anything, only just stood there.
“What do you say?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer me.
“What do you say—Dorry?” I asked him.
“How does a cricket make that sound, anyway?” he asked.
“I should worry about how he makes it,” I told him.
He just said, “Funny, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER XXVII
WE TAKE HARRY INTO OUR CONFIDENCE
One thing, I wouldn’t let anybody talk against Dorry Benton. Even I
wouldn’t have told you about that, only he said it was all right. I knew
all the time that he would never cheat those fellows out of their
reward. He didn’t say anything more that night, but in the morning he
came after me when I went to get sticks for the fire, and then I knew
everything was all right.
He said, “You and I are the only ones that know who Jib Jab is. What are
we going to do about it? And another thing, would it be all right for
scouts to take a reward like that? Something for a service?”
“Sure it would be all right,” I told him; “something for a service means
tips and things like that. Scouts can take presents and win rewards, I
hope. Didn’t Pee-wee win an extra helping of pie up at camp for keeping
still all through dinner? Mr. Ellsworth said it was all right.”
Gee, Dorry couldn’t answer that argument. “You should worry about it’s
being all right,” I said; “but, oh boy, if we make a mistake we’ll spoil
everything. We have to watch our step. We’ve just got to make Brent
Gaylong discover that fellow without any help. If we don’t, _good
night!_ he’ll never claim the reward. I know that fellow.”
“Maybe we’d better tell Harry Donnelle,” Dorry said.
“That’s just what I was thinking,” I told him; “because maybe he can
think of a way.”
So as soon as we could, we got Harry off in the woods alone. There
wasn’t much time, because we were all going to hit the trail for
Newburgh after breakfast.
I said, “Harry, that freak fellow in the circus is the same fellow who’s
picture was in the paper; he’s Horace E. Chandler, I’m positive.”
He said, “I told you if you ate too many of those flapjacks last night,
you’d be dreaming dreams.”
“All right,” I told him, “you remember about Marshal Foch; how you said
he was a calf?”
“Let’s have a squint at the picture,” Harry said; “these remarkable
discoveries of yours are getting to be a bad habit. A leopard is bad
enough, but a _what-is-it_!”
So we showed him the picture and he screwed up his face and looked at it
awful funny. Then he read the article all through.
“Well, so you think that’s Wandering Horace, do you?” he asked.
I said, “Yes, because his hair is the same, and that funny kind of a
look in his eye and everything. You’ve got to admit Jib Jab is human.
He’s a nice fellow, too. I bet he’d want to see these fellows get the
reward.”
Harry said, “Yes, I don’t exactly hold it against him that he’s human;
he couldn’t help it I suppose. I’m kind of human myself. But just
suppose, for the fun of it, that you’re right——”
“There’s no fun about it,” I told him; “Dorry and I both saw him.”
“All right,” he said; “and you want to sacrifice him to the Church Mice.
You want to put them on his trail. How do _we_ know he wants to be
discovered?”
“It’s a good turn,” Dorry said.
Harry said, “Well, I’m not a scout and I don’t deal much in good
turns——”
I said, “I bet you did hundreds of them.” And I bet he did, too.
He just said, “But who is the good turn going to hit? What is it you
want to do?”
Dorry said, “We want these fellows to find out who Jib Jab is; we want
to start things going so they can find out of their own accord, before
it’s too late.”
“Yes, and how about poor Jib Jab?” Harry said. “If you harm one person
to help another, do you call that a good turn? How do we know why he’s
traveling with that circus and living in an animal’s skin? Seems to me
we’ve got to consider _him_ when we act.”
Gee, by that I saw that there’s a lot more to good turns than some
fellows think.
“But anyway,” I said, “Harry, that fellow is reckless just like you. Do
you mean to tell me his mother and father haven’t got a right to know
where he is? Just because _you_ went all over the world doesn’t say——”
“Well, there isn’t any mention of his mother and father here,” he said;
“only Mr. Horace E. Wade, up there in Greendale, or whatever they call
it.”
For a couple of minutes, Dorry and I didn’t say anything, and Harry just
sat there on a log whittling a stick.
Then he said, “Let’s see that picture again.”
Dorry handed it to him and he looked at it in that funny, squinty way,
same as before, then handed it back.
“Then can’t we do anything about it?” I asked him.
“How about getting the reward ourselves?” he asked me.
“What do we want it for?” I said. “We’re having plenty of fun. We don’t
need anything.”
He just went on whittling and looked up kind of funny like, at Dorry.
“How about you?” he asked. “You saw the picture first, and recognized
him. Come in handy, that hundred, I dare say?”
Dorry just said, “Nix.”
“Bully for you,” Harry said, and he gave him a push in the chest. Didn’t
I tell you I knew how he’d feel about it?
“Well, then,” he said, “since you are the only ones who would have any
claims, we’ll have to see what kind of a scout the Honorable Mr. Jib Jab
is. I kind of like that fellow’s face——”
“Don’t you go and ask him to go off to South Africa with you,” I said.
Because I knew Harry Donnelle, all right.
“We’ll just have to see if he’s game for a little conspiracy. I kind of
think from that twinkle in his eye, that he will be. We’ll just have to
lay the whole thing before him. We’ll tell him about Gaylong and the
poor Church Mice and if he’s human——”
“Sure he’s human!” I said. “Doesn’t he smoke cigarettes and jolly the
freaks, and wink at us and all that? _Sure_ he’s human—he’s _especially
human_!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN THE WOODS
So you see it’s best to always think twice before you do a good turn.
Don’t be in too much of a hurry about it. Because a good turn might go
wild and cause a lot of trouble. You’ve got to take a good aim.
As long as Jib Jab had told us we’d always be welcome, Harry said, it
would be best for him and Dorry and I to wait till the show was over
that night and then go in and make a call on him. So he told the fellows
that we’d hang around in the woods for one more day and hike it for
Newburgh in the morning. He said that would give us a chance to get some
provisions in Kingston and to stalk in the mountains. They all liked the
idea, only Brent Gaylong said his fellows didn’t have many eats and they
didn’t want to be sponging on us.
Harry said, “We’re all one family and I’m sick of this Silver Fox
outfit, anyway. It’ll help to vary the monotony.” That was always the
way he talked.
In the afternoon I took a walk through the woods with Brent Gaylong and
the little fellow he called Willie Wide-awake. He was a nice little
fellow. He found a four-leaf clover and he said, “Maybe that will change
our luck.”
I said, “Maybe; you never can tell.” And, oh boy, didn’t I just laugh
to myself. _You wait_, that’s what I said to myself.
Gaylong said, “The trouble with us fellows is that we started our great
and glorious troop during the war. Everybody was organizing
troops—France, Germany, Uncle Sam, Italy—and we got lost in the
shuffle. Too much competition. We’ll land rightside up yet. But when I
look over that scout magazine and see all the ads of things scouts want,
it sort of makes me discouraged. Knives, cameras, bicycles, canoes,
magic lanterns, toy steam engines, tin railroads, fancy memorandum
books, electric motors! I suppose I’m behind the times, but just about
all we want is a little place to meet in, and our scoutmaster back again
and the price of a welcome for him, that’s all. That, and the woods.”
“You said it,” I told him. “You should worry about all those ads; they
have nothing to do with scouting. All they’ve got to do with scouting is
that they’re good to kindle a camp-fire with. Scouting doesn’t cost
anything when you once get started.”
“It would cost about ten dollars a minute if some people had their way,”
he said.
“Sure,” I said, “they’d have you looking like Santa Claus. You should
worry.”
“But I ought not to kick,” he said; “because I’m to blame for this wild
goose chase. You see I wanted to get the kids out of doors. I wanted to
get their minds off patent sleds and go-carts, and goodness knows what
all. I was brought up in the country and I wanted them to have a taste
of adventure—the kind of stuff that isn’t advertised, you know.”
I said, “You bet I know; and I have to admit you’re right, too.”
