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+Project Gutenberg's Tom Slade on Mystery Trail, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Tom Slade on Mystery Trail
+
+Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+
+Release Date: April 15, 2006 [EBook #18180]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SLADE ON MYSTERY TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+TOM SLADE
+
+ON MYSTERY TRAIL
+
+BY
+
+PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
+
+
+_Author of_
+
+TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP, ROY BLAKELEY, ETC.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+R. EMMETT OWEN
+
+
+Published with the approval of
+
+THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+
+           I THE THREE SCOUTS                            1
+
+          II ANOTHER SCOUT                               4
+
+         III THE "ALL BUT" SCOUT                        10
+
+          IV HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING                    15
+
+           V WHAT'S IN A NAME?                          26
+
+          VI THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT                    31
+
+         VII THE STREAK OF RED                          35
+
+        VIII EAGLE AND SCOUT                            38
+
+          IX TO INTRODUCE ORESTES                       44
+
+           X OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, ON WITH THE NEW     48
+
+          XI OFF ON A NEW TACK                          57
+
+         XII AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT                      62
+
+        XIII THE STRANGE TRACKS                         67
+
+         XIV HERVEY'S TRIUMPH                           72
+
+          XV SKINNY'S TRIUMPH                           77
+
+         XVI IN DUTCH                                   83
+
+        XVII HERVEY GOES HIS WAY                        91
+
+       XVIII THE DAY BEFORE                             96
+
+         XIX THE GALA DAY                              102
+
+          XX UNCLE JEB                                 109
+
+         XXI THE FULL SALUTE                           113
+
+        XXII TOM RUNS THE SHOW                         119
+
+       XXIII PEE-WEE SETTLES IT                        123
+
+        XXIV THE RED STREAK                            132
+
+         XXV THE PATH OF GLORY                         141
+
+        XXVI MYSTERIOUS MARKS                          147
+
+       XXVII THE GREATER MYSTERY                       152
+
+      XXVIII WATCHFUL WAITING                          156
+
+        XXIX THE WANDERING MINSTREL                    161
+
+         XXX HERVEY MAKES A PROMISE                    169
+
+        XXXI SHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES                    175
+
+       XXXII THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY              179
+
+      XXXIII THE CLIMB                                 185
+
+       XXXIV THE RESCUE                                188
+
+     CHAPTER THE LAST. Y-EXTRA! Y-EXTRA! Y-EXTRA!      194
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TOM SLADE
+
+ON MYSTERY TRAIL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE THREE SCOUTS
+
+
+At Temple Camp you may hear the story told of how Llewellyn, scout of
+the first class, and Orestes, winner of the merit badges for
+architecture and for music, were by their scouting skill and lore
+instrumental in solving a mystery and performing a great good turn.
+
+You may hear how these deft and cunning masters of the wood and the
+water circumvented the well laid plans of evil men and cooeperated with
+their brother scouts in a good scout stunt, which brought fame to the
+quiet camp community in its secluded hills.
+
+For one, as you shall see, is the bulliest tracker that ever picked his
+way down out of a tangled wilderness and through field and over hill
+straight to his goal.
+
+And the other is a famous gatherer of clews, losing sight of no
+significant trifle, as the scout saying is, and a star scout into the
+bargain, if we are to believe Pee-wee Harris. I am not so sure that the
+ten merit badges of bugling, craftsmanship, architecture, aviation,
+carpentry, camping, forestry, music, pioneering and signaling should be
+awarded this sprightly scout (for Pee-wee is as liberal with awards as
+he is with gum-drops). But there can be no question as to the propriety
+of the music and architecture awards, and I think that the aviation
+award would be quite appropriate also.
+
+Yet if you should ask old Uncle Jeb Rushmore, beloved manager of the big
+scout camp, about these two scout heroes, a shrewd twinkle would appear
+in his eye and he would refer you to the boys, who would probably only
+laugh at you, for they are a bantering set at Temple Camp and would
+jolly the life out of Daniel Boone himself if that redoubtable woodsman
+were there.
+
+Listen then while I tell you of how Tom Slade, friend and brother of
+these two scouts, as he is of all scouts, assisted them, and of how they
+assisted him; and of how, out of these reciprocal good turns, there came
+true peace and happiness, which is the aim and end of all scouting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ANOTHER SCOUT
+
+
+It was characteristic of Tom Slade that he liked to go off alone
+occasionally for a ramble in the woods. It was not that he liked the
+scouts less, but rather that he liked the woods more. It was his wont to
+stroll off when his camp duties for the day were over and poke around in
+the adjacent woods.
+
+The scouts knew and respected his peculiarities and preferences,
+particularly those who were regular summer visitors at the big camp, and
+few ever followed him into his chosen haunts. Occasionally some new
+scout, tempted by the pervading reputation and unique negligee of Uncle
+Jeb's young assistant, ventured to follow him and avail himself of the
+tips and woods lore with which the more experienced scout's
+conversation abounded when he was in a talking mood. But Tom was a sort
+of creature apart and the boys of camp, good scouts that they were, did
+not intrude upon his lonely rambles.
+
+The season was well nigh over at Temple Camp when this thing happened.
+Not over exactly, but the period of arrivals had passed and the period
+of departures would begin in a day or two--as soon as the events with
+which the season culminated were over.
+
+These were the water events, the tenderfoot carnival (not to be missed
+on any account) and the big affair at the main pavilion when awards were
+to be made. This last, in particular, would be a gala demonstration, for
+Mr. John Temple himself, founder of the big scout camp, had promised to
+be on hand to dedicate the new tract of camp property and personally to
+distribute the awards.
+
+These events would break the backbone of the camping season, high
+schools and grammar schools would presently beckon their reluctant
+conscripts back to town and city, until, in the pungent chill of autumn,
+old Uncle Jeb, alone among the boarded-up cabins, would smoke his pipe
+in solitude and get ready for the long winter.
+
+It was late on Thursday afternoon. The last stroke of the last hammer,
+where scouts had been erecting a rustic platform outside the pavilion,
+had echoed from the neighboring hills. The usually still water of the
+lake was rippled by the refreshing breeze which heralded a cooler
+evening, and the first rays of dying sunlight painted the ripples
+golden, and bathed the cone-like tops of the fir trees across the lake
+with a crimson glow.
+
+Out of the chimney of the cooking shack arose the smoke of early
+promise, from which the scouts deduced various conclusions as to the
+probable character of the meal which would appear in all its luscious
+glory a couple of hours later.
+
+A group of scouts, weary of diving, were strung along the springboard
+which overhung the shore. A couple of boys played mumbly-peg under the
+bulletin board tree. Several were playing ball with an apple, until one
+of them began eating it, which put an end to the game. Half a dozen of
+the older boys, who had been at work erecting the platform, sauntered
+toward the scrub shack, leaving one or two to festoon the bunting over
+the stand where the colors shone as if they had been varnished by that
+master decorator, the sun, as a last finishing touch to his sweltering
+day's work. The emblem patrol sauntered over to the flag pole and
+sprawled beneath it to rest and await the moment of sunset. Several
+canoes moved aimlessly upon the glinting water, their occupants idling
+with the paddles. It was the time of waiting, the empty hour or two
+between the day's end and supper-time.
+
+Upon a rock near the lake sat a little fellow, quite alone. He was very
+small and very thin, and his belt was drawn ridiculously tight, so that
+it gave his khaki jacket the effect of being shirred like the top of a
+cloth bag. If he had been standing, he might have suggested, not a
+little, the shape of an old-fashioned hour glass. A brass compass
+dangled around his neck on a piece of twine as if, being so small, he
+was in danger of getting lost any minute. His hair was black and very
+streaky, and his eyes had a strange brightness in them.
+
+No one paid any attention to this little gnome of a boy, and he was a
+pathetic sight sitting there with his intense gaze, having just a touch
+of wildness in it, fixed upon the lake. Doubtless if his scout regalia
+had fitted him properly he would not have seemed so pathetic, for it is
+not uncommon for a scout to want to be alone in the great companionable
+wilderness.
+
+Suddenly, this little fellow's gaze was withdrawn from the lake and fell
+upon something which seemed to interest him right at his feet. He slid
+down from the rock and examined it closely. His poor little thin figure
+and skinny legs were very noticeable then. But he picked up nothing,
+only kneeled there, apparently in a state of great excitement and
+elation.
+
+Presently, he started away, looked back, as if he was afraid his
+discovery would take advantage of his absence to steal away. Again he
+started, hurrying around the edge of the cooking shack and to the little
+avenue of patrol cabins beyond. As he hurried along, the big brass
+compass flopped about and sometimes banged against his belt buckle,
+making quite a noise. Several boys laughed as he passed them, trotting
+along as if possessed by a vision. But no one stopped him or spoke to
+him.
+
+In the patrol cabin where he belonged, he rooted in great haste and
+excitement among the contents of a cheap pasteboard suit case and
+presently pulled out a torn and battered old copy of the scout handbook.
+He sat down on the edge of his cot and, hurriedly looking through the
+index, opened the book at page thirty. He was breathing so hard that he
+almost gulped, and his thin little hands trembled visibly....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE "ALL BUT" SCOUT
+
+
+In that same hour, perhaps a little earlier or later, I cannot say, Tom
+Slade, having finished his duties for the day, strolled along the lake
+shore away from camp and struck into the woods which extended northward
+as far as the Dansville road.
+
+He had no notion of where he was going; he was going nowhere in
+particular. For aught I know he was going to ponder on the
+responsibility which had been thrust upon him by the scout powers that
+be, of judging stalking photographs preliminary to awarding the Audubon
+prize offered by the historical society in his home town. Perhaps he was
+under the influence of a little pensive regret that the season was
+coming to an end and wished to have this lonely parting with his
+beloved hills and trees. It is of no consequence. About all he actually
+did was to kick a stick along before him and pause now and again to
+examine the caked green moss on trees.
+
+When he had reached a little eminence whence the view behind him was
+unobstructed, he turned and looked down upon the camp. Perhaps in that
+brief glimpse the whole panorama of his adventurous life spread before
+him in his mind's eye, and he saw the vicious little hoodlum that he had
+once been transformed into a scout, pass through the several ranks of
+scouting, grow up, go to war, and come back to be assistant at the camp
+where he had spent so many happy hours when he was a young boy.
+
+And now there was not one thing down there, nor shack nor cabin nor
+shooting range nor boat nor canoe, nor hero's elm (as they called it),
+nor Gold Cross Rock, which had the same romantic interest as had this
+young fellow to the scouts who came in droves and watched him and
+listened to the talk about him and dreamed of being just such a real
+scout as he. He moved about unconsciously among them, simple,
+childlike, stolid, but with a kind of assurance and serenity which he
+may have learned from the woods.
+
+He was singularly oblivious to the superficial appurtenances of
+scouting. He had passed through that stage. The pomp and vanity of the
+tenderfoot he knew not. The bespangled dignity of the second-class and
+first-class scout, these things he had known and outgrown. His medals
+were home somewhere. And out of all this alluring rigmarole and romantic
+glory were left the deeper marks of scout training, burned into his soul
+as the mark is burned into the skin of a broncho. The woods, the trees,
+were his. That, after all, is the highest award in scouting. It is a
+medal that one does not lose, and it lasts forever.
+
+As Tom Slade stood there looking down upon the camp, one might have seen
+in him the last and fullest accomplishment of scouting, stripped of all
+else. His face was the color of a mulatto. He wore no scout hat, he wore
+no hat at all. It would have been quite superfluous for him to have worn
+any of his thirty or forty merit badges of fond memory on his sleeves,
+for his sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders. He wore a pongee
+shirt, this being a sort of compromise between a shirt and nothing at
+all. He wore moccasins, but not Indian moccasins. He was still partial
+to khaki trousers, and these were worn with a strange contraption for a
+belt; it was a kind of braided fiber of his own manufacture, the
+material of which was said to have been taken from a string tree.
+
+As he resumed his way through the woods he presently heard a cheery, but
+rather exhausted, voice behind him.
+
+"Have a heart, Slady, and wait a minute, will you?" Tom's pursuer
+called. "I'm nearly dead climbing up through all this jungle after you.
+Old Mother Nature's got herself into a fine mess of a tangle through
+here, hey? Don't mind if I come along with you, do you? Look down there,
+hey? Pavilion looks nice. I've been wondering if I stand any chance of
+being called up on that platform on Saturday night. Looks swell with all
+the bunting over it, doesn't it?"
+
+The speaker, who had been half talking and half shouting, now came
+stumbling and panting up over the edge of the wooded decline where the
+thick brush had played havoc with his scout suit but not with his
+temper.
+
+"Some climb, hey?" he breathed, laughing, and affecting the stagger of
+utter exhaustion. "I bet you knew an easier way up. The bunch told me
+not to beard the lion in his den, but I'm not afraid of lions. Here I am
+and you can't get rid of me now. I'm up against it, Slady, and I want a
+few tips. They say you're the only real scout since Kit Carson. What I'm
+hunting for is a wild animal, but I haven't been able to find anything
+except a cricket, two beetles and a cow that belongs on the Hasbrook
+farm. Don't mind if I stroll along with you a little way, do you? My
+name is Willetts--Hervey Willetts. I'm with that troop from
+Massachusetts. I'm an Eagle Scout--_all but_."
+
+"But's a pretty big word," Tom said.
+
+"You said it," Hervey Willetts said, still wrestling with his breath;
+"it's the biggest word in the dictionary."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING
+
+
+They strolled on through the woods together, the younger boy's gayety
+and enthusiasm showing in pleasing contrast to Tom's stolid manner.
+
+He was a wholesome, vivacious boy, this Willetts, with a breeziness
+which seemed to captivate even his sober companion, and if Tom had felt
+any slight annoyance at being thus overhauled by a comparative stranger,
+the feeling quickly passed in the young scout's cheery company.
+
+"They told me down in camp that if I need a guide, philosopher, and
+friend, I'd better run you down, or up----"
+
+"If you'd gone a little to the left you'd have found it easier," Tom
+said, in his usual matter-of-fact manner.
+
+"Oh, I suppose you know all the highways and byways and right ways and
+left ways and every which ways for miles and miles around," Hervey
+Willetts said. "I guess they were right when they said you'd be a good
+guide, philosopher, and friend, hey?"
+
+"I don't know what a philosopher is," Tom said, with characteristic
+blunt honesty, "but I know all the trails around here, if that's what
+you're talking about."
+
+"Oh, you mean about guides?" Hervey asked, just a trifle puzzled.
+"That's an expression, _guide, philosopher, and friend_. It comes from
+Shakespeare or one of those old ginks; it means a kind of a moral guide,
+I suppose."
+
+"Oh," said Tom.
+
+"But I need, I need, I need, I need a friend," Hervey said.
+
+"You seem to have lots of friends down there," Tom said.
+
+"A scout is observant, hey?" Willetts laughed.
+
+"I mean you always seem to have a lot of fellows with you," Tom said,
+ignoring the compliment. "Everybody likes your troop, that's sure. And
+your troop seems to be stuck on _you_."
+
+"_Good night!_" Hervey laughed. "They won't be stuck on me after
+Saturday. That'll be the end of my glorious career."
+
+"What did you do?" Tom asked, after his customary fashion of construing
+talk literally.
+
+"Oh, I didn't exactly commit a murder," the other laughed, "but I fell
+down, Sla--you don't mind my calling you Slady, do you?"
+
+"That's what most everybody calls me," Tom said, "except the troop I was
+in. They call me Tomasso."
+
+"Sounds like tomato, hey?" Hervey laughed. "No, my troubles are about
+merit badges. I've bungled the whole thing up. When a fellow goes after
+the Eagle award, he ought to have a manager, that's what I say. He ought
+to have a manager to plan things out for him. I tried to manage my own
+campaign and now I'm stuck--with a capital S."
+
+"How many merits have you got?" Tom asked him.
+
+"Twenty," Hervey said, "twenty and two-thirds. Just a fraction more and
+I'd have gone over the top."
+
+"You mean a sub-division?" Tom asked.
+
+"That's where the little _but_ comes in," Hervey said. "B-u-t, but. It's
+a big word, all right, just as you said."
+
+"Is it architecture or cooking or interpreting or one of those?" Tom
+asked.
+
+Hervey glanced at Tom in frank surprise.
+
+"Maybe it's leather work, or machinery, or taxidermy or marksmanship,"
+Tom continued, with no thought further from his mind than that of
+showing off.
+
+"Guess again," Hervey laughed.
+
+"Then it must be either music or stalking," Tom said, dully.
+
+His companion paused in his steps, contemplating Tom with unconcealed
+amazement. "Right-o," he said; "it's stalking. What are you? A mind
+reader?"
+
+"Those are the only ones that have three tests," Tom said. "So if you
+have twenty merits and two-thirds of a merit, why, you must be trying
+for one of those. Maybe they've changed it since I looked at the
+handbook."
+
+Hervey Willetts stood just where he had stopped, looking at Tom with
+admiration. In his astonishment he glanced at Tom's arm as if he
+expected to see upon it the tangible evidences of his companion's feats
+and accomplishments. But the only signs of scouting which he saw there
+were the brown skin and the firm muscles.
+
+"They change that book every now and then," Tom said.
+
+Still Hervey continued to look. "What's that belt made out of?" he
+asked.
+
+"It's fiber from a string tree," Tom said; "they grow in Lorraine in
+France."
+
+"Were you in France?"
+
+"Two years," Tom said.
+
+"How many merit badges have you got, anyway, Mr.--Slady?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Tom said; "about thirty or thirty-five, I guess."
+
+"You _guess?_ I bet you've got the Gold Cross. Where is it?" Hervey made
+a quick inspection of Tom's pongee shirt, but all he saw there was the
+front with buttons gone and the brown chest showing.
+
+"I couldn't pin it on there very well, could I?" Tom said, lured by his
+companion's eagerness into a little show of amusement.
+
+"Where is it?" Hervey demanded.
+
+"I'm letting a girl wear it," Tom said.
+
+"Oh, what I know about _you!_" Hervey said, teasingly. "You can bet if I
+ever get the Gold Cross or the Eagle Badge (which I won't this trip) no
+girl will ever wear them."
+
+"You can't be so sure about that," said Tom, out of his larger worldly
+experience, "sometimes they take them away from you."
+
+"You're a funny fellow," Hervey said, while his gaze still expressed his
+generous impulse of hero-worship. "I guess I seem like just a sort of
+kid to you with my twenty merits--twenty and two-thirds. Maybe some girl
+is wearing your Distinguished Service Cross, for all I know. But we
+fellows are crazy to have the Eagle award in our troop. I suppose of
+course you're an Eagle Scout?"
+
+"I guess that was about three or four years ago," Tom said.
+
+"Once a scout, always a scout, hey?"
+
+"That's it," Tom said.
+
+They strolled along in silence for a few minutes, Hervey occasionally
+stealing a side glimpse at his elder, who ambled on, apparently
+unconscious of these admiring glances. Now and again Tom paused to
+examine a patch of moss or some little tell-tale mark upon the ground,
+as if he had no knowledge of his companion's presence. But Hervey
+appeared quite satisfied.
+
+"I'll tell you how it is," he finally said, selecting what seemed an
+appropriate moment to speak; "I was elected as the one in our troop to
+go after the Eagle award. We want an Eagle Scout in our troop. We
+haven't even got one in the city where I live."
+
+"Hear that?" Tom said. "That's a thrush."
+
+"A thrush?"
+
+"Yop; go on," Tom said.
+
+"So they elected me to win the Eagle award. Some choice, hey? I had
+seven badges to begin with; maybe that's why they wished it onto me. I
+had camping, cooking, athletics, pioneering, angling, that's a cinch,
+that's easy, and, let's see--carpentry and bugling. That's the easiest
+one of the lot, just blow through the cornet and claim the badge. It's a
+shame to take it."
+
+"You mean you've won thirteen more since you've been here?" Tom asked.
+
+"That's it," said Hervey. "First I got my fists on the eleven that have
+_got_ to be included in the twenty-one, and then I made up a list of ten
+others and went to it. I chose easy ones, but some of them didn't turn
+out to be so easy. Music--oh, boy! And when I started to play the piano,
+they said I wasn't playing at all, but that I really meant it. Can you
+beat that?"
+
+Tom could not help smiling.
+
+"So you see I've been pretty busy since I've been here, too busy to talk
+to interviewers, hey? I've piled up thirteen since I've been here;
+that's a little over six weeks. That isn't so bad, is it?"
+
+"It's good," Tom said, by no means carried away by enthusiasm.
+
+"I thought you'd say so. So now I've got twenty and I know them all by
+heart. Want to hear me stand up in front of the class and say them?"
+
+"All right," Tom said.
+
+"No sooner said than stung," Hervey flung back at him. "Well, I've got
+first aid, physical development, life saving, personal health, public
+health, cooking, camping, bird study----"
+
+"That's a good one," Tom said.
+
+"You said it; and I've got pioneering, pathfinding, athletics, and then
+come the ten that I selected myself; angling, bugling, carpentry,
+conservation or whatever you call it, and cycling and firemanship and
+music hath charms, not, and seamanship and signaling. And two-thirds of
+the stalking badge. I bet you'll say that's a good one."
+
+"There's one good one that you left out," Tom said. "I thought you'd
+think of it on account of that last one."
+
+"You mean stalking?"
+
+"I mean another that has something to do with that?"
+
+"Now you've got me guessing," Hervey said.
+
+"Well, how do you want me to help you?" Tom asked, thus stifling his
+companion's inquisitiveness.
