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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: ISO-8859-1 + +*** 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 + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Title Page" border="1"> + <col style="width:80%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <br /> + <span style="font-size: 250%;">TOM SLADE</span> + <br /> + <span style="font-size: 200%;">ON MYSTERY TRAIL</span> + <br /><br /> + BY + <br /> + <span style="font-size: 140%;">PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH</span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: smaller"> + <i>Author Of</i><br /> + TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE<br />CAMP, ROY BLAKELEY, ETC.</span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: smaller">ILLUSTRATED BY<br /></span> + R. EMMET OWEN + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: smaller"> + Published with the approval of<br />THE BOYS SCOUTS OF AMERICA</span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="text-align:center; font-size: 120%">GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /></span> + <span style="font-size: 80%">PUBLISHERS : : + New York<br /><br /><br /></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p style="text-align:center; font-size: smaller">Made in the United States of America</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1921, by <br />GROSSET & DUNLAP</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:15%;" /> +<col style="width:3%;" /> +<col style="width:65%;" /> +<col style="width:10%;" /> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="font-size: smaller">CHAPTER</span></td> +<td> </td><td> </td> +<td align="right"><span style="font-size: smaller">PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Three Scouts</span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Another Scout </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">4</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">III</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The “All But” Scout </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">10</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Hervey Learns Something </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">V</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">What’s in a Name? </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">26</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Eagle and the Scout </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">31</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Streak of Red </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Eagle and Scout </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">38</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">To Introduce Orestes </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">44</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">X</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Off with the Old Love, on with the New </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Off on a New Tack </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">57</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">As Luck Would Have It </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">62</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Strange Tracks </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Hervey’s Triumph </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Skinny’s Triumph </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">In Dutch </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">83</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Hervey Goes His Way </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">91</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Day Before </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">96</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIX</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Gala Day </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XX</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Uncle Jeb </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Full Salute </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Tom Runs the Show </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">119</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Pee-Wee Settles It </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Red Streak </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Path of Glory </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">141</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Mysterious Marks </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Greater Mystery </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Watchful Waiting </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">156</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIX</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Wandering Minstrel </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">161</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXX</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Hervey makes a Promise </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">169</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXI</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">Sherlock Nobody Holmes </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Beginning of the Journey </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXIII</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Climb </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">185</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXIV</td><td> </td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Rescue </span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">188</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">Chapter the Last. Y-Extra! Y-Extra!</span></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_THE_LAST">192</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 200%;">TOM SLADE</span> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 170%;">ON MYSTERY TRAIL</span> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 150%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE THREE SCOUTS +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>You may hear how these deft and cunning masters of the wood and the +water circumvented the well laid plans of evil men and coöperated with +their brother scouts in a good scout stunt, which brought fame to the +quiet camp community in its secluded hills.</p> + +<p>For one, as you shall see, is the bulliest tracker +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> that ever picked his +way down out of a tangled wilderness and through field and over hill +straight to his goal.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Listen then while I tell you of how Tom Slade,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +ANOTHER SCOUT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> which the more experienced scout’s +conversation abounded when he was +in <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original omitted the word 'a'">a</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> boarded-up cabins, would smoke his pipe +in solitude and get ready for the long winter.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, leav<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>ing 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No one paid any attention to this little gnome of a boy, and he was a +pathetic sight sitting there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE “ALL BUT” SCOUT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>ing 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> stolid, but with a kind of assurance and serenity which he +may have learned from the woods.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>As he resumed his way through the woods he presently heard a cheery, but +rather exhausted, voice behind him.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>The speaker, who had been half talking and half shouting, now came +stumbling and panting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> up over the edge of the wooded decline where the +thick brush had played havoc with his scout suit but not with his +temper.</p> + +<p>“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—<i>all but</i>.”</p> + +<p>“But’s a pretty big word,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“You said it,” Hervey Willetts said, still wrestling with his breath; +“it’s the biggest word in the dictionary.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>They strolled on through the woods together, the younger boy’s gayety +and enthusiasm showing in pleasing contrast to Tom’s stolid manner.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“They told me down in camp that if I need a guide, philosopher, and +friend, I’d better run you down, or up——”</p> + +<p>“If you’d gone a little to the left you’d have found it easier,” Tom +said, in his usual matter-of-fact manner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you mean about guides?” Hervey asked, just a trifle puzzled. +“That’s an expression, <i>guide, philosopher, and friend</i>. It comes from +Shakespeare or one of those old ginks; it means a kind of a moral guide, +I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Tom.</p> + +<p>“But I need, I need, I need, I need a friend,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“You seem to have lots of friends down there,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“A scout is observant, hey?” Willetts laughed.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>you</i>.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>“<i>Good night!</i>” Hervey laughed. “They won’t be stuck on me after +Saturday. That’ll be the end of my glorious career.”</p> + +<p>“What did you do?” Tom asked, after his customary fashion of construing +talk literally.