“Of course, there wasn’t any chance of finding that fellow, Chandler,”
he said; “but what’s the difference? We had about seven dollars, and the
kids wanted to buy one of those moving picture machines, ‘_Boy Scouts,
Attention! Here is just what you want!_’ You know. So I just took the
seven plunks and brought them up this way on a hike. Something they
_really did_ want. I thought maybe there was one chance in twenty of
finding that Chandler, but I didn’t say so. I let them think the chance
was fair. Anyway, we had a hike. We were out for adventure. They forgot
about the cornets and the clock-work gew-gaws that they really _didn’t
want_. We’ve been scouting. We’re broke, but we’ve been scouting. We
hiked up to a remote village after a missing person. Romance! Adventure!
We’ve been _scouting_. Hurrah, and a couple of bravos! That fellow
Donnelle has the right idea; and he’s a brick.”
“Believe _me_, that’s the biggest compliment you ever paid a brick,” I
said.
“So here we are,” he said; “cleaned out and happy, and living on our
scout brothers. That’s the idea, isn’t it? Brothers? Poor relations,
hey? But we’re real, honest-to-goodness, scouts. None genuine unless
labeled _Church Mice_. Boy Scouts, Attention! Here is something you
_really_ want. Hiking! Adventure! Some day or other we’ll stumble into
fifty or a hundred dollars, but by the Big Dipper we’ll get it
_scouting_. That fellow Donnelle has the right idea; he’s a peach.”
“Believe _me_, he’s a whole orchard,” I said
Then neither of us said anything for about a minute, only we kept
wandering along through the woods and we stopped and watched a chipmunk
in a tree and kept good and still so he wouldn’t be scared. And Brent
Gaylong picked up a locust, awful careful, and held it in his two
fingers and showed Willie Wide-awake how its wings went and how it was
different from a bird. And Willie Wide-awake held it in one hand,
because he had the four-leaf clover in the other hand. It was nice in
the woods. I found a red lizard, too; the kind that come out after it
rains. I guess he made a mistake, hey? There are lots of them up that
way.
I said, “You just keep that four-leaf clover and it’ll bring you luck.
If you can stand a pine cone on your thumb and hold it that way till you
count ten, then you can make a wish and it’ll come true.”
So Willie Wide-awake balanced a pine cone like that and counted ten and
then he said, “I wish we’d get a hundred dollars and I wish Mr. Jennis
would hurry up and come back.”
And then I batted the pine cone away with a birch stick, so as to make
the wish come true. You’ve got to be sure the stick is made of birch.
CHAPTER XXIX
JIB JAB AND HARRY
Anyway, the day passed soon enough, even if we didn’t have much to do,
and after supper, Harry said very innocent sort of, “Roy, suppose you
and Dorry hike into Kingston with me and carry home some stuff. The rest
of you start a fire.”
Little Willie Wide-awake piped up, “I’ll go with you.” But Harry just
ruffled up his hair, the same as he was always doing with me and said,
“You just sit here and watch the fire. See what you can find in the
fire. The other night we were seeing all sorts of things in the
fire—pictures and things. You can find all kinds of pictures in fires,
can’t you, Brent?”
Brent Gaylong said, “That’s the idea.”
So then Harry gave the little fellow a kind of a push so he went
sprawling right down all over the other fellows. Gee, I bet those kids
liked him. I don’t know, but he had a way about him that everybody
liked. After we started I told him he ought to be a scoutmaster, and he
said he would only he had a date in Labrador. He said he had a date to
go hunting seals. Another time he told us he had a date to kill a man in
Australia. He had a lot of dates.
On the way to Kingston he said to us, “Did you give that newspaper
article back to Gaylong?” And I told him, “Yes.”
“All right,” he said; “we don’t want that in our possession. We have
nothing to do with this business; see?”
Dorry said, “Sure, we understand.”
Then Harry said, “Now I don’t want you kids to be disappointed if this
wild man of Borneo turns out not to be wandering Horace at all; see?”
“I can’t be mistaken,” I told him.
He said, “Well, Columbus was mistaken when he thought he’d reached
India, and he was smarter than you.”
“Gee whiz,” I said, “I don’t deny he was smarter than I am. But anyway,
I know we’re not mistaken.”
“All right,” he said; “but I want you to let me do the talking. All I
know about this savage beast is the twinkle in his eye. Twinkles are
good things; you can usually bank on a twinkle. But you kids leave it to
me; understand?”
I said, “It’ll be so still you’ll be able to hear the silence.”
“Because this is a pretty delicate business,” Harry said. “Even if Jib
comes across all right, there’s still Gaylong. Our fingers mustn’t be
seen in this pie. We’re going to try to make something _happen_, that’s
all. If he knows that we had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t _touch_
the reward. Gaylong is as white as a snowstorm.”
I said, “Take it from me a snowstorm is dark brown compared to him. I
know that fellow.”
“Well, if we can just handle this wild _what-is-it_, we’ll put one over
on Gaylong all right,” Harry said. “We’ll buy that cane for
what’s-his-name and we’ll build that scout meeting-place. I’m getting
kind of interested myself now. I haven’t been so worked up since I sold
a phonograph to a king over there in the Cannibal Islands. As soon as he
heard it talk, he wanted to eat it. Come on, get a hustle.”
When we got to Costello’s Mammoth Show, the people were crowding out.
Harry went up to the wagon where they sold tickets and said, “Hello, Mr.
Costello, how’s business?”
“Marvellous, magnificent!” he said in that big voice of his. “The town
is spellbound by our sumptuous show. How are the young scouts?”
Harry told him we were all well, and asked him if I might go in and say
good-bye to my friends.
“They will be proud to receive the young hero and his companions,” he
said. And he waved his whip toward the door of the small tent. I kind of
liked that man. You can like a person, even if he’s a kind of a faker.
In the side show tent, Lemuel Long was playing checkers with Judge Dot.
Over in the corner, Jib Jab sat with his feet up on one of the
platforms, smoking a cigarette. He had his bathrobe on and his face was
all clean. I guess he was tired after pulling at that chain all day. He
turned his head and said, “Hello, Scouty, glad to see you.”
I said, “Jib Jab, this is the fellow who’s looking after us on our hike;
it’s Mr. Donnelle. I thought I’d come and see you before we go away and
I brought him, too. He wouldn’t tell anybody about you being human.”
Harry Donnelle put out his hand in that nice off-hand way he had, to
shake hands with him, and Jib Jab started to reach out too. Then, all of
a sudden he stood up and raised his arm and saluted.
“How are you, Lieutenant?” he said; “I see you’re mustered out, but I
salute you just the same, because you saved my life in France. I know
you even if you don’t know me, Lieutenant.”
Just then Dorry whispered in my ear, “Did you notice his hand when he
saluted. There’s a cameo ring on it. Look close and see if that’s
Abraham Lincoln’s head carved on it. It’s awful old and clumsy looking.”
Just then Jib Jab took my hand and I had a good look at that ring. Oh
boy, you can bet I was excited. And you can bet a scout knows Abraham
Lincoln’s head when he sees it. But even if I was flabbergasted, I could
seem to just hear those words, “_saved my life_.”
I bet that fellow Harry Donnelle had hundreds and hundreds of adventures
that he never told _us_ about. I guess he didn’t even notice the ring.
That’s one thing about a scout, he’s observant.
CHAPTER XXX
JIB JAB IS SURPRISED
Just then Mr. Lemuel Long and Judge Dot got up to go to bed and Jib Jab
called, “So long, Shorty! So short, Longy!”
While he was laughing at them, I whispered to Harry, “Notice the ring on
his finger.” I guess Harry noticed it all right, only he didn’t say
anything.
He just said, “Your face seems familiar to me; you were in my regiment,
eh?”
“I was one of those in the machine gun nest,” Jib Jab said; “don’t you
remember the four privates you saved?”
Harry said, “Oh, you were one of those fellows, eh? Glad to see that you
got back to the States all right. I came to see you, but I didn’t know
who you were; that is, I didn’t know you had been in France. You’re
Horace E. Chandler, I think, aren’t you? I’m glad to see that you’re
human; there seems to be some question. Will you have a cigarette?”