+
+"Well," said Hervey, ready, even eager to adapt himself to Tom's mood,
+"all I've got to do is to track an animal for a half a mile or so----"
+
+"A quarter of a mile," Tom said.
+
+"And then I'm an Eagle Scout," Hervey concluded. "But if I want to be in
+on the hand-outs Saturday night, I've got to do it between now and
+Saturday, and that's what has me worried. I want to go home from here
+an Eagle Scout. Gee, I don't want all my work to go for nothing."
+
+"You want what you want when you want it, don't you?" Tom said, smiling
+a little.
+
+"It's on account of my troop, too," Hervey said. "It isn't just myself
+that I'm thinking about. Jiminies, maybe I didn't choose the best ones,
+you know more about the handbook than I do, that's sure, and I suppose
+that one badge was just as easy as another to _you_. Maybe you think I
+just chose easy ones, hey?"
+
+"Well, what's on your mind?" Tom said.
+
+"Do you know where there are any wild animal tracks?" Hervey blurted out
+with amusing simplicity. "I don't mean just exactly where, but do you
+know a good place to hunt for any? A couple of fellows told me you would
+know, because you know everything of that sort. So I thought maybe you
+could give me a tip where to look. I found a horseshoe last night so
+maybe I'll be lucky. All I want is to get started on a trail."
+
+"Sometimes there are different trails and they take you to the same
+place," Tom said.
+
+No doubt this was one of the sort of remarks that Tom was famous for
+making which had either no particular meaning or a meaning poorly
+expressed.
+
+Hervey stared at him for a few seconds, then said, "I don't care whether
+it's easy or hard, if that's what you mean. Is it true that there are
+wild cats up in these mountains?"
+
+"Some," Tom said.
+
+"Well, if you were in my place, where would you go to look for a trail?
+I mean a real trail, not a cow or a horse or Chocolate Drop's kitten.
+[Chocolate Drop was the negro cook at Temple Camp.] If I can just dig
+up the trail of a wild animal somewhere, right away quick, the Eagle
+award is mine--ours. See? Can you give me a tip?"
+
+Tom's answer was characteristic of him and it was not altogether
+satisfactory.
+
+"I'm not so stuck on eagles," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WHAT'S IN A NAME?
+
+
+"_You're not?_" Hervey asked in puzzled dismay. "You can bet that every
+time I look at that little old gold eagle on top of the flag pole I say,
+'Me for you, kiddo.'"
+
+"I like Star Scout better," Tom said, unmoved by his companion's
+consternation.
+
+"Why, that means only ten merit badges," Hervey said.
+
+"It's fun studying the stars," Tom added.
+
+"Oh, sure," Hervey agreed. "But star and eagle, they're just names.
+What's in a name, hey? Is that the badge you meant that I forgot about?
+The astronomy badge?"
+
+"No, it isn't," Tom said. "You're too excitable to study the stars. It's
+got to be something livelier."
+
+"You've got me down pat, that's sure," Hervey laughed.
+
+Tom smiled, too. "Well, you want the Eagle badge, do you?" he said.
+
+"You seem to think it doesn't amount to much," Hervey complained.
+
+"I think it amounts to a whole lot," Tom said.
+
+"When I get my mind on a thing----" Hervey announced.
+
+"That's the trouble with you," Tom said.
+
+"There you go," Hervey shot back at him; "you've been through the game
+and walked away with every honor in the book, and you know the book by
+heart and you can track with your eyes shut and you've been to France
+and all that and you think I'm just a kid, but it means something to be
+an Eagle Scout, I can tell you."
+
+Doubtless Tom Slade, scout, was gratified to receive this valuable
+information. "And there's just the one way to get there, is that it?" he
+answered quietly, but smiling a little. "I always heard that a scout was
+resourceful and had two strings to his bow."
+
+"You just give me a tip and I'll do the rest," said Hervey.
+
+"It must be about tracking, hey?"
+
+"That's it; test three for the stalking badge. _Track an animal a
+quarter of a mile._"
+
+"Well, let me think a minute, then," Tom said.
+
+"Up on that mountain, maybe, hey?" Hervey urged.
+
+"Maybe," Tom said.
+
+So they ambled along, the elder quite calm and thoroughly master of
+himself, the younger, all impulse, eagerness and enthusiasm. His
+generous admiration of Tom, amounting almost to a spirit of worship, was
+plainly to be seen. It would have been hard to say how Tom felt or what
+he thought. At all events he had not been jostled out of his stolid
+calm.
+
+"Did you ever hear any one say that there is more than one way to kill a
+cat?" he finally inquired, pausing to notice some bird or squirrel among
+the trees.
+
+"I don't want to kill a cat," Hervey said. "I want to find some tracks,
+I----"
+
+"You want to be an Eagle Scout," Tom concluded; "and you've got your
+mind set on it. That it?"
+
+"That's it; but it's for the sake of my troop, too."
+
+Still again, they strolled on in silence. A little twig cracked under
+Tom's foot, the crackle sounding clear in the solemn stillness. Some
+feathered creature chirped complainingly at the rude intrusion of its
+domain by these strangers. And, almost under their very feet, a tiny
+snake wriggled across the trail and was gone. The shadows were gathering
+now, and the fragrance of evening was beginning to permeate the dim
+woods. And all the respectable home-loving birds were seeking their
+nests.
+
+And so these two strolled on, and for a few minutes neither spoke.
+
+"Well then, suppose I give you a tip," Tom said. "Will you promise that
+you'll make good? You claim to be a scout. You say that when you get
+your mind set on a thing, nothing can stop you. That the idea?"
+
+"That's it," Hervey answered.
+
+"You wouldn't drop a trail after you once picked it up, would you? Some
+animals take you pretty far."
+
+"You bet nothing would stop _me_ if I once got the tracks," Hervey said.
+"I wouldn't care if they took me across the Desert of Sahara or over the
+Rocky Mountains."
+
+"Hang on like a bulldog, hey?" Tom said.
+
+"That's me," said Hervey.
+
+"All right, it's a go," Tom concluded. "I'll see if I can give you a
+pointer or two down near camp in the morning. Ever follow a
+woodchuck--or a coon? Only I don't want any badge-getter falling down on
+a trail, if I'm mixed up with it. That's one thing I can't stand--a
+quitter."
+
+"I wouldn't anyway," Hervey said with great fervor; "but as long as I've
+got you and what you said to think about, you can bet your sweet life
+that not even a--a--a jungle would stop me--it wouldn't."
+
+"That's the kind of a fellow they want for an Eagle Scout," Tom said;
+"do or die."
+
+"That's me," said Hervey Willetts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT
+
+
+And so these two strolled on. And presently they came to a point where
+the wood was more sparse, for they were approaching the rugged lower
+ledges of a mighty mountain, and the last rays of the dying sun fell
+upon the rocks and scantier vegetation of this clearer area, emphasizing
+the solemn darkness of the wooded ascent beyond.
+
+Few, even of the scouts, had ever penetrated the enshrouding wilderness
+of that dizzy, forbidding height. There were strange tales, usually told
+to tenderfeet around the camp-fire, of mysterious hermits and ferocious
+bears and half-savage men who lurked high up in those all but
+inaccessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had ever
+ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.
+
+At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour
+of yarn telling, the seasoned habitues of the camp would direct the eye
+of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain,
+and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had
+challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to
+war and had never been able to find his way down again--a quite just
+punishment for his cowardice. But time and again this freakish glint of
+light had been proven to be the reflection of that very camp-fire upon a
+huge rock lodged up there and held by interlacing roots.
+
+Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a
+great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake seemed
+a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.
+
+"I bet there are wild animals up there," Hervey said.
+
+"Here's one of them now," commented Tom, pointing upward.
+
+High above them in the dusk and with a background of golden-edged
+clouds, which gave the sun's last parting message to the earth, a great
+bird hovered motionless. It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread.
+Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop. In less than ten seconds,
+as it seemed to Hervey, its body and great wings, and even its curved,
+cruel beak, were plainly visible circling a few yards above the tree. It
+seemed like a journey from the heavens to the earth, all in an instant.
+
+"Watch him, watch him," Hervey whispered.
+
+But Tom was not watching him at all. He knew what that savage descent
+meant and he was looking for its cause. Stealthily, with no more sound
+than that of a gliding canoe, he stole to the trunk of the tree and
+looked about with quick, short, scrutinizing glances, away up among its
+branches.
+
+Then he placed his finger to his lips, warning Hervey to silence, and
+beckoned him into the darker shadow under the great tree.
+
+"Did you see anything beside the bird?" he whispered.
+
+"No," said Hervey. "Why? What is it?"
+
+"Shh," Tom said; "look up--shh----"
+
+It was the most fateful moment of all Hervey Willetts' scout career, and
+he did not know it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE STREAK OF RED
+
+
+"Look up there," Tom said; "out near the end of the third branch. See?
+The little codger beat him to it."
+
+Looking up, Hervey saw amid the thicker foliage, far removed from the
+stately trunk, something hanging from a leaf-covered branch. Even as he
+looked at it, it seemed to be swaying as if from a recent jolt. At first
+glimpse he thought it was a bat hanging there.
+
+"See it?" Tom said, pointing up. "You can see it by the little streak of
+red. I think the little codgers head is poking out. Some scare she had."
+
+Then all in an instant Hervey knew. It seemed incredible that the great
+bird, hovering at that dizzy height, could have seen the little
+songster of the woods which even he and Tom had failed to see. And the
+thought of that smaller bird reaching its home just in time, and poking
+its head out of the opening to see if all was well, went to Hervey's
+heart and stirred a sudden anger within him.
+
+"I didn't know they could see all that distance," he said.
+
+"Well, that's one thing you've learned that you didn't know before," Tom
+said in his matter-of-fact way.
+
+Scarcely had he spoken the words when the foliage above shook and there
+was a loud rustling and crackling of branches, while many leaves and
+twigs fell to the ground.
+
+The monarch of the mountain crags, having circled the elm, had found a
+way in where the foliage was least dense, and had thus with irresistible
+power carried the outer defenses of that little hanging citadel.
+
+And still the little streak of red showed up there in the dimness of
+those invaded branches, and one might have fancied it to be the colors
+of the besieged victim, flaunting still in a kind of hopeless defiance.
+Down out of the green twilight above floated a feather, then
+another--trifling losses of the conqueror in his triumphal entry.
+
+"You're not going to get away with that," said Hervey in a voice tense
+with wrath and grim determination; "you're--you're--not----"
+
+What happened then happened so quickly as almost to rival the descent of
+the destroyer in lightning movement. Before Tom Slade realized what had
+happened, there was Hervey's khaki jacket on the ground, his discarded
+hat was blowing away, and his navy blue scout scarf was plastered by the
+freshening breeze flat against the trunk of the tree.
+
+Hervey Willetts, who had dreamed and striven all through the vacation
+season of "capturing the Eagle," as they say, was on his quest in dead
+earnest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EAGLE AND SCOUT
+
+
+Up, up, he went, now reaching like a monkey, now wriggling like a snake.
+Now he loosed one hand to sweep back the hair which fell over his
+forehead. Again, unable to release his hold, he threw his head back to
+shake away the annoying locks. Tom Slade, stolid though he was, watched
+him, thrilled with amazement and admiration.
+
+The great bird was embarrassed in the confines of the foliage by its big
+wings. But the freedom and strength of its cruel beak and talons were
+unimpaired and every second brought it nearer to the hanging nest.
+
+But every second brought also the scout nearer to the hanging nest. Up,
+up he went, now straddling some bending limb, now swinging himself with
+lightning agility to one above. Once, crawling on a horizontal branch,
+he slid over and hung beneath it, like an opossum.
+
+Twisting and wriggling his way out of this predicament, he scrambled on,
+handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and
+hanging by one hand.
+
+Tom Slade watched spellbound, as the agile form ascended, using every
+physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost
+shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some
+perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning,
+but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young
+dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of
+the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting
+advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching
+the nest before the eagle, or in the more serious contingency of an
+encounter with that armed warrior.
+
+For, thrilled as he was at the young scout's agility and fine abandon,
+he was yet doubtful of Hervey's power of deliberation and presence of
+mind. But no one could advise a creature capable of being carried away
+in a very frenzy of nervous enthusiasm, and Tom, sober and sensible,
+knew this. Hervey Willetts would do this thing or crash his brains out,
+one or the other, and no one could help or hinder him.
+
+Amid the crackling sound of breaking limbs and a shower of leaves and
+smaller twigs, the mighty bird of prey, extricating himself from every
+obstacle, tore his way into the leafy recess where his little victim
+waited, trembling. Every branch seemed agitated by his ruthless,
+irresistible advance, and the hanging nest swayed upon its slender
+branch, as the cruel talons of the intruder fixed themselves in the
+yielding bark. The weight of the monster bird upon the very branch which
+his little victim had chosen for a home caused it to bend almost to the
+breaking point, and the hanging nest, agitated by the shock, swung low
+near the end of the curving bough.
+
+[Illustration: HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE.
+
+_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 42]
+
+That was bad strategy on the part of the invader. As the end of the
+bough descended under his weight, there was the appalling sound of a
+splitting branch, which made Tom Slade's blood run cold, and he held his
+breath in frightful suspense, expecting to see the form of his young
+friend come crashing to earth.
+
+But the boy who had ventured out so far upon that straining branch had
+swung free of it just in time, and was swinging from the branch above.
+The great bird had played into the hands of his dexterous enemy when he
+had placed his weight upon the branch above, from which the nest hung.
+
+Hervey could not have trusted his own weight upon that upper branch, and
+he knew it. But even had he dared to do this he could not have passed
+the enraged bird who stood guard within a yard or two of his little
+victim. When the weight of the bird's great body bent the branch down,
+Hervey, close in toward the trunk just below, saw his chance. He did not
+see the danger.
+
+Scrambling out upon that slender branch, he moved cautiously but with
+beating heart, out to a point where the bending branch above was within
+his reach. If the eagle had left the branch above, that branch would
+have swung out of Hervey's reach and he would have gone crashing to the
+ground when his own branch broke. He knew that branch must break under
+him. He knew, he _must_ have known, that the chances were at least even
+that the eagle would desert the branch above in either assault or
+flight.
+
+Hervey's chance was the chance of a moment, and it lay just in this: in
+getting far enough out on the branch before it broke to catch the branch
+above before it sprang up and away from him. Also he must trust to the
+slightly heavier branch above not breaking.
+
+It would be impossible to say by what a narrow squeak he saved himself
+in this dare-devil maneuver. His one chance lay in lightning agility.
+
+Yet, first and last, it was an act of fine and desperate
+recklessness--the recklessness of a soul possessed and set on one
+dominating purpose. This was Hervey Willetts all over. And because he
+had a brain and the eagle none or little, he thus used his very enemy to
+help him accomplish his purpose.
+
+In that very moment when Tom Slade heard with a shudder the appalling
+sound of that splitting branch, something beside the brown nest was also
+dangling from the branch which the baffled eagle had suddenly deserted.
+Right close to the swaying nest the boy hung, his limbs encircling it,
+his two hands locked upon it, trusting to it, just trusting to it. It
+bent low in a great sweeping curve, the nest swayed and swung from the
+movement of the swing downward, a little olive-colored, speckled head
+peeking cautiously out as if to see what all the rumpus was about.
+
+It must have seemed to those little frightened eyes that the familiar
+geography of the neighborhood was radically changed. But there was
+nothing near to strike terror to it now. There was nothing near but the
+green, enshrouding foliage, and the brown object hanging almost
+motionless close by.
+
+This was Hervey Willetts of the patrol of the blue scarf, scout of the
+first class (if ever there was one) and winner of twenty-one merit
+badges....
+
+No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO INTRODUCE ORESTES
+
+
+Hervey moved cautiously in along the limb to a point where he felt sure
+that it would hold his weight, and as he did so it moved slowly up into
+place. What the little householder thought of all this topsy-turvy
+business it might be amusing to know. For surely, if the world war
+changed the map of Europe, the little neighborhood of leaf and branch
+where this timid denizen of the woods lived and had its being, had been
+subject to jolts and changes quite as sweeping. Now and again it poked
+its downy speckled head out for a kind of disinterested squint at
+things, apparently unconcerned with mighty upheavals so long as its
+little home was undisturbed.
+
+Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of
+it.
+
+"You all right?" he heard Tom call from below.
+
+"Yop," he called back; "did you see his nobs fly away? Back to the crags
+for him, hey? Wait down there a few minutes, I'm going to bring a
+friend."
+
+Hervey had now a very nice little calculation to make. In the first
+place he must not frighten his new acquaintance by approaching too near
+again. Neither must he make any sudden and unnecessary noise or motions.
+He knew that a nest of that particular sort was more than a home, it was
+a comparatively safe refuge, and he knew that its occupant would not
+emerge and desert it without good cause. One of those precious twenty
+badges was evidence of that much knowledge.
+
+His purpose was to cut the branch as near to the nest as he dared, both
+from the standpoint of the bird's peace of mind and his own safety. The
+further from the nest he cut, the thicker would be the branch, and the
+more cutting there would be to do. To cut too near to the nest might
+frighten his little neighbor on the branch, and endanger his own life.
+
+Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, how could he handle it
+after it was detached? How would he get down with it through all that
+network of lower branches?
+
+In his quandary he hit on a plan involving new peril for himself and
+doubtless some agitation to his little neighbor. He would not detach the
+nest from its branch, for how could he ever attach it to another branch
+in a way satisfactory to that finicky little householder? He knew enough
+about his business to know that no bird would continue to live in a nest
+which had been tampered with to that extent.
+
+So he advanced cautiously out on the branch again till he could reach
+the nest. Then very gently he bound his handkerchief about the opening.
+Having done this, he cut into the branch with his scout knife within
+about six or eight inches of the nest. When he had cut the branch almost
+through it was a pretty ticklish matter, straddling the stubby end, for
+he had the tip of the branch with the nest still in his hand and was in
+danger of losing his balance.
+
+Sitting there with his legs pressed up tight against the under side of
+the branch so as to hold his balance on his precarious seat, he held
+the end in one hand while he carefully pulled away the twigs from the
+end beyond the nest. Thus he had a piece of branch perhaps twenty inches
+long, with the nest hanging midway of it. This he held with the greatest
+care, lest in turning the branch the delicate fabric by which it hung
+should strain and break away. You would have thought that that little
+prisoner of the speckled head owned the tree, which in point of fact was
+owned by Temple Camp, notwithstanding its distance from the scout
+community. So it was really Hervey's more than it was little
+downy-head's if it comes to that.
+
+It is not every landlord that goes to so much trouble for a tenant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, ON WITH THE NEW
+
+
+"All right, we're coming down; kill the fatted calf," Hervey called with
+all his former gay manner. "No more up and down trails for me. This is
+moving day."
+
+When he had descended a little nearer, Tom heard the cheery voice more
+clearly. "It's no easy job moving a house and family. I have to watch my
+step. Oh, boy, _coming down!_ This tree is tied in a sailor's knot."
+
+"Are you bringing the bird?" Tom called.
+
+"I'm bringing the bird and the whole block he lived in," Hervey called
+back merrily. "I'm transplanting the neighborhood. He's going to move
+into a better locality--very fashionable. He's coming up in the world--I
+mean down. _O-o-h, boy_, watch your step; there was a narrow escape! I
+stepped on a chunk of air."
+
+So he came down working his way with both feet and one hand, and holding
+the precious piece of branch with its dangling nest in the other.
+
+"Talk about your barbed wire entanglements," he called. Then, after a
+minute, "This little codger lives in a swing," he shouted; "I should
+think she'd get dizzy. No accounting for tastes, hey? Whoa--boy! There's
+where I nearly took a double-header. If I should fall now, I wouldn't
+have so far to go."
+
+"You won't fall," said Tom with a note of admiring confidence in his
+brief remark.
+
+"Better knock wood," came the cheery answer from above.
+
+And presently his trim, agile form stood upon the lowest stalwart limb,
+as he balanced himself with one hand against the trunk. His khaki jacket
+was in shreds, a great rent was in his sleeve, and a tear in one of his
+stockings showed a long bloody scratch beneath. In his free hand he held
+the piece of branch with its depending nest, extending his arm out so as
+to keep the rescued trophy safe from any harm of contact.
+
+"Some rags, hey?" he called down good-humoredly, and exposing his figure
+in grotesque attitude for sober Tom's amusement. "If mother could only
+see me now! Get out from under while I swing down. Back to terra
+cotta--I mean firma. Here goes----"
+
+Down he came, tumbling forward, and sprawling on the ground, while he
+held the branch above him, like the Statue of Liberty lighting the
+world.
+
+"Here we are," he said. "Take it while I have a look at my leg. It's
+nothing but an abrasion. It looks like a trail from my ankle up to the
+back of my knee. What care we? I've got trails on the brain, haven't I?"
+
+Tom took the branch and stood looking admiringly, yet with a glint of
+amusement lighting his stolid features, at the younger boy, who sat with
+his knees drawn up humorously inspecting the scratch on his leg.
+
+"Well, what do you think of eagles now?" Tom asked, in his dull way.
+
+"Decline to be interviewed," Hervey said, with irrepressible buoyancy.
+"What kind of a crazy bird is this that lives upside down in a house
+that looks like a bat. It reminds me of a plum pudding, hanging in the
+pantry. What's that streak of red, anyway? His patrol colors? You'd
+think he'd get seasick, wouldn't you?"