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what most everybody calls me,” Tom said, “except the troop I was +in. They call me Tomasso.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“How many merits have you got?” Tom asked him.</p> + +<p>“Twenty,” Hervey said, “twenty and two-thirds. Just a fraction more and +I’d have gone over the top.”</p> + +<p>“You mean a sub-division?” Tom asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s where the little <i>but</i> comes in,” Hervey said. “B-u-t, but. It’s +a big word, all right, just as you said.”</p> + +<p>“Is it architecture or cooking or interpreting or one of those?” Tom +asked.</p> + +<p>Hervey glanced at Tom in frank surprise.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Guess again,” Hervey laughed.</p> + +<p>“Then it must be either music or stalking,” Tom said, dully.</p> + +<p>His companion paused in his steps, contemplating Tom with unconcealed +amazement. “Right-o,” he said; “it’s stalking. What are you? A mind +reader?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Hervey Willetts stood just where he had stopped, looking at Tom with +admiration. In his astonishment he glanced at Tom’s arm as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“They change that book every now and then,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>Still Hervey continued to look. “What’s that belt made out of?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“It’s fiber from a string tree,” Tom said; “they grow in Lorraine in +France.”</p> + +<p>“Were you in France?”</p> + +<p>“Two years,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“How many merit badges have you got, anyway, Mr.—Slady?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said; “about thirty or thirty-five, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>guess?</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Where is it?” Hervey demanded.</p> + +<p>“I’m letting a girl wear it,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what I know about <i>you!</i>” 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.”</p> + +<p>“You can’t be so sure about that,” said Tom, out of his larger worldly +experience, “sometimes they take them away from you.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I guess that was about three or four years ago,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Once a scout, always a scout, hey?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>They strolled along in silence for a few minutes, Hervey occasionally +stealing a side glimpse at his elder, who ambled on, apparently +uncon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>scious 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Hear that?” Tom said. “That’s a thrush.”</p> + +<p>“A thrush?”</p> + +<p>“Yop; go on,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you’ve won thirteen more since you’ve been here?” Tom asked.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said Hervey. “First I got my fists<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> on the eleven that have +<i>got</i> 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?”</p> + +<p>Tom could not help smiling.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“It’s good,” Tom said, by no means carried away by enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“All right,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“That’s a good one,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“You said it; and I’ve got pioneering, path<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>finding, 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.”</p> + +<p>“There’s one good one that you left out,” Tom said. “I thought you’d +think of it on account of that last one.”</p> + +<p>“You mean stalking?”</p> + +<p>“I mean another that has something to do with that?”</p> + +<p>“Now you’ve got me guessing,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“Well, how do you want me to help you?” Tom asked, thus stifling his +companion’s inquisitiveness.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“A quarter of a mile,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> want to go home from here +an Eagle Scout. Gee, I don’t want all my work to go for nothing.”</p> + +<p>“You want what you want when you want it, don’t you?” Tom said, smiling +a little.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>you</i>. Maybe you think I +just chose easy ones, hey?”</p> + +<p>“Well, what’s on your mind?” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes there are different trails and they take you to the same +place,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>No doubt this was one of the sort of remarks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> that Tom was famous for +making which had either no particular meaning or a meaning poorly +expressed.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“Some,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>Tom’s answer was characteristic of him and it was not altogether +satisfactory.</p> + +<p>“I’m not so stuck on eagles,” he said.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +WHAT’S IN A NAME +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“<i>You’re not?</i>” 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.’”</p> + +<p>“I like Star Scout better,” Tom said, unmoved by his companion’s +consternation.</p> + +<p>“Why, that means only ten merit badges,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“It’s fun studying the stars,” Tom added.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t,” Tom said. “You’re too excitable to study the stars. It’s +got to be something livelier.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You’ve got me down pat, that’s sure,” Hervey laughed.</p> + +<p>Tom smiled, too. “Well, you want the Eagle badge, do you?” he said.</p> + +<p>“You seem to think it doesn’t amount to much,” Hervey complained.</p> + +<p>“I think it amounts to a whole lot,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“When I get my mind on a thing——” Hervey announced.</p> + +<p>“That’s the trouble with you,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“You just give me a tip and I’ll do the rest,” said Hervey.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It must be about tracking, hey?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it; test three for the stalking badge. <i>Track an animal a +quarter of a mile.</i>”</p> + +<p>“Well, let me think a minute, then,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Up on that mountain, maybe, hey?” Hervey urged.</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to kill a cat,” Hervey said. “I want to find some tracks, +I——”</p> + +<p>“You want to be an Eagle Scout,” Tom concluded; “and you’ve got your +mind set on it. That it?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s it; but it’s for the sake of my troop, too.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And so these two strolled on, and for a few minutes neither spoke.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” Hervey answered.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t drop a trail after you once picked it up, would you? Some +animals take you pretty far.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You bet nothing would stop <i>me</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“Hang on like a bulldog, hey?” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“That’s me,” said Hervey.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the kind of a fellow they want for an Eagle Scout,” Tom said; +“do or die.”</p> + +<p>“That’s me,” said Hervey Willetts.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>accessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had ever +ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.</p> + +<p>At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour +of yarn telling, the seasoned habitués 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I bet there are wild animals up there,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“Here’s one of them now,” commented Tom, pointing upward.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Watch him, watch him,” Hervey whispered.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then he placed his finger to his lips, warning Hervey to silence, and +beckoned him into the darker shadow under the great tree.</p> + +<p>“Did you see anything beside the bird?” he whispered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>“No,” said Hervey. “Why? What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Shh,” Tom said; “look up—shh——”</p> + +<p>It was the most fateful moment of all Hervey Willetts’ scout career, and +he did not know it.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE STREAK OF RED +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“Look up there,” Tom said; “out near the end of the third branch. See? +The little codger beat him to it.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know they could see all that distance,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s one thing you’ve learned that you didn’t know before,” Tom +said in his matter-of-fact way.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> above floated a feather, then +another—trifling losses of the conqueror in his triumphal entry.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +EAGLE AND SCOUT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But every second brought also the scout nearer to the hanging nest. Up, +up he went, now straddling some bending limb, now swinging himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> with +lightning agility to one above. Once, crawling on a horizontal branch, +he slid over and hung beneath it, like an opossum.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/image-042.jpg" alt="HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE." title="HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE." /> +<span class="caption">HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE.