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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:10:34 -0700 |
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} + + div.minind {text-align: justify;} + div.condensed, div.condensed1 { line-height: 1.3em; margin-left: 3%; margin-right: 3%; font-size: 95%; } + div.condensed1 p {margin-left: 0; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + div.condensed span.sidenote {font-size: 90%} + + div.list {margin-left: 0;} + div.list p {padding-left: 4em; text-indent: -2em;} + div.list1 {margin-left: 0;} + div.list1 p {padding-left: 5em; text-indent: -3em;} + + .pt05 {padding-top: 0.5em;} + .pt1 {padding-top: 1em;} + .pt2 {padding-top: 2em;} + .ptb1 {padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;} + td.prl {padding-left: 10%; padding-right: 7em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Scout of To-day, by Isabel Hornibrook + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Scout of To-day + +Author: Isabel Hornibrook + +Release Date: January 10, 2012 [EBook #38540] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SCOUT OF TO-DAY *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Paul Fernandez and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="center pt2"><img style="width:576px; height:700px; vertical-align: middle;" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_Frontis" id="Page_Frontis">[Frontispiece]</a></span></p> +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both;" summary="Illustration"> +<tr><td class="figcenter"><img style="width:471px; height:700px" src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="" /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="caption">“WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT?”</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<h1>A SCOUT OF TO-DAY</h1> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center f150">ISABEL HORNIBROOK</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Author of “Camp and Trail,” “Lost in Maine Woods,” +“Captain Curly’s Boy,” etc., etc.</i></p> + +<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</p> + +<div class="center pt2"><img style="width:150px; height:208px; vertical-align: middle;" src="images/frontis1.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press Cambridge<br /> +1913</p> +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="center1 f80">COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY ISABEL HORNIBROOK</p> + +<p class="center1 f80">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> + +<p class="center1 f80"><i>Published June 1913</i></p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p class="center">AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO</p> +<p class="center">“NED”</p> +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="center">The Author expresses her indebtedness to Edmund<br /> +Richard Cummins for the song, “<span class="sc">The Scouts of<br /> +the U.S.A.</span>”</p> + +<hr class="art" /> +<p class="center chap">CONTENTS</p> + +<table class="ws" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td class="tcr">I.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Great Woods</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">II.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Only a Chip’</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">III.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Raccoon Junior</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">IV.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Varney’s Paintpot</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">V.</td> <td class="tcl sc">“You Must Look Out!”</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">VI.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Friction Fire</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">VII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Members of the Local Council</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">VIII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Bowline Knot</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">IX.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Godey Peck</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">X.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Baldfaced House</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XI.</td> <td class="tcl sc">Estu Preta!</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Christmas Brigade</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XIII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Big Minute</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XIV.</td> <td class="tcl sc">A River Duel</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XV.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Camp on the Dunes</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XVI.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Pup-Seal’s Creek</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XVII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Signalman</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcr">XVIII.</td> <td class="tcl sc">The Log Shanty Again</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="art" /> +<p class="center chap">ILLUSTRATIONS</p> + +<table class="ws" summary="Illustrations"> +<tr><td class="tcl">“<span class="sc">What is it? What is it?</span>” <a href="#Page_99">(page 99)</a></td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_Frontis"><i>Colored Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcl">“<span class="sc">Help! <i>Help!</i></span>”</td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcl">“<span class="sc">Mak’ you s-silent! W’at for you spik lak dat?”</span></td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcl"><span class="sc">In Camp</span></td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tcl">“<span class="sc">Can’t you see the tide is leaving you?”</span></td> <td class="tcr"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr> + +</table> + +<p class="center1"><i>From drawings by J. Reading</i></p> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">A SCOUT OF TO-DAY</p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE GREAT WOODS</p> + +<p>“Well! this would be the very day for a +long tramp up into the woods. Tooraloo! I feel +just in the humor for that.”</p> + +<p>Colin Estey stretched his well-developed fourteen-year-old +body among the tall feathery grasses +of the broad salt-marsh whereon he lay, kicking +his heels in the September sunshine, and gazed +longingly off toward the grand expanse of New +England woodland that bordered the marshes +and, rising into tree-clad hills, stretched away +much farther than the eye could reach in apparently +illimitable majesty.</p> + +<p>Those woods were the most imposing and mysterious +feature in Colin’s world. They bounded +it in a way. Beyond a certain shallow point in +them lay the Unknown, the Woodland Wonder, +whereof he had heard much, but which he had +never explored for himself. And this reminded +him unpleasantly that he was barely fourteen, + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +in stature measuring five feet three <i>and</i> three +eighths, facts which never obtruded themselves +baldly upon his memory when he romped about the +salt-marshes, or rowed a boat—or if no boat was +forthcoming, paddled a washtub—on the broad +tidal river that wound in and out between the +marshes.</p> + +<p>Yet though the unprobed mystery of the dense +woods vexed him with the feeling of being immature +and young—woodland distances look +vaster at fourteen than at eighteen—it fascinated +him, too, more than did any riddle of the salt-marshes +or lunar enigma of the ebb and flow of +tide in the silvery, brackish river formed by an +arm of sea that coursed inland for many a mile +to meet a freshwater stream near the town where +Colin was born.</p> + +<p>Any daring boy above the age of ten could +learn pretty nearly all there was to know about +that tidal river: of the mammal and fish wherewith +it teemed, from the great harbor seal, once +the despot of the river, to the tiny brit that frolicked +in the eddies; and about the graceful bird-life +that soared above its brackish current.</p> + +<p>He could bathe, shrieking with excitement, as +wild from delight as any young water-bird, in the +foam of the rocky bar where fresh stream and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +salt stream met with a great crowing of waters +and laughter of spray.</p> + +<p>He could imitate the triple whistle, the shrill +“Wheu! Wheu! Wheu!” of the greater yellow-legs +so cleverly as to beguile that noisy bird, +which is said to warn every other feathered +thing within hearing, into forgetting its panic +and alighting near him.</p> + +<p>He could give the drawn-out, plaintive “Ter-lee-ee!” +call of the black-breasted plover, and +find the crude nest of the spotted sandpiper +nestling beneath a tall clump of candle-grass.</p> + +<p>All these secrets and many more were within +easy reach and could be studied in his unwritten +Nature Primer whose pages were traced in the +flight of each bird and the spawn of every fish.</p> + +<p>But the Heart of the Woods was a closed book +to most fourteen-year-old boys born and brought +up in the little tidal town of Exmouth.</p> + +<p>Colin had often longed to turn the pages of +that book—to penetrate farther into the woods +than he had dared to do yet. This longing was +fanned by the tales of men who had hunted, +trapped or felled trees in them, who could spell +out each syllable of the woodlore to be studied +in their golden twilight; and who, as they roved +and read, could put a finger on many a colored +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +illustration of Nature’s methods set against a +green background of branches or fluttering underbrush, +like the flitting foliage of moving +pictures.</p> + +<p>To-day the wood-longing possessed Colin so +strongly that it actually stung him all over, from +his neck to his drumming, purposeless heels.</p> + +<p>He glanced up into the brilliant September +sky arching the salt-marshes, questioning it as to +what might be going on in the woods at this +moment under its imperial canopy.</p> + +<p>And the blue eye of the sky winked back at +him, hinting that it knew of forest secrets to +be discovered to-day—of fascinating woodland +creatures to be seen for a moment at their whisking +gambols.</p> + +<p>The sunlight’s energy raced through him. +The briny ozone of the salt-marshes was a tickling +feather in his nostrils, teasing him with a +desire to find an outlet for that energy in some +new and unprecedented form of activity.</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet, spurning the plumy +grass.</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz! I’m not going to lie here any +longer, smelling marsh-hay,” he cried half articulately, +his eye taking in the figures of two hay-makers +who were mowing the tall marsh-grass +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +and letting it lie in fragrant swathes to dry into +the salt hay that forms such juicy fodder for +cattle. “It’s me for the woods to-day! I want +to go farther into those old woods than I’ve ever +gone before—far enough to find Varney’s +Paintpot and the Bear’s Den—and the coon’s +hole that Toiney Leduc saw among the alders +an’ ledges near Big Swamp!”</p> + +<p>He halted on the first footstep, whistling +blithely to a gray-winged yellow-legs that +skimmed above his head. The curly, boyish +whistle, ascending in spirals, carried the musical +challenge aloft: “I’m glad I’m alive and +athirst for adventure; aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>To which the bird’s noisy three-syllabled cry +responded like three cheers!</p> + +<p>“It’s me for the woods to-day!” Colin set off +at an easy lope across the marshes. “I’m going +to look up Coombsie and Starrie Chase—and +Kenjo Red! Us boys won’t have much more +time for fun before school reopens!” grammar +capsizing in the sudden, boisterous eddy within +him.</p> + +<p>That eddy of excitement carried him like a +feather up an earthy embankment that ascended +from the low-lying marshes, over a fence, and +out onto the drab highroad which a little farther +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +on blossomed out into houses on either side and +became the quiet main street of Exmouth.</p> + +<p>Colin turned his face westward toward the +home of “Coombsie,” otherwise Mark Coombs—also +shortened into “Marcoo” by nickname-loving +boydom.</p> + +<p>He had not gone far when his loping speed +slackened abruptly to a contemplative trot. The +trot sobered down to a crestfallen walk. The +walk dwindled into a halt right in the middle of +the sunny road.</p> + +<p>“Tooraloo! here comes Coombsie now,” he +ejaculated behind his twitching lips. “And some +one with him! Oh, I forgot all about that!” +Dismay stole over his face at the thought. “Of +course it’s the strange boy, Marcoo’s cousin, +who came from Philadelphia yesterday and is +going to stay here for ever so long—six months +or so—while his parents travel in Europe. This +spoils our fun. Probably <i>he</i> won’t want to start +off on a long hike through the woods,” rigidly +scanning the approaching stranger as a stiffened +terrier might size up a dog of a different breed. +“His folks are rich, so Marcoo said; I suppose +he’s been brought up in a city flowerpot—and +isn’t much of a fellow anyhow!” with a +disgruntled grin.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>But as the oncoming pair drew within twenty +yards of the youthful critic the latter’s tense +face-muscles relaxed. Reassurance crept into his +expression.</p> + +<p>“Gee! he looks all right, this city boy. He’s +not dolled-up much anyway! And he doesn’t +look ‘Willified’ either!” was Colin’s complacent +comment.</p> + +<p>No, the stranger’s dress was certainly not +patterned after the fashion of the boy-doll +which Colin Estey had seen simpering in store-windows. +He wore a khaki shirt stained with +service, rough tweed knickerbockers and a soft +broad-brimmed hat. He carried his coat; the +ends of his blue necktie dangled outside his +shirt, one was looped up into a careless knot. +His gray eye was rather more than usually alert +and bright, his general appearance certainly not +suggestive of a flowerpot plant; his step, quick +and springy, embodied the saline breeze that +skipped over the salt-marshes.</p> + +<p>So much Colin took in before criticism was +blown out of his mind by a shout from Coombsie.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! Col,” exclaimed Marcoo. “Say, this +is fine! We were just starting off to hunt you +up—Nix and I! This is my cousin, Nixon +Warren, who popped up here from Philadelphia +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +late last night. Nix, this is my chum, Colin +Estey!”</p> + +<p>The two boys acknowledged the introduction +with gruff shyness.</p> + +<p>“Nixon and I settled on going down the river +to-day in Captain Andy’s power-boat, and Mother +put us up a corking good luncheon,” Marcoo +significantly swung a basket pendant from his +right hand. “But we’ve just been talking to +Captain Andy,” glancing backward over his +shoulder at the receding figure of an elderly man +who limped as he walked, “and he says he can’t +take us to-day. He won’t even loan us the Pill.” +Coombsie gesticulated with the basket toward +the broad tidal river gleaming in the sunshine, +on which rode a trim gasolene launch with a little +rowboat, so tubby that it was almost round +and aptly named the Pill, lying as tender beside +it.</p> + +<p>“Pshaw! the Pill isn’t much of a boat. One +might as well put to sea in a shoebox!” Colin +chuckled.</p> + +<p>“I know! Well, we can’t go on the river anyhow, +so we’ve determined to take the basket +along and spend the whole day in the woods. +Nix is—”</p> + +<p>“Great O!” whooped Colin, breaking in. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +“That’s what I’ve been planning on doing too. +I want to go <i>far</i> into the woods to-day,”—his +hands doubled and opened excitedly, as if grasping +at something hitherto out of reach,—”farther +than I’ve ever been before,—far enough +to see Varney’s Paintpot and the old Bear’s Den—and +some of the other wonders that the men +tell about!”</p> + +<p>“But there aren’t any bears in these Massachusetts +woods now?” It was the strange boy, +Nixon Warren, who eagerly spoke.</p> + +<p>“Not that we know of!” Coombsie answered. +“If one should stray over the border from New +Hampshire he manages to lie low. Apparently +there’s nothing bigger than a deer traveling in +our woods to-day—together with foxes in plenty +and an occasional coon. The last bear seen in this +region, Nix, had his den in the cave of a great rock +in the thickest part o’ the woods. He was such +an everlasting nuisance, killing calves and lambs, +that a hunter tracked him into the cave and +killed him with his knife. Ever since it has been +called the Bear’s Den. I’ve never seen it; nor +you, Col!”</p> + +<p>“No, but Starrie Chase has! I was going to +hunt him up too, and Kenjo Red: they’re a +team if you want to go into the woods; they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +know more about them than any other boy in +Exmouth.”</p> + +<p>“Kenjo has gone to Salem to-day. And Leon +Chase?” Coombsie’s expression was doubtful. +“I guess Leon makes a bluff of knowing the +woods better than he does. He’ll scare everything +away with his dog and shotgun. Captain +Andy is hunting for him now,” with another +backward glance to where the massive figure of +the old sea-captain was melting from view. “He’s +threatening to shake Starrie until his heels change +places with his head for fixing the Doctor’s doorbell +last night, wedging a pin into it so that it +kept on ringing until the electricity gave out—and +for teasing old Ma’am Baldwin again.”</p> + +<p>“’Mom Baldwin,’ who lives in that old baldfaced +house ’way over on the salt-marshes!” +Colin hooted. “Pshaw! she ought to wash her +clothes at the Witch Rock, where Dark Tammy +was made to wash hers, over a hundred years ago. +I guess Leon knows the way to Varney’s Paintpot +anyhow,” he advanced clinchingly.</p> + +<p>“What sort of queer Paintpot is that?” Nixon +Warren spoke; his stranger’s part in the conversation +was limited to putting excited questions.</p> + +<p>“It’s a red-ochre swamp—a bed of moist red +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +clay—that’s hidden somewhere in the woods,” +Colin explained. “The Indians used it for making +paint. So did the farmers, hereabouts, until +a few years ago. I believe it’s mostly dried up +now.”</p> + +<p>“Whoopee! if we could only find it, we might +paint ourselves to our waists, make believe we +were Indians and go yelling through the +woods!” Nixon’s eye sparkled like sun-touched +granite, and Colin parted with the last lingering +suspicion of his being a flowerpot fellow.</p> + +<p>This suggestion settled it. Starrie Chase, otherwise +Leon, might let his boyish energy leak off +as waste steam in planting another thorn in the +side of the hard-worked doctor who bore the burdens +of half the community, and in persecuting +lonely old women, but—he was supposed to +know the way to Varney’s Paintpot!</p> + +<p>And the three started along the road to find +him.</p> + +<p>The quest did not lead them far. Rounding a +bend in the highroad, they came abruptly upon +Leon Starr Chase, familiarly called Starrie, almost +a fifteen-year-old boy, of Nixon’s age.</p> + +<p>He was leaning against a low fence above the +marshes, holding a dead bird high above the +head of a very lively fox-terrier whose tan ears +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +gesticulated like tiny signal flags as he jumped +into the air to capture it, with a short one-syllabled +bark.</p> + +<p>“Ha! <i>you</i> can’t catch it, Blink—and you +shan’t have it till you do,” teased his master, +lowering its limp yellow legs a little.</p> + +<p>The dog’s nose touched them. The next instant +he had the bird in his mouth.</p> + +<p>With equal swiftness he dropped it on the +sidewalk, growling and gagging at the warm +feathers which almost choked him. “Ugh-r-r!” +He spurned it with his black nose along the +ground, the tiny yellow claws raking up minute +spirals of dust.</p> + +<p>“There! I knew you wouldn’t eat it,” remarked +his master indifferently. “You’re a +spoiled pup!” Simultaneously Leon caught sight +of the three boys making toward him and burst +into a complacent shout of recognition.