+
+"You've got the bird badge," Tom said, smiling a little; "can't you
+guess?"
+
+What Tom did not realize was that this merry, reckless, impulsive young
+dare-devil, whose very talk, as he jumped from one theme to another,
+made him smile in spite of himself, could not be expected to bear in
+mind the record of his whole remarkable accomplishment. He was no
+handbook scout.
+
+There is the scout who learns a thing so that he may know it. But there
+is the scout who learns a thing so that he may do it. And having done
+it, he forgets it. Perhaps there is the scout who learns, does, and
+remembers. But Hervey was not of that order. He had made a plunge for
+each merit badge, won it and, presto, his nervous mind was on another.
+It takes all kinds of scouts to make a world.
+
+Perhaps Hervey was not the ideal scout, but there was something very
+fascinating about his blithe way of going after a thing, getting it, and
+burdening his mind with it no more. He lived for the present. His naive
+manner of asking Tom for a tip as to a trail had greatly amused the more
+experienced scout, who now could not understand how Hervey had used the
+handbook so much and knew it so imperfectly.
+
+"Didn't you ever see one before?" Tom asked.
+
+"Not while I was conscious," Hervey shot back, "but if he likes to live
+that way it's none of my business. He's inside taking a nap, I guess. He
+had some rocky road to Dublin coming down. I wonder what he thinks? That
+wasn't the right kind of a trail, was it?"
+
+"Wasn't it?" Tom queried.
+
+"No; I want a trail along the ground."
+
+"Still after the Eagle, huh? Do you realize what you have done?"
+
+"I've torn my suit all to shreds, I know that. Right the first time,
+hey? I'd look nice going up on the platform Saturday night? Good I won't
+have to, hey?"
+
+"I thought you were going to," Tom said soberly.
+
+"So I am," Hervey shot back at him; "trails up in the air don't count.
+Never mind, I'll find a trail to-morrow. It's my troop I'm thinking of.
+I'll land it, all right. When I get my mind on a thing.... Hey, Slady,
+what in the dickens is that streak of red in the nest? Is it a trade
+mark or something like that? You're a naturalist."
+
+"It's an oriole's nest," Tom said, with just a note of good-humored
+impatience in his voice. "I thought you'd know that."
+
+"You see my head is full of the Eagle badge just now," Hervey pleaded,
+"but I'm going to look up orioles."
+
+Tom smiled.
+
+"I'm going to look up orioles, and I'm going to get Doc to put some
+iodine on my leg, and I'm going to do that tracking stunt to-morrow.
+There's three things I'm going to do."
+
+Tom paused, seemingly irresolute, as if not knowing whether to say what
+was in his mind or not. And presently they started toward the camp,
+Hervey limping along and carrying the branch.
+
+"An oriole picks up everything he can find and weaves it into his nest,"
+Tom said; "string, ribbon, bits of straw, any old thing. He likes things
+that are bright colored."
+
+"He's got the right idea, there," Hervey said.
+
+Tom tried again to interest the rescuer in this little companion,
+imprisoned within its own cozy little home, whom they were taking back
+to camp. He could not comprehend how one who had performed such a stunt
+as Hervey had just performed, and been so careful and humane, could
+forget about his act so soon and take so little interest in the bird
+which had been saved by his reckless courage. But that was Hervey
+Willetts all over. His heart went where action was. And his interest
+lapsed when action ceased.
+
+"Somebody in a book called the oriole Orestes, because that means
+dweller in the woods," Tom ventured.
+
+"He dwells in a sky-scraper, that's what _I_ say," Hervey commented. "In
+a hall bedroom upside down, twenty floors up."
+
+Tom tried again. "What do you mean to do with her now that you've got
+her?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to turn her over to you, Slady. You're the real scout; none
+genuine unless marked T. S. You've got the birds all eating out of your
+hands."
+
+"You didn't tear the nest from the branch," Tom said. "You must have had
+some idea."
+
+"Well," said Hervey, "my idea was to stick it up in an elm tree down at
+camp. Think she'd stand for it?"
+
+"Guess so," Tom said.
+
+"You see I'm all through bird study," Hervey said with amusing
+artlessness, "so I think you'd better adopt Erastus--is that the way you
+say it?"
+
+"Orestes," Tom corrected him.
+
+"Pardon _me_," Hervey said.
+
+"Maybe you don't even care if I tell them what you did?" Tom queried.
+
+"Tell them whatever you want," Hervey said. "I don't care. What I'm
+thinking now is----"
+
+"The next stunt," Tom interrupted him.
+
+"You said it," Hervey answered cheerily; "just about a mile or so of
+tracks. I guess you think I'm kind of happy-go-lucky, don't you?"
+
+"I don't blame you for not remembering all the things you've done," Tom
+said, "and all the rules and tests and like that. But most every scout
+goes in for some particular thing. Maybe it's first aid, or maybe it's
+signaling. And he keeps on with that thing even after he has the badge."
+
+"That's right," Hervey concurred with surprising readiness. "You've got
+the right idea. My specialty is the Eagle badge. See?"
+
+"Well, that's twenty-one badges," Tom said.
+
+"Right-o, and all I need to do now is test three for the stalking badge
+and I'm _it_. And if I can't go over the top between now and this time
+Saturday, I'll never look the fellows in my troop in the face again,
+that's what."
+
+Tom whistled to himself a moment as they strolled along. Perhaps he knew
+more than he wished to say. Perhaps he was just a little out of patience
+with this sprightly, irresponsible young hero.
+
+"Well, there isn't much time," he said.
+
+"That's the trouble, Slady, and it's got me guessing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OFF ON A NEW TACK
+
+
+It is doubtful if ever there was a scout at Temple Camp for whom Tom
+felt a greater interest or by whom he was more attracted than by this
+irrepressible boy whose ready prowess he had just witnessed. And the
+funny part of it was that no two persons could possibly have been more
+unlike than these two. Hervey even got on Tom's nerves somewhat by his
+blithe disregard of the handbook side of scouting, except for what it
+was worth to him in his stuntful career.
+
+The handbook was almost a sacred volume to sober Tom. Still, he was
+captivated by Hervey, as indeed others were in the big camp.
+
+"Well, you were after the Eagle and you got an oriole," he said, half
+jokingly. "That's what I meant when I said that sometimes you don't
+know where a trail will bring you out. You got a lot to learn about
+scouting. What you did to-day was better than tracking a half a mile or
+so."
+
+"The pleasure is mine," said Hervey, in bantering acknowledgment of the
+compliment, "but if there's anything higher in scouting than the Eagle
+award, I'd like to know what it is."
+
+"How much good has it done you trying for it?" Tom asked. "Nobody is
+supposed to go after a thing in scouting the same as he does in a game.
+He's supposed to learn things why he's going after something," he added
+in his clumsy way. "You went through the bird study test and you didn't
+even know it was an oriole's nest that you rescued. And you forgot all
+about something else too, and it makes me laugh when I think about it;
+when I think about you and your tracks."
+
+"You think I'm a punk scout," Hervey sang out, gayly.
+
+"I think you're a bully scout," Tom said.
+
+"If I win the Eagle you'll say so, won't you?"
+
+"Maybe."
+
+"And do you mean to tell me that a scout can be any more of a scout
+than that--an Eagle Scout?"
+
+"Sure," said Tom uncompromisingly.
+
+For a few seconds the young hero of the lofty elm was too astonished to
+reply. Then he said, "Gee, you're a peachy scout, everybody says that,
+but you're a funny kind of a fellow, that's what _I_ think. I don't get
+you. The Eagle award is the highest award in scouting. It means, oh, it
+means a couple of hundred stunts--hard ones. You can't get above that.
+You're one yourself, you can't deny it. No, sir, you can't get above
+that--no, _siree_.... Do you mean to tell me that there's anything
+higher in scouting than the Eagle award?" he asked defiantly, after a
+pause.
+
+"Yop, there is," said Tom, unmoved.
+
+Hervey paused in consternation. "Well, I'm for the Eagle award, anyway,"
+he finally said. "That's good enough for _me_. And I'm going to get it,
+too; right away, quick."
+
+"You'll get it," Tom said.
+
+"Think I will?"
+
+"I don't think, I know."
+
+"You mean you're _sure_ I will?"
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"_Positive?_"
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"Well, then I'd better get busy hunting for some tracks, hadn't I? I've
+got to make good to _you_ as well as to my troop, haven't I?"
+
+"You ask a lot of questions," said Tom in his funny, sober way. "You
+don't need to make good with me."
+
+"Believe _me_, I've got you and my troop both on my mind now. Are you
+going to give me a tip about some tracks?"
+
+"Maybe--to-morrow," Tom said.
+
+"Do you know what I think I'll do, Slady?" Hervey suddenly vociferated
+as if caught by an inspiration. "I think I'll follow this ledge around a
+little way and see if there are any prints. Good idea, hey?"
+
+This was too much for Tom. "Aren't you coming back to camp with me?" he
+asked. "They'll want to hear about your adventure. It's getting pretty
+late, too."
+
+"Oh, I'm a regular night owl," Hervey said. "You take Asbestos back to
+camp and hang him up in a tree and I'll blow in later. I'm going on the
+war path for tracks. So long."
+
+Before Tom had recovered from his surprise, Hervey was picking his way
+along the rocky ledge at the base of the mountain, apparently oblivious
+to all that had happened, and intent upon a rambling quest for tracks.
+It was quite characteristic of him that he based his search upon no hint
+or well considered plan, but went looking for the tracks of a wild
+animal as one will hunt for shells, along the beach.
+
+And there stood Tom, holding the memorial of Hervey's heroism in his
+hand. Hervey had apparently forgotten all about it....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT
+
+
+Hervey picked his way among the rocks, looking here and there in the
+crevices and upon the intervening ground as if he had lost something. A
+more random quest could scarcely be imagined. Tom watched him for a few
+minutes, then took the shorter way to camp with his little charge.
+
+Hervey followed the rocky ledge for about fifty yards to a point where
+the dry bed of a stream came winding down out of the mountain. It ran in
+a tiny canyon between two rocks and so out upon the level fields to the
+south where the camp lay.
+
+The twilight was well advanced now, the last vivid patches were mellowed
+into a pervading gray, which seemed to cover the rocks and woods like a
+mantle. Clad in this somber robe, the wooded height which rose to the
+north seemed the more forbidding. Not a sound was to be heard but the
+voice of a whip-poor-will somewhere. Even Hervey's buoyant nature was
+subdued by the solemn stillness.
+
+Suddenly something between the two rocks caught his eye. The caked earth
+looked as if a narrow board had been drawn over it. Bordering this broad
+line, about half an inch from it on either side, were two narrow fancy
+lines--or at least that is what Hervey called them. Examining these
+carefully, he saw that they were made up of tiny, diagonal lines. In the
+place where this ran between the rocks, in the deep shadow, these
+singular marks were surprisingly legible, and bore not a little the
+appearance of a border design. The big stones formed a sort of shadow
+box, causing the markings to appear in bold relief.
+
+Hervey knew nothing of the freakish influence of light on tracks and
+trails, but he saw here something which he knew had been made by a
+moving object. The continuous design was so nearly perfect that it
+seemed like the work of human beings, but Hervey knew that it could
+hardly be this.
+
+What, then, was it?
+
+Where the lines emerged from between the rocks the marking was less
+regular and less clear, but plain enough in the damp, crusted earth
+which covered the mud in the old stream bed.
+
+With heart bounding with joy and elation, Hervey followed the bed of the
+stream. The tracks, or whatever they were, were so clear that he could
+keep to the side of the muddy area and still see them.
+
+It was characteristic of him that having made this great discovery, he
+did not trouble himself about the direction he was taking. In point of
+fact he was going in a southwesterly direction toward the camp.
+
+For perhaps a quarter of a mile the strange markings were clearly
+legible in the dusk, running as they did in the yielding caked surface
+of the stream bed. They were as clear as tracks in caked snow. Then the
+path of the dried up waterway petered out in an area of rocks and
+pebbles and beyond that there was no clearly defined way; the brook had
+evidently trickled down into the lower land taking the path of least
+resistance among the rocks.
+
+No doubt Tom Slade could have followed that water path to its end, but
+Hervey was puzzled, baffled. Yet the enthusiasm which carried him, as
+though on wings, to his triumphs was aroused now. He had the prophecy of
+Tom Slade to strengthen his determination. He must make good for Tom's
+sake now, as well as for the sake of his troop. He had told Tom that if
+he only once found a trail, nothing would stop him--_nothing_. Very
+fine. All that talk about there being something higher than the Eagle
+award was nonsense, and Tom Slade knew it was nonsense. "He said I'd do
+it, and I'm going to," Hervey muttered to himself.
+
+Hervey had no patience with obstacles, he must be always moving, so now
+he began frantically scrutinizing the ground to see if he could find
+some sign of the marks which had eluded him. Since he could no longer
+distinguish the stream bed, he looked for some sign of those marks
+outside the stream bed.
+
+And presently he was rewarded by the discovery of tracks, animal tracks
+sure enough, without any ribbon, so to speak, printed between them.
+There they were upon the hard, bare earth, two lines of claw marks,
+continuing to a point where they disappeared again at the edge of a
+close cropped field. Evidently his mysterious predecessor had known just
+where he wished to go and had forsaken the stream bed when it no longer
+went in his direction. These were no aimless tracks, they were the
+tracks of a creature that had particular business in the southwest, and
+that knew how to get there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE STRANGE TRACKS
+
+
+Hervey had not the slightest idea in which direction he was going, but
+in point of fact he was heading straight in the direction of Temple
+Camp. But he had found his precious tracks and nothing would stop him
+now. He would go over the top in a blaze of glory next day, and then
+perhaps a telegram could be sent to scout headquarters to have the Eagle
+badge sent up immediately so that he could receive the very award itself
+on Saturday night. He was on the home stretch now, as luck would have
+it, and nothing would stop him--nothing....
+
+_Nothing!_ He would send a line to his mother that very night and tell
+her all about it, and put E. S. after his name. _Eagle Scout._ The
+bicycle his father had promised him when he should attain that pinnacle
+of scout glory, he would now demand. That would be where dad lost
+out....
+
+If Tom Slade knew some secret about a higher award, that meant more
+stunts, Hervey would do those stunts, too; the more the merrier. He
+should worry....
+
+Yes, he was on the trail at last, and at the end of that trail was the
+stalking badge--and the Eagle award. _Hervey Willetts, Eagle Scout._ It
+sounded pretty good....
+
+He realized now that this discovery of his was just a streak of luck,
+that the chances would have been altogether against his finding real
+tracks in these two remaining days. "I'm lucky," he said. Which must
+have been true, else he would have lost his life long ere that....
+
+Darkness was now coming on apace, and it must be long past supper-time.
+But this was no time to be thinking of eating. Nothing would stop him
+now, _nothing_. When he set his mind on a thing....
+
+The tracks changed again in traversing the fields. They were not tracks
+at all, in fact, but a narrow belt of trampled grass, which was not
+visible close by. It was only by looking ahead that Hervey could
+distinguish it. Half way across the field he lost it altogether, but,
+remembering the fact that it could be seen better at a distance, he
+climbed a tree and there lay the long narrow belt of trampled grass
+running under the rail fence at the field's edge and into the sparse
+woods beyond. He had not to follow it, only pick out the rail of the
+fence near where it passed and hurry to that spot.
+
+And there it was, waiting for him. If Hervey had been well versed in
+tracking lore and less of a seeker after glory, he would have
+scrutinized the lowest rail of the fence, under which the track went,
+for bits of hair. But Hervey Willetts was not after bits of hair. It was
+quite like him that he did not care two straws about what sort of animal
+he was tracking. He was tracking the Eagle badge.
+
+In the sparse woods the tracks appeared as regular tracks again, sharply
+cut in the hard earth. Where the ground was bare under the trees, the
+tracks were as clear as writing on a slate, but in the intervening
+spaces the vegetation obscured them and he found them with difficulty.
+This tracking in the woods was the hardest part of his task because it
+required patience and deliberation, and Hervey had neither.
+
+But he managed it and was beginning to wonder how far his tracking had
+led him and whether he was near to covering the required distance. When
+he felt certain of that, he would drive a stake in the ground, fly his
+navy blue scarf from it to prove his claim, and go back to camp in
+triumph. He had made up his mind that he would at once report his feat
+in Council Shack, and offer to escort any or all of the trustees back
+over the ground in verification of his crowning accomplishment. The only
+Eagle Scout at Temple Camp, except Tom Slade; and Tom Slade didn't
+count....
+
+Still, as he looked back, the base of the mountain seemed almost as near
+as when he had made his discovery, the fields and wood which had seemed
+so long to the tracker were but small to the casual glance and he
+realized that his whole journey was yet far short of a quarter mile.
+
+The tracks now ran, as clear as writing, across one of those curious
+patches of damp ground with a thin, slippery skin, which was torn
+straight across in a kind of furrow. Hervey was so intent on studying
+this that he did not notice in the shadow about a hundred feet ahead of
+him a log directly in line with the tracks. When suddenly he looked up,
+he paused and stared ahead of him in consternation.
+
+Some one was sitting on the log.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+HERVEY'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+As soon as Hervey's dismay subsided he approached the log, and as he did
+so the figure appeared familiar to him. There was something especially
+familiar in the scout hat which came down over the ears of the little
+fellow who was underneath it, and in the hair which straggled out under
+the brim. The belt, drawn absurdly tight around the thin little waist,
+was a quite sufficient mark of identification. It was Skinny McCord, the
+latest find, and official mascot of the Bridgeboro troop, one of the
+crack troop of the camp. Alfred was his Christian name.
+
+The queer little fellow's usually pale face looked ghastly white in the
+late dusk, and the strange brightness of his eyes, and his spindle legs
+and diminutive body, crowned by the hat at least two sizes too large,
+made him seem a very elf of the woods. At camp or elsewhere, Skinny was
+always alone, but he seemed more lonely than ever in that still wood,
+with the night coming on. Nature was so big and Skinny was so little.
+
+"Hello, Skinny, old top!" Hervey said cheerily. "What do you think
+you're doing here? Lost, strayed, or stolen?"
+
+Skinny's eyes were bright with a strange light; he seemed not to hear
+his questioner. But Hervey, knowing the little fellow's queerness, was
+not surprised.
+
+"You look kind of frightened. Are you lost?" Hervey inquired.
+
+For just a moment Skinny stared at him with a look so intense that
+Hervey was startled. The little fellow's fingers which clutched a branch
+of the log, trembled visibly. He seemed like one possessed.
+
+"Don't get rattled, Skinny," Hervey said; "I'll take you back to camp.
+We'll find the way, all right-o."
+
+"I'm a second-class scout," Skinny said.
+
+"Bully for you, Skinny."
+
+"I--I just did it. I'm going to do more so as to be sure. Will you stay
+with me so you can tell them? Because maybe they won't believe me."
+
+"They'll believe you, Skinny, or I'll break their heads, one after
+another. What did you do, Alf, old boy?"
+
+"Maybe they'll say I'm lying."
+
+"Not while I'm around," Hervey said. "What's on your mind, Skinny?"
+
+"I ain't through yet," Skinny said. "I know your name and I like you. I
+like you because you can dive fancy."
+
+"Yes, and what are you doing here, Alf?" Hervey asked, sitting down
+beside the little fellow.
+
+"I'm a second-class scout," Skinny said; "I found the tracks and I
+tracked them. See them? There they are. Those are tracks."
+
+"Yes, I see them."
+
+"I tracked them all the way up from camp and I've got to go further up
+yet, so as to be sure. You got to be _sure_--or you don't get the badge.
+So now I won't be a tenderfoot any more. Are you a second-class scout?"
+
+"First-class, Skinny."
+
+"I bet you don't care about tracks--do you?"
+
+Hervey put his arm over the little fellow's shoulder and as he did so he
+felt the little body trembling with nervous excitement.
+
+"Not so much, Skinny. No, I don't care about tracks. I--eh--I like
+diving better. How far up are you going to follow the tracks?"
+
+"I'm going to follow them away, way, way up so as I'll be _sure_. They
+might say it wasn't a half a mile, hey?"
+
+The hand which rested on the little thin shoulder, patted it
+reassuringly.
+
+"Well, I'll be there to tell them different, won't I, Skinny, old boy?"
+
+"Will you go with me all the way up to where the mountain begins--will
+you?"
+
+"Surest thing you know."
+
+"And will you prove it for me?"
+
+"That's me."
+
+"Then I won't be a tenderfoot any more. I'll be a second-class scout."
+
+"Is that what you have to do to be a second-class scout, Skinny? I
+forget about the second-class tests. You have to track an animal, or
+something like that? I've got a rotten memory."
+
+"And I'll--I'll have a trail named after me, too; it'll be called McCord
+trail. These are _my_ tracks, see? Because I found them. Only maybe
+they'll say I'm lying. Anyway, how did _you_ happen to come here?" he
+asked as if in sudden fear.
+
+"I was just taking a walk through the woods, Skinny."
+
+Skinny continued to stare at him, still with a kind of lingering
+misgiving, but feeling that gentle patting on his shoulder, he seemed
+reassured.
+
+"I was just flopping around in the woods, Skinny; just flopping around,
+that's all...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SKINNY'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+And that was the triumph of Hervey Willetts, who would let nothing stand
+in his way. "_Nothing!_"
+
+A hundred yards or so more and the stalking badge would have been won,
+and with it the Eagle award. The bicycle that he had longed for would
+have been his. The troop which in its confidence had commissioned him to
+win this high honor would have gone wild with joy. Hervey Willetts would
+have been the only Eagle Scout at Temple Camp save Tom Slade, and, of
+course, Tom didn't count.