Gee, it was awful funny to watch the two of them. Jib Jab just stared at
him while Harry lifted himself up on the edge of the exhibition platform
and lighted a cigarette, kind of off-hand and friendly like.
“How’s the savage beast business?” he asked him.
“What makes you thing I’m Chandler?” Jib Jab said.
Harry said, “Oh, I’ve suspected you were Chandler ever since these boys
saw your picture in the paper, but of course, I didn’t know you had been
mixed up in the big scrap with me. Funny how things come about, huh?”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to admit it,” Jib Jab said; “I hope you’re
not going to shout it out loud.”
“No, I just want your assistance. I think you’re a good sport. Far be it
from me to criticise you for being a _what-is-it_. I’d like to be one
myself. Must be kind of nice flopping around the country with a lot of
freaks. How much does that skinny fellow weigh, anyhow? He looks like a
ramrod. Little fellow’s kind of pesky, isn’t he?”
The two of them just sat there smoking cigarettes. Harry was dangling
his legs from the platform and Jib Jab had his feet resting on it and
his chair tilted back. It was awful funny to see them. For a couple of
minutes neither of them said anything, only Harry kept looking around at
the platforms where the freaks usually were.
Pretty soon he just blurted out, “How’d you happen to hit this job,
Chandler?”
Jib Jab said, “Oh, I don’t know; it’s a long story. It’s a pretty good
job when you want to lie low.”
“Lie low, huh? Why, what’s the matter?” Harry asked.
Cracky, I never saw Jib Jab so serious before. He said, “Oh, I was just
one of the heroes that didn’t get a job, that’s all. I’m a
happy-go-lucky.”
“Same here,” Harry said, and he just kept looking at him, awful sharp
and searching, kind of.
“I came back from France broke.”
“Same here,” Harry said.
“And I just thought I’d try to pull together a bit before I hit the
trail for home,” Jib Jab went on. “I had a little over two hundred
dollars to bring home to my old dad, but they relieved me of it in a
sailors’ dance hall over in Brest.”
“Live up near Plattsburg, eh?”
“Yop, and I started home as soon as I was mustered out, but didn’t make
it. Just couldn’t face the old folks—busted. I tried to get a job in
Albany, in Poughkeepsie; nothing doing. Worked for a couple of days for
a farmer over here in Elm Center, then hit the circus. Circus is a great
place when you’re down and out. Ever work in a circus?”
“I kinder think I’d like to,” Harry said; “I’ve done most everything
else.”
“So here I am among the missing till I can save as much as I promised to
bring home. I sent the old gent a letter saying I had two hundred bucks.
I don’t know who’s got that two hundred, but I know one thing; I’m not
going up to Greendale till I have that much. I’m not human till then.”
“Old gent write you a letter?” Harry asked, kind of careless.
“Yop, and warned me. Didn’t do much good.” For about a minute Harry just
sat there smoking and Jib Jab did the same thing. Neither one of them
spoke. Harry was whistling _Over There_. Then he reached down into his
pocket and threw a roll of bills into Jib Jab’s lap.
“Here’s your two hundred, Jib,” he said; “and here’s part of the letter.
Let’s have a squint at that ring, will you?”
Gee whiz, I guess you could have knocked Jib Jab down with a feather.
CHAPTER XXXI
JIB JAB’S STORY
Then Harry told him all about his adventure out on the ocean and how he
found the dead man in the boat, and the money.
“Funny thing, too,” he said; “but we were trying to dope out the meaning
of that letter, all sitting around the camp-fire. We even thought we
could see the old gent. Old veteran, isn’t he? Huh, that’s just what we
thought. Blamed funny thing, a camp-fire.”
Jib Jab didn’t say anything, only just looked straight ahead of him.
Harry just kept smoking and swinging his legs.
“Guess we hit it about right, hey?” he said.
Jib Jab just kept looking straight ahead of him.
“Pretty near,” he said. He sounded kind of strange. Even still he didn’t
put the money in his pocket, or the water-soaked letter either, but they
just stayed where Harry threw them, on the bathrobe.
“Pretty tough, being broke,” Harry said.
“Bet the old gent’ll be proud to see you. Under Grant, I suppose?”
“Sherman,” Jib Jab said, very quiet.
Then neither of them spoke for about a couple of minutes, only Harry
asked him for a light.
“Ever get mixed up with the boy scouts, Jib?” Harry asked him.
Jib Jab just shook his head.
“Well, listen here,” Harry said; “and here’s the test of whether you’re
really human.”
“I guess I’m pretty human,” Jib Jab said, very low.
Then Harry said, “We ran into a party of scouts, Jib, who went up to Elm
Center to see if a fellow they saw in a moving picture was you. I guess
it was all right. They had an idea of winning that reward; you know
about the offer, of course?”
“Yes, I knew,” Jib Jab said.
“How about this old gent you’re named after? Friend of your father’s? I
thought as much. Pretty rich, I suppose? Good. Now, Jib, you and I know
what it is to go broke. I’ve gone broke forty-eleven times. And we’re
both keen for adventure; that’s our trouble, I guess. There’s a fellow
over where we’re camping, a young fellow, with a bunch of little
tenderfoot scouts. They came up to hunt for you and to get that reward.
They’re broke. They need some mazuma to start in with. They need a
hundred. Do they get it?”
Jib Jab said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, first you’re willing to go home?”
“Do you have to ask me that?”
“All right then,” Harry said; “here’s the plan of campaign and General
Pershing himself couldn’t plan it better. You’re going home, that’s
settled. Prodigal son, and all that stuff. But first you’ve got to be
discovered. Give us another light, will you? I put it to you from man to
man, or from tramp to _what-is-it_, _you can’t go home without being
discovered_. You’ve got to come over our way and get yourself
discovered. These scouts need a shack to meet in and a lot of stuff.
They want to give their scoutmaster a welcome home. He was in the scrap
same as you and I. It all hangs on that hundred dollars, Jib. I’m sorry,
but you’ll have to be the goat. That young fellow Gaylong is a double
barrel scout and he’s trying to pull through with that outfit of kids.
He wouldn’t take a cent as an ordinary present. I’ve got his number. Of
course, if you’ve got the instinct of a baboon that doesn’t mean
anything to you. But all over the fences in this happy berg, Costello is
wanting to know if you’re human. You can’t show you’re human just by
taking off that bear skin and washing your face. I want to know if
you’re _human_ or not.”
“Run out and ask Costello for a couple of marvellous, matchless matches,
will you, Roy?”
CHAPTER XXXII
JIB JAB TURNS OUT TO BE HUMAN
So that’s all I can tell you about their talk, because when I went back
Harry was waiting for us near the entrance. All I can tell you is what
happened. On the way back through the woods Harry wouldn’t talk at all,
only he said that the scouts were a blamed nuisance and he guessed he’d
go and work in a circus. Gee whiz, I hope he doesn’t. But, oh boy, he’d
make a dandy _what-is-it_.
When we got to camp there was a peachy big fire and they were all
sitting around it. Brent Gaylong was lying on his back, same way as he
always did, with his knees up.
“Move up and give us a chance here,” Harry said; “we’re tired.” And he
squeezed right in between little Willie Wide-awake and another one of
those kids. “Regular sewing circle, huh?” he said. “Well, Bill old top,
what did you see in the blaze?”
“He’s been seein’ things,” Brent said, kind of laughing.
“Get out—_no_,” Harry said.
“I saw a transport,” Willie Wide-awake said; “that long log looked like
a transport. Then it crackled and I didn’t see it any more.”
Harry said, “Torpedoed, I guess. Didn’t see anything of that scoutmaster
of yours, did you?”
“I looked, but I didn’t see him,” Willie said.
“Down in the cabin eating his dinner, probably,” Harry said. “Chuck on a
couple more logs, Westy old boy.”
“He saw a meeting-shack, too,” Gaylong said.
“It was just like real,” the kid piped up.