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Colin! Hullo, Coombsie!” he cried. +“See what I’ve got! Six <i>yellow-legs</i>! I fired +into a flock; the first I’ve seen this year. They +were going from me and I dropped half a dozen +of them together, with this old ‘fuzzee’!” He +touched an ancient shotgun propped beside him. +“I’ve shot quite a number one at a time this +week. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>His left hand went out to a huddle of still +quivering feathers on top of the fence in which +five pairs of yellow spindle-legs were tangled like +slim twigs.</p> + +<p>Colin, as was expected of him, burst into an +exclamation of wonder at this destructive skill. +Coombsie’s admiration was more forced.</p> + +<p>Blink, the terrier, scornfully rolled over the +feathered thing in the dust. He snapped angrily +at the stranger, Nixon Warren, who tried to +pick it up and examine it.</p> + +<p>“That bird won’t be fit to eat now, after the +dog has played with it,” suggested the latter, addressing +Leon without the benefit of an introduction.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care. Probably I’ll give the whole +bunch of yellow-legs away, anyhow—Mother +doesn’t like their sedgy flavor. She’d rather +I’d let the birds alone, I guess!”</p> + +<p>“Why do you shoot so many if you don’t +want them?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! partly for the sport and partly because +these ‘Greater Yellow-legs’ are such telltales +that they warn every duck and other bird within +hearing by their noisy whistle.”</p> + +<p>Impulsively Nixon put out a finger and touched +one slim leg with its limp claw that protruded +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +from the fence. At the same moment he glanced +upward.</p> + +<p>Over the boys’ heads, having just risen from +the feathery marshes, skimmed a feathered telltale, +live counterpart of the one he touched, its +legs golden spindles in the sunshine, its shrill +joy-whistle: “Wheu! Wheu! <i>Whe-eu!</i>” proclaiming +the thanksgiving which had rioted +through Colin’s mind on the fragrant salt-marshes: +“Glad I’m alive! Glad I’m alive! +<i>Glad</i>—I’m alive!”</p> + +<p>A smothered exclamation broke from Coombsie +as he followed the finger and the flight.</p> + +<p>Leon snatched up the gun.</p> + +<p>“One can’t have too much of a good thing: +I guess I could drop that ‘telltale,’ too!”</p> + +<p>But Marcoo’s hand fastened upon his arm +with an impulsive cry.</p> + +<p>“Eh! What’s the matter with you—Flutter-budget?” +Lowering the pointed shotgun, Leon +whisked round; his restless brown eyes had a +lightning trick of shutting and opening, as if +he were taking a photograph of the person +addressed, which was in general highly disconcerting +to the boy who differed from him. “No need +to make a fuss! I wouldn’t let her off here, anyhow,” +he added, fondling the gun. “Father +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +would be fined if I should fire a shot on the highroad.”</p> + +<p>“<i>We’re</i> starting off on a hike—for a long +tramp into the woods, Leon,” began Coombsie +hurriedly, anxious to create a diversion. “We +want you to come with us, as leader; Colin says +that <i>you</i> know the way to Varney’s Paintpot!”</p> + +<p>The other’s expression changed like a rocket: +Starrie Chase enjoyed leading other boys, even +more than he reveled in “popping yellow-legs”—for +the former Nature had intended him.</p> + +<p>“All right!” he responded with swift eagerness. +“Just, you fellows, keep an eye on my gun +while I run home with the birds; I’ll be back +in a minute!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you’re not going to take your gun into +the woods?”</p> + +<p>“Sure—I am! I might get a chance at a fox!”</p> + +<p>“Won’t it be an awful nuisance carrying it all +the way through the thick undergrowth—we +want to go as far into the woods as the Bear’s +Den?” suggested Marcoo tactfully.</p> + +<p>“Well, perhaps it would. I’ll just scoot home +then, and be back in no time!”</p> + +<p>He snatched the dead birds from the fence, +raced away and reappeared in three minutes, +with the terrier barking at his heels.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m going to let Blink come anyhow; he’ll +have a great time chasing things—eh, Blinkie?” +Leon made a hurdle of his outstretched arm for +the scampering dog to jump over it.</p> + +<p>And the terrier replied in a volley of excited +barks, saying in doggy talk: “Fellows! if there’s +fun ahead, I’m in with you. The woods are a +grand old playground!”</p> + +<p>He led the way, and the four boys followed, +jostling each other merrily, rubbing their high +spirits together and bringing sparks from the +contact—bound for that mysterious forest +Paintpot.</p> + +<p>But the stranger, Nixon Warren, could not +forbear throwing one backward glance from under +his wide-brimmed hat at the poor dog-scorned +yellow-legs, its joy-whistle silenced, stiffening in +the dust.</p> +<hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER II</p> + +<p class="center chap2">ONLY A CHIP’</p> + +<p>“Oh! I wish I had worn my tramping togs,” +exclaimed Nixon Warren as the four boys, after +covering an easy mile along the highroad and +over the uplands that lay between marsh and +woodland, plunged, whooping, in amid the forest +shadows roofed by the meeting branches of pines, +hemlocks, oaks, and birches, with here and there +a maple already turning ruddy, that formed the +outposts of the dense woods.</p> + +<p>A dwarf counterpart of the same trees laced +with vines and prickly brambles made an undergrowth +so thick that they parted with shreds of +their clothing as they went threshing through it, +in a fascinating gold-misted twilight, through +which the slender sunbeams flashed like fairy +knitting-needles weaving a scarf of light and +shade around each tall trunk.</p> + +<p>“Why! you’re better ‘togged’ for the woods +than the rest of us are,” answered Leon Starr +Chase, looking askance at the new boy. “That’s +a dandy hat; must shade your eyes a whole lot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +when you’re tramping on open ground! I guess +ours don’t need any shading!”</p> + +<p>A wandering sunbeam kindled a brassy spark +in Leon’s brown eye which looked as if it could +face anything unabashed. In his mind lurked the +same suspicion that had hovered over Colin’s at +first sight of Nixon, that this newcomer from a +distant city might be somewhat of a flowerpot +fellow, delicately reared and coddled, not a hardy +plant that could revel and rough it in the wilderness +atmosphere of the thick woods.</p> + +<p>Nothing about the boy-stranger supported +such an idea for a moment, except to Leon, as +the party progressed, the interest which he took +in the floral life of the woodland: in objects which +Starrie Chase who invariably “hit the woods” +as he phrased it, with destruction in the forefront +of his thoughts, generally overlooked, and therefore +did not consider worth a second glance.</p> + +<p>He stood and gaped as Nixon, with a shout +of delight, pounced upon some rosy pepper-grass, +stooped to pick a wood aster or gentian, or +pointed out to Coombsie the green sarsaparilla +plant flaunting and prolific between the trees.</p> + +<p>“What do you call this, Marcoo?” the strange +boy would exclaim delightedly, finding novel +treasure trove in the rare white blossoms of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +Labrador tea. “I don’t remember to have seen +this flower on any of our hikes through the Pennsylvania +woods!”</p> + +<p>To which Coombsie would make answer:—</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask me, Nix; I know a little about +birds, but when it comes to knowing anything +of flowers or plants—excepting those that are +under our feet every day—I ‘fall down flunk!’ +Hullo! though, here are some devil’s pitchforks +—or stick-tight—I do know them!”</p> + +<p>“So do I!” Nixon stooped over the tall bristly +flower-heads, rusty green in color, and gathered +a few of the two-pronged seed-vessels that cling +so readily to the fur of an animal or the clothing +of a boy. “It’s funny to think how they have +to depend upon some passing animal to propagate +the seeds. Say! but they do stick tight, don’t +they?” And he slyly slipped a few of the russet +pitchforks inside Leon’s collar—whereupon a +whooping scuffle ensued.</p> + +<p>“It looks to me as if <i>some</i> lightfooted animal +were in the habit of passing here that might +carry the seeds along,” said the perpetrator of +the prank presently, dropping upon his hands +and knees to examine breathlessly the leaves and +brambles pressed down into a trail so light that +it seemed the mere shadow of a pathway leading +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +off into the woods at right angles from where +the boys stood.</p> + +<p>“You’re right. It’s a fox-path!” Leon was +examining the shadow-tracks too. “A fox trots +along here to his hunting-ground where he +catches shrews an’ mice or grasshoppers even, +when he can’t get hold of a plump quail or partridge. +Whew! I wish I’d brought my gun.”</p> + +<p>Dead silence for two minutes, while each ear +was intently strained to catch the sound of a sly +footfall and heard nothing but the noisy shrilling +of the cicada, or seventeen-year locust, with the +pipe of kindred insects.</p> + +<p>“Look! there’s been a partridge at work here,” +cried Nixon by and by, when the still game was +over and the boys were forging ahead again.</p> + +<p>He pointed to a decayed log whose flaky wood, +garnished here and there with a tiny buff feather, +was mostly pecked away and reduced to brown +powder by the busy bird which had wallowed +there.</p> + +<p>“He’s been trying to get at some insects in +the wood. See how he has dusted it all up with +his claws an’ feathers!” went on the excited +speaker. “Oh—but I tell you what makes you +feel happy!” He drew a long breath, turning +suddenly, impulsively, to the boys behind him. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +“It’s when you’re out on a hike an’ a partridge +rises right in front of you—and you hear his +wings sing!”</p> + +<p>Colin and Coombsie stared. The strange boy’s +look flashed with such frank gladness, doubled +and trebled by sharing sympathetically, in so far +as he could, each bounding thrill that animated +the wild, free life about him! They had often +been moved by the liquid notes from a songster’s +throat, but had not come enough into loving +touch with Nature to hear music in a bird’s wings.</p> + +<p>If Leon had heard it, his one idea would have +been to silence it with a shot. He stood still in +his tracks, bristling like his dog.</p> + +<p>“Ughr-r! ‘Singing wings’!” he sneered. +“Aw! take that talk home to Mamma.”</p> + +<p>“Say that once again, and I’ll lick you!” +The stranger’s gaze became, now, very straight +and inviting from under his broad-brimmed hat.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere felt highly charged—unpleasantly +so for the other two boys. But at that +critical moment an extraordinary sound of other +singing—human singing—was borne to them +in faint merriment upon the woodland breeze, so +primitive, so unlike anything modern, that it +might have been Robin Hood himself or one of +his green-coated Merry Men singing a roundelay +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +in the woods to the accompaniment of a woodchopper’s +axe.</p> + +<div class="poemr"><span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Rond! Rond! Rond! peti’ pie pon’ ton’!</span><br /> +Rond! rond! rond! peti’ pie pon’ ton’!” +</div> + +<p>“<i>What is it?</i> Who is—it?” Nixon’s stiffening +fists unclosed. His eye was bright with +bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“Houp-la! it’s Toiney—Toiney Leduc.” +Colin broke into an exultant whoop. “Now we’ll +have fun! Toiney is a funny one, for sure!”</p> + +<p>“He’s more fun than a circus,” corroborated +Coombsie. “We’re coming to a little farm-clearing +in the woods now, Nix,” he explained, falling +in by his cousin’s side as the four boys moved +hastily ahead, challenges forgotten. “There’s a +house on it, the last for miles. It’s owned by a +man called Greer, and Toiney Leduc works for +him during the summer an’ fall. Toiney is a +French-Canadian who came here about a year +ago; his brother is employed in one of the shipbuilding +yards on the river.”</p> + +<p>The merry, oft-repeated strain came to them +more distinctly now, rolling among the trees:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Rond, rond, rond, peti’ pie pon’ ton’!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">C’éta’t une bonne femme,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Qui garda’t sex moutons,</span><br /> +Rond’, rond’, rond, peti’ pie pon’ ton’!”</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>“He’s singing about the woman who was taking +care of her sheep and how the lamb got his +chin in the milk! He translated it for me,” said +Colin.</p> + +<p>“’Translate!’ He doesn’t know enough English +to say ‘Boo!’ straight,” threw back Leon, +as he gained the edge of the clearing. “It is +Toiney!” he cried exultingly. “Toiney—and +the <i>Hare</i>!”</p> + +<p>“The—what? My word! there are surprises +enough in these woods—what with forest paintpots—and +the rest.” Nixon, as he spoke, was +bounding out into the open too, thrilled by expectation: +a musical woodchopper attended by a +tame rodent would certainly be a unique item +upon the forest playbill which promised a variety +of attractions already.</p> + +<p>But he saw no skipping hare upon the green +patch of clearing—nothing but a boy of twelve +whose full forehead and pointed face was very +slightly rodent-like in shape, but whose eyes, +which at this startled moment showed little save +their whites, were as shy and frightened as a +rabbit’s, while he shrank close to Toiney’s side.</p> + +<p>“My brother says that whenever he sees that +boy he feels like offering him a bunch of clover +or a lettuce leaf!” laughed Leon, repeating the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +thoughtless speech of an adult. He stooped suddenly, +picked some of the shaded clover leaves +and a pink blossom: “Eh! want some clover, +‘Hare’?” he asked teasingly, thrusting the +green stuff close to the face of the abnormally +frightened boy.</p> + +<p>The hapless, human Hare sought to efface +himself behind Toiney’s back. And the woodchopper +began to execute an excited war-dance, +flourishing the axe wherewith he had been musically +felling a young birch tree for fuel.</p> + +<p>“Ha! you Leon, you <i>coquin</i>, <i>gamin</i>—rogue +—you’ll say dat one time more, den I go lick +you, me!” he cried in his imperfect English eked +out with indignant French.</p> + +<p>“No, you won’t go lick me—you!” Nevertheless +Starrie Chase and his mocking face retreated +a little; he had no fancy for tackling +Toiney and the axe.</p> + +<p>“That boy’s name is Harold Greer; it’s too +bad about him,” Coombsie was whispering in +Nix Warren’s ear. “The doctor says he’s ‘all +there,’ nothing wrong with him mentally. But +he was born frightened—abnormally timid—and +he seems to get worse instead o’ better. He’s +afraid of everything, of his own shadow, I think, +and more still of the shadows of others: I mean +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +he’s so shy that he won’t speak to anybody—if +he can help it—except his grandfather and Toiney +and the old woman who keeps house for them.”</p> + +<p>Nixon looked pityingly at the boy who lived +thus in his own shadow—the shadow of a baseless +fear.</p> + +<p>“Whew! it must be bad to be born scared!” +he gasped. “I wish we could get Toiney to sing +some more.”</p> + +<p>At this moment there came a wild shout from +Colin who had been exploring the clearing and +stumbled upon something near the outhouses.</p> + +<p>“Gracious! what is it—a wildcat?” he cried. +“It isn’t a fox—though it has a bushy tail! +It’s as big as half a dozen squirrels. Hulloo-oo!” +in yelling excitement, “it must be a coon—a +young coon.”</p> + +<p>There was a general stampede for the hen-house, +amid the squawking cackle of its rightful +inhabitants.</p> + +<p>Toiney followed, so did the human Hare, keeping +always behind his back and casting nervous +glances in Leon’s direction.</p> + +<p>“Ha! <i>le petit raton</i>—de littal coon!” gasped +the woodchopper. “W’en I go on top of hen-house +dis morning w’at you t’ink I fin’ dere, +engh? I fin’ heem littal coon! I’ll t’ink he kill +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +two, t’ree poulets—littal chick!” gesticulating +fiercely at the dead marauder and at the bodies +of some slain chickens. “Dog he kill heem; but, +<i>sapré</i>! he fight lak <i>diable</i>! Engh?”</p> + +<p>The last exclamation was a grunt of inquiry +as to whether the boys understood how that +young raccoon, about two-thirds grown, had +fought. Toiney shruggingly rubbed his hands +on his blue shirt-sleeves while he pointed to a +mongrel dog, the other participant in that early-morning +battle, with whom Leon’s terrier had +been exchanging canine courtesies.</p> + +<p>Blink forsook his scarred brother now and +sniffed eagerly at the coon’s dead body as he +had sniffed at the poor yellow-legs in the dust.</p> + +<p>“Where did he come from, Toiney? Do you +suppose he strayed from the coon’s hole that +you found in the woods, among some ledges near +Big Swamp?” Colin, together with the other +boys, was stooping down to examine the dead +body of the wild animal which measured nearly +a foot and a half from the tip of its sharp nose +to the beginning of the bushy tail that was handsomely +ringed with black and a shading buff-color.</p> + +<p>“Yaas, he’ll com’ out f’om de forêt—f’om +among heem beeg tree.” Toiney Leduc, letting +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +his axe fall to the ground, waved an eloquent +right arm in its flannel shirt-sleeve toward the +woods beyond the clearing.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t his fur long and thick—more like +coarse gray hair than fur?” Nixon stroked the +raccoon’s shaggy coat.</p> + +<p>“Tell us how to find those ledges where the +hole is? There may be some live ones in it. +I’d give anything to see a live coon,” urged +Coombsie.</p> + +<p>“Ah! la! la! You no fin’ dat ledge en dat +swamp. Eet’s littal black in dere, in gran’ forêt—in +dem big ole hood,” came the dissuading +answer.</p> + +<p>“He always says ‘hood’ for ‘wood,’” explained +Marcoo <i>sotto voce</i>.</p> + +<p>“Ciel! w’en you go for fin’ dat hole, dat’s de +time you get los’—engh?” urged Toiney, suddenly +very earnest. “You walkee, walkee—lak +wit’ eye shut—den you haf so tire’ en so lonesam’ +you go—<i>deaded</i>.”</p> + +<p>He flung out his hands with an eloquent gesture +of blind despair upon the last word, which +shot a warning thrill to the boys’ hearts. Three +of them looked rather apprehensively toward the +dense woods that stretched away interminably +beyond the clearing.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the fourth, Leon, was not to be intimidated +by anything short of Toiney brandishing +the woodchopper’s axe.</p> + +<p>He paused in his gesture of slyly offering more +clover to the boy with the frightened eyes.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I know the woods pretty well, Toiney,” +he said. “I’ve been far into them with my father. +I can find the way to Big Swamp.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet me you’ head you get los’—hein?”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you bet your own seal-head, +Toiney? You can’t say ‘Boo!’ straight.” Leon +scathingly pointed to the Canadian’s bare, closely +cropped head, dark and shiny as sealskin.</p> + +<p>“<i>Sapré!</i> I’ll no bet yous head—you Leon—for +nobodee want heem, axcep’ for play ping-pong,” +screamed the enraged Toiney.</p> + +<p>There was a general mirthful roar. Leon reddened.</p> + +<p>“Oh, come; let’s ‘beat it’!” he cried. “We’ll +never find that coon’s burrow, or anything else, +if we stand here chattering with a Canuck. Look +at Blink! He’s after something on the edge of +the woods. A red squirrel, I think!”</p> + +<p>He set off in the wake of the terrier, and his +companions followed, disregarding further protests +in Toiney’s ragged English.</p> + +<p>Once more they were immersed in the woods +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +beyond the clearing. The terrier was barking +furiously up a pine tree, on whose lowest branch +sat the squirrel getting off an angry patter +of “Quek-Quik! Quek-quek-quek-quik!” punctuated +with shrill little cries.</p> + +<p>“Hear him chittering an’ chattering! There’s +some fire to that conversation. See! the squirrel +looks all red mouth,” laughed Nixon.