+
+Yet, strangely enough, the only eagle that Hervey Willetts thought of
+now was the eagle which he had driven off--the bird of prey. To have
+killed little Skinny's hope and dispelled his almost insane joy would
+have made Hervey Willetts feel just like that eagle which had aroused
+his wrath and reckless courage. "Not for mine," he muttered to himself.
+"Slady was right when he said he wasn't so stuck on eagles. He's a queer
+kind of a duck, Slady is; a kind of a mind reader. You never know just
+what he means or what he's thinking about. I can't make that fellow out
+at all.... I wonder what he meant when he said that a trail sometimes
+doesn't come out where you think it's going to come out...."
+
+Hervey had greatly admired Tom Slade, but he stood in awe of him now.
+"Well, anyway," said he to himself, "he said I'd win the award and I
+didn't; so I put one over on him." To put one over on Tom Slade was of
+itself something of a triumph. "He's not _always_ right, anyway," Hervey
+reflected.
+
+He was aroused from his reflections by little Skinny. "I followed them
+from camp," he said. "They're _real_ tracks, ain't they? And they're
+_mine_, ain't they? Because I found them? Ain't they?"
+
+"Bet your life. I tell you what you do, Alf, old boy. You just follow
+them up a little way further toward the mountain and I'll wait for you
+here. Then we can say you did it all by yourself, see? The handbook says
+a quarter of a mile or a half a mile, I don't know what, but you might
+as well give them good measure. I can't remember what's in the handbook
+half of the time."
+
+"You know about good turns, don't you?"
+
+"'Fraid not, except when somebody reminds me."
+
+"I'm going to keep you for my friend even if I _am_ a second-class
+scout, I am," Skinny assured him.
+
+"That's right, don't forget your old friends when you get up in the
+world."
+
+"Maybe you'll get that canoe some day, hey?"
+
+"What canoe is that, Alf?"
+
+"The one for the highest honor; it's on exhibition in Council Shack. All
+the fellows go in to look at it. A big fellow let me go in with him,
+'cause I'm scared to go in there alone."
+
+"I haven't been inside Council Shack in three weeks," Hervey said. "I
+don't know what it looks like inside that shanty. I'm not strong on
+exhibitions. I'll take a squint at it when we go down."
+
+"The highest honor, that's the Eagle award, isn't it?" Skinny asked.
+
+"I suppose so," Hervey said; "a fellow can't get any higher than the top
+unless he has an airplane."
+
+"Can he get higher than the top if he has a balloon?" Skinny wanted to
+know.
+
+"Never you mind about balloons. What we're after now is the second-class
+scout badge, and we're going to get it if we have to kill a couple of
+councilmen."
+
+"Did you ever kill a councilman?"
+
+"No, but I will, if Alf McCord, second-class scout, doesn't get his
+badge. I feel just in the humor. Go on now, chase yourself up the line a
+ways and then come back. I'll be waiting at the garden gate."
+
+"What gate?"
+
+"I mean here on this log."
+
+"Do you know Tom Slade?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+"He likes me, he does; because I used to steal things out of grocery
+stores just like he did--once."
+
+"All right," Hervey laughed. "Go ahead now, it's getting
+late--Asbestos."
+
+"That isn't my name."
+
+"Well, you remind me of a friend of mine named Asbestos, and I remind
+myself of an eagle. Now don't ask any more questions, but beat it."
+
+And so the scout who had never bothered his head about the more serious
+side of scouting sat on the log watching the little fellow as he
+followed those precious tracks a little further so that there might be
+no shadow of doubt about his fulfilling the requirement. Then Hervey
+shouted to him to come back, and shook hands with him and was the first
+to congratulate him on attaining to the dignity of second-class scout.
+Not a word did Hervey say about the amusing fact of little Skinny having
+followed the tracks backward; backward or forward, it made no
+difference; he had followed them, that was the main thing.
+
+"They're _my_ tracks; all mine," Skinny said.
+
+"You bet," said Hervey; "you can roll them up and put them in your
+pocket if you want to."
+
+Skinny gazed at his companion as if he didn't just see how he could do
+that.
+
+And so they started down for camp together, verging away from the tracks
+of glory, so as to make a short cut.
+
+"I bet you're smart, ain't you?" Skinny asked. "I bet you're the best
+scout in this camp. I bet you know everything in the handbook, don't
+you?"
+
+"I wouldn't know the handbook if I met it in the street," Hervey said.
+
+Skinny seemed a bit puzzled. "I had a bicycle that a big fellow gave
+me," he said, "but it broke. Did you ever have a bicycle?"
+
+"Well, I had one but I lost it before I got it," Hervey said. "So I
+don't miss it much," he added.
+
+"You sound as if you were kind of crazy," Skinny said.
+
+"I'm crazy about you," Hervey laughed; and he gave Skinny a shove.
+
+"Anyway, I like you a lot. And they'll surely let me be a second-class
+scout now, won't they?"
+
+"I'd like to see them stop you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN DUTCH
+
+
+That Hervey Willetts was a kind of odd number at camp was evidenced by
+his unfamiliarity with the things that were very familiar to most boys
+there. He was too restless to hang around the pavilion or sprawl under
+the trees or idle about with the others in and near Council Shack. He
+never read the bulletin board posted outside, and the inside was a place
+of so little interest to him that he had not even seen the beautiful
+canoe that was exhibited there, and on which so many longing eyes had
+feasted.
+
+Now as he and Skinny entered that sanctum of the powers that were, he
+saw it for the first time. It was a beautiful canoe with a gold stripe
+around it and gunwales of solid mahogany. It lay on two sawhorses.
+Within it, arranged in tempting style, lay two shiny paddles, a caned
+back rest, and a handsome leather cushion. Upon it was a little
+typewritten sign which read:
+
+    This canoe to be given to the first scout this season to win the
+    Eagle award.
+
+"That's rubbing it in," said Hervey to himself. "That's two things, a
+bicycle and a canoe I've lost before I got them."
+
+He sat down at the table in the public part of the office while Skinny,
+all excitement, stood by and watched him eagerly. He pulled a sheet of
+the camp stationery toward him and wrote upon it in his free, sprawling,
+reckless hand.
+
+    TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
+
+    This will prove that Alfred McCord of Bridgeboro troop tracked some
+    kind of an animal for more than a half a mile, because I saw him
+    doing it and I saw the tracks and I came back with him and I know
+    all about it and it was one good stunt I'll tell the world. So if
+    that's all he's got to do to be a second-class scout, he's got the
+    badge already, and if anybody wants to know anything about it they
+    can ask me.
+
+                                                      HERVEY WILLETTS,
+                                                       Troop Cabin 13.
+
+After scrawling this conclusive affidavit and placing it under a weight
+on the desk of Mr. Wade, resident trustee, Hervey sauntered over to the
+cabins occupied by the two patrols of his troop, the Leopards and the
+Panthers. They were just getting ready to go to supper.
+
+"Anything doing, Hervey?" his scoutmaster, Mr. Warren, asked him.
+
+"Nothing doing," Hervey answered laconically.
+
+"Maybe he doesn't know what you're talking about," one of his patrol,
+the Panthers, suggested. This was intended as a sarcastic reference to
+Hervey's way of losing interest in his undertakings before they were
+completed.
+
+"Have you got a trail--any tracks?" another asked.
+
+Hervey began rummaging through his pockets and said, "I haven't got one
+with me."
+
+"You didn't happen to see that canoe in Council Shack, did you?" Mr.
+Warren asked him.
+
+"Yes, it's very nice," Hervey said.
+
+Mr. Warren paused a moment, irresolute.
+
+"Hervey," he finally said, "the boys think it's too bad that you should
+fall down just at the last minute. After all you've accomplished, it
+seems like--what shall I say--like Columbus turning back just before
+land was sighted."
+
+"He didn't turn back," Hervey said; "now there's one thing I didn't
+forget--my little old history book. When Columbus started to cross the
+Delaware----"
+
+"Listen, Hervey," Mr. Warren interrupted him; "suppose you and I walk
+together, I want to talk with you."
+
+So they strolled together in the direction of the mess boards.
+
+"Now, Hervey, my boy," said Mr. Warren, "I don't want you to be angry at
+what I say, but the boys are disgruntled and I think you can't blame
+them. They set their hearts on having the Eagle award in the troop and
+they elected you to bring it to them. I was the first to suggest you. I
+think we were all agreed that you had the, what shall I say, the pep and
+initiative to go out and get it. You won twenty badges with flying
+colors, I don't know how you did it, and now you're falling down all on
+account of _one single requirement_.
+
+"Is that fair to the troop, Hervey? Is it fair to yourself? It isn't
+lack of ability; if it was I wouldn't speak of it. But it's because you
+tire of a thing before it's finished. Think of the things you learned
+in winning those twenty badges--the Morse Code, life saving, carpentry
+work. How many of those things do you remember now? You have forgotten
+them all--lost interest in them all. I said nothing because I knew you
+were after the Eagle badge with both hands and feet, but now you see you
+have tired of that--right on the threshold of victory. You can't blame
+the boys, Hervey, now can you?"
+
+"Tracks are not so easy to find," Hervey said, somewhat subdued.
+
+"They are certainly not easy to find if you don't look for them," Mr.
+Warren retorted, not unpleasantly. "I heard a boy in camp say only this
+evening that that queer little duck in the Bridgeboro troop had found
+some tracks near the lake and started to follow them. There is no pair
+of eyes in camp better than yours, Hervey. But you know you can't expect
+to find animal tracks down in the village."
+
+"In the village?"
+
+"Two or three of your own patrol saw you down there a week ago, Hervey;
+saw you run out of a candy store to follow a runaway horse. You know,
+Hervey, horses' tracks aren't the kind you're after. Those boys were
+observant. They were on their way to the post office. I heard them
+telling Tom Slade about it."
+
+"What did _he_ say--Tom Slade?" Hervey queried.
+
+"Oh, he didn't say anything; he never says much. But I think he likes
+you, Hervey, and he'll be disappointed."
+
+"You think he will?"
+
+"You know, Hervey, Tom Slade never won his place by jumping from one
+thing to another. The love of adventure and something new is good, but
+responsibility to one's troop, to oneself, is more important. How will
+your father feel about the bicycle he had looked forward to giving you?
+You see, Hervey, you regarded the winning of the Eagle award as an
+adventure, whereas the troop regarded it as a commission--a commission
+entailing responsibility."
+
+"I'm not so stuck on eagles," said Hervey, repeating Tom Slade's very
+words. "There might be something better than the Eagle award, you can't
+tell."
+
+"Oh, Hervey, my boy, don't talk like that, and above all, don't let the
+boys hear you talk like that. There's nothing better than to finish what
+you begin--_nothing_. You know, Hervey, I understand you thoroughly.
+You're a wizard for stunts, but you're weak on responsibility. Now
+you've got some new stunt on your mind, and the troop doesn't count. Am
+I right?"
+
+Hervey did not answer.
+
+"And now the chance has nearly passed. Tomorrow we all go to the college
+regatta on the Hudson, the next day is camp clean-up and we've all got
+to work, and the next night, awards. Even if you were to do the
+unexpected now, I don't know whether we could get the matter through and
+passed on for Saturday night. I'm disappointed with you, Hervey, and so
+are the boys. We all expected to see Mr. Temple hand you the Eagle badge
+on Saturday night. I expected to send your father a wire. Walley has
+been planning to take our picture as an Eagle troop."
+
+"Well, and you'll all be disappointed," said Hervey with a kind of
+heedlessness that nettled his scoutmaster. "And if anybody should ask
+you about it, any of the troop, you can just say that I found out
+something and that I'm not so stuck on the Eagle award, after all.
+That's what you can tell them."
+
+"Well, I will tell them no such thing, for I would be ashamed to tell
+them that. I think we all know what the highest honor is. Perhaps the
+boys are not such reckless young adventurers as you, but they know what
+the highest scout honor is. And I think if you will be perfectly honest
+with me, Hervey, you'll acknowledge that something new has caught your
+fancy. Come now, isn't that right?"
+
+"Right the first time," said Hervey with a gayety that quite disgusted
+his scoutmaster.
+
+"Well, go your way, Hervey," he said coldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HERVEY GOES HIS WAY
+
+
+So Hervey went his way alone, and a pretty lonesome way it was. The
+members of his troop made no secret of their disappointment and
+annoyance, he was clearly an outsider among them, and Mr. Warren treated
+him with frosty kindness. Hervey had been altogether too engrossed in
+his mad career of badge-getting to cultivate friends, he was always
+running on high, as the scouts of camp said, and though everybody liked
+him none had been intimate with him. He felt this now.
+
+In those two intervening days between his adventure in the elm tree and
+the big pow-wow on Saturday night, he found a staunch friend in little
+Skinny, who followed him about like a dog. They stuck together on the
+bus ride down to the regatta on the Hudson and were close companions all
+through the day.
+
+Hervey did not care greatly for the boat races, because he could not be
+in them; he had no use for a race unless he could win it. So he and
+Skinny fished for a while over the rail of the excursion boat, but
+Hervey soon tired of this, because the fish would not cooeperate. Then
+they pitched ball on the deck, but the ball went overboard and Mr.
+Warren would not permit Hervey to dive in after it. So he made a wager
+with Skinny that he could shinny up the flag-pole, but was foiled in his
+attempt by the captain of the boat. Thus he was driven to the refuge of
+conversation.
+
+Balancing himself perilously on the rail in an unfrequented part of the
+steamer, he asked Skinny about the coveted award. "They're not going to
+put you through a lot of book sprints, are they?" he inquired.
+
+"I'm going to get it Saturday night," Skinny said. "I bet all my troop
+will like me then, won't they? I have to stand up straight when I go on
+the platform. Some fellows get a lot of clapping when they go on the
+platform. I know two fellows that are going to clap when I go on. Will
+you clap when I go on? Because I like you a lot."
+
+"I'll stamp with both feet," said Hervey.
+
+"And will you clap?"
+
+"When you hear me clap you'll think it's a whole troop."
+
+"I bet your troop think a lot of you."
+
+"They could be arrested if they said out loud what they think of me."
+
+"My father got arrested once."
+
+"Well, I hope they won't trip you up. That was a fine stunt you did,
+Skinny. When those trustees and scoutmasters once get busy with the
+handbook, _good night_, it reminds you of boyhood's happy school days."
+
+"It's all on page thirty," Skinny said; "and I've done all of those ten
+things, because the tracking made ten, and Mr. Elting said as long as
+you said you saw me do it, it's all right, because he knows you tell the
+truth."
+
+"Well, that's one good thing about me," Hervey laughed.
+
+"And he said you came near winning the Eagle award, too. He said you
+only just missed it. I bet you're a hero, ain't you?"
+
+"Some hero."
+
+"A boy said you gave the eagle a good run for it, even if you didn't get
+it. He said you came near it."
+
+Hervey just sat on the rail swinging his legs. "I came pretty near the
+eagle, that's right," he said; "and if I'd got a little nearer I'd have
+choked his life out. That's how much I think of the eagle."
+
+Skinny looked as if he did not understand.
+
+"Did you see that bird that Tom Slade got? He got the nest and all. It's
+hanging in the elm tree near the pavilion. There's an oriole in that
+nest."
+
+"Get out!"
+
+"Didn't you see it yet?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"All the fellows saw it. That bird has got a name like the one you
+called me."
+
+"Asbestos?"
+
+"Something like that. Why did you call me that name--Asbestos?"
+
+"Well, because you're more important than an eagle. See?"
+
+"That's no good of a reason."
+
+"Well, then, because you're going to be a second-hand scout."
+
+"You mean second-_class_," Skinny said; "that's no good of a reason,
+either."
+
+"Well, I guess I'm not much good on reasons. I'd never win the reason
+badge, hey?"
+
+"Do you know who is the smartest fellow in this camp?" Skinny asked,
+jumping from one thing to another in his erratic fashion. "Tom Slade. He
+knows everything. I like him but I like you better. He promised to clap
+when I go on the platform, too. Will you ask your troop to clap?"
+
+"I'm afraid they don't care anything about doing me a favor, Alf. Maybe
+they won't feel like clapping. But your troop will clap."
+
+"Pee-wee Harris, he's in my troop; he said he'd shout."
+
+"Good night!" Hervey laughed. "What more do you want?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE DAY BEFORE
+
+
+So it seemed that Tom Slade had brought the rescued oriole, bag and
+baggage, back to camp, and had said nothing of the circumstance of his
+finding it. He was indeed a queer, uncommunicative fellow.
+
+Surely, thought Hervey, this scout supreme could have no thought of
+personal triumphs, for he was out of the game where such things were
+concerned, being already the hero of scout heroes, living among them
+with a kind of romantic halo about his head.
+
+Hervey was a little puzzled as to why Tom had not given him credit for
+finding that little stranger who was now a sort of mascot in the camp.
+For the whole scout family had taken very kindly to Orestes.
+
+In the loneliness of the shadow under which he spent those two days,
+Hervey would have welcomed the slight glory which a word or two from Tom
+Slade might have brought him. But Tom Slade said nothing. And it was not
+in Hervey's nature to make any claims or boasts. He soon forgot the
+episode, as he forgot almost everything else that he had done and got
+through with. Glory for its own sake was nothing to him. He had climbed
+the tree and got his scout suit torn into shreds and that was
+satisfaction to him.
+
+The next and last day before that momentous Saturday was camp clean-up
+day, for with the lake events on Labor Day the season would about close.
+All temporary stalking signs were taken down, original conveniences in
+and about the cabins were removed, troop and patrol fire clearings were
+raked over, two of the three large mess boards were stored away, and
+most of the litter cleared up generally. What was done in a small way
+each morning was done in a large way on this busy day, and every scout
+in camp did his share.
+
+Hervey worked with his own troop, the members of which gave him scant
+attention. If they had ignored him altogether it would have been better
+than according him the cold politeness which they showed. No doubt their
+disappointment and humiliation were keen, and they showed it.
+
+"What'll I do with this eagle flag?" one of them called, as he displayed
+an emblem with an eagle's head upon it, which one of the sisters of one
+of the boys had made in anticipation of the great event.
+
+"Send it back to her," another shouted. "We ought to have a flag with a
+chicken's head on it. We counted our chickens before they were hatched."
+
+"_Some_ fall-down; we should worry," another said, busy at his tasks.
+
+"Eagle fell asleep at the switch, didn't you, Eagle?"
+
+They called him Eagle in a kind of ironical contempt, and it cut him
+more than anything else that they said.
+
+"Eagle with clipped wings, hey?" one of the troop wits observed.
+
+"Help us take down this troop pole, will you?" Will Connor, Hervey's
+patrol leader, called. "We should bother about the eagle; our eagle
+isn't hatched yet."
+
+"Some eggs are rotten," one of the Panthers retorted, which created a
+general laugh.
+
+Hervey turned scarlet at this and his hands trembled on the oven stone
+which he was casting away. He dropped it and stood up straight, only to
+confront the stolid face of the young camp assistant looking straight at
+him.
+
+"Getting all cleared up?" Tom asked in his usual sober but pleasant way.
+
+Hervey Willetts was about to fly off the handle but something in Tom's
+quiet, keen glance deterred him.
+
+"You fellows going home soon?"
+
+"Tuesday morning," volunteered the Panthers' patrol leader. "We usually
+don't stick to the finish. We're a troop of quitters, you know."
+
+"What did you quit?" asked Tom, taking his informant literally.
+
+"Oh, never mind."
+
+"It's all right, as long as you don't quit each other," Tom said, and
+strolled on to inspect the work of the other troops.
+
+Hervey followed him and in a kind of reckless abandonment said, "Well,
+you see you were wrong after all--I don't care. You said I'd win it. So
+I put one over on you, anyway," he laughed in a way of mock triumph.
+"Tom Slade is wrong for once; how about that? The rotten egg put one
+over on you. See? I'm the rotten egg--the rotten egg scout. I should
+bother my head!"
+
+"Go back and pick up those stones, Willetts," said Tom quietly, "and
+pile them up down by the woodshed."
+
+"You didn't even tell them I saved that little bird, did you?" Hervey
+said, giving way to his feelings of recklessness and desperation. "What
+do you suppose _I_ care? I don't care what anybody thinks. I do what I
+do when I do it; that's me! I don't care a hang about your old
+badges--I----"
+
+"Hervey," said Tom; "go back and pile up those stones like I told you.
+And don't get mad at anybody. You do just what I tell you."
+
+"Did you hear----"
+
+"Yop. And I tell you to go back there and keep calm. I'm not interested
+in badges either; I'm interested in scouts. They'll never be able to
+make a badge to fit you. Now go back and do what I told you. Who's
+running this show? You or I?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE GALA DAY
+
+
+As long as the cheerful blaze near the lakeside gathers its scouts about
+it on summer evenings, Temple Camp will never forget that memorable
+Saturday night. It is the one subject on which the old scout always
+discourses to the new scout when he takes him about and shows him the
+sights.
+
+The one twenty-two train from the city brought John Temple, founder of
+Temple Camp, sponsor of innumerable scout enterprises, owner of
+railroads, banks, and goodness knows what all. He was as rich as the
+blackberry pudding of which Pee-wee Harris (official cut-up of the
+Ravens) always ate three helpings at mess.