</span> +</div> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>suspense, expecting to see the form of his young +friend come crashing to earth.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> that branch must break under +him. He knew, he <i>must</i> have known, that the chances were at least even +that the eagle would desert the branch above in either assault or +flight.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +TO INTRODUCE ORESTES +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of +it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You all right?” he heard Tom call from below.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> could he handle it +after it was detached? How would he get down with it through all that +network of lower branches?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>It is not every landlord that goes to so much trouble for a tenant.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, ON WITH THE NEW +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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, <i>coming down!</i> This tree is tied in a sailor’s knot.”</p> + +<p>“Are you bringing the bird?” Tom called.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> <i>O-o-h, boy</i>, watch your step; there was a narrow escape! I +stepped on a chunk of air.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t fall,” said Tom with a note of admiring confidence in his +brief remark.</p> + +<p>“Better knock wood,” came the cheery answer from above.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, what do you think of eagles now?” Tom asked, in his dull way.</p> + +<p>“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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> hanging in the +pantry. What’s that streak of red, anyway? His patrol colors? You’d +think he’d get seasick, wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got the bird badge,” Tom said, smiling a little; “can’t you +guess?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> for the present. His naïve +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.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you ever see one before?” Tom asked.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it?” Tom queried.</p> + +<p>“No; I want a trail along the ground.”</p> + +<p>“Still after the Eagle, huh? Do you realize what you have done?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you were going to,” Tom said soberly.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You see my head is full of the Eagle badge just now,” Hervey pleaded, +“but I’m going to look up orioles.”</p> + +<p>Tom smiled.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He’s got the right idea, there,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>Tom tried again to interest the rescuer in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“Somebody in a book called the oriole Orestes, because that means +dweller in the woods,” Tom ventured.</p> + +<p>“He dwells in a sky-scraper, that’s what <i>I</i> say,” Hervey commented. “In +a hall bedroom upside down, twenty floors up.”</p> + +<p>Tom tried again. “What do you mean to do with her now that you’ve got +her?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t tear the nest from the branch,” Tom said. “You must have had +some idea.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Hervey, “my idea was to stick it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> up in an elm tree down at +camp. Think she’d stand for it?”</p> + +<p>“Guess so,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Orestes,” Tom corrected him.</p> + +<p>“Pardon <i>me</i>,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“Maybe you don’t even care if I tell them what you did?” Tom queried.</p> + +<p>“Tell them whatever you want,” Hervey said. “I don’t care. What I’m +thinking now is——”</p> + +<p>“The next stunt,” Tom interrupted him.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” Hervey concurred with surprising readiness. “You’ve got +the right idea. My specialty is the Eagle badge. See?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, that’s twenty-one badges,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Right-o, and all I need to do now is test three for the stalking badge +and I’m <i>it</i>. 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, there isn’t much time,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That’s the trouble, Slady, and it’s got me guessing.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +OFF ON A NEW TACK +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The handbook was almost a sacred volume to sober Tom. Still, he was +captivated by Hervey, as indeed others were in the big camp.</p> + +<p>“Well, you were after the Eagle and you got an oriole,” he said, half +jokingly. “That’s what I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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 +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'why'">while</ins> +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.”</p> + +<p>“You think I’m a punk scout,” Hervey sang out, gayly.</p> + +<p>“I think you’re a bully scout,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“If I win the Eagle you’ll say so, won’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe.”</p> + +<p>“And do you mean to tell me that a scout can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> be any more of a scout +than that—an Eagle Scout?”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” said Tom uncompromisingly.</p> + +<p>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>I</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, <i>siree</i>.... Do you mean to tell me that there’s anything +higher in scouting than the Eagle award?” he asked defiantly, after a +pause.</p> + +<p>“Yop, there is,” said Tom, unmoved.</p> + +<p>Hervey paused in consternation. “Well, I’m for the Eagle award, anyway,” +he finally said. “That’s good enough for <i>me</i>. And I’m going to get it, +too; right away, quick.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll get it,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Think I will?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think, I know.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you’re <i>sure</i> I will?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s what I said.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Positive?</i>”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I said.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then I’d better get busy hunting for some tracks, hadn’t I? I’ve +got to make good to <i>you</i> as well as to my troop, haven’t I?”</p> + +<p>“You ask a lot of questions,” said Tom in his funny, sober way. “You +don’t need to make good with me.”</p> + +<p>“Believe <i>me</i>, I’ve got you and my troop both on my mind now. Are you +going to give me a tip about some tracks?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe—to-morrow,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m a regular night owl,” Hervey said. “You take Asbestos back to +camp and hang him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> up in a tree and I’ll blow in later. I’m going on the +war path for tracks. So long.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And there stood Tom, holding the memorial of Hervey’s heroism in his +hand. Hervey had apparently forgotten all about it....</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> human beings, but Hervey knew that it could +hardly be this.</p> + +<p>What, then, was it?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> land taking the path of least +resistance among the rocks.</p> + +<p>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—<i>nothing</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And presently he was rewarded by the discovery of tracks, animal tracks +sure enough, without any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE STRANGE TRACKS +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>Hervey had not the slightest idea in which direction he was going, but +in point of fact he was +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'hitting'">heading</ins> +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....</p> + +<p><i>Nothing!</i> He would send a line to his mother that very night and tell +her all about it, and put E. S. after his name. <i>Eagle Scout.</i> The +bicycle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> 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....</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Yes, he was on the trail at last, and at the end of that trail was the +stalking badge—and the Eagle award. <i>Hervey Willetts, Eagle Scout.</i> It +sounded pretty good....</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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, <i>nothing</i>. When he set his mind on a thing....</p> + +<p>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 +visi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>ble 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> tracking in the woods was the hardest part of his task because it +required patience and deliberation, and Hervey had neither.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>Some one was sitting on the log.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +HERVEY’S TRIUMPH +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Skinny, old top!” Hervey said cheerily. “What do you think +you’re doing here? Lost, strayed, or stolen?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You look kind of frightened. Are you lost?” Hervey inquired.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Don’t get rattled, Skinny,” Hervey said; “I’ll take you back to camp. +We’ll find the way, all right-o.”</p> + +<p>“I’m a second-class scout,” Skinny said.</p> + +<p>“Bully for you, Skinny.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“They’ll believe you, Skinny, or I’ll break their heads, one after +another. What did you do, Alf, old boy?