</p> + +<p>The mouth of the little tree-climbing fury +yawned, indeed, like a tiny coral cave decorated +with minute ivories as he sat bolt upright on +the dry branch, scolding the dog.</p> + +<p>“Oh! come on, Blink, you can’t get at him. +You can chase a woodchuck or something else +that isn’t quite so quick, and kill it!” cried his +master.</p> + +<p>The “something else” was presently started +in the form of a little chipmunk, ground brother +to the squirrel, which had been holding solitary +revel with a sunbeam on a rock.</p> + +<p>With a frightened flick of its gold-brown tail +it sought shelter in a cleft of a low, natural wall +where some large stones were piled one upon +another.</p> + +<p>Instantly it discovered that this shallow refuge +offered no sure shelter from the dog following +hot upon its trail. Forth it popped again, with a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +plaintive, chirping “Chip! Chip! Chir-r-r!” of +extreme terror and fled, like a tuft of fur wafted +by the breeze, to its real fortress, the deep, narrow +hole which it had tunneled in under a rock, +and which it was so shy of revealing to strangers +that it would never have sought shelter there +save in dire extremity.</p> + +<p>It was such a very small hole as regards the +round entrance through which the chipmunk had +squeezed, which did not measure three inches in +circumference—and such a touchingly neat little +hole, for there was no trace of the earth which +the little creature had scattered in burrowing it—that +it might well have moved any heart to +pity.</p> + +<p>The terrier finding himself baffled, sat down +before it, and pointed his ears at his master, inquiring +about the prospects of a successful siege.</p> + +<p>“He was too quick for you that time, Blinkie. +But you’ll get another chance at him, pup,” +guaranteed Leon, while his companions were endeavoring +to solve the riddle—one of the minor +charming mysteries of the woods—namely, +what the ground-squirrel does with the earth +which he scatters in tunneling his grass-fringed +hole.</p> + +<p>No such marvel appealed to Leon Chase! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +With lightning rapidity he was wrenching a +thin, rodlike stick from a near-by white birch, +and tearing the leaves off. Before one of the +other boys could stop him, he had inserted this +as a long probe in the hole, working the cruel +goad ruthlessly from side to side, scattering earth +enough now and torn grass on either side of the +spic-and-span entrance.</p> + +<p>“Ha! you haven’t seen the last of him, Blink!” +he cried. “I’ll soon ‘podge’ him out of that! +This hole runs in under a rock; so there can’t +be a sharp turn in it, as is the case with the chip-squirrel’s +hole generally! I guess I can reach +him with the stick; then he’ll be so frightened +that he’ll pop out right in your face,” forming +a quick deduction that did credit to his powers +of observation and made it seem a bruising pity as +well for persecutor as persecuted that such boyish +ingenuity should be turned to miserable ends.</p> + +<p>Leon’s eyes were beady with malicious triumph. +His breath came in short excited puffs. +So did the terrier’s. It boded ill for the tormented +chipmunk cowering at the farthest end of the +desecrated hole.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! that’s two against one and it isn’t +fair play. <i>Quit it!</i>” suddenly burst forth a ringing +boyish voice. “The chip’ was faster than the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +dog—he ought to have an even chance for his +life, anyhow!”</p> + +<p>Leon, crouching by the hole, looked up in +petrified amazement. It was Nixon Warren, the +stranger to these woods, who spoke. The tormentor +broke into an insulting laugh.</p> + +<p>“Eh—what’s the matter with <i>you</i>, Chicken-heart?” +he sneered. “None o’ your business +whether it’s fair or not!”</p> + +<p>A flash leaped from the gray eyes under Nixon’s +broad hat that defied the sneer applied to +him. His chest heaved under the Khaki shirt +with whose metal buttons a sunbeam played +winsomely, while with defiant vehemence Leon +worked his probing stick deeper, deeper into the +hole where the mite of a chipmunk shrank before +the cruel goad that would ultimately force it +forth to meet the whirlwind of the dog’s attack.</p> + +<p>Colin and Coombsie held their breath, feeling +as if they could see the trembling “chipping” +fugitive pressed against the farthest wall of its +enlarged retreat.</p> + +<p>Another minute, and out it must pop to +death.</p> + +<p>But upon the dragging, prodding seconds of +that minute broke again the voice of the chipmunk’s +champion—hot and ringing.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>“<i>Quit that!</i>” it exploded. “Stop wiggling +the stick in the hole—or I’ll make you!”</p> + +<p>“You’ll make me, eh? Oh! run along home +to Mamma—that’s where your place is!” But +right upon the heels of the sneer a sharp question +rushed from Leon’s lips: “Who are you—anyhow +—to tell me to stop?”</p> + +<p>And the tall trees bowed their noble heads, +the grasses ceased their whispering, even the +seventeen-year locust, shrilling in the distance, +seemed to suspend its piping note to listen to +the answer that rushed bravely forth:—</p> + +<p>“I’m a Boy Scout! A Boy Scout of America! +I’ve promised to do a good turn to somebody—or +something—every day. I’m going to do it +to that chipmunk! Stop working that stick in +the hole!”</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz! I thought there was something +queer about you from the first.”</p> + +<p>The mouth of Starrie Chase yawned until it +rivaled the enlarged hole. Sitting on his heels, +his cruel probing momentarily suspended, he +gazed up, as at a newfangled sort of animal, at +this daring Boy Scout of America—this Scout +of the U.S.A.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER III</p> + +<p class="center chap2">RACCOON JUNIOR</p> + +<p>“Scout or no scout, you are not going to +boss me!”</p> + +<p>Thus Starrie Chase broke the breathless silence +that reigned for half a minute in the woods, following +upon Nixon’s declaration that he was a +boy scout, bound by the scout law to protect the +weak among human beings and animals.</p> + +<p>For the space of that half-minute the tormenting +stick had ceased to probe the hole. The +wretched chipmunk, cowering in the farthest +corner of its once neat retreat, had a respite.</p> + +<p>But Leon—who was not inherently cruel so +much as thoughtlessly teasing and the victim of +a destructive habit of mind, now felt that should +he yield a point to this fifteen-year-old lad from +a distant city, the leadership which he so prized, +among the boys of Exmouth, would be endangered. +He was the recognized head of a certain +youthful male gang, of which Colin and Coombsie—though +the latter occasionally deplored +his methods—were leading representatives.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Go ahead, scout, prevent my doing anything +I want to do—if you can!” he flung out, his +brown eyes winking upward with that snapshot +quickness as if he were photographing on their +retina the figure of that new species of animal, +the scout of the U.S.A. “I’ve heard of your kind +before; you know a lot of things that nobody +else knows—or wants to know either!”</p> + +<p>The last words were to the accompaniment of +the goading stick which began to move vehemently +to and fro in the hole again. That neat +little hole, which had been one of the humbler +miracles of the woods, now gaped as an ugly, +torn fissure beneath its roof of rock.</p> + +<p>Before it was a defacing débris of torn grass +and earth in which Blink scratched impatiently, +whining over the delay in the chip-squirrel’s +exit.</p> + +<p>“Oh! give it up, Leon; I believe I can hear +him stirring in the hole!” pleaded Colin Estey.</p> + +<p>Simultaneously the scout flung himself on his +knees before the chipmunk’s fortress, well-nigh +captured, and seized the cruel goad.</p> + +<p>“Let go of this stick or I’ll lick you with it! +I can; I’m as old—older than you are!” Leon +was now a red-eyed savage.</p> + +<p>“That would be like your notion of fair play! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +Oh! drop the stick an’ come on with your fists! +I’m not afraid of you.”</p> + +<p>The probable result of such a duel remains a +problem; any slight advantage in age was on +Leon’s side, but each alert movement of the boy +scout showed that he possessed eye, mind, and +muscle trained to the fullest to cope with any +situation that might arise. Whoever might prove +victor, the expedition to Varney’s Paintpot would +have been abruptly frustrated by a fight among +the exploring party, had not Marcoo the tactful +interfered.</p> + +<p>“Oh! what’s the use of fighting about a +chip’?” he cried, thrusting a plump shoulder +between the bristling combatants. “It’s just this +way, Leon: Nix is right; it’s a mean business, +trying to force that chipmunk out of its hole for +the dog to catch it! You can withdraw the stick +right now, come with us an’ share our luncheon; +or you can go off on your own hook—and you +don’t get a crumb out of the basket—we’ll find +the Paintpot without you!”</p> + +<p>Leon drew a long wavering breath, looking at +Colin for support.</p> + +<p>But Public Opinion as represented by the two +younger boys, was by this time entirely with the +scout. For it is the genius among boys, as among +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +grown-ups, who voices what lies hidden and unexpressed, +in the hearts of others; we are always +moved by the bold utterance of that which we +have surreptitiously felt ourselves.</p> + +<p>Both Colin Estey and Marcoo had known what +it was to feel their sense of pity and justice outraged +by Leon’s persecuting methods. But it +needed the trained boldness of the boy scout to +put the sentiment into words; to be ready to +fight for his knightly principles and win. For he +had won.</p> + +<p>Leon Chase fairly writhed at the choice set +before him—at the necessity of yielding a point +to the stranger! But he felt that it would be +still more obnoxious to his feelings to be deserted +by his companions, left to beat a solitary retreat +homeward with his dog or wander—alone and +fasting—through the woods, a boy hermit!</p> + +<p>“All right! Have your way! Come along,” +he cried crossly. “We’ll never get anywhere—that’s +sure—if we waste any more time on a +chipmunk!”</p> + +<p>Withdrawing the stick from the enlarged aperture, +he flung it away and scrambled to his feet, +whistling to the dog.</p> + +<p>It needed much moral suasion on the part of +all four boys to lure the terrier away from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +raided hole with whose earth his slim white legs +were coated. But he presently consented to +explore the woods further in search of diversion.</p> + +<p>And the incident ended without any torn fur +flying its flag of pain on the summer air.</p> + +<p>The flag of feud between the two boys, Starrie +Chase and Nixon, was not, however, immediately +lowered. Coombsie—a studious, thoughtful lad—had +the unhappy feeling of having brought +two strange fires together which might at any +moment result in an explosion that would be +especially disastrous on this the first day of his +cousin’s visit to him.</p> + +<p>But as one lad has remarked: “Two boys +cannot remain mad with each other long: there’s +always too much doing!”</p> + +<p>And everybody knows that sawdust smothers +smouldering fire! It did in this instance. After +about ten minutes of “grouchy” but uneventful +tramping, the forest explorers came to a logging +camp, a rude shanty, flanked by a yellow mountain +of sawdust where a portable sawmill had +been set up during the preceding winter and +taken down in spring.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that so much lay before +them to be seen in the woods—if haply they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +might arrive at the various points of heart’s desire—it +was not in boy-nature to refrain from +scaling that unstable, shelving sawdust peak for +a better view onward into those shadowy woods. +And a lusty sham battle ensued, in the midst of +which Leon found occasion to repay the trick +played on him with the pitchfork seeds by slipping +a handful of sawdust inside the scout’s +khaki collar.</p> + +<p>“Whew! that’s worse than the devil’s pitchforks,” +groaned the latter, writhing and squirming +in his tan shirt.</p> + +<p>But does not a trifling discomfort under such +circumstances enhance while curbing the enjoyment +of a boy, tying him to earth, when his +young spirit like an aeroplane, winged with sheer +joy of life and youthful daring, feels as if it could +spurn that earth sphere as too limited, and, riding +on the breeze of heaven, seek adventure among +the clouds?</p> + +<p>In such a mood the four boys, drinking in the +odor of the pine-trees as a fillip to delight, were +presently exploring the loggers’ shanty, with its +rude bunks, oilcloth-covered table, here an old +magazine, there a worn-out stocking, relics of +human habitation.</p> + +<p>“Nobody occupies this camp during the summer, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>” +said Leon. “I think Toiney Leduc and another +man worked up here last winter.”</p> + +<p>“I’m pretty sure that Toiney did! Look there!” +The scout was unfolding a piece of charred paper +pinioned in a corner by a tomato can; it was +a printed fragment of a French-Canadian <i>voyageur</i> +song, at sight of which the boys made the +shanty ring with:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Rond! rond! rond! peti’ pie pon’ ton’!”</span> +</div> + +<p>“But I’m not so sure that nobody is using +the shanty now,” remarked Nixon presently. +“See that tobacco ash and the stains on the +white oilcloth!” pointing to the dingy table. +“Both look fresh; the ash couldn’t possibly +have remained here since last winter; ’twould +have been blown away long ago by the wind +sweeping through the open shanty. There’s +some more of it on the mattress in this bunk,” +drawing himself up to look over the side of the +rude crib built into the wall. “I guess somebody +<i>does</i> occupy the camp now—at night anyway!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! so you set up to be a sort of Sherlock +Holmes, do you?” jeered Leon.</p> + +<p>“I don’t set up to be anything! But I can +tell that the men ground their axes right here.” +The scout was now kicking over a small wooden +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +trough that had reposed, bottom uppermost, +amid the long grass before the shanty.</p> + +<p>“How can you make that out?” It was Colin +who spoke.</p> + +<p>“Because, look! there’s rust on the inside of +the trough, showing that there are steely particles +mixed with the dust of the interior and that +water has dripped into it from the revolving +grindstone.”</p> + +<p>“Pshaw! anybody could find that out who set +to work to think about it,” came in a chorus +from his three companions.</p> + +<p>But that “thinking” was just the point: the +others would have passed by that topsy-turvy +wooden vessel, which might have been used for +sundry purposes, with its dusty interior exactly +the hue of the yellow sawdust, without stopping +to reason out the story of the patient axe-grinding +which had gone on there during winter’s +bitter days.</p> + +<p>“But, I say, what good does it do you to find +out things like that?” questioned Starrie Chase, +kicking over the trough, his shrewd young face +a star of speculation. “If one should go about +poking his nose into everything that had happened, +why! he’d find stories in most things, I +guess! The woods would be full of them. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“So they are!” replied the scout quickly. +“That’s just what we’re taught: that every bird +and animal, as well as everything which is done +by men, leaves its ‘sign!’ We must try to read +that ‘sign’ and store up in our minds what we +learn, as a squirrel stores his nuts for winter, so +that often we may find out things of importance +to ourselves or others. And I’ll tell you it makes +life a jolly lot more interesting than when one +goes about ‘lak wit’ eye shut’! as Toiney says. +I’ve never had such good times as since I’ve +been a scout:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +Then hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hurrah for the life that’s free,</span><br /> +With a heart and mind both clean and kind,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Scout’s is the life for me!</span></div> + +<div class="poemr"> And we’ll shout, shout, shout,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For the Scout, Scout, Scout,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For the Scouts of the U.S.A.!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The speaker exploded suddenly in a burst of +song, throwing his broad hat into the air with a +yell on the refrain that woke the echoes of the +log shanty, while the breezy orchestra in the tree-tops, +like noisy reed instruments, came in on the +last line:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">“For the Scouts of the U.S.A.!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Colin and Coombsie were enthusiastically +shouting it too.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Say! Col, that fellow suits me all right,” +whispered Marcoo, nudging his chum and pointing +toward the excited scout.</p> + +<p>“Me, too!” returned Colin.</p> + +<p>“Pshaw! he thinks he’s It, but I think the +opposite,” murmured Leon truculently.</p> + +<p>“To what troop or patrol do you belong, +Nix?” questioned his cousin.</p> + +<p>“Peewit Patrol, troop six, of Philadelphia! I +was a tenderfoot for six months; now I’m a +second-degree scout—with hope of becoming a +first-class one soon. Want to see my badge?” +pointing to his coat. “Each patrol is named after +a bird or animal. We use the peewit’s whistle for +signaling to each other: Tewitt! Tewitt!”</p> + +<p>Again the woods rang with a fairly good imitation +of the peewit’s—or European lapwing’s—whistling +note.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’d put a patent on that whistle if I +were you,” snapped Leon sarcastically: “I’m +sure nothing like it was ever heard in these—or +any other—woods! We’d better be moving +on or the mosquitoes will eat us up,” he added +hastily. “There hasn’t been any frost to get rid +of them yet.”</p> + +<p>But as the quartette of boys left the log-camp +behind and, with the terrier in erratic attendance, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +plunged again into the thick woods, it by and +by became apparent to each that, so far as a +knowledge of their exact whereabouts went or an +ability to locate any point of destination, they +were approaching the truth of Toiney’s words +and wandering “lak wit’ eye shut!”</p> + +<p>For a time they kept to a logging-road that +branched off from the shanty, a mere grass-grown, +root-obstructed pathway, over which, +when that great white leveler, Winter, evened +things up with his mantle of snow, the felled +trees were drawn on a rough sled to some point +where stood the movable sawmill.</p> + +<p>The dense woods were intersected at long intervals +by such half-obliterated paths; in their +remote recesses lurked other rough shanties where +a scout might read the “sign” that told of the +hard life of the lumbermen.</p> + +<p>But neither vine-laced road nor shanty was +easy of discovery for the uninitiated.</p> + +<p>“Whew! it kind o’ brings the gooseflesh to be +so far in the woods as this without having the +least idea whether we’re getting anywhere or +not.” Thus spoke Coombsie at the end of half +an hour’s steady tramping and plowing through +the underbrush. “Are you sure that you know +in which direction lies the cave called the Bear’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +Den, Leon? A logging-road runs past that, so +I’ve heard.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ll arrive there in time, I guess; Varney’s +Paintpot is somewhere in the same direction +as the cave,” replied the pseudo-leader evasively. +“They’re some distance apart, but we’ve +made a bee-line from one to the other when I’ve +been in the woods with my father or brother +Jim.”</p> + +<p>But these woods were a different proposition +now, without an older head and more experienced +woodlore to rely upon: Leon, who had never before +posed as a guide through their mazes, secretly +acknowledged this.</p> + +<p>He had not imagined that it would be so difficult +to find one’s way, unaided, in this wilderness +of endless trees and underbrush, through whose +changing aspects ran the same mystifying thread +as if the gold-brown gloom of a shadowy hill-slope,—where +only the sunbeams waltzing on +dry pine-needles seemed alive,—or the jeweled +twilight of a grassy alley bound a gossamer +handkerchief about one’s eyes, so that one groped +blindfold against a blank wall of uncertainty.