+
+His coming was preceded by telegrams going in both directions, talks
+over the long distance 'phone, and when at last he came in all his
+glory, a rainbow troop consisting of honor scouts was formed to go down
+to Catskill Landing and greet him. One scout who would presently be
+handed the Gold Cross for life saving was among the number. Others were
+down for the Star Scout badge, and the silver and the bronze awards.
+Others had passed with peculiar distinction the many and difficult tests
+for first-class scout. One, a little fellow from the west, had won the
+camp award for signaling. There were others, too, with attainments less
+conspicuous and who were not in this gala troop, but the whole camp was
+out to honor its heroes, one and all.
+
+Roy Blakeley, of the Silver Foxes, had a wooden rattle which he claimed
+could be heard for seven miles--eight miles and a quarter at a pinch.
+The Tigers, with Bert Winton at their head, had some kind of an original
+contrivance which simulated the roar of their ferocious namesake. The
+Church Mice, from down the Hudson, with Brent Gaylong as their
+scoutmaster, had a special squeal (patent applied for) which sounded as
+if all the mice in Christendom had gone suddenly mad. Pee-wee had his
+voice--enough said.
+
+The Panthers and the Leopards, with Mr. Warren, watched the departure of
+this rainbow troop with wistful glances. Then the scoutmaster took his
+chagrined followers to their bare cabins, stripped of all that had made
+them comfortable and homelike in their long stay at camp. Hervey was not
+among them. No one in all the camp knew how he had suffered from
+homesickness in those two days. He wanted to be home--home with his
+mother and father.
+
+To his disappointed troop Mr. Warren said:
+
+    Scouts, we have not won the coveted award. But in this fraternal
+    community, every award is an honor to every scout. We will try to
+    find pride in the achievements of our friends and camp comrades. Our
+    mistake was in selecting for our standard bearer one whose
+    temperament disqualified him for the particular mission which he
+    undertook. No shortcoming of cowardice is his, at all events, and I
+    blame myself that I did not suggest one of you older boys.
+
+    If we have not won the distinction we set our hearts on, our stay
+    here has been pleasant and our achievement creditable, and for my
+    part I give three cheers for the scouts who are to be honored and
+    for the fortunate troops who will share their honors.
+
+This good attempt to revive the spirits of his disappointed troop was
+followed by three feeble cheers, which ought to have gone on crutches,
+they were so weak.
+
+Hervey was not in evidence throughout the day, and since no news is good
+news, one or two unquenchable spirits in his troop continued to hope
+that he would put in a dramatic appearance just in the nick of time,
+with the report of a sensational discovery--the tracks of a bear or a
+wild cat, for instance. It is significant that they would have been
+quite ready to believe him, whatever he had said.
+
+But Mr. Warren knew, as his troop did not, of Hervey's saying that he
+wasn't so stuck on eagles, and he was satisfied from the talk that he
+had had with him that Hervey's erratic and fickle nature had asserted
+itself in the very moment of high responsibility. He could not help
+liking Hervey, but he would never again allow the cherished hopes of the
+troop to rest upon such shaky foundation.
+
+Whatever lingering hopes the troop might have had of a last minute
+triumph were rudely dispelled when Hervey came sauntering into camp at
+about four o'clock twirling his hat on the end of a stick in an
+annoyingly care-free manner. Tom Slade saw him passing Council Shack
+intent upon his acrobatic enterprise of tossing the hat into the air and
+catching it on his head, as if this clownish feat were the chief concern
+of his young life.
+
+"You going to be on hand at five?" Tom queried in his usual off-hand
+manner.
+
+"What's the use?" Hervey asked. "There's nothing in it for me."
+
+Tom leaned against the railing of the porch, with his stolid, half
+interested air.
+
+"Nothing in it for me," Hervey repeated, twirling his hat on the stick
+in fine bravado.
+
+"So you've decided to be a quitter," Tom said, quietly.
+
+Hervey winced a bit at this.
+
+"You know you said you weren't so stuck on eagles," Hervey reminded him,
+rather irrelevantly.
+
+"Well, I'm not so stuck on quitters either," Tom said.
+
+"What's the good of my going? I'm not getting anything out of it."
+
+"Neither am I," said Tom.
+
+"You got stung when you made a prophecy about me, didn't you?" Hervey
+said with cutting unkindness. "You and I both fell down, hey? We're punk
+scouts--we should bother our heads."
+
+Again he began twirling his hat on the stick. "I couldn't sit with my
+troop, anyway," he added; "I'm in Dutch."
+
+"Well, sit with mine, then; Roy Blakeley and that bunch are all from my
+home town; they're nice fellows. You know Pee-wee Harris--the little
+fellow that fell off the springboard?"
+
+"I ought to like him; we both fell down."
+
+"Well, you be on hand at five o'clock and don't make matters worse, like
+a young fool. If you've lost the eagle, you've lost it. That's no reason
+you should slight Mr. Temple, who founded this camp. We expect every
+scout in camp to be on hand. You're not the only one in camp who isn't
+getting the Eagle award."
+
+"You call me a fool?"
+
+"Yes, you're twenty different kinds of a fool."
+
+"Almost an Eagle fool, hey?"
+
+He went on up the hill toward his patrol cabin, tossing his hat in the
+air and trying to catch it on his head. As luck would have it, just
+before he entered the little rustic home of sorrow, the hat landed
+plunk on his head, a little to the back and very much to the side, and
+he let it remain in that rakish posture when he entered.
+
+The effect was not pleasing to his comrades and scoutmaster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+UNCLE JEB
+
+
+At five o'clock every seat around the open air platform was occupied.
+Every bench out of Scout Chapel, the long boards on which the hungry
+multitude lined up at supper-time, every chair from Council Shack and
+Main Pavilion, and many a trunk and cedar chest from tents and cabins
+and a dozen other sorts of makeshift seating accommodations were laid
+under contribution for the gala occasion. And even these were not
+enough, for the whole neighboring village turned out in a body, and
+gaping summer boarders strolled into the camp in little groups, thankful
+for something to do and see.
+
+There was plenty doing. Those who could not get seats sprawled under the
+trees in back of the seats and a few scouts perched up among the
+branches.
+
+Upon the makeshift rustic platform sat the high dignitaries,
+scoutmasters, trustees--the faculty, as Hervey was fond of calling them.
+In the big chair of honor in the center sat Mr. John Temple and
+alongside him Commissioner Something-or-Other and Committeeman Something
+Else. They had come up from the big scout wigwam, in the dense woods on
+the corner of Broadway and Twenty-third Street, New York.
+
+Resounding cheers arose and echoed from the hills when old Uncle Jeb
+Rushmore, retired ranchman and tracker, and scout manager of the big
+camp, took his seat among the high dignitaries. He made some concession
+to the occasion by wearing a necktie which was half way around his neck,
+and by laying aside his corn-cob pipe.
+
+Tom Slade, who sat beside his superior, looked none the less romantic in
+the scout regalia which he wore in honor of the occasion. His popularity
+was attested as he took his seat by cries of "Tomasso!" "Oh, you,
+Tomasso!" "Where did you get that scout suit, Tomasso?" "Oh, you, Tommy
+boy!"
+
+Tom, stolid and with face all but expressionless, received these
+tributes with the faintest suggestion of a smile. "Don't forget to smile
+and look pretty!" came from the rear of the assemblage.
+
+As was usual at Temple Camp festivities, the affair began with three
+resounding cheers for Uncle Jeb, followed by vociferous appeals for a
+speech. Uncle Jeb's speeches were an institution at camp. Slowly
+dragging himself to his feet, he sprawled over to the front of the
+platform and said in his drawling way:
+
+    "I don't know as thar's anything I got ter say. We've come out t'the
+    end of our trail, en' next season I hope we'll see the same faces
+    here. You ain't been a bad lot this year. I've seen wuss. I never
+    seed a crowd that ate so much. I reckon none uv yer hez got homes
+    and yer wuz all starved when yer come.
+
+    "Yer made more noise this season than anything I ever heard outside
+    a Arizona cyclone. (Laughter) You've been noisy enough ter make a
+    thunder-shower sound like a Indian lullaby. (Roars)
+
+    "If these here honor badges thet Mister Temple is goin' ter hand
+    out'll keep yer quiet, I wish thar wuz more uv them. As the feller
+    says, speech is silver and silence is gold, so I'm for gold awards
+    every time. Onct I asked Buffalo Bill what wuz th' main thing fer a
+    scout n' he says _silence_. (Uproarious laughter) So I reckon th'
+    best kind uv a boy scout is one that's deaf and dumb, but I ain't
+    never seen none at this camp. I guess they don't make that kind.
+
+    "I wish yer all good luck and I congratulate you youngsters that are
+    getting awards. If yer all got your just deserts----"
+
+"I get three helpings," came a voice from somewhere in the audience. It
+was the voice of Pee-wee Harris. "I get _my_ just desserts!"
+
+Amid tumultuous cheering and laughter, old Uncle Jeb lounged back to his
+seat and Mr. John Temple arose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE FULL SALUTE
+
+
+Great applause greeted Mr. Temple. He said:
+
+    "Gentlemen of our camp staff, visiting scoutmasters, and scouts:
+
+    "A friend of mine connected with the scout organization told me that
+    he heard a scout say that Temple Camp without Uncle Jeb would be
+    like strawberry short cake without any strawberries. (Great
+    applause) I think that most scouts, including our young friend in
+    back, would wish three helpings of Uncle Jeb. (Laughter)
+
+    "Coming from the bustling city, as I do, it is refreshing to see
+    Uncle Jeb for I have never in all my life seen him in a hurry.
+    (Laughter) All scouts can claim Uncle Jeb, he is the universal award
+    that every boy scout wears in his heart. (Uproarious applause)
+
+    "Scouts, this is a gala day for me. It beats three helpings of
+    dessert----"
+
+"Sometimes we get four," the irrepressible voice shouted.
+
+    "I have been honored by the privilege of coming here to visit you in
+    these quiet hills----"
+
+A voice: "Sometimes it isn't so quiet."
+
+    "and to distribute the awards which your young heroes have earned.
+    You can all be scouts; you cannot all be heroes. That is well, for
+    as the old song says, 'When every one is somebody then no one's
+    anybody.' (Laughter)
+
+    "I wonder how many of you scouts who are down for these awards
+    realize what the awards mean? They are not simply prizes given for
+    feats--or stunts, as you call them. To win a high honor merely as a
+    stunt is to win it unfairly. Every step that a scout takes in the
+    direction of a coveted honor should be a step in scouting. The Gold
+    Cross is given _not_ to one who saves life, but to a _scout_ that
+    saves life. Before you can win any honors in this great brotherhood,
+    you must first be a scout. And that means that you must have the
+    scout qualities.
+
+    "Scouting is no game to be won or lost, like baseball. After all,
+    the high award is not for what you _do_ alone, but for what you
+    _are_. You are not to use scouting as a means to an end.
+
+    "In trying for a high award a scout is not running a race with other
+    scouts. There is no spirit of contest in scouting. To be a hero,
+    even that is not enough. One must be a _scout_ hero. He must not use
+    the animals and birds and the woods to help in his quest of glory,
+    whether it be troop glory or individual glory. He must not ask the
+    birds and animals to tell him their secrets simply that he may win a
+    piece of silver or gold to hang on his coat. But he must learn to
+    be a friend to the birds and animals. For that is true scouting.
+
+    "You will notice that on the scout stationery is printed our good
+    motto, _'Do a good turn daily.'_ There is nothing there about high
+    awards. Evidently the good turn daily is considered of chief
+    importance. Nothing can supersede that. It stands above and apart
+    from all awards. Kindness, brotherliness, helpfulness--there is no
+    metal precious enough to make a badge for these."
+
+As Mr. Temple turned to take the first award from Mr. Wade the
+assemblage broke into wild applause. Perhaps Mr. Warren, sitting among
+his disappointed troop, hoped that Mr. Temple's words would be taken to
+heart by the absent member. But none of the troop made any comment.
+
+After the distribution of a dozen or so merit badges, Mr. Temple called
+out, "Alfred McCord, Elk Patrol, First Bridgeboro, New Jersey Troop."
+
+There was a slight bustle among the Bridgeboro boys to make way for
+their little member who started threading his way among the throng, his
+thin little face lighted with a nervous smile of utter delight.
+
+"Bully for Alf!" some one called.
+
+"Greetings, Shorty," another shouted.
+
+He stood before Mr. Temple on the platform, trembling all over, and yet
+the picture of joy. His big eyes stared with a kind of exaltation. For
+once, his hair was smooth, and it made his face seem all the more gaunt
+and pale. This was the crucial moment of his life. He stood as straight
+as he could, his little spindle legs shaking, but his hand held up in
+the full scout salute to Mr. Temple. Oh, but he was proud and happy. If
+Hervey Willetts, wherever he was, saw him one brief thrill of pride and
+satisfaction must have been his.
+
+"Alfred McCord," said Mr. Temple; "your friends and I greet you as a
+scout of the second-class. Let me place on you the symbol of your
+achievement."
+
+He stepped forward, just one step. Oh, but he was happy. He stood upon
+the platform, but he walked on air. Mr. Temple shook hands with him--Mr.
+John Temple, founder of Temple Camp! Yes, sir, Skinny and Mr. John
+Temple shook hands. And then the little fellow turned so that the
+audience might see his precious badge. And the wrinkles at the ends of
+his thin little mouth showed very clearly as he smiled--oh, such a
+smile.
+
+Then the scouts of Temple Camp showed that their wonted disregard of
+Skinny was only because they did not understand him, queer little imp
+that he was. For cheer after cheer arose as he stood there in a kind of
+bewilderment of joy.
+
+"Hurrah, for the star tracker!"
+
+"Three cheers for the sleuth of the forest!"
+
+"No more tenderfoot!"
+
+"Hurrah for S-S-S!" Which meant Skinny, second-class scout.
+
+"I congratulate you, Alfred," said Mr. Temple, pleased at the ovation.
+"You have the eyes that see, and this feat of tracking which I have
+heard of is a fitting climax to all your efforts to win your goal--to
+finish what you began. Let every tenderfoot follow your example. And may
+the scouts of the second-class welcome you with pride."
+
+Skinny saw Mr. Temple's hand raised, saw the fingers formed to make the
+familiar scout salute--the _full_ salute. The full salute for him! He
+saw this and yet he did not see it; he saw it in a kind of daze.
+
+Then he went down and stepped upon the earth again and made his way back
+to his seat. Those who saw him thought that he was walking, but he was
+not walking, he was floating on wings. And the noise about and the big
+trees in back, and the faces that smiled at him as he passed, were as
+things seen and heard in a dream....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+TOM RUNS THE SHOW
+
+
+"William Conway, Anson Jenks, and George Winters, for Star Scout badge,
+and Merritt Roth and Edward Collins for bronze life saving medals. These
+scouts will please step forward."
+
+Amid great applause they made their way to the platform and one by one
+returned, greeted with cheers.
+
+"Gaynor Morrison of Edgemere Troop, Connecticut, is awarded the Gold
+Cross for saving life at imminent hazard of his own. Congratulations to
+him but more to his troop. Scout Morrison will please come forward."
+
+That was the moment of pride for Edgemere Troop, Connecticut. Gaynor
+Morrison, tall and muscular, stood before Mr. Temple and listened to
+such plaudits as one seldom hears in his own honor. He went down
+overjoyed and blushing scarlet.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Temple, "the last award is properly not an
+organization award at all. It is the Temple Camp medal for order and
+cleanliness in and about troop cabins. It is awarded to Willis Norton of
+the Second Oakdale, New Jersey, Troop. And that, I think, concludes this
+pleasant task of distributing honors. I think you will all be glad to
+know that one who is a stranger to no honor wishes himself to say a few
+words to you now. Whatever Tom Slade may have to say goes with me----"
+
+He could not say more. Cries of "Bully old Tom!" "Hurrah for Tomasso!"
+"What's the matter with old Hickory Nut?" "Oh, you, Tom Slade," "Spooch,
+spooch!" "Hear, hear!" arose from every corner of the assemblage and the
+cries were drowned in a very tempest of applause.
+
+[Illustration: MR. TEMPLE CONGRATULATES HERVEY WILLETTS.
+
+_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 124]
+
+He never looked more stolid, nor his face more expressionless than when
+he arose from his chair. He was neither embarrassed nor elated. If he
+was at all swayed by the sudden tribute, it was as an oak tree might be
+swayed in a summer breeze. He knew what he wanted to say and he was
+going to say it. He waited, he _had_ to wait, for at least five minutes,
+till Temple Camp had had its say.
+
+Then he said, slowly, deliberately, with a kind of mixture of clumsiness
+and assurance which was characteristic of him.
+
+    "Maybe I haven't got any right to speak. I'm not on the staff, and
+    as you might say, I'm through being a scout----"
+
+"Never, Tomasso!" said a voice.
+
+    "But I saw something that none of you saw and I know something that
+    none of you know about--except Mr. Temple, that I told it to, and
+    the trustees.
+
+    "Since I been assistant to Uncle Jeb--that's two years--I saw the
+    Eagle award given out twice----"
+
+"You won it yourself, Tomasso!"
+
+    "I saw it given to a scout from Virginia and one from New York. You
+    always hear a lot of talk about the Eagle award here in camp. Lots
+    of scouts start out big and don't get away with it. I guess
+    everybody knows it isn't easy. If you're an Eagle Scout you're
+    everything else. You got to be.
+
+    "I've seen scouts get it. But in the last couple of days I saw one
+    chuck it in the dirt and trample on it. That's because when a fellow
+    gets so far that he's really an Eagle Scout, he doesn't care so
+    much about it. A fellow's got to be a scout to win the Eagle badge.
+    And if he's enough of a scout for that, he's enough of a scout to
+    give it up if there's any reason. What does _he_ care? If he's scout
+    enough to be an Eagle Scout, and gives it up, he doesn't even bother
+    to tell anybody. Being willing to give it up is part of winning it,
+    as you might say.
+
+    "Maybe you people didn't know who you were cheering when you cheered
+    Alfred McCord. But I'll tell you who you were cheering. You were
+    cheering the only Eagle Scout in Temple Camp. And he doesn't care
+    any more about the Eagle badge than he does about what every little
+    tin scout in his own troop thinks of him, either. And I'm standing
+    here to tell you that. I saw that scout give up one badge and win
+    another at the same time. I saw him lose the stalking badge and win
+    the animal first aid badge all inside of an hour. He thought he lost
+    out by giving up his tracks to Alfred McCord, when he might have
+    scared the life out of the little fellow and chased him back to
+    camp.
+
+    "But all the time he had an extra badge and he didn't know it.
+    That's because he doesn't bother about the handbook and because he
+    wins badges so fast he can't keep track of them. He's an Eagle Scout
+    and he doesn't know it. He threw one badge away and caught another
+    and he's coming up here now to stand still for two minutes if he can
+    and listen to the paper that Mr. Temple is going to read to him.
+    Come ahead up, Hervey Willetts, or I'll come down there and pull you
+    out of that tree and drag you up by the collar!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+PEE-WEE SETTLES IT
+
+
+For half a minute there was no response, and the people, somewhat
+bewildered, stared here and there, applauding fitfully.
+
+"Come ahead, I know where you are," Tom pronounced grimly; "I'll give
+you ten seconds."
+
+The victim knew that voice; perhaps it was the only voice at camp which
+he would have obeyed. There was the sound of a cracking branch, followed
+by a frightened cry of "Look out!" Some one called, "He'll kill
+himself!" Then a rustling of leaves was heard, and down out of the tree
+he came and scrambled to his feet, amid cries of astonishment, Hervey
+Willetts was running true to form and the moment of his triumph was
+celebrated by a new stunt.
+
+"Never mind brushing off your clothes," said Tom grimly; "come up just
+the way you are."
+
+But he did not go up the steps, not he. He vaulted up onto the platform
+and stood there brushing the dirt from his torn khaki suit. The crowd,
+knowing but yet only half the story of his triumph, was attracted by his
+vagabond appearance, and his sprightly air. The rent in his sleeve, his
+disheveled hair, and even the gaping hole in his stocking seemed to be a
+part of him, and to bespeak his happy-go-lucky nature. As he stood there
+amid a shower of impulsive applause, he stooped and hoisted up one
+stocking which seemed in danger of making complete descent, and that was
+too much for the crowd.
+
+Even Mr. Temple smiled as he said, "Come over here, my young friend, and
+let me congratulate the only Eagle Scout at Temple Camp."
+
+And so it befell that Hervey Willetts found himself clasping in cordial
+grip the friendly hand of Mr. John Temple with one hand while he still
+hauled up his rebellious stocking with the other. It was a sight to
+delight the heart of a movie camera man. His stocking was apparently the
+only thing that Hervey could not triumph over.
+
+"My boy," said Mr. Temple, "it appears that we know more about you than
+you know about yourself. It appears that your memory and your handbook
+study have not kept pace with your sprightly legs and arms----"
+
+"How about his dirty face?" some one called.
+
+"And his stocking?" another shouted.
+
+"These are the honorable scars of war," Mr. Temple said, "and I think I
+prefer his face as it is. I think we shall have to take Hervey Willetts
+as we find him, and be satisfied.
+
+"Hervey Willetts," he continued, "you stand here to-day the easy winner
+of the greatest honor it has ever been my pleasure to confer. Stand up,
+my boy, and never mind your stocking. (Laughter.) You have won the Eagle
+award, and you have made your triumph beautiful and unique by working
+into it one of the best good turns in all the history of scouting. I
+doubt whether a youngster of your temperament can ever really appreciate
+what you have done. But of course you could not escape Tom Slade--no one
+could. He has your number, as boys say----"
+
+"Bully for Tom Slade!" a voice called.