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe they’ll say I’m lying.”</p> + +<p>“Not while I’m around,” Hervey said. “What’s on your mind, Skinny?”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t through yet,” Skinny said. “I know your name and I like you. I +like you because you can dive fancy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and what are you doing here, Alf?” Hervey asked, sitting down +beside the little fellow.</p> + +<p>“I’m a second-class scout,” Skinny said; “I found the tracks and I +tracked them. See them? There they are. Those are tracks.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see them.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>sure</i>—or you don’t get the badge. +So now I won’t be a tenderfoot any more. Are you a second-class scout?”</p> + +<p>“First-class, Skinny.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I bet you don’t care about tracks—do you?”</p> + +<p>Hervey put his arm over the little fellow’s shoulder and as he did so he +felt the little body trembling with nervous excitement.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to follow them away, way, way up so as I’ll be <i>sure</i>. They +might say it wasn’t a half a mile, hey?”</p> + +<p>The hand which rested on the little thin shoulder, patted it +reassuringly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll be there to tell them different, won’t I, Skinny, old boy?”</p> + +<p>“Will you go with me all the way up to where the mountain begins—will +you?”</p> + +<p>“Surest thing you know.”</p> + +<p>“And will you prove it for me?”</p> + +<p>“That’s me.”</p> + +<p>“Then I won’t be a tenderfoot any more. I’ll be a second-class scout.”</p> + +<p>“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.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And I’ll—I’ll have a trail named after me, too; it’ll be called McCord +trail. These are <i>my</i> tracks, see? Because I found them. Only maybe +they’ll say I’m lying. Anyway, how did <i>you</i> happen to come here?” he +asked as if in sudden fear.</p> + +<p>“I was just taking a walk through the woods, Skinny.”</p> + +<p>Skinny continued to stare at him, still with a kind of lingering +misgiving, but feeling that gentle patting on his shoulder, he seemed +reassured.</p> + +<p>“I was just flopping around in the woods, Skinny; just flopping around, +that’s all....”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +SKINNY’S TRIUMPH +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>And that was the triumph of Hervey Willetts, who would let nothing stand +in his way. “<i>Nothing!</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> 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....”</p> + +<p>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 <i>always</i> right, anyway,” Hervey +reflected.</p> + +<p>He was aroused from his reflections by little Skinny. “I followed them +from camp,” he said. “They’re <i>real</i> tracks, ain’t they? And they’re +<i>mine</i>, ain’t they? Because I found them? Ain’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Bet your life. I tell you what you do, Alf, old boy. You just follow +them up a little way further<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“You know about good turns, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“’Fraid not, except when somebody reminds me.”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to keep you for my friend even if I <i>am</i> a second-class +scout, I am,” Skinny assured him.</p> + +<p>“That’s right, don’t forget your old friends when you get up in the +world.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you’ll get that canoe some day, hey?”</p> + +<p>“What canoe is that, Alf?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The highest honor, that’s the Eagle award, isn’t it?” Skinny asked.</p> + +<p>“I suppose so,” Hervey said; “a fellow can’t get any higher than the top +unless he has an airplane.”</p> + +<p>“Can he get higher than the top if he has a balloon?” Skinny wanted to +know.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ever kill a councilman?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What gate?”</p> + +<p>“I mean here on this log.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know Tom Slade?”</p> + +<p>“You bet.”</p> + +<p>“He likes me, he does; because I used to steal things out of grocery +stores just like he did—once.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>“All right,” Hervey laughed. “Go ahead now, it’s getting +late—Asbestos.”</p> + +<p>“That isn’t my name.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“They’re <i>my</i> tracks; all mine,” Skinny said.</p> + +<p>“You bet,” said Hervey; “you can roll them up and put them in your +pocket if you want to.”</p> + +<p>Skinny gazed at his companion as if he didn’t just see how he could do +that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so they started down for camp together, verging away from the tracks +of glory, so as to make a short cut.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t know the handbook if I met it in the street,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I had one but I lost it before I got it,” Hervey said. “So I +don’t miss it much,” he added.</p> + +<p>“You sound as if you were kind of crazy,” Skinny said.</p> + +<p>“I’m crazy about you,” Hervey laughed; and he gave Skinny a shove.</p> + +<p>“Anyway, I like you a lot. And they’ll surely let me be a second-class +scout now, won’t they?”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to see them stop you.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +IN DUTCH +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> 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:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This canoe to be given to the first scout this season to win the +Eagle award.</p></div> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"> +<span class="smcap">Hervey Willetts</span>,<br /> +Troop Cabin 13.<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Anything doing, Hervey?” his scoutmaster, Mr. Warren, asked him.</p> + +<p>“Nothing doing,” Hervey answered laconically.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Have you got a trail—any tracks?” another asked.</p> + +<p>Hervey began rummaging through his pockets and said, “I haven’t got one +with me.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t happen to see that canoe in Council Shack, did you?” Mr. +Warren asked him.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s very nice,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>Mr. Warren paused a moment, irresolute.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> like—what shall I say—like Columbus turning back just before +land was sighted.”</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“Listen, Hervey,” Mr. Warren interrupted him; “suppose you and I walk +together, I want to talk with you.”</p> + +<p>So they strolled together in the direction of the mess boards.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>one single requirement</i>.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> 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?”</p> + +<p>“Tracks are not so easy to find,” Hervey said, somewhat subdued.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“In the village?”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“What did <i>he</i> say—Tom Slade?” Hervey queried.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he didn’t say anything; he never says much. But I think he likes +you, Hervey, and he’ll be disappointed.”</p> + +<p>“You think he will?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Hervey, my boy, don’t talk like that, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> above all, don’t let the +boys hear you talk like that. There’s nothing better than to finish what +you begin—<i>nothing</i>. 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?”</p> + +<p>Hervey did not answer.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> stuck on the Eagle award, after all. +That’s what you can tell them.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Right the first time,” said Hervey with a gayety that quite disgusted +his scoutmaster.</p> + +<p>“Well, go your way, Hervey,” he said coldly.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +HERVEY GOES HIS WAY +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> stuck together on the +bus ride down to the regatta on the Hudson and were close companions all +through the day.</p> + +<p>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 coöperate. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll stamp with both feet,” said Hervey.</p> + +<p>“And will you clap?”</p> + +<p>“When you hear me clap you’ll think it’s a whole troop.”</p> + +<p>“I bet your troop think a lot of you.”</p> + +<p>“They could be arrested if they said out loud what they think of me.”</p> + +<p>“My father got arrested once.”</p> + +<p>“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, <i>good night</i>, it reminds you of boyhood’s happy school days.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s one good thing about me,” Hervey laughed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Some hero.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Skinny looked as if he did not understand.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Get out!”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you see it yet?”</p> + +<p>“Nope.”</p> + +<p>“All the fellows saw it. That bird has got a name like the one you +called me.”</p> + +<p>“Asbestos?”</p> + +<p>“Something like that. Why did you call me that name—Asbestos?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, because you’re more important than an eagle. See?”</p> + +<p>“That’s no good of a reason.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, because you’re going to be a second-hand scout.”