</p> + +<p>“Say! but I wish I had brought my pocket compass +with me,” groaned the scout. “Guess I didn’t +live up to our scout motto: <span class="sc">Be Prepared</span>! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +But then—” he looked at his cousin—”we +started out with the intention of going down +the river and you objected to my trotting back +for it, Marcoo, when we determined on a hike +through the woods.”</p> + +<p>“I was afraid that if the men knew what we +were planning, they’d have headed us off as +Toiney tried to do,” confessed Marcoo candidly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I wish now that I had gone back; I +could have packed the luncheon into my knapsack; +it would have been much more easily carried +than in this basket. I miss my staff too!” +Nixon deposited the lunch-basket, with which he +was now impeded, on the ground in a green +woodland glade where the noble forest trees, red +oak, cedar, maple, interspersed with an occasional +pine, hemlock, or balsam fir, rose to a height of +from sixty to a hundred feet, bordering a patch +of open ground, starred with wildflowers, dotted +with berries.</p> + +<p>Delicate queen’s lace, purple gentians, starry +wood-asters, waxen Indian pipes, made it seem +as if this must be the wood-fairies’ dancing-ground, +where at night they rode a moonbeam +from flower to flower, and sipped juice from the +milk-berries, bunch-berries or scarlet fox-berries +that strayed at intervals along the ground.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’d like to stay <i>here</i> forever.” Colin stretched +himself upon a bank of moss, his mind going +back to the explorer’s longing, to the wood-hunger +which had consumed him, as he lay upon +the fragrant marsh-grass some hours before. He +was getting his wish now—and not everybody +gets that without having to pay for it. “The +trees look kind o’ fatherly an’ protecting; don’t +they?” he murmured lazily.</p> + +<p>Yes, here one felt admitted to the companionship +of those noble trees,—the greatest story-tellers +that ever were, when one listens and interprets +their conversations with the breeze. A +“Hurrah for the woods!” was on every tongue +as the boys chewed a berry or smoked a pearly +orchid pipe.</p> + +<p>Moods changed a little as they took up their +wandering again and presently waded, single file, +through a jungle of bushes, scrub oak, dwarf +pine, pigmy cedar and birch, laced with brambles. +Here the trees overhead were of less magnitude +and the tall leafy undergrowth foamed +about their ears, giving them somewhat the distracted +feeling of being cast away on a trackless +sea—each sequestered in his own little boat—with +emerald billows shutting out all view of +port.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Three cheers! We’re almost through with +this jungle. I guess we’re coming to more open +ground again—none too soon, either!” cried +Leon who led, with his dog. “Shouldn’t wonder +if we were approaching a swamp: it may be Big +Swamp, as the men call that great alder-swamp +that’s all spongy in parts and dotted with deep +bog-holes, where one might sink out of sight +quick!</p> + +<p>“For goodness’ sake! look at the crows,” he +whooped three minutes later, as, leaving the +wavy undergrowth behind, he plunged out on +a mossy slope strewn with an occasional boulder. +“<i>The crows!</i> What do you suppose they’re +after? They’re teasing something! ‘Hollering’ +at something!”</p> + +<p>The same amazed exclamation broke from his +companions’ lips. Halfway down the slope was +an old and leafy chestnut tree. Around this +the crows were circling, now alighting on the +branches, now fluttering off again on sloping +sable wing, their yellow beaks gleaming.</p> + +<p>A cawing din filled the air, with an occasional +loud “Quock!” of alarm or indignation.</p> + +<p>“They’re teasing something—perhaps it’s a +squirrel! I’ve seen them do that before; they’re +regular pests!” exclaimed Leon, inconsistently +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +finding fault with the crows for being birds of the +same feather with himself.</p> + +<p>“Whew! there’s something doing here. Let’s +see what it is!” Nixon was equally excited.</p> + +<p>With the terrier scampering ahead, the four +boys set off at a run toward the crow-infested +tree.</p> + +<p>“I believe there’s something—some animal—hidden +in the hollow between the branches!” +Leon gave vent to a low shout, his brown eyes +yellow with excitement. “It’s round that the +crows are hovering!”</p> + +<p>“There is! There is! I see the end of a big, +bushy tail. It isn’t a squirrel’s tail either!” returned +the scout in a fever of mystification. +“Let’s go softly, so that we won’t frighten the +thing whatever it is—then we can have a good +look at it!”</p> + +<p>“Suppose it should be a wildcat, then we’d +‘scat’!” gasped Colin, feeling his wildest hopes +and tremors fulfilled. “I see its nose—a black +nose—over the edge of the hollow! It’s like—Gee! +it can’t be another coon from the swamp—like +the dead one that Toiney found in the +hencoop?”</p> + +<p>Simultaneously the terrier, Blink, was launching +himself like a white arrow toward the spreading +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +nut-tree, which stood upon a grassy knoll, +while the woods rang with his fusillade of barking.</p> + +<p>And from the hollow in the tree came a shrill +whimpering cry, remarkably like that of a small +and frightened child.</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase fairly gambolled with excitement: +“That’s where you’re right, Col,” he +panted. “If it isn’t a coon—another young coon—I’m +a Dutchman! I hunted one in the woods, +by night, with my brother, last year!”</p> + +<p>“He keeps on singing,” breathed Coombsie. +“Isn’t his cry like a two-year-old child’s?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! if we only had my brother’s coon dog +here—and could get him down from the tree—the +dog might finish him!” Leon seemed emitting +sparks of excitement from his pointed elbows +and other quivering joints. “Go for him, +Blink!” he raved, hardly knowing what he +said. “You’re not afraid of anything—you feel +like a mastiff! Oh! we <i>must</i> get him out of that +tree-hollow on to the ground.”</p> + +<p>“Caw! Caw!... Caw!... Quock! Quock!” +At the approach of the boys and dog the crows +set up a wilder din, describing broader circles +round the tree or fluttering upward to its loftier +branches.</p> + +<p>Again came that petulant whimpering cry from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +the hollow of the chestnut, where a young raccoon +(probably brother to the intruder which had +made a short bee-line through the woods, guided +by instinct and its nose, to Toiney’s hencoop) +now wailed and quailed, finding himself between +two sets of enemies: the barking dog and excited +boys below, the pestering crows above.</p> + +<p>Abandoning the wise nocturnal habits of his +forefathers, with the rashness of youth, he too +had strayed at sunrise from that secluded hole +among the ledges on the borders of Big Swamp, +filled with dreams of juicy cornfields and other +delicacies.</p> + +<p>Not readily finding such a land of milk and +honey, he climbed into the hollow of this chestnut +tree, flanked by a young ash upon the knoll, +and there composed himself to sleep.</p> + +<p>But thither the crows, flocking, found him; +and recognizing in him an hereditary enemy of +their eggs and nestlings, set to work to make his +life a burden.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Raccoon Junior preferred their +society to that of the boys and dog which instinct +warned him to dread above all other foes.</p> + +<p>As the well-bred terrier—game enough to face +any foe, though it might prove a sorry day for +him if he should tackle that young raccoon—reared +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +on his hind legs, and clawed the bark of +the trunk in his excitement, the rash Junior +climbed swiftly out of the hollow and fled up +among the branches of the tall chestnut tree, +seeking to hide himself among the long thick +leaves amid a stormy “Quock!” and “Caw! +Caw! Caw!” from the crows.</p> + +<p>“Oh! there—there he goes! See his stout +body and funny little legs!”</p> + +<p>“And his long gray hair and the black patch +over his eyes—makes him look as if he wore +spectacles!”</p> + +<p>“And his bushy tail! Huh! there’s some class +to that tail—all ringed with buff and black.”</p> + +<p>Such cries broke from three wildly excited +throats. Leon spent no breath in admiration. +Like lightning, he had snatched up a stone and +sent it flying up the tree after the fugitive with +such good aim that it struck one of the short, +climbing legs.</p> + +<p>Another whimpering cry—sharp and shrill +as that of a wounded child—rang down among +the thick leaves.</p> + +<p>“What did you do that for? You’ve broken +one of his legs, I think!” exclaimed the scout.</p> + +<p>“So much the better! If he should light down +from the tree, he can’t run so fast! I want that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +dandy tail of his—and his skin!” Starrie Chase +was now beside himself with the greedy feeling, +that possessed him whenever he saw a wild animal, +that its own skin did not belong to it, but to him.</p> + +<p>“Say, fellows!” he cried wildly, “if you’ll +stay right here by the tree and prevent his coming +down, I—I’ll run all the way back to that +farm-clearing—I guess I can find my way—and +bring back Toiney’s gun, and shoot him. +Say—will you?”</p> + +<p>No such promise was forthcoming.</p> + +<p>“Well, I know what I’ll do!” Leon tore off +his jacket. “I’ll tie the sleeves of my coat round +the trunk of the tree; that will prevent his coming +down, so I’ve heard my father say. Bother! +they won’t meet. I’ll have to use your coat too, +Nix!”</p> + +<p>He snatched up the scout’s Norfolk jacket, +thrown down beside the basket at the foot of +the tree, and was knotting it to his own, when +there was a wild shriek from Colin:—</p> + +<p>“Look! Look! He’s jumped over into the +other tree. Oh! he’s come down; he’s on the +ground now—there beyond the ash tree—rolling +over like a ball! Oh, he’s going—going +like a slate sliding downhill!”</p> + +<p>While Leon had been so cleverly knotting the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +coats round the tree-trunk, and his terrier barking +up it, the young coon had outwitted them +and dropped like an acrobat to the ground, having +gained the odds of a dozen yards in his race +for safety.</p> + +<p>Off went the terrier after him, now! Off went +the four boys, hot on the trail too, madly rushing +down the hill clear to the edge of the alder-swamp +toward which it sloped—yes! and into +its quagmire borders too, while the crows, raving +like a foghorn, supplied music for the chase.</p> + +<p>But the speed of the limping wild animal enabled +it, having gained its short legs—despite the +injury of the stone—to reach the shelter of a +quivering clump of alders where Blink worried +in and out in vain, nose to the ground—sniffing +and baffled.</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ve lost sight of him now! He’s +given us the slip,” cried Colin, recklessly dashing +for the alders.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the air cracked with his cry that +raved with terror like the crows: “Help! <i>Help!</i> +I’m into it now—into it plunk—into Big +Swamp! I’m sinking—s-sinking above my +waist! Help! Help!”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER IV</p> + +<p class="center chap2">VARNEY’S PAINTPOT</p> + +<p>“I’m ‘plunk’ into it! I’m sinking in the +swamp mud! I can’t—can’t get out! Oh—h-help—help!”</p> + +<p>Colin’s wild cries as he found himself sinking +in the oozing, olive-green mud of the vast alder-swamp, +struck his comrades with a momentary +blind horror.</p> + +<p>The half-immersed boy was indeed “plunk” +into it; he was submerged to his waist and +slowly sinking inch by inch farther, now fairly +gibbering in his frantic terror of being swallowed +bodily by one of the many sucking throats +of Big Swamp.</p> + +<p>He writhed and struggled madly, snatching +at the rank grass whose slimy roots came away in +his hand—at the bushes—even at the brilliant +poison sumac, already ruddy as a swamp lamp—with +the clutch of a drowning man; Leon’s remembered +words stinging his ears like noisome +insects: “There are <i>live</i> spots in that swamp +where one might go out of sight—<i>quick</i>! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The hideous slimy life of the spongy bog, half +water, half mud!</p> + +<p>Leon’s sharp-featured face at that moment +seemed to be carved out of pale wood as his +snapping eyes took in the swamp, with its groves +of whispering alders, its margin of scattered +birch-trees and swamp cedars, the lamplike sumac +burning maliciously—the sinking boyish +figure amid the moist green dreariness!</p> + +<p>Now, Starrie Chase was by Nature’s gift more +quick-witted than his companions, even than the +trained boy scout.</p> + +<p>“If we try to wade in toward him, we’ll sink +ourselves!” he cried. “I’ll try to haul him out +with that birch-tree.”</p> + +<p>A leaping, plunging run, sinking to his ankles, +and with the long bound of a gray squirrel +he alighted upon the supple trunk of a tall white-birch +sapling that grew within the borders of +the swamp!</p> + +<p>No squirrel ever climbed more rapidly than +did he to its middle branches.</p> + +<p>And the yellow flame in his eyes, now, was +not a spark from persecution’s fire.</p> + + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both;" summary="Illustration"> +<tr><td class="figcenter"><img style="width:387px; height:599px" src="images/illus069.jpg" alt="" /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="caption">“HELP! <i>HELP!</i>”</td></tr></table> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hold on, Col! Keep up! The tree’ll pull +you out. I’ll bend it down to you. When it comes +within reach of your arms catch hold of the trunk! +Hang on for your life! I’ll shin down, and ’twill +hoist you up—you’re lighter than I am!”</p> + +<p>He was bending the tall, supple trunk, with +its leafy crown, down—down—as he spoke. It +creaked beneath his fifteen-year-old weight. The +strained roots groaned in the swampy soil.</p> + +<p>“Gee! if the roots should give way <i>I’ll</i> land +in the soup too,” was his piercing thought; and +a shudder ran down his spine as he saw the pools +of olive-green bog-soup beneath him—bottomless +pools—in which floated slimy, stagnant +things, leaves and dead insects.</p> + +<p>Pools more horrible even than the patch of +liquidescent mud in which Colin was sinking!</p> + +<p>But Starrie Chase would never have attained +to the leadership that was his among the boys +of Exmouth if there had been nothing in him +but the savage—the petty, not the primitive +savage—that persecuted chipmunks and old +women. Now the hero who slept in the shadow +of the savage was aroused and there was “something +doing”!</p> + +<p>Lying flat upon the pliant sapling he forced +it down with his heaving chest, with every ounce +of will and weight in his strong body.</p> + +<p>The silvery trunk bent to the sinking boy like +a white angel.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>With a cry he flung his arms upward and +grasped it. At the same moment Leon slid down +and jumped to a comparatively firm spot of the +quagmire.</p> + +<p>The flexible young tree rebounded slowly with +the weight lighter than his pendant from it—like +a stone attached to the boom of a derrick.</p> + +<p>In a few seconds it was almost upright, with +Colin Estey, mud-plastered to his arm-pits, hanging +on like an olive-green bough, his dilated +eyes starting from his head, his face blanched to +the gray-white of the friendly trunk.</p> + +<p>“Slide down now, Col, an’ jump—I’ll stand +by to give you a hand!” cried Leon, the daring +rescuer.</p> + +<p>And in another minute the victim was safe on +<i>terra firma</i>—out of the slimy throat of Big +Swamp.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I thought I was going—to sink down—out +of sight!” he gasped between lips that +did not seem to move, so tightly was the skin of +his face stretched by terror. “That I’d be swallowed +by the mud! I would have been—but for +Leon!”</p> + +<p>“You surely were quick! Quick as a flash!” +The two boys who had been spectators gazed +open-mouthed at Starrie Chase as if they saw the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +hero who for three brief minutes had flashed out +into the open.</p> + +<p>“Whew! I got such a fright that I’ll never +forget it; I declare I feel weak still,” mumbled +Coombsie.</p> + +<p>“Pooh! your fright—was nothing to mine,” +Colin’s stiff lips began to tremble now with recovering +life. “And I’m plastered with mud +to my shoulder-blades—wet too! But I don’t +care, as I’m out of it!” He glanced nervously +toward Big Swamp, and at the clump of restless +alders which probably still sheltered Raccoon +Junior.</p> + +<p>“The sun is quite hot here; let’s move back +up the hill and sit down!” Nixon pointed to +the grassy slope behind them where the crows +still flapped their wings around the chestnut-tree +with an occasional relieved “Caw!” “We’ll roll +you over there, Col, and hang you out to dry!”</p> + +<p>“Well! suppose we eat our lunch during the +process, eh?” suggested Marcoo. “Goodness! +wouldn’t it be ‘one on us’ if a fox had sneaked +out of the woods and run off with the lunch-basket? +We left it under the chestnut-tree.”</p> + +<p>They made their way back to that nut-tree, +whose hoary trunk was still swathed with Leon’s +coat and the scout’s Norfolk jacket, knotted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +round it to prevent the young coon which had +signally outwitted them from “lighting down.”</p> + +<p>“Whew! I feel as if ’twas low tide inside me. +A scare always makes me hungry,” remarked +Leon, not at all like a hero, but a very prosaic +boy. “I think eating in the woods is the best +part of the business!”</p> + +<p>“I say! You’d make a jolly good scout; do +you know it?” put forth Nixon.</p> + +<p>But the other only hunched his shoulders +with the grin of a contortionist as he bit into a +ham sandwich, richly flavored with peanut butter +and quince jelly from the shaking which the +basket had undergone on its passage through the +woods.</p> + +<p>The troop of hungry crows which had pecked +unavailingly at the wicker cover, had retired to +some distance and watched the picnic in croaking +envy.</p> + +<p>Colin lay out in the sun, being rolled over at +intervals by the scout, to dislodge the caking +mud from his clothes, and to knead up his +“soggy” spirits.</p> + +<p>“Well! if we had carried out our first intention +this morning, Nix, if we had gone down the +river to the Sugarloaf Sand-Dunes near its mouth, +we might <i>all</i> have stuck high and dry, in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +river mud, if the tide forsook us,” said Coombsie +by and by, as he dispensed a limited amount of +cold coffee from a pint bottle. “That’s a pleasure +in store, whenever we can get Captain Andy +to take us in his motor-boat. Say! he’s great; +he was skipper of a Gloucester fishing schooner +until a year ago, when he lost his vessel in a +fog; the main-boom fell on him and broke his +leg; he’s lame still. He stays in Exmouth with +his daughter most o’ the time now. He was one +o’ the Gloucester crackerjacks: he saved so many +lives at sea that he used to be called the Ocean +Patrol!”</p> + +<p>“Why, he must be a regular sea-scout,” Nixon’s +eye watered; he had the bump of hero-worship +strongly developed.</p> + +<p>“Captain Andy’s laying for you, Leon,” remarked +Coombsie, passing round some jelly-roll.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess I know why!” came the nonchalant +answer. “It’s for tying a wooden shingle +to a long branch of the apple-tree near old +Ma’am Baldwin’s house, so that it would keep +tapping on her door through the night. If the +wind is in the right direction it works finely—keeps +her guessing all the time! I’ve lain low +among the marsh-grass and seen her come to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +door, in the dark, a dozen times, gruntin’ like a +grizzly! I hate solitary cranks!”</p> + +<p>“Captain Andy says that she was never peculiar +as she is now, until her youngest son ran +wild and was sent to a reformatory,” suggested +Marcoo gravely.