“That point on the blaze made the roof. You can see things better if you
half shut your eyes.”
“That’s the idea,” Harry said; “you’ve got to get kind of dreamy. You’re
getting the hang of it all right. Over in France one night I saw the
house I live in at home. There was a new chicken coop. Once I saw Teddy
Roosevelt.”
“One good thing,” Brent said in that funny way he had; “the things you
see in the fire don’t cost anything.”
Harry said, “Yes, but they’re going up like everything else. They go up
in smoke.”
“Like everything else,” Gaylong said.
“There you go,” Harry said; “Hard Luck Gaylong, the boy grouch. How do
you know when you may strike luck. Look at Charlie Collins over there on
the west front; ran plunk into his own brother while he was on sentry
duty; brother said, ‘H’lo Charlie’—just like that. Neither one knew the
other was in France. You’ve been looking at maps and things and you
believe everything the geography tells you. I’ve been all around this
world and you can take it from me, it’s about the size of a cocoanut.
Look how Stanley met Livingstone in South Africa. You take a tip from me
and keep that newspaper picture.”
Brent said, “I’d paste it in a scrapbook only we haven’t got a
scrapbook.”
“We haven’t got any paste either,” Willie shouted.
“Poor, but honest,” Gaylong said.
Then Harry put his arm around little Willie Wide-awake’s shoulder, awful
nice and friendly like, and he said, “Don’t you mind him, Bill old boy.
Let him grouch. Now let’s you and I see what we can find there.”
Gee, he was awful nice and it made me like him a lot. Because, anyway,
it showed that even if he was kind of wild and reckless, he could be
nice to a little fellow like that. I wish he’d be a scoutmaster, but I
don’t believe he ever will. He’s got too many dates. We all looked into
the fire and listened when he began.
He said, “I can see old Grouch Gaylong, there, with a fine scout uniform
and one of those big long sticks and about ’steen hundred badges; badges
for being sarcastic, badges for lying on his back and sticking his feet
up in the air, Calamity Jane badges—all kinds. I can see you head of
the Church Mice patrol, only the Church Mice have struck it rich. They
won’t speak to the Silver Foxes any more. See that long, thin flame?
That’s one of their tails.”
“I can see the American flag,” Willie Wide-awake said.
“Sure, Old Glory;—right underneath it is a little kind of a bungalow
all fixed up, and a canoe right near it. See the canoe? And I can see a
face—yes sir, I can see a face. Mr. Jennis, is it? See, right through
the middle of the flame? That’s Mr. Jennis, all right. And——”
“I can see it!” Willie Wide-awake shouted.
“Sure you can,” Harry said, “plain as day——”
“_Look! Look!_” the little fellow shouted, and he clutched Harry by the
arm, all excited. “_I see it! It’s real! Look!_”
I was looking, too, and I saw it and then I knew. And I wanted, I just
wanted to go over and clutch Harry Donnelle by the arm, just like that
kid was doing. I could see Brent Gaylong roll over and look, kind of
curious, through the blaze. And all the fellows seemed to start, all
except Dorry and I. But I didn’t budge, only sat there watching Brent
Gaylong. His face looked kind of strange. Then he stood up. And the
other face behind the blaze rose up, too. And Jib Jab was standing there
and the fire was shining on his face. And even I could see the twinkle
in his eye.
Then I heard Harry Donnelle speak and his voice sounded queer, because
it was so still around there. And there wasn’t any sound except the fire
crackling.
He said, “Who are you? What do you want here?”
“Just a stranger after food and shelter,” I heard; “I’ve been wandering
in the woods. I am a discharged soldier and I’m in hard luck.”
But I didn’t notice him, because I was looking at Brent Gaylong. He was
standing up straight and looking steady, right across the fire, into
that face. And he didn’t take his eyes off it; just stared.
CHAPTER XXXIII
WE PART COMPANY
Oh, it was great to watch Harry—the way he acted. He just said, “A
soldier, eh? Sit down, we were just going to have a bite to eat. I was
in the big scrap, myself.” That’s what he always called it—the big
scrap. He didn’t pay any attention to Brent Gaylong, and Brent just
stood there staring.
Pretty soon Brent said, “Your name isn’t Chandler, is it?”
“Maybe, and maybe not,” Jib Jab said. “Who are you?”
He didn’t admit he was Chandler right away and Harry Donnelle said, kind
of careless sort of, “If you’re the missing Chandler you might as well
so say. We’re all tramps and wanderers here. All broke, too.”
So pretty Soon _Jib Jab, is he human?_ admitted that he was Horace E.
Chandler, and Harry Donnelle said it was mighty lucky we had decided to
stay over night in that neighborhood. He said he had always thought that
the world was about as big as a cocoanut, but now he knew it was the
size of a green pea. He said the trouble with it was there wasn’t enough
elbow room, and scouts couldn’t get away into the woods and be alone,
because on account of the crowds—crowds of missing people. Oh, he was
great and, believe me, we liked that fellow.
None of those Church Mice even knew that Horace E. Chandler was Jib Jab
who was in the circus. On the quiet, Jib told us that Mr. Costello
didn’t mind his leaving like that, because _what-is-its_ were easy to
get, on account of so many of them being out of work—I mean people. But
Jib said, Mr. Costello told him he was the best _what-is-it_ he ever
had, and he would give him a good recommendation, if he wanted it.
So that’s the end of _Jib Jab is he human?_ And, gee, you’ll have to
admit he was human, all right. He said he wouldn’t go home to Greendale
unless the Church Mice went with him and stayed for a few days on his
father’s farm. Harry Donnelle stood up for him and said that was right.
I bet he knew about it all the time. He said that he wouldn’t trust
Chandler to go home alone.
“Now you’ve got him, hang onto him,” that’s what he said to Brent.
“Safety first, don’t take any chances. Go up there and get your hundred.
These discharged soldiers are a bad lot. See what kind of a farm he
lives on, and if it’s any good we’ll hike up there next summer and strip
the apple trees. Got any good russets up there, Horace?”
So that’s the way they fixed it, and the next morning Horace Chandler
and the Church Mice started off on their journey to Greendale. Brent
Gaylong said he was going to ’phone home from Kingston, so that their
people would know. Anyway, I guess their mothers and fathers wouldn’t
worry much, because Brent was the kind of a fellow they could trust,
that was one sure thing.
Harry told Horace Chandler to start off with them just as if they were
going to hike all the way, and then when they got good and tired, to buy
tickets on the railroad. Do you know what I think? I think Harry had
some money and that he gave it to Horace so he could do that. That’s
what I kind of think. It would be just like him anyway.
One thing, you’re going to meet all those fellows again, but not in this
story. Because after a while we went up to that farm in Greendale and
camped there, and met old Major Chandler and Mr. Wade and Horace, and
had a lot of fun, you can bet. It’s a whole story all by itself. They
have dandy russet apples up there, and, oh boy, can’t Horace’s sister
Betty make apple dumplings. I ate four one night. Hunt Manners ate six,
but anyway he started before I did.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A GOOD IDEA
That same day we hiked out through Woodstock. Harry Donnelle said we had
to be careful, because the woods were infested with poets and authors
and artists, but I should worry, who’s afraid of a poet? We saw a lot of
them and they wore funny big neckties and long hair. But anyway, Harry
said they were harmless. They live in little shacks.
We went around the Ashokan Reservoir and then along the road down
through Atwood and Stone Ridge till we got to the Wallkill River, and
that night we camped near New Paltz. There’s a great big abnormal school
there, or a normal school, or whatever you call it. I should worry.
Anyway, there’s one thing I like about school, and that’s vacation.
The next day we followed the Wallkill River and caught some perch and
cooked them for supper, and that night, around the fire, we made Harry
tell us how he saved four privates on the West Front. The next morning
we started off again and passed a place named Great Bluff. It was a
great bluff all right, because it was so small you could send it by
Parcels Post.
Pretty soon we came to a place named Tanner’s Crossroads. I couldn’t see
anything so cross about them. But anyway Mr. Tanner was cross enough to
make up. He wouldn’t let us take a short cut across his land. What cared
we?