</p> + +<p>“You mean second-<i>class</i>,” Skinny said; “that’s no good of a reason, +either.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I guess I’m not much good on reasons. I’d never win the reason +badge, hey?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Pee-wee Harris, he’s in my troop; he said he’d shout.”</p> + +<p>“Good night!” Hervey laughed. “What more do you want?”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE DAY BEFORE +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hervey worked with his own troop, the members of which gave him scant +attention. If they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Some</i> fall-down; we should worry,” another said, busy at his tasks.</p> + +<p>“Eagle fell asleep at the switch, didn’t you, Eagle?”</p> + +<p>They called him Eagle in a kind of ironical contempt, and it cut him +more than anything else that they said.</p> + +<p>“Eagle with clipped wings, hey?” one of the troop wits observed.</p> + +<p>“Help us take down this troop pole, will you?” Will Connor, Hervey’s +patrol leader, called.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> “We should bother about the eagle; our eagle +isn’t hatched yet.”</p> + +<p>“Some eggs are rotten,” one of the Panthers retorted, which created a +general laugh.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Getting all cleared up?” Tom asked in his usual sober but pleasant way.</p> + +<p>Hervey Willetts was about to fly off the handle but something in Tom’s +quiet, keen glance deterred him.</p> + +<p>“You fellows going home soon?”</p> + +<p>“Tuesday morning,” volunteered the Panthers’ patrol leader. “We usually +don’t stick to the finish. We’re a troop of quitters, you know.”</p> + +<p>“What did you quit?” asked Tom, taking his informant literally.</p> + +<p>“Oh, never mind.”</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>“Go back and pick up those stones, Willetts,” said Tom quietly, “and +pile them up down by the woodshed.”</p> + +<p>“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>I</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——”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Did you hear——”</p> + +<p>“Yop. And I tell you to go back there and keep calm. I’m not interested +in badges either;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> 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?”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE GALA DAY +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His coming was preceded by telegrams going in both directions, talks +over the long distance ’phone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To his disappointed troop Mr. Warren said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p></div> + +<p>This good attempt to revive the spirits of his disappointed troop was +followed by three feeble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> cheers, which ought to have gone on crutches, +they were so weak.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“You going to be on hand at five?” Tom queried in his usual off-hand +manner.</p> + +<p>“What’s the use?” Hervey asked. “There’s nothing in it for me.”</p> + +<p>Tom leaned against the railing of the porch, with his stolid, half +interested air.</p> + +<p>“Nothing in it for me,” Hervey repeated, twirling his hat on the stick +in fine bravado.</p> + +<p>“So you’ve decided to be a quitter,” Tom said, quietly.</p> + +<p>Hervey winced a bit at this.</p> + +<p>“You know you said you weren’t so stuck on eagles,” Hervey reminded him, +rather irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not so stuck on quitters either,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“What’s the good of my going? I’m not getting anything out of it.”</p> + +<p>“Neither am I,” said Tom.</p> + +<p>“You got stung when you made a prophecy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>Again he began twirling his hat on the stick. “I couldn’t sit with my +troop, anyway,” he added; “I’m in Dutch.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I ought to like him; we both fell down.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You call me a fool?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’re twenty different kinds of a fool.”</p> + +<p>“Almost an Eagle fool, hey?”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>The effect was not pleasing to his comrades and scoutmaster.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +UNCLE JEB +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was plenty doing. Those who could not get seats sprawled under the +trees in back of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> the seats and a few scouts perched up among the +branches.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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)</p> + +<p>“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 <i>silence</i>. (Uproarious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“I wish yer all good luck and I congratulate you youngsters that +are getting awards. If yer all got your just deserts——”</p></div> + +<p>“I get three helpings,” came a voice from somewhere in the audience. It +was the voice of Pee-wee Harris. “I get <i>my</i> just desserts!”</p> + +<p>Amid tumultuous cheering and laughter, old Uncle Jeb lounged back to his +seat and Mr. John Temple arose.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE FULL SALUTE +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>Great applause greeted Mr. Temple. He said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Gentlemen of our camp staff, visiting scoutmasters, and scouts:</p> + +<p>“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)</p> + +<p>“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)</p> + +<p>“Scouts, this is a gala day for me. It beats three helpings of +dessert——”</p></div> + +<p>“Sometimes we get four,” the irrepressible voice shouted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“I have been honored by the privilege of coming here to visit you +in these quiet hills——”</p></div> + +<p>A voice: “Sometimes it isn’t so quiet.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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)</p> + +<p>“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 <i>not</i> to one who saves life, but to a <i>scout</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“Scouting is no game to be won or lost, like baseball. After all, +the high award is not for what you <i>do</i> alone, but for what you +<i>are</i>. You are not to use scouting as a means to an end.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>scout</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> on his coat. But he must +learn to be a friend to the birds and animals. For that is true +scouting.</p> + +<p>“You will notice that on the scout stationery is printed our good +motto, <i>‚Do a good turn daily.’</i> 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.”</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>After the distribution of a dozen or so merit badges, Mr. Temple called +out, “Alfred McCord, Elk Patrol, First Bridgeboro, New Jersey Troop.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Bully for Alf!” some one called.</p> + +<p>“Greetings, Shorty,” another shouted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> mouth showed very clearly as he smiled—oh, such a +smile.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah, for the star tracker!”</p> + +<p>“Three cheers for the sleuth of the forest!”</p> + +<p>“No more tenderfoot!”</p> + +<p>“Hurrah for S-S-S!” Which meant Skinny, second-class scout.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Skinny saw Mr. Temple’s hand raised, saw the fingers formed to make the +familiar scout salute—the <i>full</i> salute. The full salute for him! He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +saw this and yet he did not see it; he saw it in a kind of daze.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +TOM RUNS THE SHOW +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Amid great applause they made their way to the platform and one by one +returned, greeted with cheers.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> honor. He went down +overjoyed and blushing scarlet.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/image-124.jpg" alt="MR. TEMPLE CONGRATULATES HERVEY WILLETTS." title="MR. TEMPLE CONGRATULATES HERVEY WILLETTS." /> +<span class="caption">MR. TEMPLE CONGRATULATES HERVEY WILLETTS.</span> +</div> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>was +going to say it. He waited, he <i>had</i> to wait, for at least five minutes, +till Temple Camp had had its say.</p> + +<p>Then he said, slowly, deliberately, with a kind of mixture of clumsiness +and assurance which was characteristic of him.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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——”</p></div> + +<p>“Never, Tomasso!” said a voice.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Since I been assistant to Uncle Jeb—that’s two years—I saw the +Eagle award given out twice——”</p></div> + +<p>“You won it yourself, Tomasso!”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> 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 <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +PEE-WEE SETTLES IT +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>For half a minute there was no response, and the people, somewhat +bewildered, stared here and there, applauding fitfully.</p> + +<p>“Come ahead, I know where you are,” Tom pronounced grimly; “I’ll give +you ten seconds.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Never mind brushing off your clothes,” said Tom grimly; “come up just +the way you are.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Even Mr. Temple smiled as he said, “Come over here, my young friend, and +let me congratulate the only Eagle Scout at Temple Camp.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“How about his dirty face?” some one called.</p> + +<p>“And his stocking?” another shouted.