</p> + +<p>“I’d cut out that trick, if I were you!” +growled the scout.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I don’t know; there are times when a +fellow must paint the town red—or something—or +‘he’d bust’! That reminds me, we were +going to daub ourselves with red from Varney’s +Paintpot. If we’re to find it to-day, we’d better +be moving on pretty soon. It must be after two +o’clock now.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t got my watch on, but it’s quite +that, or later,” the scout glanced upward at the +brilliant afternoon sun.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t we better give up all idea of visiting +the Paintpot or the Bear’s Den,” Marcoo +suggested rather nervously, “and begin tramping +homeward—if we can discover in which +direction home lies? I think we ought to try and +find some outlet from the woods.”</p> + +<p>“So do I. Col will have a peck of swamp mud +to carry round with him. His clothes are heavy +and damp. If I only had my compass we could +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +steer a fairly straight course, for these woods lie +to the southeast of the town; don’t they? Anybody +got a watch on? I left mine at home.” +Nixon looked eagerly at his companions.</p> + +<p>“Our boy-scout handbook tells us how to use +the watch as a compass by pointing the hour-hand +to the sun and reckoning back halfway to +noon, at which point the south would be.”</p> + +<p>“My ‘timer’ is out of commission,” regretted +Marcoo.</p> + +<p>Neither of the other two boys possessed a +watch.</p> + +<p>“In that case we might trust to the dog to +lead us out of the woods. We’d better just tell +Blink to go home, and follow him; he’ll find his +way out some time; won’t you, pup?” Nix +stooped to fondle the tan ears of the terrier which +had taken to him from the first, having never +harbored the ghost of a suspicion of his being a +“flowerpot fellow.”</p> + +<p>The little dog stretched his jaws in a tired +yawn. The pink pads of his paws were sore from +much running, following up rabbit trails, and +the rest. But the purple lights in his faithful +brown eyes said plainly: “Leave it to me, fellows! +Instinct can put it all over reason, just now!”</p> + +<p>But Blink’s master started an opposition +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +movement. He had been invited to guide the +expedition; he was averse to resigning such leadership +to his terrier; in that case his supposed +knowledge of the woods, of which he had boasted +aforetime to the Exmouth boys, would henceforth +be regarded as a “windy joke.”</p> + +<p>“Follow Blink!” Thus he flouted the idea. +“If we do, we won’t get out of these woods before +midnight! He’ll dodge round after every +live thing he sees, from a weasel to a grasshopper—like +a regular will-o’-the-wisp. The sensible +thing to do is to search for a logging-road—we’re +sure to come to one in time—and follow +that on. Or a stream—a stream would lead +out on to the salt-marshes, to join the river.”</p> + +<p>“There don’t appear to be any streams in +these woods; they seem as dry as an attic!” +Nixon, the scout, knew that the proposal now +adopted by the majority was all wrong, contrary +to the advice derived through his book from the +great Chief Scout, Grand Master of Woodlore, +but he hated to raise another fuss or make a split +in the camp.</p> + +<p>So the quartette of boys filed slowly up the +slope and back into the woods, Coombsie carrying +the almost empty basket, containing sparse +remnants of the feast: “We may be hungry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +before we arrive home!” he remarked, with +involuntary foreboding in his tone.</p> + +<p>That foreboding increased as they pressed on. +Each one now became depressingly sure that he +was wandering in the woods “lak wit’ eye shut”; +without any knowledge of his bearings, or of +how to retrace his steps to the log shanty flanked +by the mountain of sawdust, whence he might +be able to find his way back to the farm-clearing +where he had encountered the musical woodchopper, +frightened boy and dead raccoon.</p> + +<p>The boy scout was silently reproaching himself +for having fallen short of the prudent standard +inculcated by his scout training. Carried +away by the novelty of these strange woods and +his equally strange companions, he had lowered +the foresail of prudence—just tramped along +blindly with the others—taking no note of +landmarks, nor leaving any trace behind him +that would serve to guide him back along the +course by which he had come.</p> + +<p>But, then, he had trusted to Leon’s leadership; +and the latter’s boasted knowledge of the woods +proved, as Coombsie had suspected, to consist of +bluff as a chief ingredient!</p> + +<p>“I wish I had kept my eyes open and noticed +things as I came along, or that I had thought of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +notching the trees at intervals with my penknife—blazing +a trail—which we could have followed +back,” lamented the scout. “I guess we’re +only wandering round in a circle now; we’re +not hitting a logging-road or trail of any kind. +Tck! puppie,”—emitting an inarticulate summons +between his tongue and palate,—”let’s +see what’s the matter with those forepaws of +yours! Blood, is it? Have you scratched them?”</p> + +<p>He stooped to examine Blink’s slim white +forelegs.</p> + +<p>“<i>Gee whiz!</i> it isn’t blood—it’s clay—red +clay: we must be on the trail of Varney’s Paintpot, +fellows!”</p> + +<p>So they were! They presently found it, that +red-ochre bed, lying in obscurity among the +bushes, scrub oak, dwarf pine and cedar, together +with tall ferns, that stood guard over it +jealously, in a particularly dense portion of the +woods.</p> + +<p>Once the clay had been vivid and valuable, +with wonderful painting properties. Many an +Indian had stained his arrow blood-red with it. +Many a white man, an early settler, had painted +the rude furniture of his home from that forest +paintpot—then a moist tank of Nature’s pigment.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>Later on it had been used too, as civilization +progressed, and was claimed by the man whose +name it bore.</p> + +<p>Now, it was for the most part caked and dried +up, its coloring power weakened; yet there +were still moist and vivid spots such as that +in which Blink, with the dog’s unerring instinct +for scenting out the unusual, had smeared +himself.</p> + +<p>And those spots the boys promptly turned +into a rouge-pot. They painted their own faces +and each other’s, until more savage-looking red +men these woods had never seen.</p> + +<p>They forbore from delaying to smear their +bodies, as Nixon had suggested, for one word +was now booming in each tired brain like a foghorn +through a mist: “Lost! Lost! <i>Lost!</i>” +And they could not quite escape from it in this +new diversion.</p> + +<p>Still they tried to dye hope a fresh rose-color +at this forest paintpot too: to silence with whooping +yells and fantastic capers, and in flitting +war-dances in and out among the trees, the grim +raving of that word in their ears.</p> + +<p>They painted Blink likewise in zebra-like +stripes across his back, whereupon he promptly +rolled on the ground, blurring his markings, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +until he was a mottled and grotesque red-and-white +object.</p> + +<p>“He looks like a clown’s dog,” said Coombsie. +“If any one should meet us in the woods, they’d +think we were a troop of painted guys escaped +from a circus! We’ll create a sensation in the +town when we get home—if we ever do?” +<i>sotto voce</i>. “Hadn’t we better stop ‘training +on’ now, and try to get somewhere?”</p> + +<p>So, controlling the training-on, capering savage +now rampant in each one corresponding to his +painted face, they toiled on again, while the +afternoon shadows lengthened in the woods—until +they stood transfixed, their war-whoops +silenced, before another surprise of the woods on +which they had tumbled, unprepared.</p> + +<p>It was a lengthy gray cairn of stones with a +rude wooden marker at the top bearing the date +1790, and at the foot a modern granite slab inscribed +with the words: “Bishop’s Grave,” and +the date of the stone’s erection.</p> + +<p>“<i>Bishop’s Grave!</i>” Coombsie ejaculated, +while the empty basket drooped heavily from his +hand as if “the grasshopper had suddenly become +a burden.” “I’ve heard of the grave, but +I’ve never seen it before. Bishop was lost in +these woods about a hundred and twenty-one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +years ago; he couldn’t find his way out and +wandered round till he died. His body was discovered +months afterwards and they buried it +here.”</p> + +<p>Awe fell upon the four boys. Their faces were +drawn under the smearing of paint. Their eyes +gleamed strangely, like sunken islands, from out +their ruddy setting. The mottled terrier, with +that sympathetic perception which dogs have of +their masters’ moods, pointed one ear sharply +and drooped the other, like a flag at half-mast, +while he stared at the rude cairn.</p> + +<p>The scout impulsively lifted his broad-brimmed +hat as he was in the habit of doing if, when marching +with his troop, he encountered a funeral.</p> + +<p>In the mind of each lad tolled like a slow bell +the menacing echo of Toiney’s words: “You +walkee—walkee—en you haf so tire’ en so +lonesam you <i>go deaded</i>!”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER V</p> + +<p class="center chap2">“YOU MUST LOOK OUT!”</p> + +<p>The four boys did not linger long before that +lonely grave; the fears it evoked were too unpleasant. +They pushed on again through the +woods, each one clearing his throat of a husky +tickling that was third cousin to a weary sob.</p> + +<p>The scout was inwardly combating the depressing +memory of Toiney Leduc’s warning +with the advice of the Chief Scout that if he +should ever find himself lost in the woods, Fear, +not hunger or cold, would prove his worst enemy.</p> + +<p>“I mustn’t lose my grip! I must keep my +head—not be fogged by fear! I’m a boy scout +of America,” he reminded himself.</p> + +<p>Still the shadow of that gray cairn stalked +him as well as the others. Even Leon was subdued +by it. His manner had lost the last trace of +its shallow cocksureness. The mantle of bluff +had melted from him, leaving him a distracted, +temper-tried boy like his three companions.</p> + +<p>“I know that the cave called the Bear’s Den +is not quite a mile from Bishop’s grave, but I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +haven’t the least idea of how to go about reaching +it,” he admitted. “A logging-road passes +the cave; that might lead us somewhere. I wish +we could strike a stream.”</p> + +<p>“So do I! My mouth is dry as dust; I’m +parched with thirst.” Nixon, as he spoke, stooped, +picked up a round pebble, inserted it between +his dry palate and tongue and began sucking on +it, as on a gum-drop.</p> + +<p>“What on earth are you doing that for?” +questioned Leon sharply; the nerves in his tired +body were now jangling like an instrument out +of tune; together with his three companions he +was cross as a thorn—ready to quarrel with his +own shadow.</p> + +<p>“’What am I doing it for?’ Why! to start the +saliva,” quavered the scout, sucking hard; “to +prevent me from feeling the thirst so much.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Blamed</i> rubbish!” Starrie Chase snorted. +“As if sucking a stone like a baby would do +you any good!”</p> + +<p>“Everything is ‘rubbish,’ except what you +know yourself; and <i>that’s</i> next to nothing!” +Nixon was now equally cross. “You don’t know +half as much about the woods as your dog does. +If it hadn’t been for you, we’d have been out of +this place long ago! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you think you’re It, because you’re a +boy scout, but I think the opposite!”</p> + +<p>“Shut up! Don’t give me any of your ‘jaw’!”</p> + +<p>But there was a sudden, queer contortion of +the scout’s face on the last word.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he stalked on, humming to himself—a +curious-looking being, with his painted face +and dazed eyes under the broad-brimmed hat.</p> + +<p>“What’s that you’re singing, Nix?” Coombsie +was catching at a straw to divert thought +from Bishop’s grave.</p> + +<p>“Oh! go on, let’s hear it. Sounds lively!” +urged Leon, whose temper had sunk beneath the +realization of their plight, a quenched flash.</p> + +<p>The scout sidetracked his pebble between right +cheek and gums and began to sing with what +cheerfulness he could muster, as much for his +own encouragement as that of his companions, +a patrol song, the gift of a poet to the boy scouts +of the world:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Look out when your temper goes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the end of a losing game;</span><br /> +And your boots are too tight for your toes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you answer and argue and blame!</span><br /> +It’s the hardest part of the law,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But it’s got to be learned by the scout,</span><br /> +For whining and shirking and ‘jaw,’<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All patrols look out!</span><br /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> +<div class="poemr">These are our regulations,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There’s just one law for the scout,</span><br /> +And the first and the last, and the present and the past,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the future and the perfect is look out!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Before Nixon had finished the chorus his three +companions were shouting it with him as a spur +to their jaded spirits.</p> + +<p>“Ours is a losing game in earnest—all because +we didn’t look out and take proper precautions +so that we might have some chance of +returning by the way that we came,” remarked +the soloist with a grim laugh. “Now, we ‘jolly +well must look out!’ as the song says. I’m going +to climb the next tree that’s good an’ tall, +and see whether I can discover any faraway +smoke that would show us where a house might +be,—or a gap in the woods,—or anything.”</p> + +<p>“Good idea! I’ll climb too,” seconded Leon. +“You choose one tree; I’ll take another, and +see what we can make out!”</p> + +<p>But they were toiling through a comparatively +insignificant part of the fine woods now, where +the foamy undergrowth billowed about their ears. +Here the birch-trees, hickories, and maples, with +an occasional pine and hemlock, only averaged +from thirty-five to forty feet in stature. Not for +another half-mile or so did Nixon sight a tall +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +stately trunk towering above its forest brethren, +its many-pointed leaves proclaiming it to be a +fine red oak.</p> + +<p>“Whoo’! Whoo’! It’s me for that oak-tree!” +he cried. “I’ll shin up that, right to the top and +scour the horizon. ’Twill be easily climbed too!”</p> + +<p>“See that freak pine with the divided trunk +a little farther on? I’m going to climb that,” +announced Leon Chase. “It’s a fine tree, if it is +a freak—like the Siamese Twins.”</p> + +<p>In another minute with the agility of a cat he +had climbed to the crotch of the freak tree where +its twin trunks divided.</p> + +<p>“Look out! those lower branches are brown +an’ rotten, Starrie. I wouldn’t trust to them if +I were you!” shouted Colin, indicating the +drooping pine-boughs about ten feet from the +ground; he kicked a similar large drab branch, +as he spoke, which had fallen and lay decaying +at the foot of the freak tree.</p> + +<p>“Right you are! I won’t.” Leon was a wonderful +climber; twining his arms and legs round +one olive-green trunk of the divided pine he +managed to reach the firm boughs above through +whose needles the late afternoon breeze crooned +a sonorous warning.</p> + +<p>The scout, meanwhile, had clambered like a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +squirrel nearly to the top of the splendid oak-tree. +Presently the two boys upon the ground +heard a shrill “Tewitt! Tewitt!” the signal-whistle +of his peewit patrol, fully sixty feet +above their heads, followed by Nixon’s voice +shouting: “Can’t see smoke anywhere, fellows—or +any sign of a real break in the woods. But +there seems to be some sort of little clearing +about two hundred yards from here, I should +say!” He was carefully scanning the space over +intervening tree-tops with his eye, knowing that +if he could judge this distance in the woods +with approximate accuracy it would count as a +point in his favor toward realizing the height of +his ambition and graduating into a first-class +scout.</p> + +<p>Leon, a moment later, was singing out blithely +from the pine-tree’s top: “I see that gap between +the trees too, just a little way farther on. I guess +it’s a logging-road at last—probably a shanty +as well—the road will lead somewhere anyhow. +Hurrah! We’ll be out o’ the misery in time. +Race you down, Nix?” he challenged exuberantly +at the top of his voice.</p> + +<p>Then began a swift, racing descent, marked +on Leon’s part by the touch of recklessness that +often characterized his movements; he was determined +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +that though the boy scout might excel +him in certain points of knowledge, he should +not outdo him in athletic activity.</p> + +<p>“There! I knew I could ‘trim’ you anywhere—in +a tree or on the ground,” he cried all in one +gasping breath as—caution to the winds—he +stepped on one of the lower dead boughs which +he had avoided going up.</p> + +<p>It snapped under his hundred and twenty-five +pounds of sturdy weight, like a breaking twig. +He crashed to the ground, alighting in a huddle +upon the decayed branch, the crumbling wind-fall, +at the foot of the tree.</p> + +<p>“Gracious! are you hurt, Starrie?” Coombsie +and Colin rushed to him.</p> + +<p>“I—think—not! I guess I’m all here.” +Leon made a desperate attempt to rise, and instantly +sank back, clutching at the grass around +him with such a sound as nobody had ever heard +before from the lips of Leon Starr Chase—the +moan of a maimed creature.</p> + +<p>“My ankle! My right ankle!” he groaned. “I +twisted it, coming down on that rotten branch. +It feels as if every tree in the woods had fallen +on it together! Ouch! I—can’t—stand.” Drops +of agony stole out upon his forehead.</p> + +<p>“You’ve sprained it, I guess!” Nixon was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +now bending over the victim. “Here, let me +take your shoe off, before the foot swells! Perhaps, +with Col and me helping you, you can limp +along to that clearing?”</p> + +<p>Leon made another attempt, with the leather +pressure removed, but sank down again and +began to relieve himself of his stocking too, in +order to examine the injury.</p> + +<p>“Ou-ouch!” he groaned savagely. “My ankle +is as black as a thundercloud already. It feels +just like a thunderstorm, too—all heavy throbs +an’ lightning shoots of pain!”</p> + +<p>The trail of those fiery darts could be traced +in the livid blue and yellow streaks that were +turning the rapidly swelling ankle, in which the +ligaments were badly torn, to as many hues as +Joseph’s coat, against a background of sullen +black.</p> + +<p>“Well! this is the—limit!” Coombsie dropped +the lunch-basket, to which he had clung faithfully, +into a nest of underbrush: with a probable +logging-road within reach that might serve as +a clue to lead them somewhere, here was one of +their number with a thunderstorm in his ankle!</p> + +<p>And then the hero that dwelt in the shadow +of the savage in that contradictory breast of +Leon Chase flashed awake again in a moment, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +at Big Swamp; the real plucky boyhood in him +shone out like a star!</p> + +<p>“’Twill be dark—in the woods—before +very long,” he said, his voice sprained too by +pain, while his clammy face, still coated with the +red-ochre pigment of Varney’s Paintpot, smeared +by the drops of agony and his coat-sleeve, was a +lurid sight. “You fellows will have to hustle if +you want to reach that road—if it is a logging-road—and +get out of the woods before night! +I can hardly—hobble. I’d better stay here: +Blink will stay with me; won’t you, pup? When +you boys get home—let my father know—he +and Jim will come out an’ find me; they know +every inch of the woods.”</p> + +<p>“And leave you alone in the woods for hours? +Not I, for one!” The scout’s answer was decisive, +so were the loyal protests of the other two +lads.