I don’t know how big the village was, because I didn’t have a ruler with
me. I guess somebody must have dropped the village there and never
noticed it. That night we slept just inside of a village named _Slow_.
Anyway, that’s what it said on a sign alongside the road. Harry said it
meant for autos to go slow. I made flapjacks that night.
In two days we came in sight of the Hudson. I knew it would be there. Oh
boy, but we climbed some hills. Pretty soon we could see Haverstraw, but
we didn’t go near it. We camped in a dandy place outside the town. And
that’s the place where we had our big adventure. Maybe you’ll remember
how I said our hike got tied in a knot in one place. Well, that was the
place.
So now I’m going to tell you about that adventure. It has girls in it
and everything. And it shows you how boy scouts can be heroes. It has
two heroines, so maybe if you don’t like one, you’ll like the other.
One’s an emergency heroine, that’s what Harry said.
Now maybe if you’ve read all about our adventures up at Temple Camp,
you’ll remember that my sister Marjorie was going to have a birthday
party. I told Mr. Ellsworth that I would like to go home for that party
and go back to Temple Camp the next day. Maybe you will remember about
it, on account of my saying that she was going to have cocoanut frosted
cake.
Now on that night that we were camping near Haverstraw, I happened to
think about it being my sister’s birthday. I just happened to think of
it while we were sitting around our camp-fire.
I said, “This is my sister’s birthday and she’s going to have a party
and cocoanut frosted cake and things, and I’d like to be there. I wish I
had thought about it yesterday—I’d have sent her a postcard.” Because,
one thing, I never forgot about my sister’s birthdays.
Harry said, “Why don’t you call her up?”
“Sure,” Westy said, “they’ll just about be having the eats now.”
I said, “What good will that do me?”
“Anyway, where’s the telephone?” Dorry said.
“I bet there’s a booth over in that little station,” Harry said; “why
don’t you go over and see? It would be a big surprise, hey?”
I said, “You bet it would. Come on over and we’ll see if there’s one
there, Westy.” The station that Harry spoke about was a little dinky
station that we had passed about a half of a mile back. When we passed
it, Harry said he guessed maybe it was the West Haverstraw Station. It
was all dark even then. But anyway, Westy and I decided we would go back
to it and see if it was open and if there was a ’phone booth there.
“Let’s wait till half-past nine before we start,” I said; “and then
we’ll call up at exactly ten o’clock, because that’s the time they’ll
all be going in for the eats and they’ll be giving the presents then,
too. It’ll kind of seem as if I were there just at the right minute.”
So at half-past nine, Westy and I started down the road.
“Give her our best wishes,” Harry called after us.
It was awful dark and we could hardly see our way going along the road.
A couple of times I went stumbling into the ditch. But, anyway, all the
while I kept thinking about Marjorie and how it would look at home with
all those people there and lots of presents and things.
“I’m mighty glad Harry thought about that,” I said.
Westy said, “Jiminies, it will be great. Just when they’re all sitting
down around the table, all of a sudden the ’phone will ring——”
“Yop,” I said, “and Marjorie will answer it, because she always answers
the ’phone, on account of Charlie Wentworth all the time calling her up.
He’s in Philadelphia. That’s what makes the ’phone service so bad,
because he keeps all the operators busy. Believe me, they ought to have
a private wire. Anyway, that’s what my father says.”
“I bet you won’t be able to get her,” Westy said.
“There you go,” I told him; “Calamity Jane!”
“To call her up, you’ll have to call Central down,” he said.
“I should worry,” I told him.
CHAPTER XXXV
WHAT I HEARD ON THE TELEPHONE
That station stood all by itself, and it was pitch dark all around. It
reminded me of the Grand Central Station, it was so different. First we
tried the door and it was locked. Then we tried one of the windows and
it opened.
I said, “Do you think it would be all right to climb in?”
“Sure it would,” Westy said; “because the window doesn’t open into the
ticket agent’s room, only into the waiting room. Go ahead.”
I didn’t see any harm in climbing in, because the window was part open
and there was a sign outside that said “Public Telephone.”
“Anyway,” Westy said; “if anybody should come and find us here, we could
say we just wanted to ’phone. And we could prove that’s all we wanted,
too, by our really getting the number.”
First I didn’t know what we ought to do, but as long as we didn’t have
to break anything open, and as long as all we wanted was to ’phone, I
decided it would be all right.
So we climbed in and I saw there was a booth in the corner. I dropped a
nickel into the ’phone and held the receiver to my ear and waited and
waited and waited and waited. Gee, I waited about as long as three whole
chapters would be.
Then I heard a girl’s voice. It said, “Hello, hello.”
I said, “I want three, two, one, Bridgeboro, New Jersey, and please
hurry up, because my sister’s having a party.”
I guess the wire was crossed, the girl was awful excited, and every time
I said hello, she’d say, “Hello, hello, is this you, father?”
I guess she was so rattled, she didn’t know who she was talking to.
By this time I was getting kind of sore at the operator, because I
wanted to get my sister the minute of ten o’clock, and she was sort of
spoiling my plan. I had just three more minutes to get her, because
Westy lighted a match and looked at his watch. Then I said, “Hello,
hello.”
The same voice kept saying, “Hello, hello, is this you, father?”
I said, “No, it isn’t. How long does it take to get the operator in this
berg?”
The poor girl was almost crying by now. She said, “I’ve been trying for
an _age_ to get my father. Won’t you _please_ let me get him? I want my
father! Why _don’t_ they give me my father?”
Gee whiz, you’d think I had her father in my pocket. I said, “I’m trying
to get my sister, too. If you happen to see her, tell her, will you?”
She said, “Oh dear; it’s just _exasperating_. Won’t you _please_ get off
the wire. I want Central. Why can’t they help me? We’re in such a
_dreadful predicament_.”
I said, “I guess Central went to the movies or somewhere. I’m a boy
scout and I’m in a dark station somewhere or other near Haverstraw——”
“Oh, isn’t that just too _provoking!_” she said.
I said, “Oh, it isn’t so bad in here, only it’s dark.”
“Is there _anything_ I can _do_?” she said; “we’re lost on the top of
Eagle’s Nest Mountain. Oh, I wonder if you’d be willing to go to
Haverstraw and tell my people—Judge Edwards. It’s _dreadful!_ We’ve
been here since five o’clock. We haven’t had a thing to eat and we’re
nearly perishing. The boys made a mistake about the trail. Oh, it’s
_terrible_! We’re frightened out of our lives. I’ll _never, never_ come
up this _horrible_ mountain again!”
I said, “Are the boys scouts?”
She said, “No, they’re regular young men and they’re _utterly
bewildered_!”
I said, “Now I _know_ they’re not scouts. But anyway, you don’t need to
worry, because we’ll come up and get you. Trails are our middle names.
You should worry about Central. But, one thing, I’d like to know how
there happens to be a ’phone up there.”
She said, “Oh, you’re just a _dear_.” That’s just exactly what she
said—honest.
I said, “Mountains aren’t horrible. I’ve met a whole lot of them and
they’re all right. Don’t you worry. I was trying to get my sister on the
’phone to tell her Many Happy Wishes, because it’s her birthday, and
she’s having a party. She’s just seventeen. We’re on a hike.”
“Oh, I’m just seventeen, too,” she said; “and you’re perfectly
_wonderful_. I _know_ you’ll save us. We’re up here at the fire
observation station. If you’ll go to my father and go to the police——”
“We should worry about the police,” I said; “the only trail they can
follow is a trail around the block. One of us fellows will go to your
father’s house and tell him, and meanwhile, the rest of us will come up
there. Anyway, I’d like to see that observation station. So now maybe
you’ll calm down and tell me how to find the mountain road.”
“Oh, do you _think_ you _can_?” she asked.
“Sure, we can,” I told her.