+
+"What's the matter with Tomasso?"
+
+"Hurrah for old Sherlock Nobody Holmes!"
+
+"Oh, you, Tommy!"
+
+"Tag, you're it, Hervey!"
+
+"I have here a paper procured by Tom Slade," Mr. Temple continued, "and
+bearing the signatures of three scouts--John Weston, Harry Bonner and
+George Wentworth. These scouts testify that they were in Catskill
+village drinking soda water----"
+
+"That's all they ever go there for," a voice shouted.
+
+"They saw Hervey Willetts stop a runaway horse, saw him unfasten the
+harness of the animal when it fell, frightened and exhausted, and saw
+him procure and pour cool water on the animal's head. This was never
+reported in camp till Tom Slade made inquiries. Hervey Willetts had
+neglected to report it."
+
+"He's a punk scout," some one called.
+
+"I have here also," Mr. Temple continued, "the testimony of Tom Slade
+himself that Hervey Willetts climbed a tree and in a daring manner saved
+a bird and its nest from the ruthless assault of an eagle. That bird's
+nest, with its little occupant, hangs now in the elm tree at the corner
+of the pavilion." (Great applause.)
+
+"Thus Hervey Willetts won the animal first aid badge without so much as
+knowing it. (Applause.) He had won twenty-one merit badges and he did
+not know it. (Great applause.) He was then and there an Eagle Scout and
+he did not know it. (Deafening cheers.) But Tom Slade knew it and said
+nothing----"
+
+"Thomas the Silent," some irreverent voice called.
+
+"So you see, my friends, it really made no difference whether our young
+hero tracked an animal or not. He was an Eagle Scout. He could go no
+higher. He had reached the pinnacle--no, not quite that. To his triumph
+he must add the glory of a noble, unselfish deed. Never knowing that the
+coveted honor was already his, he set out to win it by a tracking stunt
+which would fulfill the third requirement to bring him the stalking
+badge, and with it the Eagle award. He had said that nothing would stand
+in his way, not even mountains. He had made this boast to Tom Slade.
+
+"And that boast he failed to make good. Something _did_ stand in his
+way. Not a mountain. Just a little tenderfoot scout. You have seen him
+up here. Alfred McCord is his name. (Applause.)
+
+"And when Hervey Willetts found this little scout hot upon the trail, he
+forgot about the Eagle award, forgot about his near triumph, braved the
+anger and disappointment of his friends and comrades----"
+
+The troop of which Hervey was a member arose in a sudden, impetuous
+burst of cheering, but Mr. Temple cut them short.
+
+"Just a moment and then you may have your way. Hervey Willetts cared no
+more about the opinion of you scouts than this big oak tree over my head
+cares about the summer breeze. There were two trails there, one visible,
+the other invisible. One on the ground, the other in his heart. And
+Hervey Willetts was a scout and he hit the right trail. If it were not
+for our young assistant camp manager here, Hervey Willetts would this
+minute be witnessing these festivities from yonder tree, and little
+would he have cared, I think.
+
+"But he reckoned without his host, as they say, when he sought the aid
+of Tom Slade. (Deafening applause.) Tom Slade knew him even if he did
+not know himself.
+
+"My friends, many scouts have sought the Eagle award and a few have won
+it. But the Eagle award now seeks Hervey Willetts. He threw it aside but
+still it comes to him and asks for acceptance. He deserves something
+better, but there is nothing better which we have to give. For there is
+no badge for a noble good turn. Tom Slade was right."
+
+"You said something!" some one shouted.
+
+"To be enough of a scout to win the Eagle award is much. To be scout
+enough to ignore it is more. But twenty-one badges is twenty-one badges,
+and the animal first aid badge is as good as any other. The technical
+question of whether a bird is an animal----"
+
+"Sure a bird's an animal!" called a voice from a far corner which
+sounded suspiciously like the voice of Pee-wee Harris. "Everybody's an
+animal--even I'm an animal--even you're an animal--sure a bird's an
+animal! That's not a teckinality! Sure a bird's an animal!"
+
+"Well, then, that settles it," laughed Mr. Temple amid a very tempest
+of laughter, "if that is Mr. Harris of my own home town speaking, we
+have the opinion of the highest legal expert on scouting----"
+
+"And eating!" came a voice.
+
+Thus, amid an uproarious medley of laughter and applause, and of
+cheering which echoed from the darkening hills across the quiet lake,
+Hervey Willetts stood erect while Mr. John Temple, founder of the camp
+and famous in scouting circles the world over, placed upon his jacket
+the badge which made him an Eagle Scout and incidentally brought him the
+canoe on which so many eyes had gazed longingly.
+
+And then one after another, pell-mell, scouts clambered onto the
+platform and surrounded him, while the scouts of his own troop edged
+them aside and elbowed their way to where he stood and mobbed him. And
+amid all this a small form, with clothing disarranged from close
+contact, but intent upon his purpose, squirmed and wriggled in and threw
+his little skinny arms around the hero's waist.
+
+"Will you--will you take me out in it?" he asked. "Just once--will
+you?"
+
+"The canoe?" Hervey said. "You'll have to ask my troop, Alf, old top; it
+belongs to them. What would a happy-go-lucky nut like I am be doing,
+paddling around in a swell canoe like that?"
+
+"Let me--let me see the badge," little Skinny insisted.
+
+But already Hervey had handed the badge over to his troop. Probably he
+thought that it would interfere with his climbing trees or perhaps fall
+off when he was hanging upside down from some treacherous limb or
+scrambling head foremost down some dizzy cliff. No doubt it would be
+more or less in the way during his stuntful career....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE RED STREAK
+
+
+There was one resident at Temple Camp who did not attend that memorable
+meeting by reason of being sound asleep at the time. This was Orestes,
+the oriole, who had had such a narrow squeak of it up at the foot of the
+mountain. Orestes always went to bed early and got up early, being in
+all ways a model scout.
+
+It is true that just at the moment when the cheering became tumultuous,
+Orestes shook out her feathers and peered out of the little door of her
+hanging nest but, seeing no near-by peril, settled down again to sweet
+slumber, never dreaming that the cheering was in honor of her scout
+rescuer.
+
+The housing problem did not trouble Orestes much. One tree was as good
+as another so long as her architectural handiwork was not desecrated,
+and having once satisfied herself that her little home still depended
+from the very branch which she had chosen, she did not inquire too
+particularly into the facts of that magic transfer. The branch rested
+across two other branches and Orestes was satisfied.
+
+That was a happy thought of Tom's to call the oriole Orestes, which
+means dweller in the woods, but thanks to Hervey the name became
+corrupted in camp talk, and the nickname of Asbestos caught the
+community and became instantly popular.
+
+The shady area under Asbestos' tree was already a favorite lounging
+place for scouts, and lying on their backs with knees drawn up (a
+favorite attitude of lounging) they could see that mysterious little red
+streak in their little friend's nest. In the late afternoon, which was
+ever the time of sprawling, the sun had a way of poking one of his rays
+right down through the dense foliage plunk on Asbestos' nest, and then
+the little red streak shone like Brick Warner's red hair after he had
+been diving. But no one ventured up to that little home to investigate
+that freakish streak of color.
+
+"I'd like to know what that is?" Pee-wee Harris observed as he lay on
+his back, peering up among the branches.
+
+Half a dozen scouts, including Roy Blakeley and Hervey Willetts, were
+sprawling under the tree waiting for supper, on the second afternoon
+after Hervey's triumph. Waiting for supper was the favorite outdoor
+sport at Temple Camp. Orestes was already tucked away in bed, having
+dined early on three grasshoppers and an angleworm for dessert.
+
+"That's easy," said Roy Blakeley; "Asbestos is a red--she's an
+anarchist. We ought to notify the government."
+
+"Asbestos is an I.W.W. He ought to be deported," Hervey said.
+
+"He's a _she_," Pee-wee said.
+
+"Just the same I'd like to know what that red streak really does mean,"
+Roy confessed.
+
+"It's better than a yellow streak anyway," Hervey laughed; "maybe it's
+her patrol color."
+
+"That's a funny thing about an oriole," another scout observed; "an
+oriole picks up everything it sees, string and ribbon and everything
+like that, and weaves it into its nest."
+
+"They should worry about building material," Roy said.
+
+"I read about one that got hold of a piece of tape and weaved it in,"
+said the scout who had volunteered the information. "Maybe that's tape."
+
+"Sure, she ought to work for the government, there's so much red tape
+about her," Roy observed.
+
+"It's the color of cinnamon taffy," Pee-wee said.
+
+"There you go on eats again," Roy retorted; "it's the color of pie."
+
+"What kind of pie?" Pee-wee asked.
+
+"Any kind," Roy said; "take your pick."
+
+"You're crazy," Pee-wee retorted.
+
+Their idle banter was interrupted by Westy Martin of Roy's and Pee-wee's
+troop who paused at the tree as they returned from the village. Westy
+was waving a newspaper triumphantly.
+
+"What do you know about this?" he said, opening the paper so that the
+scouts could see a certain heading.
+
+"Oh, me, oh, my!" Roy said. "Isn't Temple Camp getting famous? Talk
+about _red!_ Oh, boy, watch Hervey's beautiful complexion when he hears
+this. He'll have cinnamon taffy beat a mile."
+
+Willy-nilly, Roy snatched the news sheet from Westy and read:
+
+    TEMPLE CAMP HAS NEW HERO
+
+    Yesterday was a gala day up at the scout camp. More than five
+    hundred people from hereabouts, as well as the whole population of
+    the famous scout community, cheered themselves hoarse when Mr. John
+    Temple, founder of the big camp, distributed the awards for the
+    season.
+
+    For the first time in four years Temple Camp produced an Eagle Scout
+    in Hervey Willetts of a Massachusetts troop who won the award under
+    circumstances reflecting unusual credit on himself and bringing
+    honor to his troop comrades. Mr. Temple's remarks to this young hero
+    were flattening in the last degree----
+
+"You mean flattering," Pee-wee shouted.
+
+"Excuse myself," said Roy.
+
+     and it was decided to give Hervey the award, because Scout Harris
+     proved excruciatingly--I mean exclusively--I mean
+     conclusively--that a bird is an animal just the same as Mr. Temple
+     is, only different----
+
+"Let me see that!" shouted Pee-wee. "You make me sick! Where is it?"
+
+"Here's something to interest you more," Roy said; "here's the real
+stuff--a kidnapping. A kid was taking a nap and got kidded."
+
+"Where?" Pee-wee demanded.
+
+"There," Roy said, pointing triumphantly to a heading which put the
+Temple Camp notice in the shade. "Just read that."
+
+But for that sensational article, doubtless Hervey would have been more
+of a newspaper hero instead of being stuck down in a corner. The article
+was indeed one to arouse interest and call for big headings, and the
+scouts, gathered about Roy, peered over his shoulders and read it
+eagerly.
+
+    MILLIONAIRE HARRINGTON'S SON KIDNAPPED
+
+    ALARM SENT OUT FOR CHILD MISSING MORE THAN WEEK
+
+    TRAIN HAND GIVES CLEW
+
+    Police authorities throughout the country have been asked to search
+    for Anthony Harrington, Jr., the little son of Anthony Harrington,
+    banker, of New York. The child, aged about ten, disappeared about a
+    week ago and since then an exhaustive search privately made has
+    failed to yield any clew of the little fellow's whereabouts.
+
+    When last seen the child was playing on the lawn of his father's
+    beautiful estate at Irvington-on-Hudson on Friday a week ago. From
+    that time no trace of him has been discovered.
+
+    The only bit of information suggesting a possible clew comes from
+    Walter Hanlon, a trainman who told the authorities yesterday that on
+    an afternoon about a week ago his attention was drawn to a child
+    accompanied by two men leaving his train at Catskill Landing.
+    Hanlon's train was northbound. He reported what he had seen as soon
+    as the public alarm was given.
+
+    Hanlon said that he noticed the child, a boy, as he helped the
+    little fellow down the car steps, because of an open jack-knife
+    which the youngster carried, and which he good-naturedly advised him
+    to close before he stumbled with it. To the best of Hanlon's
+    recollection the little fellow wore a mackinaw jacket, but he did
+    not notice this in particular. It is known that the child wore a
+    sweater when he disappeared.
+
+    Hanlon paid no attention to the child's companions and his
+    recollection of their appearance is hazy. He says that the three
+    disappeared in the crowd and he thought they joined the throng which
+    was waiting for the northbound boat of the Hudson River Day Line. If
+    such was the case, the authorities believe that the party left the
+    train and continued northward by boat in hopes of baffling the
+    authorities.
+
+    One circumstance which lends considerable color to Hanlon's
+    statement is the positive assurance of the child's parents that
+    their son had no jack-knife of any description. This, therefore, may
+    mean that the child was not the Harrington child at all, or on the
+    other hand, it may mean, what seams likely, that the men gave the
+    little fellow a jack-knife as a bribe to accompany them. Hanlon
+    thinks that the knife was new, and is sure that the child was very
+    proud of it.
+
+So much of this sensational article was in conspicuous type. The rest,
+in regulation type, pertained to the unsuccessful search for the child
+by private means. A couple of ponds had been dragged, the numerous acres
+of the fine estate had been searched inch by inch, barns and haystacks
+and garages and smokehouses had been ransacked, an old disused well had
+been explored, the neighboring woodland had been covered, but little
+Anthony Harrington, Jr., had disappeared as completely as if he had gone
+up in the clouds.
+
+"You fellows had better be getting ready for supper," said Tom Slade, as
+he passed.
+
+"Look here, Tomasso," said Roy.
+
+Tom paused, half interested, and read the article without comment.
+
+"Some excitement, hey?" said Roy.
+
+"It's a wonder they didn't mention the color of the sweater while they
+were about it," Tom said.
+
+"The kid had on a mackinaw jacket," Roy shot back.
+
+"How do we know what was under the mackinaw jacket?" Tom said. "Come on,
+you fellows, and get washed up for grub."
+
+"Mm-mmm," said Pee-wee Harris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE PATH OF GLORY
+
+
+The affair of the kidnapping created quite a sensation at camp, partly,
+no doubt, because stories of missing people always arouse the interest
+of scouts, but chiefly perhaps because the thing was brought so close to
+them.
+
+Catskill Landing was the station for Temple Camp. It was there that
+arriving troops alighted from boat or train. It was the frequent
+destination of their hikes. It was there that they bought sodas and ice
+cream cones. Scouts from "up ter camp" were familiar sights at Catskill,
+and they overran the village in the summertime.
+
+Of course it was only by reason of trainman Hanlon's doubtful clew that
+the village figured at all in the sensational affair. At all events if
+the Harrington child and its desperate companions had actually alighted
+there, all trace of them was lost at that point.
+
+The next morning after the newspaper accounts were published a group of
+scouts hiked down to Catskill to look over the ground, hoping to root
+out some information or discover some fresh clew. They wound up in
+Warner's Drug Store and had a round of ice cream sodas and that was all
+the good their sleuthing did them.
+
+On the way back they propounded various ingenious theories of the escape
+and whereabouts of Master Harrington's captors. Pee-wee Harris suggested
+that they probably waited somewhere till dark and proceeded to parts
+unknown in an airplane. A more plausible inspiration was that they had
+crossed the Hudson in a boat in order to baffle the authorities and
+proceeded either southward to New York or northward on a New York
+Central train.
+
+The likeliest theory was that of Westy Martin of Roy's troop, that an
+automobile with confederates had waited for the party at Catskill. That
+would insure privacy for the balance of the journey.
+
+The theory of one scout that the party had gone aboard a cabin cruiser
+was tenable, and this means of hiding and confounding the searchers,
+seemed likely to succeed. The general opinion was that ere long the
+child would be forthcoming in response to a stupendous ransom. But this
+means of recovering the little fellow did not appeal to the scouts.
+
+Perhaps if Tom Slade, alias Sherlock Nobody Holmes, had accompanied the
+group down to the riverside village, he would have learned or discovered
+something which they missed. But Sherlock Nobody Holmes had other
+business on hand that morning.
+
+"Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it?" little Skinny had asked
+him. "Do you want to see those tracks I found? Do you want to see me
+follow them again? Do you want to see how I did it--do you?" And Tom had
+given Skinny to understand that it was the dream of his life to see
+those famous tracks, which had proved a path of glory to the golden
+gates which opened into the exalted second-class of scouting.
+
+"I'll show them to you! I'll show them to you!" Skinny had said eagerly.
+"I'll show you where I began. Maybe if we wait till it rains they'll
+get not to be there any more maybe."
+
+So Tom went with him to the rock close by the lake shore where the path
+to glory began, and starting here, they followed the tracks, now
+becoming somewhat obscure, up into the woods.
+
+"Before I started I made sure," Skinny panted, as he trotted proudly
+along beside his famous companion. "The scouts they said you'd be too
+busy to go with me, they did. But you ain't, are you?"
+
+"That's what," said Tom.
+
+"I bet you don't shake all over when Mr. Temple speaks to you, do you?"
+
+"Not so you'd notice it."
+
+"I bet he's got as much as a hundred dollars, hasn't he?"
+
+"You said it."
+
+"Maybe if I wasn't a-scared I'd ask him to look at the tracks too, hey?
+First off I was a-scared to ask _you?_"
+
+"Tracks are my middle name, Alf."
+
+"Now I can prove I'm a second-class scout by my badge, can't I?"
+
+"That's what you can. But you've got it pinned on the wrong side, Alf.
+Here, let me fix it for you."
+
+"Everybody'll be sure to see it, won't they?"
+
+"That's what they will."
+
+"Hervey Willetts, he's a hero, isn't he?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+"I'd like to be like him, I would."
+
+"He's kind of reckless, Alf. It's bad to be too reckless."
+
+"I wouldn't let you talk against him--I wouldn't."
+
+Tom smiled. "That's right, Alf, you stand up for him."
+
+"Maybe you don't know what kind of an animal made these tracks, maybe,
+hey?"
+
+Indeed Tom did not know. But one thing he knew which amused him greatly.
+They were following the path of glory the wrong way. Not that it made
+any particular difference, but it seemed so like Skinny. He had not
+actually tracked an animal at all, since the animal had come toward the
+lake. He had followed tracks, to be sure, but he had not tracked an
+animal. Hervey must have known this but he had not mentioned it. The
+thought thrilled even stolid Tom with fresh admiration for that young
+adventurer. Hervey Willetts was no handbook scout, but Tom would not
+have him different than he was--no, not by a hair. He thought how
+Skinny's beginning at the wrong end was like his pinning of the badge on
+the wrong side of his breast. Poor little Skinny....
+
+And he thought of that other scout coming down through those woods,
+tracking that mysterious animal indeed, and stopping short, and sitting
+down on a log and throwing away his triumph like chaff before the wind.
+Then there arose in his mind the picture of that bright-eyed,
+irresponsible youngster with his hat cocked sideways on his head, off
+upon some new adventure or bent on some new stunt. Not a very good scout
+delegate perhaps, but the bulliest scout that ever tore a gaping hole in
+his stocking....
+
+Tom was aroused from his meditation by Skinny's eager voice. "Here's the
+log where he talked to me," he said; "here's just the very same place we
+sat down and he said he'd be my witness. He said I was old top, that's
+what he called me."
+
+"Old top, hey?" said Tom, smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+MYSTERIOUS MARKS
+
+
+Before reaching the log, Tom's interest had been chiefly in his queer
+little companion. The tracks puzzled him somewhat, but since they had
+already served their purpose and were in process of obliteration he paid
+little attention to them. In his more ambitious rambles during late fall
+and winter, he had run across too many tracks of deer and bear and
+wildcat to become excited by these signs of some humbler creature of the
+woods.
+
+But on reaching that scene of Skinny's memorable meeting with Hervey
+Willetts, Tom's keenest interest was aroused by something which he saw
+there, and which both of the others characteristically had failed to
+notice. Skinny, enthralled by his vision of the coveted badge, had been
+in no state for minute exploration, and as for Hervey, these things
+were quite out of his line. Besides, his sudden impulse of generosity
+toward Skinny would have been quite sufficient (as we know it was) to
+cause him to forget all else.
+
+But Tom was as observant and methodical, as Hervey was erratic, and as
+he paused to rest upon the log, he noticed how it lay directly across
+the path of the tracks. Thus the track line was broken for a couple of
+feet or so by this obstacle.
+
+Supposing that the creature which had passed here had clambered over the
+log, Tom's scouting instinct was aroused to examine the rough bark
+carefully for any little tuft of hair which the animal might have left.
+And not finding any, he was puzzled. For by its tracks the creature must
+have been very small, certainly too small to have stepped, and not at
+all likely to have jumped over the log. If then it had clambered over
+the log it seemed remarkable that it had left no trace, not even a
+single hair, upon that rough surface.
+
+Tom knew that this was unusual. He knew that old Uncle Jeb would laugh
+at him if he went back and said that some small creature had crawled
+over that nutmeg grater and left no sign of its crossing. He knew that
+no animal could graze a tree in its flight but old Uncle Jeb would find
+there some tell-tale souvenir of its passing.
+
+Tom's interest was keenly aroused now. He was baffled and a little
+chagrined. But no supplementary inspection revealed so much as a single
+hair.
+
+Thus confounded, he examined the tracks more carefully. He followed them
+up to where they emerged from the lower reaches of the mountain. Then he
+followed them back, aided where they were dim by the deeper prints of
+Hervey's shoes. Skinny sat upon the log waiting for him.