</p> + +<p>Blink, with a shrewd comprehension that something +was wrong with his master, had been alternately +licking Leon’s ear and the inflamed +pads of his own paws. At the mention of his +name he pressed so close to the victim’s side, +sitting bolt upright on his haunches, that their +two bodies might have been joined at one point +like the trunks of the freak tree. And the purple +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +fidelity lights in his brown eyes said plainly +that not hunger, thirst, or lonely death itself, +could separate him from the being who was a +greater fellow in his eyes than any scout of the +U.S.A.</p> + +<p>The other three boys were at that stage of +fatigue and discomfiture when the well of emotion +is easily pumped; their eyes grew moist at +the dog’s steadfast look.</p> + +<p>But the scout shook himself brusquely as if +trying to awake something within.</p> + +<p>“We ought to be able to fix you up so that you +can get along to that little clearing, anyhow!” +he said, his mind busy with the sixth point of +the scout law and how under these circumstances +he could best live up to it and help an +injured comrade. “We might form a chair-carry, +Col and I, but the undergrowth ahead is +too thick; we couldn’t wrestle through—three +abreast. Ha! we’d better make a crutch for you; +that’s the idea! There’s a birch sapling, neat +an’ handy, as an Irishman would say!”</p> + +<p>And the ubiquitous white birch, the wood-man’s +friend, came into play again. Its slim +trunk, being wrenched from the ground, roots +and all, and trimmed off with Nixon’s knife, +formed a fair prop.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Chuck me your handkerchiefs!” said the +crutch-maker to the other two uninjured boys. +“We’ll pad the top of it, so that it won’t dig +into his armpit. Now then, Leon! get this under +your right arm and put your left one round my +neck—that will fix you up to hobble a short +distance.”</p> + +<p>A half-reluctant grin, distorted by agony, convulsed +Leon’s face as, leaning hard upon the white-birch +prop, he arose and limped a few steps; he +recollected how at odd moments in the woods—whenever +there wasn’t too much doing—he +had believed that he held a grudge against the +scout for making him yield one sharply contested +point and that about such an infinitesimal thing +in his eyes as the brief life of a chipmunk.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I guess I can limp along with the +crutch,” he said, smearing the dew of pain over +his bedaubed face, now ghastly under the paint.</p> + +<p>“Go on; you’re only wasting time!” Nixon +drew the other’s left arm with its moist cold hand +around his neck—all the heat in Leon’s body +had gone to swell the thunderstorm in his ankle.</p> + +<p>And thus plowing, stumbling through the undergrowth, +the scout’s right hand keeping the +impudent twigs from poking his companion’s +eyes out, they reached the narrow clearing along +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +which the ambient light of a September sunset +flowed like a golden river.</p> + +<p>No coveted log shanty, where at least they +could encamp for the night, decorated it.</p> + +<p>But on its opposite side there loomed before +the boys’ eyes as they issued from the woods a +great, lichen-covered rock, over twenty feet high, +with a deep cavernous opening that yawned like +a sleepy mouth at sunset as it swallowed the rays +streaming into it.</p> + +<p>“Glory halleluiah! it’s the Bear’s Den—at +last,” ejaculated Leon, pain momentarily eclipsed. +“Thanks, Nix: you’re a horse!” as he withdrew +his arm from his comrade’s shoulders. “But +that cave is about five miles from anywhere—from +any opening in the woods! What on earth +are we going to do now?”</p> + +<p>“Why! light a fire the first thing, I guess,” +returned the boy scout practically.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER VI</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE FRICTION FIRE</p> + +<p>“We haven’t got any matches to start a fire +with!” Coombsie sat down in a pool of gold +with the well-nigh empty basket beside him, and +turned baffled eyes upon the others.</p> + +<p>“I have a few in a safety box in my pocket. +Thank goodness! I didn’t go back on our scout +motto: ‘Be Prepared!’ so far as matches are +concerned, anyway.” Nixon felt in each pocket +of his Norfolk jacket with a face that lengthened +dismally under the smears of Varney’s Paintpot. +“<i>Gone!</i>” he ejaculated despairingly. “I must +have lost the box!”</p> + +<p>“It probably dropped out of your pocket into +the grass when I tied our coats round the chest-nut-tree, +to prevent that young coon from ‘lighting +down,’” suggested Leon, and <i>his</i> face grew +pinched; it was not a refreshing memory that +conjured up a picture of Raccoon Junior limping +back to the hole among the ledges near Big +Swamp, with a leg broken by his stone, at the +moment when a fellow had a whole thunderstorm +in his ankle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>“Well! we’re up against it now,” gasped the +scout. “We can’t get out of the woods to-night; +that’s sure! We could sleep in the cave and be +jolly comfortable too”—he stooped down and +examined its wide interior—”if we only had a +fire. But, without a camp-fire or a single blanket, +we’ll be uncomfortable enough when it comes +on dark; these September nights are chilly.”</p> + +<p>He threw his hat on the ground, drew his +coat-sleeve across his ruddy forehead, rendering +his bedaubed countenance slightly more grotesque +than before. He had forgotten that it +was smeared, forgotten paint and frolic. An old +look descended upon his face.</p> + +<p>He was desperately tired. Every muscle of his +body ached. His head was confused too from +long wandering among the trees; his thoughts +seemed to skip back into the woods away from +him; he felt himself stalking them as Blink +would stalk a rabbit. But there was one thing +more alive in him at that moment than ever before, +a sense of protective responsibility.</p> + +<p>With Leon disabled and the two younger +boys completely worn out, it rested with him +alone to turn a night in the Bear’s Den into a +mere “corking” adventure, or to let it drag by +as a dark age of discomfort with certainly bad +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +results for two of the party. Nixon had felt +Leon’s hand as it slipped from his neck at the +edge of the clearing, it was clammy as ice; his +first-aid training as a scout told him that the injured +lad would feel the cold bitterly during the +night.</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase would probably “stick it out +without squealing,” as in such circumstances he +would try to do himself. But it would be a hard +experience. And young Colin’s clothing was +still sodden from his partial immersion in Big +Swamp. It was one of those moments for the +Scout of the U.S.A. when the potential father in +the boy is awake.</p> + +<p>“I’ve <i>got</i> to fix things up for the night, +somehow,” he wearily told himself aloud. “I +wonder—I wonder if I could manage to start +a fire without matches—with ‘rubbing-sticks’? +I did it once when we were camping out with +our scoutmaster. But he helped me. If I could +only get the fire, now, ’twould be a—great—stunt!”</p> + +<p>“’Start a fire without matches!’ You’re +crazy!” Colin and Coombsie looked sideways at +him; they had heard of people being “turned +round” in their heads by much woodland wandering.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Shut up, you two!” commanded Leon, +suddenly imperious. “He knows what he’s +about. He did a good stunt in helping me along +here.”</p> + +<p>“If I could only find the right kinds of wood +to start a friction fire—balsam fir for the fireboard +and drill, and a little chunk of cedarwood +to be shredded into tinder!” The boy scout was +eagerly scanning the trees on either side of the +grass-grown logging-road, trees which at this +moment seemed to have their roots in the forest +soil and their heads in Heaven’s own glory.</p> + +<p>“<i>There’s</i> a fir-tree! Among those pines—a +little way along the road!” Leon spoke in that +slow, stiff voice, sprained by pain. “Perhaps I +can help you—Nix?”</p> + +<p>“No, you lie still, but chuck me your knife, +it’s stronger than mine! I ought to have two +tools for preparing the ‘rubbing-sticks,’ so the +Chief Scout tells us in our book, but I’ll have to +get along somehow with our pocketknives.”</p> + +<p>Nix Warren was off up the road as he spoke; +hope, responsibility, and ambition toward the performance +of a “great stunt,” forming a fighting +trio to get the better of weariness.</p> + +<p>The glory was waning from the tree-tops when +he returned, bearing with him one sizeable chunk +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +of balsamic fir-wood and a long stick from the +same tree.</p> + +<p>“Any sort of stick will do for the bent bow +which is attached to the drill and works it; that’s +what our book says,” he murmured, as if conning +over a lesson. “Who’s got a leather shoe-lace? +You have—cowhide laces—in those high +boots of yours, Colin! Mind letting me have +one?”</p> + +<p>The speaker was excitedly setting to work, +now, fashioning the flat fireboard from the chunk +of fir-wood, carving a deep notch in its side, +and scooping out a shallow hole at the inner +end of the notch into which the point of the +upright drill would fit.</p> + +<p>In feeling, he was the primitive man again, this +modern boy scout: he was that grand old savage +ancestor of prehistoric times into whose ear God +whispered the secret, unknown to beast or bird, +of creating light and warmth for himself and +those dependent on him, when the sun forsook +them.</p> + +<p>“Say! can’t you fellows get busy and collect +some materials for a fire, dry chips and pine-splinters—fat +pine-splinters—and dead branches? +There’s plenty of good fuel around! You wood-finders’ll +have a cinch! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>It certainly was a signal act of faith in Colin +and Coombsie when they bestirred their weary +limbs to obey this command from the wizard who +was to try and evoke the mysterious fire-element +latent in the combustible wood he handled, but +hard to get at without the aids which civilization +places at man’s disposal.</p> + +<p>They each kept a corner of their inquisitive +eyes upon him while they collected the fuel, +watching the shaping of the notched fireboard, +of the upright pointed drill, over a dozen inches +in length, and the construction of a rude bow +out of a supple stick found on the clearing, with +Colin’s cowhide shoe-lace made fast to each end +as the cord or strap that bent the bow.</p> + +<p>This cord was twisted once round the upper +part of the drill whose lower point fitted into +the shallow hole in the fireboard.</p> + +<p>“Whew! I must find a piece of pine-wood +with a knot in it and scoop that knot out, so that +it will form a disc for the top of the drill in which +it will turn easily,” said the perspiring scout. +“Oh, sugarloons! I’ve forgotten all about the +<i>tinder</i>; we may have to trot a long way into the +woods to find a cedar-tree.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go with you, Nix,” proffered Marcoo, +while Leon, lying on the ground near the cave, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +with his dog pressing close to him, undertook +the task of scooping that soft knot out of the +pine-disk.</p> + +<p>“All right; bring along the tin mug out of +your basket; perhaps we may find water!”</p> + +<p>And they did! Oh, blessed find! Wearily they +trudged back about sixty yards into the woods, +in an opposite direction from that in which they +had traveled before—Nixon taking the precaution +of breaking off a twig from every second +or third tree so as to mark the trail—before they +lit on a grove of young cedars through which +ran a sound, now a purling sob, now a tinkling +laugh; softer, more angel-like, than the wind’s +mirth!</p> + +<p>“<i>Water!</i> A spring! Oh—tooraloo!” And +they drank their fill, bringing back, along with +the cedar-wood for tinder—water, as much as +their tin vessel would hold, for the two boys and +dog keeping watch over the fire-sticks on the +old bear’s camping-ground.</p> + +<p>The soft cedar was shredded into tinder between +two stones. The drill was set up with its +lower point resting in the notched hole of the +fire-board, its upper point fitting into the pine-disk +which Nixon steadied with his hand.</p> + +<p>Then the boy scout began to work the bent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +bow which passed through a hole in the upper +part of the drill, steadily to and fro, slowly turning +that drill, grinding its lower point into the +punky wood of the fireboard.</p> + +<p>In the eye of each of the four boys the coveted +spark already glowed, drilled by excitement out +of the dead wood of his fatigue.</p> + +<p>Even the dog, his jaws gaping, his tongue +lolling out, lay stretched at attention, his gaze +intent upon the central figure of the boy scout +working the strapped bow backward and forward, +turning the pointed drill that bored into the +fireboard.</p> + +<p>Ground-up wood began to fall through the +notch in the fireboard adjacent to the hole upon +another slab of wood which Nixon had placed as +a tray beneath it.</p> + +<p>This powdered wood was brown. Slowly it +turned black. Was that smoke?</p> + +<p>It was a strange tableau, the four disheveled +boys with their red-smeared faces, the painted +clown’s dog, all holding their breath intent upon +the primitive miracle of the fire-birth.</p> + +<p>Smoke it was! <i>Increasing smoke!</i> And in its +tiny cloud suddenly appeared the miracle—a +dull red spark at the heart of the black wood +dust.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>“What do you know about that?” Marcoo’s +voice was thick.</p> + +<p>“Gee! that’s a—wonderful—stunt. I guess +you could light a fire with a piece of damp bark +and a snowball!” Leon looked up at the panting +scout.</p> + +<p>Colin’s mind was telegraphing back to the +moment when he lay on the salt-marshes that +morning, hungry for the woods. If any one +had told him that, before night, he would assist +at a forest drama like this!</p> + +<p>“Hush! Don’t speak for fear you’d hoodoo +it! We haven’t got it yet—the fire! Perhaps—perhaps—I +can’t make it burn.” It was the +most wonderful moment of his life for the boy +scout as he now took a pinch of the cedar-wood +tinder, half-enclosed in a piece of paper-like +birch-bark and held it down upon the red fire-germ—in +all following the teaching of the great +Chief Scout.</p> + +<p>Then he lifted the slab of wood that served as +tray, bearing the ruddy fire-embryo and tinder, +and blew upon it evenly, gently. It blazed. The +miracle was complete.</p> + +<p>“<i>Wonderful stunt!</i>” murmured Starrie Chase +again. His hand in its restless uneasiness had been +plucking large flakes of moss from the gray rock +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +behind him and turning them over, revealing +the medicinal gold thread that embroidered the +earthy underside of the sod; he was sucking that +bitter fibre—supposed to be good for a sore +mouth, but no panacea for a sprained ankle—while +a like gold thread of fascinated speculation +embroidered the ruddy mask of his face.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah! we’ll have a fire right away now, +that will talk to us all night long.” The triumphant +scout lowered the flame-bud to the ground, +piled over it some of the resinous pine-splinters +and strips of inflammatory bark, fanning it +steadily with his hat. In a few minutes a rollicking +camp-fire was roaring in front of the old +Bear’s Den.</p> + +<p>“Now! we must gather some big chunks, dry +roots and stumps, to keep the fire going through +the night, cut sods to put round it and prevent +its spreading into the woods, and break up some +pine-tips to strew in the cave for a bed. There’s +lots of work ahead still, fellows, before we can +be snug for the night!”</p> + +<p>The scout, having got his second breath with +his great achievement, was working hard as he +spoke; Marcoo and Colin followed his example in +renewed spirits. Leon, chafing at his own inactivity, +tried to stand and sank down with a groan.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>“How’s the thunderstorm sprain?” they asked +him.</p> + +<p>“Worse—ugh-h! And I’m parched with +thirst—still!”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll lope off into the woods and +bring you back some more water. If you’ll leave +a little in the bottom of the mug I’ll soak our +handkerchiefs in it and wrap them round your +ankle; cold applications may relieve the pain;” +the scout was recalling what he had learned +about first aid to the injured.</p> + +<p>Darkness descended upon the old bear’s stamping-ground. +But the camp-fire burned gloriously, +throwing off now and again a foam of flame whose +rosy clots lit in the crevices of the tall rock and +bloomed there for an instant like scarlet flowers.</p> + +<p>The work necessary in making camp for the +night done, the four boys gathered round it, +dividing their scanty rations, the scraps of food +left in Coombsie’s basket, and speculating as to +how early in the morning a search-party would +come out and find them.</p> + +<p>“Toiney Leduc will certainly be one of the +party. Toiney is a regular scout; he’s only been +here a year, but he knows the woods well,” remarked +Leon, then was silent a minute, gazing +wistfully into the heart of the flames which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +filled the pause with snappy conversational fire-works.</p> + +<p>“Tell us something about this boy scout business, +bo’!” he spoke again in the slow, sprained +voice, his feverish eyes burning into the fire, his +tone making the slangy little abbreviation stand +for brother, as he addressed Nixon. “It seems as +if it might be The Thing—starting that fire was +a great stunt—and if it’s The Thing—every +fellow wants to be in it!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you don’t know what good times we +have,” began the scout.</p> + +<p>And briefly skimming from one point to another, +he told of the origin of the Boy Scout +Movement far away in Africa during the defense +of a besieged city, and of the great English general, +the friend of boys, who had fathered that +movement.</p> + +<p>Leon’s eyes narrowed as he still gazed into the +camp-fire: it was a long descent from the defense +of a beleaguered city to the championship of a +besieged chipmunk, but his quick mind grasped +the principle of fiery chivalry underlying both—one +and the same.</p> + +<p>“Can you sing some more of that U.S.A. song +which you were shouting in the woods near the +log camp?” Marcoo broke in, as the narrator +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +dwelt on those good times spent in hiking, trailing, +camping with the scoutmaster.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I can—a verse or two! That’s the +latest for the Boy Scouts of America—the +Scouts of the old U.S. Don’t know whether I +have a pinch of breath left, though!”</p> + +<p>And the flagging voice began, gathering gusto +from the camp-fire, glee from the stars now winking +through the pine-tops:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Mile after mile in rank or file,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We tramp through field and wood:</span><br /> +Or off we hike down path or pike,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One glorious brotherhood.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hurrah for the life that’s free!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With a body and mind both clean and kind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Scout’s is the life for me!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>“Chorus, fellows!” he cried:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">We will fight, fight, fight, for the right, right, right,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Be prepared” both night and day;<br /> +and we’ll shout, shout, shout, for the Scout, Scout, Scout,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">for the Scouts of the U.S.A.</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="center pt2"><img style="width:400px; height:208px" src="images/illus108.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<div class="center"><img style="width:400px; height:441px" src="images/illus109.