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“Bully for Tom Slade!” a voice called.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with Tomasso?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hurrah for old Sherlock Nobody Holmes!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you, Tommy!”</p> + +<p>“Tag, you’re it, Hervey!”</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“That’s all they ever go there for,” a voice shouted.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a punk scout,” some one called.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> little occupant, hangs now in the elm tree at the corner +of the pavilion.” (Great applause.)</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“Thomas the Silent,” some irreverent voice called.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And that boast he failed to make good. Something <i>did</i> stand in his +way. Not a mountain. Just a little tenderfoot scout. You have seen him +up here. Alfred McCord is his name. (Applause.)</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>The troop of which Hervey was a member arose in a sudden, impetuous +burst of cheering, but Mr. Temple cut them short.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“But he reckoned without his host, as they say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> when he sought the aid +of Tom Slade. (Deafening applause.) Tom Slade knew him even if he did +not know himself.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You said something!” some one shouted.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, that settles it,” laughed Mr. Tem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>ple 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——”</p> + +<p>“And eating!” came a voice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Will you—will you take me out in it?” he asked. “Just once—will +you?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Let me—let me see the badge,” little Skinny insisted.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE RED STREAK +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The housing problem did not trouble Orestes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> up to that little home to investigate +that freakish streak of color.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know what that is?” Pee-wee Harris observed as he lay on +his back, peering up among the branches.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That’s easy,” said Roy Blakeley; “Asbestos is a red—she’s an +anarchist. We ought to notify the government.”</p> + +<p>“Asbestos is an I.W.W. He ought to be deported,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“He’s a <i>she</i>,” Pee-wee said.</p> + +<p>“Just the same I’d like to know what that red streak really does mean,” +Roy confessed.</p> + +<p>“It’s better than a yellow streak anyway,” Hervey laughed; “maybe it’s +her patrol color.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a funny thing about an oriole,” another scout observed; “an +oriole picks up everything it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> sees, string and ribbon and everything +like that, and weaves it into its nest.”</p> + +<p>“They should worry about building material,” Roy said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, she ought to work for the government, there’s so much red tape +about her,” Roy observed.</p> + +<p>“It’s the color of cinnamon taffy,” Pee-wee said.</p> + +<p>“There you go on eats again,” Roy retorted; “it’s the color of pie.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of pie?” Pee-wee asked.</p> + +<p>“Any kind,” Roy said; “take your pick.”</p> + +<p>“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee retorted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What do you know about this?” he said, opening the paper so that the +scouts could see a certain heading.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, me, oh, my!” Roy said. “Isn’t Temple Camp getting famous? Talk +about <i>red!</i> Oh, boy, watch Hervey’s beautiful complexion when he hears +this. He’ll have cinnamon taffy beat a mile.”</p> + +<p>Willy-nilly, Roy snatched the news sheet from Westy and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>TEMPLE CAMP HAS NEW HERO</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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——</p></div> + +<p>“You mean flattering,” Pee-wee shouted.</p> + +<p>“Excuse myself,” said Roy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>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——</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Let me see that!” shouted Pee-wee. “You make me sick! Where is it?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Where?” Pee-wee demanded.</p> + +<p>“There,” Roy said, pointing triumphantly to a heading which put the +Temple Camp notice in the shade. “Just read that.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>MILLIONAIRE HARRINGTON’S SON KIDNAPPED</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alarm Sent Out for Child Missing More Than Week</span></p> + +<p>TRAIN HAND GIVES CLEW</p> + +<p>Police authorities throughout the country have been asked to search +for Anthony Harrington, Jr., the little son of Anthony Harrington, +banker, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One circumstance which lends considerable color<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> 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.</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You fellows had better be getting ready for supper,” said Tom Slade, as +he passed.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Tomasso,” said Roy.</p> + +<p>Tom paused, half interested, and read the article without comment.</p> + +<p>“Some excitement, hey?” said Roy.</p> + +<p>“It’s a wonder they didn’t mention the color of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> the sweater while they +were about it,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“The kid had on a mackinaw jacket,” Roy shot back.</p> + +<p>“How do we know what was under the mackinaw jacket?” Tom said. “Come on, +you fellows, and get washed up for grub.”</p> + +<p>“Mm-mmm,” said Pee-wee Harris.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE PATH OF GLORY +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> Harrington child and its desperate companions had actually alighted +there, all trace of them was lost at that point.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll show them to you! I’ll show them to you!” Skinny had said eagerly. +“I’ll show you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> where I began. Maybe if we wait till it rains they’ll +get not to be there any more maybe.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what,” said Tom.</p> + +<p>“I bet you don’t shake all over when Mr. Temple speaks to you, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Not so you’d notice it.”</p> + +<p>“I bet he’s got as much as a hundred dollars, hasn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“You said it.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>you?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Tracks are my middle name, Alf.”</p> + +<p>“Now I can prove I’m a second-class scout by my badge, can’t I?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what you can. But you’ve got it pinned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> on the wrong side, Alf. +Here, let me fix it for you.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody’ll be sure to see it, won’t they?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what they will.”</p> + +<p>“Hervey Willetts, he’s a hero, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“You bet.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to be like him, I would.”</p> + +<p>“He’s kind of reckless, Alf. It’s bad to be too reckless.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t let you talk against him—I wouldn’t.”</p> + +<p>Tom smiled. “That’s right, Alf, you stand up for him.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you don’t know what kind of an animal made these tracks, maybe, +hey?”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> 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....</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Old top, hey?” said Tom, smiling.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +MYSTERIOUS MARKS +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Utterly dismayed, Tom looked again for human footprints but the nearest +were those of Hervey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> on the other side of the log, some ten or a dozen +feet beyond.</p> + +<p>“Did either of you fellows do that?” Tom asked, pointing.</p> + +<p>“Does—does it mean I can’t have the badge?” Skinny asked, apprehensive +of Tom’s mood.</p> + +<p>“Did either of you fellows do that?”</p> + +<p>“N-no,” Skinny answered timidly.</p> + +<p>“Have you brought any one else up here?”</p> + +<p>“Honest—I ain’t.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Take your choice,” said Tom with a kind of baffled conclusiveness which +greatly impressed his little companion. “<i>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.</i>”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE GREATER MYSTERY +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/image-151.jpg" alt=""DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED." title=""DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED." /> +<span class="caption">“DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?” TOM ASKED.</span> +</div> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In New York “an arrest was shortly expected,” but it didn’t arrive. The +detectives were “saying nothing” and apparently doing nothing. Master<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +Anthony Harrington’s picture was displayed on movie screens the country +over.