Just then somebody must have pulled her away from the ’phone. Anyway, a
fellow’s voice said, “Let me talk to him. What is he? Just a kid?” Then
he said, “Will you please run to Haverstraw and notify Judge Edwards, 22
Terrace Street, that his daughter and three friends are on the top of
Eagle’s Nest, and to please have the authorities notified and a party
formed to come here. I will see that you’re suitably rewarded.”
I said, “I’d be ashamed to have the whole town of Haverstraw coming up
after me, and scouts don’t accept rewards. We’ll send to Haverstraw and
tell Judge Edwards, and then we’ll come up and get you. All you have to
do is to sit there and tell riddles till you see us. Which road do you
take for Eagle’s Nest?”
Then he said how we should follow the west road from Haverstraw till we
got to a big white house with a windmill in front of it. Pretty soon
after we got past that, he said, we’d come to a cow path that led
through the fields. He said we should follow that till we got into the
woods where we’d see picnic grounds and then we’d find a trail that went
up the mountain. He said other trails branched off from it, so we’d have
to be careful. He said it didn’t go right to the top, and I suppose
that’s why they couldn’t find it coming down.
He said, “Did you ever hit a mountain trail?”
“_Hit_ one?” I said. “We give one a knock-out blow every couple of days.
So long, we’ll see you later. Tell that girl not to worry.”
Gee whiz, I forgot all about Marjorie.
CHAPTER XXXVI
UP THE TRAIL
As soon as I told Westy about it, he said he’d go into Haverstraw so as
to save time, while I went back to camp and got the rest of the fellows.
Oh boy, didn’t I hustle. I went running into camp shouting that there
were two fellows and two girls on the top of Eagle’s Nest, and that we
had to go and rescue them.
“Are they human?” Harry asked in that funny way he had.
“Yes, they’re human,” I said.
“Five toes on their front feet and four on their hind feet?” he asked
me. “Had we better take some flypaper?”
“All right, you can laugh,” I said.
He said, “I’ve followed you through many wild adventures, but I never
accompanied you in rescuing a maiden in distress.”
“Two maidens,” I said.
“All right,” he laughed; “the more the merrier.”
“And one of those fellows said I was a kid,” I told him. “Anyway, if I
took a girl out, I’d know how to bring her back, that’s one thing. Wait
till I see that fellow.”
Harry just laughed and said he wouldn’t miss it for anything. So we took
two lanterns and started off along the road that ran north, and pretty
soon we hit into the main road out of Haverstraw and came to the big
white house with the windmill. Pretty soon we hit into the cow path that
led up through the woods. It wasn’t just like the fellow said, because
it fizzled out in a pasture. Anyway, across the pasture were thicker
woods and we picked up the mountain trail there. If he had told us that
it started right near a big stone, it would have saved us a lot of
hunting around with our lanterns. That’s just the way it is with big
fellows; they think they’re so smart that they don’t know anything. Gee
whiz, you didn’t need a microscope to see that rock, but he never even
mentioned it over the ’phone.
One thing, who ever named that mountain Eagle’s Nest ought to apologize
to the first eagle he meets. It would have been a crazy eagle that would
build a nest like that. As nearly as I could make out it was a lot of
mountains all jumbled into one. Harry said it was a kind of a bouquet of
mountains.
The trail led up through a pine forest and first it was easy following
it. Then it went down into a hollow and got mixed up with a lot of
rocks. I guess that must have been one of the rooms of the eagle’s nest.
Anyway, we couldn’t follow it through there so we took a chance and
picked it up on the other side.
That’s where the climbing began. Oh boy, that was some tangle—all
underbrush and scrub oak. _Good night_, I don’t know how those girls
ever got through there. Pretty soon I stopped and began sniffing.
“Do you know what it reminds me of?” I said. “It reminds me of raking up
the leaves at home.”
“It smells like a rake,” Hunt Manners said, just joking.
“No, but I mean burning autumn leaves,” I said; “you know how it smells
in Bridgeboro in the autumn. Then you know it’s getting cold and
Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming. Anyway, you can laugh, but that
smell always reminds me of Thanksgiving.”
Harry just sniffed, but didn’t say anything, and we started up again.
There were lots of big hubbles, kind of valleys in the mountain, and
most of them were rocky. I guess in the daytime it would be easy enough
to keep the trail in those places, but at night, we had some job.
In one of those places we heard a sound as if some one was moving and we
all stopped short and looked around. Pretty soon Dorry whispered for me
to look, and he pointed to a dark thing kind of sneaking away.
Harry called, “Who’s there?”
There wasn’t any answer and the man, or whatever it was, was gone. It
was so dark we couldn’t see which way he had gone.
Harry said, “That’s funny; this is a queer place to meet anybody.”
Will Dawson said, “I guess it was just a tramp.”
“Or a leopard,” Tom Warner said.
“Or maybe a _what-is-it_,” Charlie Seabury chimed in.
Anyway, we didn’t want to run any risk of losing the trail, so we didn’t
bother about him, but kept on up the mountain.
The higher we got, the worse it was. There was what we call mongrel
forest, tall trees and thick brush underneath. But it was straight going
now, without any up and down places. The trail was easy to follow, only
we had to go in single file, the first fellow (that was Harry) keeping
it by holding a lantern low.
Pretty soon he stopped and said, “There’s brush burning somewhere around
here; I can smell it.”
Ralph Warner said, “_Listen._”
We all stood stark still and just as plain as could be, I could hear a
crackling sound quite a way off.
“I don’t smell it now,” I said; “I did a little while ago.”
“Wait till the breeze is this way,” Harry said.
And then, in just a minute we got a good whiff of it—strong, just like
when I burned the leaves on our lawn at home. Then all of a sudden I
couldn’t smell it at all. Dorry tied his scout scarf on a stick and held
it up, and when it blew out straight we got a strong whiff, and the
crackling was louder. Sometimes it blew around the other way, up the
mountain. Sometimes we couldn’t smell anything at all, but mostly we
could hear the crackling a little. It was too dark to see any smoke and
there wasn’t any blaze. Harry said he guessed it was pretty far away. He
said the breeze could carry the smell a long distance.
“It couldn’t carry the sound so far, though,” I said.
“Trouble is, a stiff breeze can carry most anything,” Harry said; “well,
let’s move along and rescue the maidens.”
Just then Hunt Manners said, “_Listen!_”
Far off we could hear the whistle of a locomotive and a kind of
rattling, not very clear, but I knew it was the rattling of a train.
“That’s ’way over at the Hudson,” Harry said; “shows you how far sound
will carry in the night.”
Just then I looked at Dorry’s scarf that was tied on the stick, and I
saw it was blowing the way we were going—up the mountain.
I said, “That’s why we hear the train; the breeze is blowing from the
east. But I can’t hear the crackling now.”
“Guess the breeze is blowing that up the mountain, too,” Harry said.
Then we started up the trail again toward the summit.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A VOICE
It was a jungle of underbrush, that’s what Harry said. Pretty soon the
trail just fizzled out in the bushes. We poked around with our lanterns
and found a spring there. I guess the wood between there and the summit
must have been where the party got lost. Sometimes we could hear the
crackling and sometimes we couldn’t, but we could smell the burning
brush all the time.
“Guess we’re pretty near the summit,” Harry said; “let’s call that we’re
coming. The breeze will carry our voices.”
So we all called together, “Hello, we’re coming.”
There wasn’t any answer, but anyway, we couldn’t have heard on account
of the breeze blowing up the mountain.
That was the only thing we had to guide us now—the breeze. We kept the
scarf in the air and just followed it, pushing through the brush.
Sometimes we had to stop and tear away an opening, so as to get through.
There must have been an easier way or those girls and fellows would
never have managed it, but Harry thought it was better to push right up
than to be groping around for a path.
All of a sudden, Ralph Warner said, “_Look!_”
_Good night!_ A long line of fire was coming up the mountain, maybe a
quarter of a mile in back of us. First it seemed like a dotted line,
kind of, because there were dark spaces. But even while we looked some
of these filled up. The thing it reminded me of most of all was
soldiers; it seemed like a line of soldiers, all bright and fiery,
charging up the mountain. It was coming fast and I have to admit it
scared me. Because even if we could get through the brush fast enough, I
saw we couldn’t get out of range of it. Kind of, the thought came to me
that it was like soldiers who had just scrambled out of the trenches.