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<div class="center"><a href="music/scoutsong.mp3">Chorus - listen to the music</a></div> + +<p class="pt2">The rolling music in the pine-trees, the reedy +whistle of the breeze among beeches and birches, +soft cluck of rocking branches, the bagpipe skirling +of the flames leaping high, fluted and green-edged, +all came in on that chorus; together with +the four boyish voices and the bark of the dog +as he bayed the blaze: the night woods rang for +the Scouts of the U.S.A.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“If when night comes down we are far from town,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Both tired and happy too,</span><br /> +Camp-fires we light and by embers bright<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We sleep the whole night through.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hurrah for the sun, hurrah for the storm,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hurrah for the stars above!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We feel secure, safe, sane and sure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For we know that God is Love.”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>“Why have you that knot in your tie?” asked +Leon after the last note had died away in forest-echo, +while the scout was wetting the bandages +round his inflamed ankle before they crept into +the cave to sleep.</p> + +<p>“To remind me to do one good turn to somebody +every day.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you can untie it now; I guess you’ve +done good turns by the bunch to-day!”</p> + +<p>Lying presently upon the fragrant pine-tips +with which they had strewn the interior of the +cave, the scout’s tired fingers fumbled for that +knot and drowsily undid it. He had lost both +way and temper in the woods. But he had tried, +at least, to obey the scout law of kindness.</p> + +<p>As he lay on guard, nearest to the cave’s entrance, +winking back at the stars, this brought +him a happy sense of that wide brotherhood +whose cradle is God’s Everlasting Arms.</p> + +<p>From the well of his sleepy excitement two +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +words bubbled up: “Our Father!” Rolling +over until his nose burrowed among the fragrant +evergreens, he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, adding—because +this had been an eventful day—a +brief petition which had been put into his lips by +his scoutmaster and was uttered under unusual +stress of feeling, or when he remembered it: +That in helpfulness to others and loyalty to good +he might be a follower of the Lord of Chivalry, +Jesus Christ, and continue his faithful soldier and +servant “until the scout’s last trail is done!”</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was almost morning when he awoke for the +second time, having stirred his tired limbs once +already to replenish the camp-fire.</p> + +<p>Now that hard-won fire had waned to a dull red +shading on the undersides of velvety logs, the +remainder of whose surface was of a chilly gray +from which each passing breeze flicked the white +flakes of ash like half-shriveled moths.</p> + +<p>“Whew! I must punch up the fire again—but +it’s hard to get the kinks out o’ my backbone;” +he straightened his curled-up spine with +difficulty and stumbled out on the camping-ground.</p> + +<p>It was that darkest hour before dawn. The stars +were waning as well as the fire. The trees which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +had been friends in the daytime were spectators +now. Each wrapped in its dark mantle, they +seemed to stand curiously aloof, watching him.</p> + +<p>He attacked the logs with a stick, poking +them together and thrusting a dry branch into +the ruddy nest where the fire still hatched.</p> + +<p>Snip! Snap! Crackle! the flames awoke. +Mingling with their reviving laughter, came a +low, strange cluck that was not the voice of the +fire, immediately followed by a long shrill cry with +a wavering trill in it, not unlike human mirth.</p> + +<p>It hailed from some point in the scout’s rear.</p> + +<p>“For heaven’s sake!” The stick shook in his +fingers. “Can it be a wildcat—or another +coon?”</p> + +<p>Stiffly he wheeled round. His eyes traveled up +the great rock—in whose cave his companions +lay sleeping; as they gained the top of that old +grayback, they were confronted by two other +eyes—mere twinkling points of flame!</p> + +<p>The scout’s scalp seemed to lift like a blown-off +roof. His throat grew very dry.</p> + +<p>At the same moment there was a noiseless +flitting as of a shadow from the rock’s crest to +a near-by tree whence came the weird cry again.</p> + +<p>“<i>An owl!</i> Well, forevermore! And my hair +is standing straight still! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“<i>What is it?</i> <i>What is it, Nix?</i>” came in +muffled cries from the cave.</p> + +<p>“Only a screech owl; it’s unusual to find one +so far in the woods as this!”</p> + +<p>As it happened two ruddy screech owls, faithful +lovers and monogamists, which had dwelt together +as Darby and Joan in the hollow of an +old apple-tree in a distant orchard, being persecuted +both by boys and blue jays, had eschewed +civilization, isolating themselves, at least from +the former, in the woods.</p> + +<p>As dawn broke between the tall pines and a +pale river of daylight flowed along the logging-road, +they were seen, both together, upon a low +bough, with the dawn breeze fluffing their thick, +rufous plumage, making them look larger than +they really were, and their heads slowly turning +from side to side, trying to discover the meaning +of a camp-fire and other strange doings in this +their retreat.</p> + +<p>“Oo-oo! look at them,” hooted Colin softly, +creeping out of the cave and stealthily approaching +their birch-tree. “They have yellow eyes +and faces like kittens. Huh! they’re more comical +than a basket of monkeys. Oh, there they +go.”</p> + +<p>For even as his hand was put forth to touch +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +them, they vanished silently as the ebbing +shadows in the train of night.</p> + +<p>“This must be a great place for owls,” said +Leon, blinking like one—not until far on in +the night had he slept owing to the wrenching +pain in his ankle. “Listen! there goes the big +old hooter—the great horned owl—the Grand +Duke we call him. Hear him ’way off: ‘Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo!’ +Sounds almost like a wolf +howling! <i>Ou-ouch!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Is your ankle hurting badly, Starrie?”</p> + +<p>“It’s—fierce.”</p> + +<p>“Daylight is coming fast now; I’ll be able to +find the spring and wet those bandages again—and +bring you a drink too”; this from the scout.</p> + +<p>“Thanks. You’re the boy, Nix!”</p> + +<p>The brotherly act accomplished, there was +silence in the cave where the four boys had again +stretched themselves while young Day crept up +over the woods.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Leon’s voice was heard ambiguously +muttering in the cave’s recess: “If it’s The +Thing, every fellow wants to be in it!”</p> + +<p>“Say! fellows, I’ve got an idea,” he put +forth aloud.</p> + +<p>“Out with it, if it’s worth anything!” from +Colin.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Leon! get it out +quick, and let us go to sleep again!” pleaded +Coombsie, who knew that if Starrie Chase was +oppressed by an idea, other boys would hear it +in his time, not in theirs.</p> + +<p>“I propose that after we get home—when +my ankle is better—we start a boy scout patrol +in our town and call it the Owl Patrol! I guess +we’ve heard the owls—different kinds—often +enough to-night, to be able to imitate one or +other of them.”</p> + +<p>“Good enough! The Scout’s is the life for +me!” sang out Colin.</p> + +<p>“The motion is seconded and carried—now +let’s go to sleep!” from Marcoo.</p> + +<p>“As I expect to stay in these parts for six +months, or longer, I’ll get transferred from the +Philadelphia Peewits to the new patrol!” decided +Nixon.</p> + +<p>“Bully for you! We’ll ask Kenjo Red and +Sweetsie to come in; they’re dandy fellows—and +who else?” Leon hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you get hold of that frightened +boy who was with Toiney on the edge of the +woods? We had a boy like him in our Philadelphia +troop,” went on Nixon hurriedly, ignoring +a surge of protest. “Scared of his own shadow +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +he was! Abnormal timidity—with a long Latin +name—due to pre-natal influences, according to +the doctors! Well, our scoutmaster managed +somehow to enlist him as a tenderfoot. When +he got out into the woods with us and found +that every other scout was trying to help him to +become a ‘fellow,’ why! he began to crawl out +of his shell. He’s getting to be quite a boy +now!”</p> + +<p>“But the ‘<i>Hare</i>’! he’d spoil—<i>Ouch!</i>” A +sudden wrench of agony as Leon moved restlessly +put the pointed question as to whether the +mental pain which Harold Greer suffered might +not be as hard to drag round as a thunderstorm +ankle.</p> + +<p>“All right, Nix! Enlist him if you can! I +guess you’ll have to pass on who comes into the +new patrol.”</p> + +<p>Colin dug his nose into the pine-tips with a +skeptical chuckle: that new patrol would have +a big contract on hand, he thought, if it was to +gather up the wild, waste energy of Leon,—that +element in him which parents and teachers sought +to eradicate,—turn it to good account, and take +the fright out of the Hare.</p> + +<p>But from the woods came a deep bass whoop +that sounded encouraging: the Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +of the Grand Duke bidding the world +good-morning ere he went into retreat for the +day.</p> + +<p>It was answered by the Whoo-whoo-whooah-whoo! +of a brother owl, also lifting up his voice +before sunrise.</p> + +<p>“Listen, fellows!” cried Leon excitedly. “<i>Listen!</i> +The feathered owls themselves are cheering +the Owl Patrol.”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER VII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL COUNCIL</p> + +<p>And thus the new patrol was started.</p> + +<p>Three weeks after the September morning +when an anxious search-party led by Asa Chase, +Leon’s father, and by that clever woodsman +Toiney Leduc, had started out at dawn to search +the dense woods for four missing boys, and found +a grotesque-looking quartette with faces piebald +from the half-effaced smears of Varney’s Paintpot, +breakfasting on blueberries and water by a +still ruddy camp-fire,—three weeks after those +morning woods had rung with Toiney’s shrill +“Hôlà!” the first meeting for the formation +of the Owl Patrol was held.</p> + +<p>In virtue of his being already a boy scout with +a year’s training behind him, Nixon Warren was +elected patrol leader; and Leon Starr Chase who +still limped as a result of his reckless descent of +that freak pine-tree, was made second in rank +with the title of corporal—or assistant patrol +leader.</p> + +<p>Among the half-dozen spectators, leading men +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +of the small town, who had assembled to witness +the inaugural doings at this first meeting and to +lend their approval to the new movement for the +boys, there appeared one who was lamer than +Leon, his halting step being due to a year-old +injury which condemned him to limp somewhat +for the remainder of his life.</p> + +<p>This was Captain Andrew Davis, popularly +known as Captain Andy, who had been for thirty +years a Gloucester fishing-skipper, one of the +present-day Vikings who sail forth from the +Queen Fishing City at the head of its blue +harbor.</p> + +<p>He had commanded one fine fishing-vessel after +another, was known along the water-front and +among the fishing-fleet as a “crackerjack” and +“driver,” with other more complimentary titles. +He had got the better of the sea in a hundred +raging battles on behalf of himself and others. +But it partially worsted him at last by wrecking +his vessel in what he mildly termed a “November +breeze”—in reality a howling hurricane—and +by laming him for life when at the height of the +storm the schooner’s main-boom fell on him.</p> + +<p>He was dragged forth from under it, half-dead, +but, “game to the last,” refused to be carried +below. Lashed to the weather main-bitt—one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +of the sawed-off posts rising from the vessel’s +deck to which the main-sheet was made fast—in +order to prevent his being swept overboard by +the great seas washing over that deck, he had +kept barking out orders and fighting for the lives +of his crew so long as he could command a +breath.</p> + +<p>“And I didn’t lose a man, Doc!” he said +long afterwards to his friend and admirer, the +Exmouth doctor, the hard-working physician +with whose long-suffering bell Leon had mischievously +tampered. “I didn’t lose a man—only +the vessel. When the gale blew down we +had to take to the dories, for she was just washing +to pieces under us. Too bad: she was an +able vessel too! But I guess I’ll have to ‘take +my medicine’ for the rest of my life—an’ take +it limping!”—with a rueful smile.</p> + +<p>But the many waters through which he had +passed had not quenched in Captain Andy the +chivalrous love for his human brothers. Rather +did they baptize and freshen it until it sprouted +anew, after he took up his residence ashore, in a +paternal love for boys which kept his great heart +youthful in his massive, sixty-year-old body; and +which kept him hopefully dreaming, too, of deeds +that shall be done by the sons now being reared +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +for Uncle Sam, that shall rival or outshine the +knightly feats of their fathers both on land and +sea.</p> + +<p>So he smiled happily, this grand old sea-scout, +as, on the occasion of the first meeting for the +inauguration of the Boy Scout Movement, he +heaved his powerful frame into a seat beside his +friend the doctor who was equally interested in +the new doings.</p> + +<p>“Hi there, Doc!” said Captain Andy joyously, +laying his hand, big and warm as a tea-kettle, +on the doctor’s arm, “we’re launching a +new boat for the boys to-night, eh? Seems to me +that it’s an able craft too—this new movement—intended +to keep the lads goin’ ahead under +all the sail they can carry, and on a course where +they’ll get the benefit of the best breezes, too.”</p> + +<p>“That’s how it strikes me,” returned the doctor. +“If it will only keep Starrie Chase, as they +call him, sailing in an opposite direction to my +doorbell, I’m sure I shall bless it! D’you know, +Andy,” the gray-bearded physician addressed +the weatherbeaten sea-fighter beside him as he +had done when they were schoolboys together, +“when I heard how that boy Leon had sprained +his ankle badly in the woods and that the family +had sent for me, I said: ‘Serve him right! <i>Let</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +him be tied by the leg for a while and meditate +on the mischief of his ways; I’m not going to +see him!’ Of course, before the words were well +out, I had picked up my bag and was on my way +to the Chase homestead!”</p> + +<p>“Of course you were!” Captain Andy beamed +upon his friend until his large face with its coating +of ruddy tan flamed like an aurora borealis +under the electric lights of the little town hall in +which the first boy scout meeting was held. “Trust +you, Doc!”</p> + +<p>The ex-skipper knew that no man of his acquaintance +lived up to the twelve points of the +scout law in more thorough fashion than did +this country doctor, who never by day or night +closed his ears against the call of distress.</p> + +<p>“I’ll say this much for the young rascal, he +was ashamed to see me bring out my bandages”; +the doctor now nodded humorously in the direction +of Leon Chase, who made one of a semicircle +composed of Nixon, himself and six other boys, +at present seated round the young scoutmaster +whom they had chosen to be leader of the new +movement in their town.</p> + +<p>“But by and by his tongue loosened somewhat,” +went on the grizzled medical man, “and +he began to take me into his confidence about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +the formation of this boy scout patrol; he seemed +more taken up with that than with what he called +‘the thunderstorm in his ankle.’ Leon isn’t one +to knuckle under much to pain, anyhow! Somehow, +as he talked, I began to feel as if we hadn’t +been properly facing the problem of our boys in +and about this town, Andy.”</p> + +<p>“I see what you mean!” Captain Andrew +nodded. “Leon is as full of tricks as a tide rip +in a gale o’ wind. An’ that’s the most mischievous +thing I know!” with a reminiscent chuckle. +“But what can you do? If a boy is chockfull o’ +bubbling energy that’s going round an’ round +in a whirl inside him, like the rip, it’s bound to +boil over in mischief, if there ain’t a deep channel +to draw it off.”</p> + +<p>“That’s just it! Ours is a slow little town—not +much doing for the boys! Not even a male +teacher in our graded schools to organize hikes +and athletics for them! I am afraid that more +than one lad with no natural criminal tendency, +has got into trouble, been ultimately sent to a +reformatory, owing to a lack in the beginning +of some outlet safe and exciting for that surplus +energy of which you speak. Take the case of +Dave Baldwin, for instance, son of that old +Ma’am Baldwin who lives over on the salt-marshes! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>” +The doctor’s face took on a sorry +expression. “There was nothing really bad in +him, I think! Just too much tide rip! He was +the counterpart of this boy Leon, with a craving +for excitement, a wild energy in him that boiled +over at times in irregular pranks—like the rip—as +you say.”</p> + +<p>“And you know what makes <i>that</i> so dangerous?” +Captain Andy’s sigh was heaved from the +depths of past experience. “Well! with certain +shoals an’ ledges in the ocean there’s too much +water crowded onto ’em at low tide, so it just +boils chock up from the bottom like a pot, goes +round and round in a whirl, strings out, foamy +an’ irregular, for miles. It’s ‘day, day!’ to the +vessel that once gets well into it, for you never +know where ’twill strike you.</p> + +<p>“And it’s pretty much the same with a lively +boy, Doc: at low tide, when there’s nothing +doing, too much o’ something is crowded onto +the ledges in him, an’ when it froths over, it +gets himself and others into trouble. Keep him +interested—swinging ahead on a high tide of +activity under all the sail he can carry, and +there’s no danger of the rip forming. That’s +what this Boy Scout Movement aims at, I guess! +It looks to me—my word! it <i>does</i> look to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +me—as if Leon was already ‘deepening the water +some,’ to-night,” wound up Captain Andy with +a gratified smile, scrutinizing the face of Starrie +Chase, which was at this moment marked by a +new and purposeful eagerness as he discussed +the various requirements of the tenderfoot test, +the elementary knowledge to be mastered before +the next meeting, ere he could take the scout +oath, be invested with the tenderfoot scout +badge and be enrolled among the Boy Scouts +of America.</p> + +<p>“A movement such as this might have been +the saving of Dave Baldwin,” sighed the Doctor. +“He was always playing such wild tricks. People +kept warning him to ‘cut it out’ or he would +surely get into trouble. But the ‘tide rip’ within +seemed too much for him. No foghorn warnings +made any impression. I’ve been thinking lately +of the saying of one wise man: ‘Hitherto there +has been too much foghorn and too little bugle +in our treatment of the boys!’ Too much croaking +at them: too little challenge to advance! So I +said to the new scoutmaster, Harry Estey, Colin’s +brother,” nodding toward a tall young man who +was the centre of the eager ring of boys, “I +said, ‘give Leon the <i>bugle</i>: give it to him literally +and figuratively: you’ll need a bugler in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +your boy scout camp and I’ll pay for the lessons; +it will be a better pastime for him than fixing my +doorbell.’”</p> + +<p>“I hope ’twill keep him from tormenting that +lonely old woman over on the marshes; the boys +of this town have made her life a burden to +her,” said Captain Andy, thinking of that female +recluse “Ma’am Baldwin,” to whom allusion had +been made by Colin and Coombsie on the memorable +day which witnessed their headstrong expedition +into the woods. “She has been regarded +as fair game by them because she’s a grain cranky +an’ peculiar, owing to the trouble she’s had about +her son. He was the youngest, born when she was +middle-aged—perhaps she spoiled him a little. +Come to think of it, Doc, I saw the young scape-grace +a few days ago when I was down the river +in my power-boat! He was skulking like a fox +round those Sugar-loaf Sand-Dunes near the bay.”