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was just when matters were at that stage that Pee-wee Harris, Elk +Patrol, First Bridgeboro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +WATCHFUL WAITING +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>In a minute he came up sputtering and shouting.</p> + +<p>“What’s that? A hunk of candy?” a scout sitting on the springboard +called. For Pee-wee seldom returned from any adventure empty handed.</p> + +<p>“A tu-shh-sphh——” Scout Harris answered.</p> + +<p>“A which?”</p> + +<p>“A turtshplsh—can’t you hearshsph?”</p> + +<p>“A what?”</p> + +<p>“A turtlsh.”</p> + +<p>“A turtle?”</p> + +<p>“Cantshunderstand Englsphish?”</p> + +<p>He dragged himself up on the springboard dripping and spluttering, and +clutching this latest memento of his submarine explorations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Not submarine English,” his companion retorted. “You can’t keep your +mouth shut even under water.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There’s a souvenir for you, Tomasso,” Pee-wee called.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Tom +and craning their necks over his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Somebody’s initials,” Tom said without any suggestion of excitement.</p> + +<p>“Maybe—maybe it was that kid who was kidnapped,” Pee-wee vociferated.</p> + +<p>“Only his initials are A. H.,” Tom answered dully.</p> + +<p>“No sooner said than stung,” piped up one of the scouts.</p> + +<p>“What’ll we do with him? Keep him?” asked another.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz, if he doesn’t care for food what <i>does</i> he care for?” Pee-wee +observed, knowing the influence of food.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>The turtle was master of the situation.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE WANDERING MINSTREL +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“We ought to name that guy Llewellyn,” he commented, as he strolled +away; “that means <i>lightning</i>, according to some book or other. There +was an old Marathon racer a couple of million years ago named +Llewellyn.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a good name for him,” Tom admitted.</p> + +<p>“You going to hang around, Slady?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer,” Tom +said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus the two most patient, stubborn living things in all the world were +left alone together—the turtle and Tom Slade.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> this artistic +triumph on the bulging back of Llewellyn was the handiwork of that same +tenderfoot.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>Llewellyn had met his match.</p> + +<p>For fifty-seven minutes by his watch, Tom waited. Then the tip end of +Llewellyn’s nose emerged slowly, cautiously, and remained stationary.</p> + +<p>Eleven minutes of tense silence elapsed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>Another claw emerged and the neck relaxed its posture of listening +reconnaissance. 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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! <i>The tracks of a turtle coming from a +locality where it did not belong, straight for the still water which was +its natural element.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 hap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>pened +before his eyes had happened at that log up in the woods.</p> + +<p>Llewellyn, the Humpty-dumpty of the animal world, had slid off the log, +alighting upside down.</p> + +<p>For a moment Tom Slade paused in dismay.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 Wil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>letts. He had not seen much of Hervey the last day or +two....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>“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....”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="blockquot"> +Saint Anthony he was a saint,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he was thin and bony;</span><br /> +His mother called him Anthonee,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the kids they called him Tony.</span> +</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +HERVEY MAKES A PROMISE +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“<i>Tony!</i>”</p> + +<p>The word reached Tom’s ears like a pistol shot. <i>Tony.</i></p> + +<p class="blockquot"> +His mother called him Anthonee,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the kids they called him Tony.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>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——</p> + +<p><i>With a new jack-knife!</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tom strolled up to supper, as excited as it was in his nature to be, and +greatly preoccupied.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“My patrol has got it.”</p> + +<p>“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——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Suppose while I’m doing it I should decide I’d rather do something +else? You know how I am.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I can undo a double sailor’s knot under water,” said Hervey.</p> + +<p>Tom laughed in spite of himself. “Hervey,” said he, “do you know what +kind of tracks those were you followed?”</p> + +<p>“A killyloo bird’s?”</p> + +<p>“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?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Terrible Hustler? How many guesses do I have?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“He fell all over himself, hey?”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t happen to notice those letters up there, did you?”</p> + +<p>“Not guilty.”</p> + +<p>“It’s best always to keep your eyes open,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Not always, Slady.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, always.”</p> + +<p>“When you’re asleep?”</p> + +<p>Tom was a trifle nettled. “Well, are you willing to help me or not?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Slady, I’m yours sincerely forever.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“T. H.?”</p> + +<p>“Tony is nickname for Anthony; you just said so in your song.”</p> + +<p>“When my soul burst forth in gladness, hey?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> The scout Caruso, hey, +Slady? What are we going to meet under the elm tree for?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Silence is my middle name, Slady; I eat it alive.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +SHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He found Tom already there.</p> + +<p>“Now for the buried treasure, hey, Slady?” he said.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going up there, Slady?” Hervey whispered excitedly, as if ready +to start.</p> + +<p>“No, not yet. We’re going to find out something about the sweater +first.”</p> + +<p>“No one is in this but just you and I, hey?”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> match. +Go on now, beat it, and whatever you do don’t call down or I’ll murder +you.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’d make a good sneak thief, hey?” Hervey whispered.</p> + +<p>“You’re a wonder on climbing,” Tom said, with frank admiration.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“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?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Sure it is.”</p> + +<p>“All right, then one thing more and we’ll hit the trail. You meet me in +the morning right after breakfast.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>Early the next morning Tom and Hervey hiked down to Catskill.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why we don’t hike straight for the mountain,” Hervey said; +“it would be much nearer.”</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> If those men are up that +way they knew where they were going. They’re not pioneers, they’re +kidnappers.”</p> + +<p>“Slady, you’re a wonder.”</p> + +<p>“Except when it comes to climbing trees,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s old Tyrant,” Tom said. “See?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a wonder, Slady!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>“There are two sides to every mountain,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Like every story, hey?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“The pleasure is mine,” said Hervey. “We’re going to sneak up the back +way, hey?”</p> + +<p>“No, we’re going up the front way,” Tom smiled. “Llewellyn came down the +back way.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a peach of a scout, hey?”</p> + +<p>“The best ever.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure this is the right mountain?” Hervey asked. “They all look +alike when you get close to them.”</p> + +<p>“Yop,” said Tom; “what do you think of it?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not particular about mountains,” Hervey said. “They all look +alike to me.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he paused by a certain willow tree, looking at it curiously.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” Hervey asked excitedly.</p> + +<p>“Looks as if a jack-knife had been at work around here, huh? Somebody’s +been making a willow whistle. Look at this.”</p> + +<p>Tom held up a little tube of moist willow bark, at the same time kicking +some shavings at his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE CLIMB +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I guess no one would have noticed those but you,” Hervey said +admiringly; “I guess the detectives would have gone right past them.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but it takes Tom Slade to fit them together,” Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“Maybe we might be mistaken after all,” Tom answered. “Anyway, nobody’ll +have the laugh on us. We didn’t talk to reporters.