That was just how suddenly we saw it. I remember I heard Harry say
something about wind and fire being allies, but we didn’t stop to talk,
only pushed up through the brush as fast as we could, but all the while
it kept gaining on us.
Pretty soon I said, all out of breath, “We can’t keep this up; it’s
gaining; I can even feel the heat.”
“We can’t flank it, that’s sure,” Harry said; “hustle for all you’re
worth; that’s all I can say.”
Gee, I’ll never forget that night. We just pushed on up through the
brush, stumbling and falling and lifting each other and trying to run.
Our clothes were all torn and we were panting like a lot of dogs.
“Watch and see that no fellow is left behind,” Harry panted.
Every minute two or three of us were just dragging some fellow up out of
the brush. I guess it was a case of more haste, less speed; it’s pretty
hard running through brush.
Harry just panted out, “Boys, we’re in a pretty tight place; don’t get
rattled. Lift your feet high with each step and follow right in my
tracks. If anybody falls, _shout_!”
I said, “We’re losing all the time; what’s the use?”
“We can keep ahead of it for a couple of hundred yards,” he said; “maybe
we’ll strike clear land. Anyway, we can’t do anything else than give it
a race.”
By that time we could feel the heat and sometimes sparks blew almost
over our heads, but they were out when they reached ground. Harry just
kept panting out, “Hustle,” and “Keep your nerve.”
By now the crackling was loud and I could taste smoke. I knew there
wasn’t much chance for us, but I didn’t say so. Anywhere a blown fire is
bad enough, but uphill it just rushes. It seemed funny that I’d have to
die on Marjorie’s birthday, and all of a sudden I thought how I had
tried to ’phone her. Gee, she’d never even know that.
“Hustle,” Harry said.
“Do you hear a voice?” Dorry asked; “_listen_.”
As plain as could be, I heard a girl’s voice, crying. It kind of seemed
as if it might be Marjorie crying, because I was dead.
Then I heard Hunt Manners say, “Yes, I hear it.”
Harry just panted out, “Never mind, step high and hustle.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
WE FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
“Where are you?” Harry shouted; “all call together.”
We could hear several voices answering all together, “Here.”
“Keep shouting,” he called; “we’re coming. Is there any open land up
there?”
“No,” a voice said; “hurry!”
We followed the voices and pretty soon came to the observation station.
It was just a little shanty with a trestle-work wooden tower close to
it.
“Did you get ’phone connection yet?” Harry called as we came up.
“Guess the poles are burned down,” a fellow’s voice answered. “We can’t
even get Central. Have you got water?” he fairly wailed. “We’re going to
be burned alive! Have you got water?”
Inside were two girls and two young fellows.
One of the girls was wringing her hands and just sobbing, and the other
girl was trying to calm her down. She just kept crying, “It’s coming
nearer and nearer! What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?” One of the
fellows was all gone to pieces, too, and he just clutched Harry’s arm
and said, “Save us; can’t you save us?”
Harry just kind of threw him off. He said, “We’re here to save you if we
can, and die with you if we can’t. The first thing is, not to be a
coward. Remember, when the Titanic went down, the band was playing.
There have been a couple of million people killed in the last two years.
Who are you, to be standing here crying like a baby?”
Oh boy, that hit the girl if it didn’t hit the fellow. She just got up
and grabbed Harry by the hand and said, “I’m _not_ a coward. I _can_ be
brave.”
“All right,” he said; “we’ve got about eight minutes. Sit down and be
calm. These boys are scouts. Take a lesson from them.”
_Oh, didn’t I admire that fellow!_ I bet the girl did, too. Gee, you
couldn’t blame her.
“There ought to be some axes here,” he said; “hustle and turn things
over.”
[Illustration: WE CHOPPED AWAY THE BRUSH TO MAKE A LONG CLEAR SPACE]
Oh boy, it didn’t take us long to have that shanty inside out. We found
five axes.
“All right,” Harry said; “now we’ve got just one slim chance and it all
depends upon how fast we can work. We’ve got to chop down and tear up a
line of brush and start a fire back to meet the other one. Everybody get
busy-woman’s place is on the fire line; _hustle_!”
Oh boy, you should have seen that girl who had been crying. She just
grabbed an axe and wouldn’t give it up. Now this is the way we did, and
all the while that line of fire was coming along, nearer, nearer,
nearer. We chopped away the brush so as to make a long clear space about
ten or fifteen feet wide. Harry and three of the scouts and one of the
girls used the axes; because that girl just wouldn’t hand over the axe
and we couldn’t make her. And didn’t she turn out to be a regular Mrs.
Daniel Boone!
The rest of us threw the brush over toward the fire as fast as we could.
Some of the small bushes we just dragged up out of the earth. Some
hustling!
The fire was so near us now, that we could feel the heat good and strong
and sparks kept falling among us, so we had to keep stamping them out. I
don’t know how long it took us, but pretty soon we had a long, narrow
space cleared. I know my hands were bleeding. As fast as the brush was
chopped away, some of the fellows dragged it over toward where the fire
was, as near as they dared. That girl would go almost up to the blaze
and push a big clump of brush toward it and then run back. Her dress was
all torn, but she didn’t care.
Then we lighted the brush along the edge of the cleared space that was
nearest to the fire. If the wind had been blowing that way, the fire
would have moved right out to meet the other one. But it had to buck the
wind and that was bad. Anyway, the clearing we had made prevented it
from coming our way, but the sparks kept blowing across the clearing,
and we knew that all we had done was to check the fire long enough to
get another good head start away from it.
Believe _me_, we didn’t wait long.
Harry was panting so hard he could only just talk. “We’ve got to get
down the other side of the mountain,” he said, “I figure it’ll be about
ten minutes or so before the land this side of the clearing gets
started. The sparks’ll start it. The clearing isn’t wide enough and the
wind is wrong. Drop everything and follow me—quick.”
Then Will Dawson spoke up. He never talked very much, but he was a good
scout just the same. He was breathing so hard he just gulped. “Do either
of you girls or fellows know where the man who lived here got his water?
There must be water here somewheres or they wouldn’t have built the
house here.”
“We can’t stem this advance with spring water,” Harry said; “we’d need a
reservoir. Come on!”
“But if we could find the spring,” Will said, “we could follow the
trickle and get into a brook lower down. How are we going to find our
way down the other side of the mountain? It’s worse than this side. The
west side of the mountain is always worse.”
“The fire won’t climb down as fast is it climbs up,” Harry panted; “it
doesn’t work that way. The mountain itself acts as a wind shield. We’ve
got to get over the top blamed quick. I’ll find a way down. Don’t let’s
waste time here!”
Will just said, “The best trail in the world is a brook. It goes the
quickest way. If it takes us fifteen minutes to find the spring, even
then it’s best. It’s better than getting lost. The brook knows its way
and we don’t. Water is a scout.”
“Who says so?” Harry said, kind of impatient.
“Kit Carson said so,” Will said.
“Well, I guess you’re a pretty good scout, too,” Harry said; “hike
around, only _hustle!_”
* * * * *
In about two minutes we found the spring, about a hundred feet from the
house.
“Lucky it’s there,” one of those new fellows said.
“It had to be there,” Will answered him; “because people drink water.
Where there are people, there is water.”
Gee whiz, I never knew Will Dawson till that night. And I was mighty
proud that he was in my patrol, you can bet.
That girl said, “Isn’t he just _wonderful?_”
I said, “You’re wonderful, too, and I’d like to have you in my patrol.”
But, one thing, there wasn’t any time to talk, because the sparks were
blowing across the clearing and dropping all around the house. The fire
that we had started back toward the other one had cleared some land
between us and the blaze, but not enough.