+
+On the side of the log nearest the mountain the tracks turned and went
+sideways along the log for perhaps a yard to a point where the log was
+low and somewhat broken. Here, evidently, was where the animal had
+crossed. It must have been a very small animal, Tom thought, to have
+sought an easy place for crossing.
+
+Having thus determined the exact place of crossing, Tom concentrated his
+attention on this spot, examining the bark systematically, inch by inch.
+But no vestige of a clew rewarded his microscopic scrutiny. He was
+baffled and his curiosity and determination rose in proportion to the
+difficulties. His big mouth was set tight, a menacing frown clouded his
+countenance, so that instinctively little Skinny refrained from speaking
+to him.
+
+Tracing the apparent line of the animal's crossing over the log, Tom
+scrutinized the prints on the other side, that is, the side nearest
+camp. Here the prints were very clear by reason of the crust of mud
+caused by the dampness usually found near logs and fallen trees. Marks
+on this showed like marks on hard butter.
+
+Suddenly Tom's attention was riveted by something directly under the
+apparent line of crossing, something which he had never seen the like of
+in all his woodland adventures since he had become a scout. What he saw
+looked singularly out of place there. Yet there it was printed in the
+hard crust of mud, and as clear as writing on a slate. No human
+footprint was near it. If a human being had made those marks that human
+being must have reached from the log to do it. And the printing was
+almost too nice for that.
+
+Utterly dismayed, Tom looked again for human footprints but the nearest
+were those of Hervey on the other side of the log, some ten or a dozen
+feet beyond.
+
+"Did either of you fellows do that?" Tom asked, pointing.
+
+"Does--does it mean I can't have the badge?" Skinny asked, apprehensive
+of Tom's mood.
+
+"Did either of you fellows do that?"
+
+"N-no," Skinny answered timidly.
+
+"Have you brought any one else up here?"
+
+"Honest--I ain't."
+
+"Well then," said Tom, with a kind of grim finality, "either some one
+else who didn't have any feet has been here or else that animal knows
+how to write. Look there."
+
+Skinny obediently looked again. There below the log and close to the
+tracks were printed as clear as day the letters H. T. They were about
+two inches in size.
+
+"Take your choice," said Tom with a kind of baffled conclusiveness which
+greatly impressed his little companion. _"Either those letters were
+printed there by some one who didn't have any feet, or else the animal
+knew how to write. Either one or the other. It's got me guessing."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE GREATER MYSTERY
+
+
+Since there was no solution of this singular puzzle, Tom did not let it
+continue to trouble him. He was too busy with his duties incidental to
+the closing season to concern himself with mysteries which were not
+likely to reveal anything of value. The kidnapping was a serious affair,
+and the curious discovery which he had made in the woods was soon
+relegated to the back of his mind by this, which was now the talk of the
+camp, and by his increasingly pressing labors.
+
+[Illustration: "DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED.
+
+_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 151]
+
+Moreover he believed that some scout or other had visited this now
+memorable spot and marked his initials on the mud, squatting on the log
+the while. To be sure, the absence of footprints close by, save those
+easily recognizable as Skinny's, was perplexing, but since there was
+no other explanation, Tom accepted the one which seemed not wholly
+unlikely. At all events, what other explanation was there?
+
+For an hour or more that same night Tom lay under Asbestos' elm
+pondering on his singular discovery. Then realizing that his duties were
+many and various, he put this matter out of his head altogether and went
+to work in the morning at the strenuous work of lowering and rolling up
+tents.
+
+The papers which the boys brought up from Catskill that afternoon were
+full of the kidnapping. Master Harrington's distracted mother was under
+the care of a dozen or so specialists, six or eight servants had been
+discharged for neglect, Mr. Harrington offered a reward of five thousand
+dollars, somebody had seen the child in Detroit, another had seen him in
+Canada, another had seen him at a movie show, another had heard
+heart-rending cries in some marsh or other, and so on and so on.
+
+In New York "an arrest was shortly expected," but it didn't arrive. The
+detectives were "saying nothing" and apparently doing nothing. Master
+Anthony Harrington's picture was displayed on movie screens the country
+over.
+
+But out of all this hodge-podge of cooked up news and irresponsible
+hints there remained just the one plausible clew to hang any hopes on
+and that was trainman Hanlon's recollection of seeing a child in a
+mackinaw jacket and carrying a jack-knife in the company of two men who
+alighted from a northbound train at Catskill, within ten miles of Temple
+Camp.
+
+One other item of news interested the camp community, and that was that
+boy scouts throughout the country had been asked to search for the
+missing child.
+
+Meanwhile, the kidnappers sat tight, expecting no doubt that their
+demands for a large ransom would be more fruitful after the chances of
+legitimate rescue had been exhausted. The great fortune of Anthony
+Harrington of Wall Street was quite useless until a couple of ruffians
+chose to say the word. And meanwhile, Master Anthony, Jr., might be
+hacking himself all to pieces with a horrible jack-knife.
+
+It was just when matters were at that stage that Pee-wee Harris, Elk
+Patrol, First Bridgeboro Troop, went in swimming for the last time that
+summer in the cooling water of Black Lake. He gave a terrific cry,
+jumped on the springboard, howled for everybody to look, turned two
+complete somersaults and went kerplunk into the water with a mighty
+splash.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+WATCHFUL WAITING
+
+
+In a minute he came up sputtering and shouting.
+
+"What's that? A hunk of candy?" a scout sitting on the springboard
+called. For Pee-wee seldom returned from any adventure empty handed.
+
+"A tu-shh-sphh----" Scout Harris answered.
+
+"A which?"
+
+"A turtshplsh--can't you hearshsph?"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A turtlsh."
+
+"A turtle?"
+
+"Cantshunderstand Englsphish?"
+
+He dragged himself up on the springboard dripping and spluttering, and
+clutching this latest memento of his submarine explorations.
+
+"It's a turtle--t-u-r-t-e-l--I mean l-e--can't you understand English?"
+Pee-wee demanded as soon as the water was out of his mouth and nose.
+
+"Not submarine English," his companion retorted. "You can't keep your
+mouth shut even under water."
+
+It was indeed a turtle, which had already adopted tactics for a
+prolonged siege, its head, tail and four little stubby legs being drawn
+quite within its shell. Nor was it tempted out of this posture of
+defense when Pee-wee hurled it at Tom Slade who was standing near the
+mooring float, watching the diving.
+
+"There's a souvenir for you, Tomasso," Pee-wee called.
+
+Tom caught the turtle and was about to hurl it at another scout who
+stood a few yards distant, when he noticed something carved on the upper
+surface of the turtle's shell. He pulled up a tuft of grass, rubbing the
+shell to clean it, and as he did so, the carving came out clearly,
+showing the letters T. H.
+
+The scout who had been ready to catch the missile now stepped over to
+look at it, and in ten seconds a dozen scouts were crowding around Tom
+and craning their necks over his shoulders.
+
+"Somebody's initials," Tom said without any suggestion of excitement.
+
+"Maybe--maybe it was that kid who was kidnapped," Pee-wee vociferated.
+
+"Only his initials are A. H.," Tom answered dully.
+
+"No sooner said than stung," piped up one of the scouts.
+
+"What'll we do with him? Keep him?" asked another.
+
+"What good is he?" Tom said, apparently on the point of scaling the
+turtle into the lake. "Some scout or other cut his initials here, that's
+all. I don't see any use in keeping him; he isn't so very sociable."
+
+"Lots of times you crawl in your shell and aren't so sociable, either,"
+Pee-wee shot back at him. "I say let's keep him for a souvenir."
+
+"We'll have a regular Bronx Park Zoo here pretty soon," a scout said.
+"We'll have to give him a name just like Asbestos."
+
+Tom set the turtle on the ground and everybody waited silently. But the
+turtle was not to be beguiled out of his stronghold by any such
+strategy. He remained as motionless as a stone. Pee-wee gave him a
+little poke with his foot but to no avail. They turned him around,
+setting him this way and that, they tried to pry his tail out but it
+went back like a spring.
+
+They moved him a few yards distant in hopes that the change of scene
+might make him more sociable. But he showed no more sign of life than a
+fossil would have shown. So again they all waited. And they waited and
+waited and waited. They spoke in whispers and went on waiting.
+
+But after a while this policy of watchful waiting became tiresome.
+Apparently the turtle was ready to withstand this siege for years if
+necessary. Disgustedly, one scout after another went away, and others
+came. Tempting morsels of food were placed in front of the turtle, in a
+bee line with his head.
+
+"Gee whiz, if he doesn't care for food what _does_ he care for?" Pee-wee
+observed, knowing the influence of food.
+
+That settled it so far as he was concerned, and he went away, saying
+that the turtle was not human, or else that he was dead. Others, more
+patient, stood about, waiting. And all the famed ingenuity of scouts
+was exhausted to beguile or to drive the turtle out of his stronghold.
+At one time as many as twenty scouts surrounded him, with sticks, with
+food, and Scouty, the camp dog, came down and danced around and made a
+great fuss and went away thoroughly disgusted.
+
+The turtle was master of the situation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE WANDERING MINSTREL
+
+
+With one exception the most patient scout at Temple Camp was Westy
+Martin of the interesting Bridgeboro, New Jersey, Troop. He could sit
+huddled up in a bush for an hour studying a bird. He could sit and fish
+for hours without catching anything. But the turtle was too much for
+him.
+
+"We ought to name that guy Llewellyn," he commented, as he strolled
+away; "that means _lightning_, according to some book or other. There
+was an old Marathon racer a couple of million years ago named
+Llewellyn."
+
+"That's a good name for him," Tom admitted.
+
+"You going to hang around, Slady?"
+
+"I'm going to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer," Tom
+said.
+
+Thus the two most patient, stubborn living things in all the world were
+left alone together--the turtle and Tom Slade.
+
+Tom sat on a rock and the turtle sat on the ground. Tom did not budge.
+Neither did the turtle. The turtle was facing up toward the camp and
+away from the lake. Tom rested his chin in his hands, studying the
+initials on the turtle's shell. If they had been A. H. instead of T. H.
+they would indeed have been the very initials of Master Anthony
+Harrington, Jr. But a miss is as good as a mile, thought Tom, and T. H.
+is no more like A. H. than it is like Z. Q.
+
+This train of thought naturally recalled to his mind the letters he had
+seen imprinted in the mud up in the woods. But those letters were H. T.
+and there was therefore no connection between these three sets of
+letters.
+
+Tom knew well enough the habit of the Temple Camp scouts of carving
+their initials everywhere. The rough bench where they waited for the
+mail wagon to come along was covered with initials. And among them Tom
+recalled a certain sprightly tenderfoot, Theodore Howell by name, who
+had been at camp early that same season. Doubtless this artistic
+triumph on the bulging back of Llewellyn was the handiwork of that same
+tenderfoot.
+
+And likely enough, too, those letters up in the woods were the initials
+of Harry Thorne, still at camp. Tom would ask Harry about that. And at
+the same time he would remind some of these carvers in wood and clay not
+to leave any artistic memorials on the camp woodwork. It was part of
+Tom's work to look after matters of that kind. About the only conclusion
+he reached from these two disconnected sets of initials was that he
+would have an eye out for specialists in carving....
+
+But Tom's authority was as naught when it came to Llewellyn. The turtle
+cared not for the young camp assistant. He sat upon the ground
+motionless as a rock, apparently dead to the world.
+
+Tom had now no more interest in the turtle than a kind of sporting
+instinct not to be beaten. He could sit upon the rock as long as his
+adversary could sit upon the ground. In a moment of exasperation he had
+been upon the point of hurling the turtle into the lake, but had
+refrained, and now he was reconciled to a vigil which should last all
+night.
+
+Llewellyn had met his match.
+
+For fifty-seven minutes by his watch, Tom waited. Then the tip end of
+Llewellyn's nose emerged slowly, cautiously, and remained stationary.
+
+Eleven minutes of tense silence elapsed.
+
+Then the tip end of Llewellyn's nose emerged a trifle more, stopped,
+started again and lo, his whole head and neck were out, craned stiffly
+upward toward the camp.
+
+Tom did not move a muscle, he hardly breathed. Soon the turtle's tail
+was sticking straight out and one forward claw was emerging slowly,
+doubtfully.
+
+Silence.
+
+Another claw emerged and the neck relaxed its posture of listening
+reconnoissance. Then, presto, Llewellyn was waddling around like a
+lumbering old ferry boat and heading straight for the lake. As he
+waddled along in a bee line something which Tom had once read came
+flashing into his mind, which was that no matter where a turtle is
+placed, be it in the middle of the Desert of Sahara, he will travel a
+bee line for the nearest water.
+
+But his recollection of this was as nothing to Tom now, when he saw with
+mingled feelings of shame and excitement something which seemed to open
+a way to the most dramatic possibilities.
+
+As the turtle entered the muddy area near the lake Tom realized, what he
+should have known before, that the tracks which Hervey Willetts had
+followed from the mountain and which Skinny had followed from the lake
+were the tracks of a turtle! _The tracks of a turtle coming from a
+locality where it did not belong, straight for the still water which was
+its natural element._
+
+With a quick inspiration Tom darted forward into the mud catching the
+turtle just as it was waddling into the water. He did not know why he
+did this, it was just upon an impulse, and in making the sudden reach he
+all but lost his balance. As it was he had to swing both arms to keep
+his feet, and as he did so the turtle fell upside down in the drier mud
+a few feet back from shore. As Tom lifted it, there, imprinted in the
+mud were the letters H. T.
+
+The initials T. H. on the creature's back had been reversed when he fell
+upside down. And Tom realized with a thrill that what had just happened
+before his eyes had happened at that log up in the woods.
+
+Llewellyn, the Humpty-dumpty of the animal world, had slid off the log,
+alighting upside down.
+
+For a moment Tom Slade paused in dismay.
+
+So Teddy Howell and Harry Thorne had nothing to do with this. This
+lumbering, waddling creature had come flopping along down out of the
+silent lower reaches of that frowning mountain, straight to his
+destination. He was not the first printer to print something the wrong
+way around.
+
+Who, then, was T. H.? Not Master Anthony, Jr., at all events. But some
+one afar off, surely. Abstractedly, Tom Slade gazed off toward that
+towering mountain whence this clumsy but unerring messenger had come. It
+looked very dark up there. Tom recalled how from those lofty crags the
+great eagle had swooped down and met his match before the hallowed
+little home of Orestes.
+
+In a kind of reverie Tom's thoughts wandered to Orestes. Orestes would
+be in bed by now. Orestes had lived away up near where that turtle had
+come from. And the thought of Llewellyn and Orestes turned Tom's thought
+to Hervey Willetts. He had not seen much of Hervey the last day or
+two....
+
+Tom fixed his gaze upon that old monarch where again the first crimson
+rays of dying sunlight glinted the pinnacles of the somber pines near
+its summit. How solemn, how still, it seemed up there. The nearer sounds
+about the camp seemed only to emphasize that brooding silence. It was
+like the silence of some vast cathedral--awful in its majestic solitude.
+
+And this impassive, stolid, hard-shell pilgrim, knowing his business
+like the bully scout he was, had come stumbling, sliding, rolling and
+waddling down out of those fastnesses, because there was something right
+here which he wanted. And he had brought a clew. Should the human scout
+be found wanting where this humble little hero had triumphed?
+
+"I never paid much attention to those stories," Tom mused; "but if
+there's a draft dodger living up there, I'm going to find him. If
+there's a hermit I'm going to see him. If there's...."
+
+He paused suddenly in his musing, listening. It was the distant voice of
+a scout returning to camp. He was singing one of those crazy songs that
+he was famous for. Tom looked up beyond the supply cabin and saw him
+coming down, twirling his hat on a stick, hitching up one stocking as
+often as it went down--care-free, happy-go-lucky, delightfully heedless.
+
+He looked for all the world like a ragged vagabond. The evening breeze
+bore the strain he was singing down to where stolid Tom stood and he
+smiled, then suddenly became tensely interested as he listened. Tom
+often wondered where Hervey got his songs and ballads. On the present
+occasion this is what the blithe minstrel was caroling:
+
+      Saint Anthony he was a saint,
+        And he was thin and bony;
+      His mother called him Anthonee,
+        But the kids they called him Tony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+HERVEY MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+"_Tony!_"
+
+The word reached Tom's ears like a pistol shot. _Tony._
+
+      His mother called him Anthonee,
+        And the kids they called him Tony.
+
+Anthony--Tony. Why, of course, Tony was the universal nickname for
+Anthony. And if any kids were allowed within the massive iron gates at
+the Harrington Estate, undoubtedly they called him Tony.
+
+Tom, holding the turtle like a big rubber stamp, printed the letters
+several times on the ground--H. T. He scrutinized them, in their proper
+order on the turtle's back--T. H. Tony Harrington.
+
+Could it be? Could it really mean anything in connection with that lost
+child? Was it possible that while Detective Something-or-other, and
+Lieutenant Thing-um-bob, and Sheriff Bullhead and Captain
+Fuss-and-feathers were all giving interviews to newspaper men, this
+sturdy little messenger was coming down to camp with a clew, straight
+from the hiding place of a pair of ruffians and a little boy with a----
+
+_With a new jack-knife!_
+
+Tom was thrilled by this fresh thought. For half a minute he stood just
+where he was, hardly knowing what to do, what to think.
+
+"You're a good scout, Llewellyn," he finally mused aloud; "old Rough and
+Ready--slow but sure. Do you know what you did, you clumsy old ice
+wagon? You brought a second-class scout badge and an Eagle award with
+you. And I'd like to know if you brought anything else of value. That's
+what I would."
+
+But Llewellyn did not hear, at least he did not seem at all impressed.
+His head, claws and tail were drawn in again. He had changed himself
+into a rock. He was a good detective, because he knew how to keep
+still.
+
+Tom strolled up to supper, as excited as it was in his nature to be, and
+greatly preoccupied.
+
+On his way up he dropped Llewellyn into Tenderfoot Pond, a diminutive
+sheet of water, so named in honor of the diminutive scout contingent at
+camp. He would have room enough to spend the balance of his life resting
+after his arduous and memorable journey. And there he still abides, by
+last accounts, monarch of the mud and water, and suns himself for hours
+at a time on a favorite rock. He is ranked as a scout of the
+first-class, as indeed he should be, but he is frightfully lazy. He is a
+one stunt scout, as they say, but immensely popular. One hundred dollars
+in cash was offered for him and refused, so you can tell by that.
+
+After supper Tom sought out Hervey. "Herve," he said, "I don't suppose
+you ever tried your hand at keeping a secret, did you? Where's your
+Eagle badge?"
+
+"My patrol has got it."
+
+"Well, if you can't keep a badge do you think you can keep a secret? You
+were telling me you wouldn't let a girl wear an honor badge of
+yours----"
+
+"That was three days ago I told you that. Girls are different from what
+they were then. Can you balance a scout staff on your nose?"
+
+"I never tried that. Listen, Hervey, and promise you won't tell anybody.
+I'm telling you because I know I can trust you and because I like you
+and I think you can help me. I want you to do something for me, will
+you?"
+
+"Suppose while I'm doing it I should decide I'd rather do something
+else? You know how I am."
+
+"Well, in that case," said Tom soberly, "you get a large rock tied to
+your neck by a double sailor's knot, and are gently lowered into Black
+Lake."
+
+"I can undo a double sailor's knot under water," said Hervey.
+
+Tom laughed in spite of himself. "Hervey," said he, "do you know what
+kind of tracks those were you followed?"
+
+"A killyloo bird's?"
+
+"They were the tracks of a turtle and I was a fool not to know it. That
+turtle had the letters T. H. carved on his shell. Do you know what those
+letters might possibly stand for?"
+
+"Terrible Hustler? How many guesses do I have?"
+
+"Those letters were printed wrong way around in the mud up near that log
+when the turtle fell off the log upside down," Tom continued soberly.
+
+"He fell all over himself, hey?"
+
+"You didn't happen to notice those letters up there, did you?"
+
+"Not guilty."
+
+"It's best always to keep your eyes open," Tom said.
+
+"Not always, Slady."
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"When you're asleep?"
+
+Tom was a trifle nettled. "Well, are you willing to help me or not?" he
+asked.
+
+"Slady, I'm yours sincerely forever."
+
+"Well then, meet me under Asbestos' elm tree at quarter of eleven, and
+keep your mouth shut about it. We're going to see if we can find Anthony
+Harrington, Jr."
+
+"T. H.?"
+
+"Tony is nickname for Anthony; you just said so in your song."
+
+"When my soul burst forth in gladness, hey? The scout Caruso, hey,
+Slady? What are we going to meet under the elm tree for?"
+
+"You'll see when we get there. All you have to do in the meantime is to
+keep still. Do you think you can do that?"
+
+"Silence is my middle name, Slady; I eat it alive."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+SHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES
+
+
+Since Tom Slade, camp assistant, said it would be all right for Hervey
+to meet him at quarter of eleven under the elm tree, Hervey was only too
+glad to jump the rule, which was that scouts must turn in at ten thirty,
+directly after camp-fire. This stealthy meeting under the old elm tree
+near the witching hour of midnight was quite to Hervey's taste.
+
+He found Tom already there.
+
+"Now for the buried treasure, hey, Slady?" he said.