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hark!” Tom said, stopping short.</p> + +<p>Hervey paused, spellbound.</p> + +<p>“I guess it was only a boat whistling,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“It’s pretty lonesome up here,” Hervey commented.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“But I think it’s longer than the trip would be straight from camp,” +Hervey said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>After about three quarters of an hour of this wearisome climb they came +out on the edge of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He was not at all excited nor elated. Holding up one hand to warn Hervey +to silence, he stood waiting, listening intently.</p> + +<p>Again the whistle sounded, shrill, clear-cut, in the still morning air.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +THE RESCUE +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>“Take off your shoes and leave them here,” Tom whispered; “and follow me +and don’t speak. Step just where I step.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently Tom paused, holding open the brush.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> “Hervey,” he said in the +faintest whisper, “they say you’re happy-go-lucky. Are you willing to +risk your life—again?”</p> + +<p>“I’m yours sincerely forever, Slady.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” he whispered.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>can’t</i> go. Say the word. Are you game?”</p> + +<p>“You heard them call me a dare-devil, didn’t you?” Hervey whispered. +“They claim I don’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> care anything about the Eagle award. They’re right. +I’d rather be a dare-devil. Go ahead and don’t ask foolish questions.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> fellow in +a red sweater and lifting the little form into his arms.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then, breathless, he paused in a little level space above a great rock +and set the child down.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, Tony,” he said; “we’re going to take you home. And +don’t scream when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> I take this handkerchief out because that will spoil +it all.”</p> + +<p>“Is it safe to stop here?” Hervey asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t drop my whistle,” the little fellow piped up, as if that were +his chief concern.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Am I going to see my mother and father?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“And when you whistled we came and got you, hey? That’s the kind of +fellows we are. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> I bet I know how that nice sweater got frayed, too. +A little bird did that.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +<span style="font-size: 150%"> +<a name="CHAPTER_THE_LAST" id="CHAPTER_THE_LAST"></a>CHAPTER THE LAST +</span> +<br /><br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%;"> +Y-EXTRA! Y-EXTRA! +</span> +<br /><br /> +</div> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And so, as I said in the beginning, if you should visit Temple Camp, you +will hear the story told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 5em;">THE END</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span style="font-size: 150%">THE TOM SLADE BOOKS</span><br /> +By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH<br /> +Author of “Roy Blakeley,” “Pee-wee Harris,” “Westy Martin,” Etc. +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"><b>Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Colors. Every Volume +Complete in Itself.</b></p> +<hr class="minor" /> +</div> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p> +TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT<br /> +TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP<br /> +TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER<br /> +TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS<br /> +TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT<br /> +TOM SLADE WITH THE BOYS OVER THERE<br /> +TOM SLADE, MOTORCYCLE DISPATCH BEARER<br /> +TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS<br /> +TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE<br /> +TOM SLADE ON MYSTERY TRAIL<br /> +TOM SLADE’S DOUBLE DARE<br /> +TOM SLADE ON OVERLOOK MOUNTAIN<br /> +TOM SLADE PICKS A WINNER<br /> +TOM SLADE AT BEAR MOUNTAIN<br /> +</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span style="font-size: 150%">THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS</span><br /> +By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH<br /> +Author of “Roy Blakeley,” “Pee-wee Harris,” “Westy Martin,” Etc. +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"><b>Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Colors. Every Volume +Complete in Itself.</b></p> +<hr class="minor" /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +ROY BLAKELEY<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S ADVENTURES IN CAMP<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S CAMP ON WHEELS<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S SILVER FOX PATROL<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S MOTOR CARAVAN<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY, LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S BEE-LINE HIKE<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY AT THE HAUNTED CAMP<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S FUNNY BONE HIKE<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY’S TANGLED TRAIL<br /> +ROY BLAKELEY ON THE MOHAWK TRAIL<br /> +</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span style="font-size: 150%">THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS</span><br /> +By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH<br /> +Author of “Roy Blakeley,” “Pee-wee Harris,” “Westy Martin,” Etc. +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"><b>Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Colors. Every Volume +Complete in Itself.</b></p> +<hr class="minor" /> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +PEE-WEE HARRIS<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS ON THE TRAIL<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS IN CAMP<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS IN LUCK<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS ADRIFT<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS F.O.B. BRIDGEBORO<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS FIXER<br /> +PEE-WEE HARRIS: AS GOOD AS HIS WORD<br /> +</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="center"> +<span style="font-size: 150%">EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY</span><br /> +BOY SCOUT EDITION +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> +<p> +<b>Adventures in Beaver Stream Camp</b>, Major A. R. Dugmore<br /> +<b>Along the Mohawk Trail</b>, Percy Keese Fitzhugh<br /> +<b>Animal Heroes</b>, Ernest Thompson Seton<br /> +<b>Baby Elton, Quarter-Back</b>, Leslie W. Quirk<br /> +<b>Bartley, Freshman Pitcher</b>, William Heyliger<br /> +<b>Billy Topsail with Doctor Luke of the Labrador</b>, Norman Duncan<br /> +<b>The Biography of a Grizzly</b>, Ernest Thompson Seton<br /> +<b>The Boy Scoots of Black Eagle Patrol</b>, Leslie W. Quirk<br /> +<b>The Boy Scouts of Bob’s Hill</b>, Charles Pierce Burton<br /> +<b>Brown Wolf and Other Stories</b>, Jack London<br /> +<b>Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts</b>, Frank R. Stockton<br /> +<b>The Call of the Wild</b>, Jack London<br /> +<b>Cattle Ranch to College</b>, R. Doubleday<br /> +<b>College Years</b>, Ralph D. Paine<br /> +<b>Cruise of the Cachalot</b>, Frank T. Bullen<br /> +<b>The Cruise of the Dazzler</b>, Jack London<br /> +<b>Don Strong, Patrol Leader</b>, W. Heyliger<br /> +<b>Don Strong of the Wolf Patrol</b>, William Heyliger<br /> +<b>For the Honor of the School</b>, Ralph Henry Barbour<br /> +<b>The Gaunt Gray Wolf</b>, Dillon Wallace<br /> +<b>Grit-a-Plenty</b>, Dillon Wallace<br /> +<b>The Guns of Europe</b>, Joseph A. Altsheler<br /> +<b>The Half-Back</b>, Ralph Henry Barbour<br /> +<b>Handbook for Boys, Revised Edition</b>, Boy Scouts of America<br /> +<b>The Horsemen of the Plains</b>, Joseph A. Altsheler<br /> +<b>Jim Davis</b>, John Masefield<br /> +<b>Kidnapped</b>, Robert Louis Stevenson<br /> +<b>Last of the Chiefs</b>, Joseph A. Altsheler<br /> +<b>The Last of the Mohicans</b>, James Fenimore Cooper<br /> +<b>Last of the Plainsmen</b>, Zane Grey<br /> +<b>Lone Bull’s Mistake</b>, J. W. Shultz<br /> +<b>Pete, The Cow Puncher</b>, J. B. Ames<br /> +<b>The Quest of the Fish-Dog Skin</b>, James W. Schultz<br /> +<b>Ranche on the Oxhide</b>, Henry Inman<br /> +<b>The Ransom of Red Chief and Other O. Henry Stories for Boys</b>, Edited by F. K. Mathiews<br /> +<b>Scouting With Daniel Boone</b>, Everett T. Tomlinson<br /> +<b>Scouting With Kit Carson</b>, Everett T. Tomlinson<br /> +<b>Through College on Nothing a Year</b>, Christian Gauss<br /> +<b>Treasure Island</b>, Robert Louis Stevenson<br /> +<b>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</b>, Jules Verne<br /> +</p> +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber’s notes:</h3> +<p>1. Punctuation has been made regular and consistent with contemporary standards.</p> +<p>2. The booklist for “Every Boy’s Library” at end of book was converted + from a double column to a single column for readability.</p> +<p>3. Corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. +Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text +will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +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 *** + +***** This file should be named 18180-h.htm or 18180-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/8/18180/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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