The water from the spring trickled down over the rocks and we followed
it. It went through a kind of cavern on the top of the mountain, and
when we got through there, we could see plain enough that we were on the
west slope. The mountain wasn’t all down hill right there, but the
trickle of water flowed down through hollows and anybody could see now
that Will Dawson was right. He was right for three reasons.
First, because as long as we followed the brook there wouldn’t be any
going up and down, like there was climbing up the east side of the
mountain. Second, because it took us down the quickest way. And third,
because we’d always be near water. In some places we had to scramble
down steep precipices where the water fell, but we always managed it,
and every time we did that, we knew we were saving space.
After we got about half a mile, we could see points of flame up over the
top of the mountain and we knew the fire had reached the spot where we
had been. Harry said he guessed the shanty was on fire. Maybe it would
come down the east side a ways, we didn’t know, but anyway it wouldn’t
have such a breeze to drive it, and we were coming into open land, so we
should worry.
The west slope of that mountain was easy, once we got down a ways from
the top. That’s the way it is with most all the mountains near the
Hudson; the steep side faces the river. Pretty soon we were hiking
across pastures and then we came to a road. We didn’t bother with the
brook after we passed the steep part. I don’t know where it went, but it
did us a good turn, that’s one thing. Some fellows like fire better than
water, and I’m not saying anything against camp-fires. And I don’t say
that water is always a friend, either, because look at floods and things
like that. But I like water better.
Only, gee whiz, I don’t like it to rain in vacation.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WELCOME HOME
Now this chapter goes from the bottom of that mountain to the top of a
pineapple soda in Bennett’s. That’s in Bridgeboro where I live.
The first house we came to along the road we got the farmer up and told
him about the fire on the east side of Eagle’s Nest, and how we got away
from it. He asked us if it was very bad.
“Jiminetty!” I said, “I don’t know how bad it is, but I hope the eagles
up there have their nests insured.”
Harry asked him if he had a telephone and he said, “No.”
“We probably couldn’t get a number if you did,” Harry said; “the
telephone company reminds me of Rip Van Winkle; they seem to have gone
to sleep at the switch-board for twenty years. Have you got a flivver?”
We kind of knew he had, because they raise flivvers on all the farms up
that way. But he was a _regular_ farmer—he had a Packard, 1776 model.
And, believe me, we packed that Packard, and in ten minutes we were
rolling over the road that runs around the mountain, headed for
Haverstraw.
Harry kept talking to the girls; it was awful funny to hear him. Those
other two fellows didn’t have a chance at all. Gee, I was glad of it,
because what right did that fellow have to say I was just a kid? That
girl that helped us, said we were _just wonderful_. Cracky, I wouldn’t
say that we’re so smart, but when there’s a fire we don’t stand wringing
our hands as if they were a fire bell.
When we came into Haverstraw, we found the streets full of people,
everybody watching the fire on the mountain. We could see the east side
of Eagle’s Nest and the fire, just as plain as if it were all on a movie
screen. It seemed kind of funny, because while we were up there we never
thought about how it would look from the village. The fire was right up
on the top of the mountain now, with little patches in other places, and
we could see a great big burned space. I guess that was the very part we
had passed through on our way up.
I could see now, even better than before, the danger we had been in. I
guess everybody in the village thought we were dead, because when we
looked away up there it just seemed as if nobody could have escaped out
of all that.
“We went out the stage entrance,” Harry said, as the auto rolled up
along the main street; “sneaked through the back yard, hey?”
“Oh, I think you’re just _marvelous_!” one of the girls said.
Harry said to her, “Let it be a lesson to you never to throw a lighted
cigar away in the woods.”
“Oh, the _idea_!” she said; “I think you’re just horrid. I wouldn’t
touch a _horrid_ cigar!”
“Well, don’t throw a good one away, either,” Harry said; “the good ones
are just as bad.”
“Aren’t you _perfectly terrible_!” the other girl said.
But she didn’t think he was terrible.
* * * * *
Anyway, I knew from what he had said that the dark figure we had seen on
our way up was probably to blame for the whole business. Cracky, I’ve
got nothing to say against cigars, because my father smokes them, but
anyway, a cigar isn’t worth as much as a mountain, I should hope. And
you bet it was a lesson to us never to throw matches in the woods and
always to trample our camp-fires out before we turn in. But, jiminies, I
guess all scouts know that.
When we stopped at Judge Edwards’ house, a big crowd of people pressed
all around us wanting to know how we escaped. They said that men had
tried three times to get up the mountain, but were driven back by the
flames; they thought we were all dead.
Mrs. Edwards came running out calling, “_You’re not dead! You’re not
dead! Oh, you’re not dead!_”
Gee, anybody could see that.
She just threw her arms around her daughter and around the other girl
and around those two fellows. Oh boy, I thought I was in for it, too! I
don’t mind leopards and _what-is-its_, but nix on hugging and kissing.
Then Judge Edwards and Westy came out and, oh, I can’t tell you
everything that happened, because everybody was talking all at once.
Harry said it was a regular west front, all over again.
Mrs. Edwards made us all go into the house and have cake and hot coffee,
and just to show you how things happen, what kind of cake do you suppose
it was? I bet you can’t guess. Yum, yum—m—m, it was cocoanut frosted
cake.
And you can bet I thought about my sister Marjorie while I was eating
it. I had three helpings and home in Bridgeboro I would only have had
two, so that shows you that it’s worth while doing a good turn.
* * * * *
After that we didn’t have any more adventures. Good night, we had had
enough of them, that’s what _I_ said. We bunked in Judge Edwards’ house
and the overflow bunked in the barn, and the next morning we hit the
trail for home.
Believe me, we stuck to that trail as if it were a tight rope. Harry
said if any one of us looked right or left, he’d put blinders on us.
That night we camped near Nyack and early in the morning we said
good-bye to the Hudson and struck in southwest till we came to our own
little river—that’s the Bridgeboro River. At about four o’clock that
afternoon we went tramping over the River Road bridge and hit into Main
Street. Right on the corner was Bradly’s grocery wagon, and oh boy, it
looked good to me, because it proved we were back home. “_Bradly’s Cash
Grocery_,” Dorry said; “those are the three sweetest words in the
world.”
“Wrong the first time,” I said; “the three sweetest words in the world
are _Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery_.”
“Me for Bennett’s!” Charlie Seabury shouted.
“Same here!” Dorry piped up.
“Bennett’s or die!” screamed Ralph Warner.
“Lend me a dime, will you?” Tom Warner shouted at his brother.
“Lend me two dimes, somebody!” Bad Manners began howling.
Good night, it was some circus!
Harry said, “Come ahead, I’ll take you all to Bennett’s and treat you,
and I hope I’ll never get mixed up with this crew again. I’ve had
enough.”
“Hurrah for Harry Donnelle!” everybody yelled.
Cracky, everybody was staring at us and laughing as we went down Main
Street. We should worry.
In Bennett’s we all lined up and Harry told Mr. Bennett to please put
arsenic or carbolic acid or some other nice flavoring in our sodas;
something to keep us quiet.
I ordered a pineapple soda and yum, yum-m-m, didn’t that first spoonful
of ice cream taste good.
CHAPTER XL
MMM—MM-M-M!
This is the last chapter and it’s very short. Maybe you’ll say that’s
one good thing. But it’s a good one just the same. It’s a peach—I mean
a pineapple. It’s the best chapter I ever wrote. It goes from the top of
the glass to the bottom of the glass. And that’s the end of the story.
So even if the story’s no good, it has a good ending. It had a good
beginning, too. Harry Donnelle said there should be a special chapter
about that soda.
Of course, there were seven other sodas, too. I don’t mean that I drank
seven more. But mine is the best one to end with, because I always go
right down to the bottom of the glass. The bottom is the only thing that
stops me.
So that’s the way it is with this story. It has a happy ending. It bunks
right into the bottom of the glass. The plot is all cleared up. So is
the glass. There’s nothing left to tell—or to drink.
Harry Donnelle said if I didn’t look out I’d scrape the polish off the
glass with my spoon.
I should worry, a scout is thorough.
So long.
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