+
+"I want you to promise me not to sing," Tom said soberly. "Now listen,"
+he added, whispering. "That turtle came from way up in that mountain. It
+has T. H. cut on its shell, and I think the carving is new. That
+trainman said two men with a kid got out at Catskill. He said the kid
+had a jack-knife. His folks said he had a sweater. Maybe the men put the
+jacket on him--keep still till I get through. Maybe they wanted to
+disguise him.
+
+"It's bad enough for detectives to make fools of themselves and get that
+kid's family all excited, without scouts doing it. Maybe I'm all wrong
+but we're going to make sure."
+
+"Are you going up there, Slady?" Hervey whispered excitedly, as if ready
+to start.
+
+"No, not yet. We're going to find out something about the sweater
+first."
+
+"No one is in this but just you and I, hey?"
+
+"And Llewellyn and Orestes. Now listen, I want you to climb up this tree
+and don't scare the bird whatever you do. You can climb like a monkey.
+Don't interfere with the nest, but feel with your fingers and see if you
+can give me an idea what that red streak is made of. Don't call down.
+All we know now is that Orestes and Llewellyn came from pretty near the
+same spot. Two little clews are better than one big one if they match.
+Go on now, beat it, and whatever you do don't call down or I'll murder
+you."
+
+Hardly a rustling of the branches Tom heard as the young scout ascended.
+One silent leaf fluttered down and blew in his face. That was all. A
+minute, perhaps two minutes, elapsed. Then Tom saw the agile form slowly
+descending the dark trunk.
+
+"I'd make a good sneak thief, hey?" Hervey whispered.
+
+"You're a wonder on climbing," Tom said, with frank admiration.
+
+"It's kind of like worsted, Slady," Hervey whispered, as he brushed the
+bark from his clothing. "It's all woven in with other stuff but it feels
+like--sort of like worsted. I put my flashlight on it, it's faded--"
+
+"I know it is," Tom said, "but it was bright red when we first saw it
+and that's what makes me think it hasn't been in the nest long. I don't
+believe it had been there more than a couple of days or so when we found
+the nest. All I want to know now is whether it's wool, or anything like
+that. You think it is?"
+
+"Sure it is."
+
+"All right, then one thing more and we'll hit the trail. You meet me in
+the morning right after breakfast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY
+
+
+Early the next morning Tom and Hervey hiked down to Catskill.
+
+"I don't see why we don't hike straight for the mountain," Hervey said;
+"it would be much nearer."
+
+"Didn't you ever sail up the Hudson?" Tom asked him. "All the trails up
+the steep mountains are as plain as day from the river. If you want to
+discover a trail get a bird's-eye view. Don't you know that aviators
+discover trails that even hunters never knew about before? If the
+kidnappers went up that mountain, they probably went an easy way,
+because they're not scouts or woodsmen. See? It would be an awful job
+picking our way up that mountain from camp. If those men are up that
+way they knew where they were going. They're not pioneers, they're
+kidnappers."
+
+"Slady, you're a wonder."
+
+"Except when it comes to climbing trees," Tom said.
+
+At Catskill they hired a skiff and rowed out to about the middle of the
+river. From there Hervey was greatly surprised at what he saw. His
+bantering mood was quieted at last and he became sober as Tom, holding
+the oar handles with one hand, pointed up to a mountain behind the
+bordering heights along the river. Upon this, as upon others, were the
+faintest suggestions of lines. No trails were to be seen, of course;
+only wriggling lines of shadow, as they seemed, now visible, now half
+visible, now fading out altogether like breath on a piece of glass.
+
+It seemed incredible that mere paths, often all but undiscernible close
+at hand, should be distinguishable from this distance. But there they
+were, and it needed only visual concentration upon them to perceive that
+they were not well defined paths to be sure, but thin, faint lines of
+shadow. They lacked substance, but there they were.
+
+"That's old Tyrant," Tom said. "See?"
+
+Hervey would never have recognized the mountain. The side of it which
+they saw was not at all like the familiar side which faced Temple Camp.
+That frowning, jungle-covered ascent seemed less forbidding from the
+river, but how Tom could identify it was beyond Hervey's comprehension.
+
+It was apparent that by following a road which began at Catskill they
+would skirt the mountain along its less precipitous ascent, and Tom
+assumed that the trail, so doubtfully and elusively marked upon the
+height, would be easily discoverable where it left the road, as
+undoubtedly it did.
+
+Deduction and calculation were not at all in Hervey's line; he would
+have been quite satisfied to plunge into the interminable thicket on the
+side near camp and get lost there.
+
+"You see there is more than one way to kill a cat," Tom observed. "I was
+thinking of the kidnappers while you were thinking about the mountain.
+As long as they went up I thought I might as well let them show us the
+easy way."
+
+"You're a wonder, Slady!"
+
+"There are two sides to every mountain," Tom said.
+
+"Like every story, hey?"
+
+"You're a good scout only you don't use your brain enough. You use your
+hands and feet and your heart, I can't deny that."
+
+"The pleasure is mine," said Hervey. "We're going to sneak up the back
+way, hey?"
+
+"No, we're going up the front way," Tom smiled. "Llewellyn came down the
+back way."
+
+"He's a peach of a scout, hey?"
+
+"The best ever."
+
+Hervey had soon a pretty good demonstration of the advantage of using
+the brain first and the hands and feet afterwards. And he had a pretty
+good demonstration of the particular kind of scout that Tom Slade was--a
+scout that thinks.
+
+They hit into the road about fifty yards from the boat landing and
+followed it through a valley to where it ran along the foot of the
+mountain.
+
+"Are you sure this is the right mountain?" Hervey asked. "They all look
+alike when you get close to them."
+
+"Yop," said Tom; "what do you think of it?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not particular about mountains," Hervey said. "They all look
+alike to me."
+
+Following the road, they watched the bordering woods on the mountainside
+carefully for any sign of a trail. Several times they clambered up into
+the thicket supposing some tiny clearing or sparse area to be the
+beginning of the winding way they sought.
+
+Hervey was thoroughly aroused now and serious. Once they picked their
+way up into the woods for perhaps a dozen yards, only to find themselves
+in a jungle with no sign of trail. Tom returned down out of these blind
+alleys, his hands scratched, his clothing torn, and resumed his way
+along the road doggedly, saying little. He knew it was somewhere and he
+was going to find it.
+
+Suddenly he paused by a certain willow tree, looking at it curiously.
+
+"What is it?" Hervey asked excitedly.
+
+"Looks as if a jack-knife had been at work around here, huh? Somebody's
+been making a willow whistle. Look at this."
+
+Tom held up a little tube of moist willow bark, at the same time kicking
+some shavings at his feet. "Looks as if they passed this point,
+anyway," he said. "Ever make one of those willow whistles? I've made
+dozens of them for tenderfeet. If you make them the right way, they make
+a dickens of a loud noise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE CLIMB
+
+
+At last they found the trail. It wound up and away from the road about
+half a mile farther along than where they had found the shavings.
+
+"I guess no one would have noticed those but you," Hervey said
+admiringly; "I guess the detectives would have gone right past them."
+
+"A lot of little clews are better than one big one," Tom said as they
+scrambled up into the dense thicket. "The initials on the turtle, the
+new jack-knife, the willow shavings, all fit together."
+
+"Yes, but it takes Tom Slade to fit them together," Hervey said.
+
+"Maybe we might be mistaken after all," Tom answered. "Anyway, nobody'll
+have the laugh on us. We didn't talk to reporters."
+
+Their journey now led up through dense woods, but the trail was clear
+and easy to follow. Now and again they caught glimpses of the country
+below and could see the majestic Hudson winding like a broad silver
+ribbon away between other mountains.
+
+"Hark!" Tom said, stopping short.
+
+Hervey paused, spellbound.
+
+"I guess it was only a boat whistling," Tom said.
+
+"It's pretty lonesome up here," Hervey commented.
+
+The side of the mountain which they were ascending was less precipitous
+than the side facing the camp, and save for occasional patches of
+thicket where the path was overgrown, their way was not difficult.
+
+"But I think it's longer than the trip would be straight from camp,"
+Hervey said.
+
+"Sure it is," Tom said; "Llewellyn proves that; he went down the
+shortest way. He might have come down this way to the Hudson, only he
+hit a bee line for the nearest water."
+
+After about three quarters of an hour of this wearisome climb they came
+out on the edge of a lofty minor cliff which commanded a panoramic view
+of Temple Camp. They were, in fact, close to the edge of the more
+precipitous ascent and near the very point whence the eagle had swooped
+down.
+
+From this spot the path descended into the thicket and down the steep
+declivity. Below them lay Black Lake with tiny black specks upon
+it--canoes manned by scouts. The faintest suggestion of human voices
+could be heard, but they did not sound human; rather like voices from
+another world.
+
+Suddenly, in the vast, solemn stillness below them a shrill whistling
+sounded clear out of the dense jungle. It might have been a hundred
+yards down, or fifty; Tom could not say.
+
+He was not at all excited nor elated. Holding up one hand to warn Hervey
+to silence, he stood waiting, listening intently.
+
+Again the whistle sounded, shrill, clear-cut, in the still morning air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE RESCUE
+
+
+"Take off your shoes and leave them here," Tom whispered; "and follow me
+and don't speak. Step just where I step."
+
+Tom's soft moccasins were better even than stocking feet and he moved
+down into the thicket stealthily, silently. Not a twig cracked beneath
+his feet. He lifted the impediments of branch and bush aside and let
+them spring easily back into place again without a sound. Hervey crawled
+close behind him, passing through these openings while Tom held the
+entangled thicket apart for both to pass. He moved like a panther. Never
+in all his life had Hervey Willetts seen such an exhibition of scouting.
+
+Presently Tom paused, holding open the brush. "Hervey," he said in the
+faintest whisper, "they say you're happy-go-lucky. Are you willing to
+risk your life--again?"
+
+"I'm yours sincerely forever, Slady."
+
+"We're going home the short way; we're going down the way the turtle
+did," Tom whispered. "It's the only way--look. Shh."
+
+With heart thumping in his breast, Hervey looked down where Tom pointed
+and saw amid the dense thicket a glint of bright red. Even as he looked,
+it moved, and appeared again in another tiny opening of the thicket
+close by.
+
+"What is it?" he whispered.
+
+"A. H." Tom hardly breathed. "It's little Anthony Harrington--shh. Don't
+speak from now on; just follow me. See this trickle of water? There's a
+spring down there. They can't have their camp there, they'd roll down.
+The kid is there alone. If you're not willing to tackle the descent, say
+so. If we go down the regular way we'll have them after us. We've got to
+go a way that they _can't_ go. Say the word. Are you game?"
+
+"You heard them call me a dare-devil, didn't you?" Hervey whispered.
+"They claim I don't care anything about the Eagle award. They're right.
+I'd rather be a dare-devil. Go ahead and don't ask foolish questions."
+
+For about twenty yards Tom descended, stealthily pausing every few feet
+or so. Hervey was behind him and could not see what Tom saw. He did not
+venture to speak.
+
+Then Tom paused, holding the brush open, and peering
+through--thoughtfully, intently. He looked like a scout in a picture.
+Hervey waited behind him, his heart in his throat. He could not have
+stood there if Tom had not been in front of him. It seemed interminable,
+this waiting. But Tom was not the one to leap without looking.
+
+Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, he threw aside all stealth and
+caution and, tearing the bushes out of his path, darted forward like a
+hunted animal. Hervey could only follow, his heart beating, his nerves
+tingling with excitement. What happened, seemed all in an instant. It
+was over almost before it began. Tom had emerged into a little clearing
+where there was a spring and the next thing Hervey knew, there was his
+companion stuffing a handkerchief into the mouth of a little fellow in
+a red sweater and lifting the little form into his arms.
+
+Hervey saw the clearing, the spring, the handkerchief stuffed into the
+child's mouth, the little legs dangling as Tom carried the struggling
+form--he saw these things as in a kind of vision. The next thing he
+noticed (and that was when they had descended forty or fifty yards below
+the spring) was that the child's sweater was frayed near the shoulder.
+
+Down the steep declivity Tom moved, over rocks, now crawling, now
+letting himself down, now handing himself by one hand from tree to tree,
+agilely, carefully, surely. Now he relieved one arm by taking the child
+in the other, always using his free hand to let himself down through
+that precipitous jungle. Never once did he speak or pause until he had
+left an almost perpendicular area of half a mile or so of rock and
+jungle between them and the spring above.
+
+Then, breathless, he paused in a little level space above a great rock
+and set the child down.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Tony," he said; "we're going to take you home. And
+don't scream when I take this handkerchief out because that will spoil
+it all."
+
+"Is it safe to stop here?" Hervey asked.
+
+"Sure, they'll go down the path when they want to hunt for him. They'll
+never get down here. The mountain is with us now."
+
+"I didn't drop my whistle," the little fellow piped up, as if that were
+his chief concern.
+
+"Good," said Tom, in an effort to interest him and put him at ease.
+"That's a dandy whistle; tell us about it. Because we're your friends,
+you know."
+
+"Am I going to see my mother and father?"
+
+"You bet. Away down there is a big camp where there are lots of boys and
+you're going to stay there till they come and get you."
+
+"They sent me to the spring to get water and I took my whistle so I
+could soak it in the water, because that makes it go good. I made it
+myself, that whistle."
+
+Tom, his clothes torn, his face and hands bleeding from scratches, sat
+upon the edge of a big rock with the little fellow drawn tight against
+him.
+
+"And when you whistled we came and got you, hey? That's the kind of
+fellows we are. And I bet I know how that nice sweater got frayed, too.
+A little bird did that."
+
+"I left it hanging on a tree near the spring when they sent me to get
+water," the boy said, "and I left it there all night." He poked his
+finger in the frayed place as if he were proud of it.
+
+"And I'll show you who did it," Tom said; "because that little thief is
+right down there in that big camp. And I'll show you the turtle you
+carved your initials on too. Because he came to our camp, too. There's
+so much fun there. And you're going to step very carefully and hold on
+to me, and we're going down, down, down, till we get to that camp where
+there is a man that knows how to make dandy crullers. I bet you like
+crullers?"
+
+A camp where even birds and turtles go, and where they know how to make
+crullers, was a magic place, not to be missed by any means. And little
+Anthony Harrington was already undecided as to whether he would rather
+live there than at home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST
+
+Y-EXTRA! Y-EXTRA!
+
+
+The ragged little newsboys in the big city shouted themselves hoarse.
+"Y-extree! Y-extra! Anthony Harrington safe! Rescued by Boy Scouts!
+Y-extree! Mister!"
+
+And those who bought the extras learned how the kidnappers of Anthony
+Harrington allowed him to purchase for nine cents a turtle from a little
+farm boy whom he met at the station at Catskill. And of how that turtle
+walked off and gave the whole thing away. Llewellyn and Orestes got even
+more credit than Tom Slade, but he did not care, for a scout is a
+brother to every other scout, and it was all in the family.
+
+And so, as I said in the beginning, if you should visit Temple Camp, you
+will hear the story told of how Llewellyn, scout of the first-class,
+and Orestes, winner of the merit badges for architecture and music, were
+by their scouting skill and lore instrumental in solving a mystery and
+performing a great good turn.
+
+They are still there, the two of them; one in her elm, the other in
+Tenderfoot Pond. And Orestes (but this is strictly confidential) has a
+little scout troop of her own, tenderfeet with a vengeance, for they are
+out of the eggs scarcely ten days.
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TOM SLADE BOOKS
+
+By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
+
+Author of "Roy Blakeley," "Pee-wee Harris," "Westy Martin," Etc.
+
+=Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Colors. Every Volume
+Complete in Itself.=
+
+"Let your boy grow up with Tom Slade," is a suggestion which thousands
+of parents have followed during the past, with the result that the TOM
+SLADE BOOKS are the most popular boys' books published to-day. They take
+Tom Slade through a series of typical boy adventures through his
+tenderfoot days as a scout, through his gallant days as an American
+doughboy in France, back to his old patrol and the old camp ground at
+Black Lake, and so on.
+
+TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT
+TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP
+TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER
+TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS
+TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT
+TOM SLADE WITH THE BOYS OVER THERE
+TOM SLADE, MOTORCYCLE DISPATCH BEARER
+TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS
+TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE
+TOM SLADE ON MYSTERY TRAIL
+TOM SLADE'S DOUBLE DARE
+TOM SLADE ON OVERLOOK MOUNTAIN
+TOM SLADE PICKS A WINNER
+TOM SLADE AT BEAR MOUNTAIN
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
+
+By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
+
+Author of "Tom Slade," "Pee-wee Harris," "Westy Martin," Etc.
+
+=Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Color. Every Volume
+Complete in Itself.=
+
+In the character and adventures of Roy Blakeley are typified the very
+essence of Boy life. He is a real boy, as real as Huck Finn and Tom
+Sawyer. He is the moving spirit of the troop of Scouts of which he is a
+member, and the average boy has to go only a little way in the first
+book before Roy is the best friend he ever had, and he is willing to
+part with his best treasure to get the next book in the series.
+
+ROY BLAKELEY
+ROY BLAKELEY'S ADVENTURES IN CAMP
+ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER
+ROY BLAKELEY'S CAMP ON WHEELS
+ROY BLAKELEY'S SILVER FOX PATROL
+ROY BLAKELEY'S MOTOR CARAVAN
+ROY BLAKELEY, LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN
+ROY BLAKELEY'S BEE-LINE HIKE
+ROY BLAKELEY AT THE HAUNTED CAMP
+ROY BLAKELEY'S FUNNY BONE HIKE
+ROY BLAKELEY'S TANGLED TRAIL
+ROY BLAKELEY ON THE MOHAWK TRAIL
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS
+
+By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
+
+Author of "Tom Slade," "Roy Blakeley," "Westy Martin," Etc.
+
+=Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Color. Every Volume
+Complete in Itself.=
+
+All readers of the Tom Slade and the Roy Blakeley books are acquainted
+with Pee-wee Harris. These stories record the true facts concerning his
+size (what there is of it) and his heroism (such as it is), his voice,
+his clothes, his appetite, his friends, his enemies, his victims.
+Together with the thrilling narrative of how he foiled, baffled,
+circumvented and triumphed over everything and everybody (except where
+he failed) and how even when he failed he succeeded. The whole recorded
+in a series of screams and told with neither muffler nor cut-out.
+
+PEE-WEE HARRIS
+PEE-WEE HARRIS ON THE TRAIL
+PEE-WEE HARRIS IN CAMP
+PEE-WEE HARRIS IN LUCK
+PEE-WEE HARRIS ADRIFT
+PEE-WEE HARRIS F.O.B. BRIDGEBORO
+PEE-WEE HARRIS FIXER
+PEE-WEE HARRIS: AS GOOD AS HIS WORD
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY=
+
+=BOY SCOUT EDITION=
+
+The books in this library have been proven by nation-wide canvass to be
+the one most universally in demand by the boys themselves. Originally
+published in more expensive editions only, they are now re-issued at a
+lower price so that all boys may have the advantage of reading and
+owning them. It is the only series of books published under the control
+of this great organization, whose sole object is the welfare and
+happiness of the boy himself.
+
+Adventures in Beaver Stream Camp, Major A. R. Dugmore
+Along the Mohawk Trail, Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+Animal Heroes, Ernest Thompson Seton
+Baby Elton, Quarter-Back, Leslie W. Quirk
+Bartley, Freshman Pitcher, William Heyliger
+Billy Topsail with Doctor Luke of the Labrador, Norman Duncan
+The Biography of a Grizzly, Ernest Thompson Seton
+The Boy Scoots of Black Eagle Patrol, Leslie W. Quirk
+The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill, Charles Pierce Burton
+Brown Wolf and Other Stories, Jack London
+Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts, Frank R. Stockton
+The Call of the Wild, Jack London
+Cattle Ranch to College, R. Doubleday
+College Years, Ralph D. Paine
+Cruise of the Cachalot, Frank T. Bullen
+The Cruise of the Dazzler, Jack London
+Don Strong, Patrol Leader, W. Heyliger
+Don Strong of the Wolf Patrol, William Heyliger
+For the Honor of the School, Ralph Henry Barbour
+The Gaunt Gray Wolf, Dillon Wallace
+Grit-a-Plenty, Dillon Wallace
+The Guns of Europe, Joseph A. Altsheler
+The Half-Back, Ralph Henry Barbour
+Handbook for Boys, Revised Edition, Boy Scouts of America
+The Horsemen of the Plains, Joseph A. Altsheler
+Jim Davis, John Masefield
+Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
+Last of the Chiefs, Joseph A. Altsheler
+The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
+Last of the Plainsmen, Zane Grey
+Lone Bull's Mistake, J. W. Shultz
+Pete, The Cow Puncher, J. B. Ames
+The Quest of the Fish-Dog Skin, James W. Schultz
+Ranche on the Oxhide, Henry Inman
+The Ransom of Red Chief and Other O. Henry Stories for Boys,
+        Edited by F. K. Mathiews
+Scouting With Daniel Boone, Everett T. Tomlinson
+Scouting With Kit Carson, Everett T. Tomlinson
+Through College on Nothing a Year, Christian Gauss
+Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
+20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    1. Punctuation has been made regular and consistent with
+       contemporary standards.
+
+    2. Double column booklist for "Every Boy's Library" at end of
+       book was rendered in single column for readability.
+
+    3. Page 5: "in talking mood." changed to "in a talking mood."
+
+    4. Page 58: "learn things why" changed to "learn things while"
+
+    5. Page 67: "hitting straight in the direction" changed to
+       "heading straight in the direction"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Tom Slade on Mystery Trail, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SLADE ON MYSTERY TRAIL ***
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