</p> + +<p>“How did he look?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shrunken an’ dirty, like a winter’s day!” +Captain Andy was accustomed to the rough murkiness +of a winter day on mid-ocean fishing-grounds. +“He made off when he saw me heading +for him. He’s nothing but an idle vagrant +now, who spends his time loafing between those +white dunes and the woods on t’ other side o +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>’ +the river. He got work on a farm after he was +discharged from the reformatory, but didn’t +stick to it. Other fellows shunned him, I guess! +Folks say that he’s been mixed up in some petty +thefts of lumber from the shipyards lately, others +that he keeps a row-boat stowed away in the pocket +of a little creek near the dunes, and occasionally +does smuggling in a small way from a vessel +lying out in the bay. But that’s only a yarn! +He couldn’t dodge the revenue officers. Anyhow, +it’s too bad that Dave should have gone +the way he has! He’s only ‘a boy of a man’ +yet, not more’n twenty-three. When I was about +that age I shipped on the same vessel with Dave’s +father—she was a trawler bound for Gran’ Banks—we +made more than one trip together on her. +He was a white man; and—”</p> + +<p>“<i>Captain Andy!</i>” A voice ringing and eager, +the voice of the scoutmaster of the new patrol +who had just received his certificate from headquarters, +interrupted the captain’s recollections +of Dave Baldwin’s father. “Captain Andy, will +you undertake to instruct these boys in knot-tying, +before our next meeting, so that they may +be able to tie the four knots which form part of +the tenderfoot test, and be enrolled as scouts two +weeks from now? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Sakes! yes; I’ll teach ’em. And if any one +of ’em is such a lubber that he won’t set himself +to learn, why, I’ll spank him with a dried +codfish as if I had him aboard a fishing-vessel. +Belay that!”</p> + +<p>And the ex-skipper’s eye roved challengingly +toward the scout recruits from under the heavy +lid and short bristling eyelashes which overhung +its blue like a fringed cloud-bank.</p> + +<p>The threat was welcomed with an outburst of +laughter.</p> + +<p>“And, Doctor, will you give us some talks on +first-aid to the injured, after we get the new patrol +fairly started?” Scoutmaster Estey, Colin’s +elder brother, looked now at the busy physician, +who, with Captain Andy and other prominent +townsmen, including the clergymen of diverse +creeds, was a member of the local council of the +Boy Scouts of America which had been recently +formed in the little town.</p> + +<p>“Yes; you may rely on me for that. But”—here +the doctor turned questioningly toward the +weather beaten sea-captain, his neighbor—”I +thought the new patrol, the Owl Patrol as they +have named it, was to consist of eight boys, and +I see only seven present to-night. There’s that +tall boy, Nixon Warren, who’s visiting here, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +Mark Coombs, his cousin; then there’s Leon +Chase, Colin Estey, Kenjo Red, otherwise Kenneth +Jordan,” the doctor smiled at the red head +of a sturdy-looking lad of fourteen, “Joe Sweet, +commonly called Sweetsie, and Evan Macduff. +But where’s the eighth Owl, Andy? Isn’t he +fledged yet?”</p> + +<p>“I guess not! I think they’ll have to tackle +him in private before they can enlist him.” The +narrow rift of blue which represented Captain +Andy’s eye under the cloud-bank glistened. +“You’ll never guess who they have fixed upon +for the eighth Owl, Doc. Why! that frightened +boy, Ben Greer’s son, who lives on the little +farm-clearing in the woods with his gran’father +and a Canadian farmhand whom Old Man Greer +hires for the summer an’ fall.”</p> + +<p>“Not Harold Greer? You don’t mean that +abnormally shy an’ timid boy whom the children +nickname the ‘Hare’? Why! I had to supply +a certificate for him so that he could be kept out +of school. It made him worse to go, because the +other boys teased him so cruelly.”</p> + +<p>“Jus’ so! But that brand o’ teasing is ruled +out under the scout law. A scout is a brother to +every other scout. I guess the idea of trying to +get Harold enlisted in the Boy Scouts and thereby +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +waking him up a little an’ gradually showing him +what ‘bugaboos’ his fears are, originated with +that lad from Philadelphia, Nix Warren, who, as +I understand, showed himself to be quite a fellow +in the woods, starting a friction fire with +rubbing-sticks an’ doing other stunts which +caused his companions to become head over heels +interested in this new movement.”</p> + +<p>“But how did <i>he</i> get interested in Harold +Greer?” inquired the doctor.</p> + +<p>“Well, as they trudged through the woods on +that day when they made circus guys of themselves +at Varney’s Paintpot, and subsequently +got lost, they passed the Greer farm and saw +Harold who hid behind that French-Canadian, +Toiney, when he saw them coming. Apparently it +struck Nix, seeing him for the first time, what a +miserable thing it must be for the boy himself to +be afraid of everything an’ nothing. So he set his +heart on enlisting Harold in the new patrol. He, +Nix, wants to pass the test for becoming a first-class +scout: to do this he must enlist a recruit +trained by himself in the requirements of a tenderfoot; +and he is going to try an’ get near to Harold +an’ train him—Nixon’s cousin, Mark Coombs, +Marcoo, as they call him, told me all about it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I like that!” The doctor’s face glowed. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +“Though I’m afraid they’ll have difficulty in +getting the eighth Owl sufficiently fledged to +show any plumage but the white feather!” with +a sorry smile. “I pity that boy Harold,” went +on the medical man, “because he has been hampered +by heredity and in a way by environment +too. His mother was a very delicate, nervous +creature, Andy. She was a prey to certain fears, +the worst of which was one which we doctors +call ‘cloister fobia,’ which means that she had a +strange dread of a crowd, or even of mingling +with a small group of individuals. As you know, +her husband, like Dave Baldwin’s father, was a +Gloucester fisherman, whose home was in these +parts. During his long absences at sea, she lived +alone with her father-in-law, her little boy Harold +and one old woman in that little farmhouse on +the clearing. And I suppose every time that the +wind howled through the woods she had a fresh +fit of the quakes, thinking of her husband away +on the foggy fishing-grounds.”</p> + +<p>“Yes! I guess at such times the women suffer +more than we do,” muttered Captain Andy, +thinking of his dead wife.</p> + +<p>“Well!” the doctor cleared his throat, “after +Harold’s mother received the news that her husband’s +vessel was lost with all hands, on Quero +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +Bank, when her little boy was about five years +old, she became more unbalanced; she wouldn’t +see any of her relatives even, if she could avoid +it, save those who lived in the house with her. I +attended her when she was ill and begged her +to try and get the better of her foolishness for +her boy’s sake—or to let me send him away to +a school of some kind. Both Harold’s grandfather +and she opposed the latter idea. She lived +until her son was nine years old; by that time +she had communicated all her queer dread of +people—and a hundred other scares as well—to +him. But in my opinion there’s nothing to +prevent his becoming in time a normal boy +under favorable conditions where his companions +would help him to fight his fears, instead of fastening +them on him—conditions under which +what we call his ‘inhibitory power of self-control’ +would be strengthened, so that he could command +his terrified impulses. And if the Boy Scout +Movement can, under God, do this, Andy, why +then I’ll say—I’ll say that knighthood has +surely in our day come again—that Scout Nixon +Warren has sallied forth into the woods and +slain a dragon more truly, perhaps, than ever +did Knight of the Round Table by whose rules +the boy scouts of to-day are governed! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The doctor’s last words were more to himself +than to his companion, and full of the ardor of +one who was a dragon-fighter “from way back”: +day by day, for years, he had grappled with the +many-clawed dragons of pain and disease, often +taking no reward for his labors.</p> + +<p>As his glance studied one and another of the +seven boyish faces now forming an eager ring +round the tall scoutmaster, while the date of the +next meeting—the great meeting at which eight +new recruits were to take the scout oath—was +being discussed, he was beset by the same feeling +which had possessed Colin Estey on that +September morning in the Bear’s Den. Namely, +that the Owl Patrol would have a big contract +on hand if it was to get the better of that mischievous +“tide rip” in Leon and prove to the +handicapped “Hare” what imaginary bugaboos +were his fears!</p> + +<p>But Leon’s face in its purposeful interest +plainly showed that, according to Captain Andy’s +breezy metaphor, to-night he was really deepening +the water in which his boyish bark floated, +drawing out from the shoals among which he +had drifted after a manner too trifling for his +age and endowment.</p> + +<p>And so the doctor felt that there <i>might</i> be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +hope for the eighth Owl chosen, and not present, +being still a scared fledgling on that little farm-clearing +in the woods, having never yet shaken +a free wing, but only the craven white feather.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER VIII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE BOWLINE KNOT</p> + +<p>Scout Nixon Warren, henceforth to be +known as the patrol leader of the Owls, was himself +possessed by the excited feeling that he was +faring forth, into the October woods to tackle +a dragon—the obstinate Hobgoblin of confirmed +Fear—when on the day following that +first boy scout meeting in Exmouth he took his +way, accompanied by Coombsie, over the heaving +uplands that lay between the salt-marshes +and the woodland.</p> + +<p>Thence, through thick grove and undergrowth, +they tramped to the little farm-clearing, +where they had come upon Toiney and the dead +raccoon.</p> + +<p>Nixon had arrayed himself in the full bravery +of his scout uniform to-day, hoping that it might +attract the attention of the frightened boy whose +interest he wished to capture.</p> + +<p>The October sun burnished his metal buttons, +with the oxidized silver badge upon his left arm +beneath the white bars of the patrol leader, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +the white stripe at his wrist recording his one +year’s service as a scout.</p> + +<p>Because of the impression they hoped to produce, +Marcoo too had donned the uniform, minus +stripes and badge—the latter he would not be +entitled to wear until after the all-important next +meeting when, on his passing the tenderfoot test, +the scoutmaster would pin it on his shirt, but reversed +until he should have proved his right to +wear that badge of chivalry by the doing of +some initial good turn.</p> + +<p>But Marcoo, like his companion, carried the +long scout staff and was loud in his appreciation +of its usefulness on a woodland hike.</p> + +<p>And thus, a knightly-looking pair of pilgrims, +they issued forth into the forest clearing, bathed +in the early afternoon sun.</p> + +<p>As before, their ears were tickled afar off by +the sound of a tuneful voice alternately whistling +and singing, though to-day it was unaccompanied +by the woodchopper’s axe.</p> + +<p>“That’s Toiney!” said Marcoo. “Listen to +him! He’s just ‘full of it’; isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>Toiney was indeed full to the brim and bubbling +over with the primitive, zestful joy of life +as he toiled upon the little woodland farm, cutting +off withered cornstalks from a patch which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +earlier in the season had been golden with fine +yellow maize of his planting. His lithe, energetic +figure focused the sun rays which loved to play +over his knitted cap of dingy red, with a bobbing +tassel, over the rough blue shirt of homespun +flannel, and upon the queer heelless high boots +of rough unfinished leather, with puckered moccasin-like +feet, in which he could steal through +the woods well-nigh as noiselessly as the dog-fox +himself.</p> + +<p>As the two scouts emerged into the open he +was singing to the sunbeams and to the timid +human “Hare” who basked in his brightness, a +funny little fragment of song which he illustrated +as though he had a sling in his hand and were +letting fly a missile:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Gaston Guè, si j’avais ma fron-de,</span><br /> +Gaston Guè, je te l’aurais fron-dé!”<br /> +</div> + +<p>This he translated for Harold’s benefit:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Gaston Guè, if I haf ma sling,</span><br /> +Gaston Guè, at you I vould fling!”<br /> +</div> + +<p>“Well! you needn’t ‘fling’ at us, Toiney,” +laughed Nixon, stepping forward with a bold +front. “Hullo! Harold!” he added in what he +meant to be a most winning tone.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Harold! How are <i>you</i>?” supplemented +Marcoo in accents equally sugared.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the abnormally timid boy, with the pointed +chin and slightly rodent-like face, only made an +indistinguishable sound in his throat and slunk +behind some bushes on the edge of the corn-patch.</p> + +<p>Toiney, on the other hand, was never backward +in responding vivaciously to a friendly +greeting.</p> + +<p>“Houp-e-là!” he explained in bantering astonishment +as he surveyed the two scouts in the +uniform which was strange to him. “<i>Houp-e-là!</i> +We arre de boy! We arre de stuff, I guess, +engh?” He pointed an earthy forefinger at the +figures in khaki, his black eyes sparkling with +whimsical flattery. “But, <i>comment</i>, you’ll no +come for go in gran’ forêt agen, dat’s de tam’ +you’ll get los’ agen—hein?”</p> + +<p>“No, we’re not going any farther into the +woods to-day. We came to see <i>him</i>.” Nixon +nodded in the direction of Harold skulking timidly +behind the berry bushes. “We want to +speak to him about something.”</p> + +<p>“Ah—miséricorde—he’ll no speak on you; +he’s a <i>poltron</i>, a scaree: some tam’ I’ll be so +shame for heem I’ll feel lak’ cry!” returned +Toiney, moved to voluble frankness, his eye +glistening like a moist bead, now, with mortified +pity. “Son gran’père—hees gran’fader—he’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +go on town dis day: he’s try ver’ hard for get +heem to go also—for to see! Mais, <i>non</i>! He’s +too scaree!” And the speaker, glancing toward +the screen of bushes, shrugged his shoulders despairingly, +as if asking what could possibly be +done for such a craven.</p> + +<p>Scout Nixon was not baffled. Persistent by +nature, he had worked well into the fibre of his +being the tenth point of the scout law: that defeat, +or the semblance thereof, must not down +the true scout.</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll talk to you first, Toiney,” he said, +“and tell you about something that we think +might help him.”</p> + +<p>And in the simplest English that he could +choose, eked out at intervals with freshman +French, he made clear to Toiney’s quick understanding +the aim and methods of the Boy Scout +Movement.</p> + +<p>The Canadian, a born son of the woods, +was quick to grasp and commend the return to +Nature.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ça c’est b’en!</i>” he murmured with an approving +nod. “I’ll t’ink dat iss good for boy to +go in gran’ forêt—w’en he know how fin’ de +way—for see heem beeg tree en de littal +wil’ an-ni-mal, engh? Mais, miséri-corde,”—his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +shrugging shoulders pumped up a huge sigh as +he turned toward Harold,—”mis-éri-corde! <i>he’ll</i> +no marche as <i>éclaireur</i>—w’at-you-call-eet—scoutee—hein? +He’ll no go on meetin’ or on +school, engh?”</p> + +<p>And Toiney set to work cutting down cornstalks +again as if the subject were unhappily +disposed of.</p> + +<p>Such was not the case, however. At one word +which he, the blue-shirted woodsman, had used in +his harangue, Nixon started, and a strange look +shot across his face. He knew enough of French +to translate literally that word <i>éclaireur</i>, the +French military term for scout. He knew that +it meant figuratively a light-spreader: one who +marches ahead of his comrades to enlighten the +others.</p> + +<p>Could any term be more applicable to the peace +scout of to-day who is striving to bring in an advanced +era of progress and good will?</p> + +<p>Somehow, it stimulated in Scout Warren the +desire to be an <i>éclaireur</i> in earnest to the darkened +boy overshadowed by his bugbear fears, +now skulking behind the berry-bushes.</p> + +<p>“I guess it’s no use our trying to get hold of +him,” Coombsie was saying meanwhile in his +cousin’s ear. “See that old dame over there, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +Nix?” he pointed to a portly, elderly woman +with an immense straw hat tied down, sunbonnet +fashion, over her head. “Well! she took care of +Harold’s mother before she died; now she keeps +house for his grandfather, and she, that old +woman, told my mother that up to the time +Harold was seven years old he would often run +and hide his head in her lap of an evening as it +was coming on dark. And when she asked what +frightened him he said that he was ‘afraid of +the stars’! Just fancy! Afraid of the stars as +they came out above the clearing here!”</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz! What do you know about that?” +exclaimed Nixon with a rueful whistle: that dark +hobgoblin, Fear, was more absurdly entrenched +than he had thought possible.</p> + +<p>Yet Harold’s seemed more than ever a case in +which the scout who could once break down the +wall of shyness round him might prove a true +<i>éclaireur</i>: so he advanced upon the timid boy and +addressed him with a honeyed mildness which +made Coombsie chuckle and gasp, “Oh, sugar!” +under his breath; though Marcoo set himself to +second his patrol leader’s efforts to the best of +his ability.</p> + +<p>Together they sought to decoy Harold into a +conversation, asking him questions about his life, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +whether he ever went into the woods with Toiney +or played solitary games on the clearing. They +intimated that they knew he was “quite a boy” +if he’d only make friends with them and not be so +stand-offish; and they tried to inveigle him into +a simple game of tag or hide-and-seek among the +bushes as a prelude to some more exciting sport +such as duck-on-a-rock or prisoner’s base.</p> + +<p>But the hapless “<i>poltron</i>” only answered +them in jerky monosyllables, cowering against +the bushes, and finally slunk back to the side of +the blue-shirted farmhand with whom he had become +familiar—whose merry songs could charm +away the dark spirit of fear—and there remained, +hovering under Toiney’s wing.</p> + +<p>“I knew that it would be hard to get round +him,” said Marcoo thoughtfully. “Until now all +the boys whom he has met have picked on an’ +teased him. Suppose you turn your attention to +<i>me</i> for a while, Nix! Suppose you were to make +a bluff of teaching me some of the things that a +fellow must learn before he can enlist as a tenderfoot +scout! Perhaps, then, he’d begin to listen an’ +take notice. I’ve got a toy flag in my pocket; +let’s start off with that!”</p> + +<p>“Good idea! You do use your head for something +more than a hat-rack, Marcoo!” The patrol +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +leader relapsed with a relieved sigh into his natural +manner. “I brought an end of rope with +me; I thought we might have got along to teaching +him how to tie one or other of the four +knots which form part of the tenderfoot test. +You take charge of the rope-end. And don’t +lose it if you want to live!”</p> + +<p>He passed the little brown coil to his cousin +and receiving in return the miniature Stars and +Stripes, went through a formal flag-raising ceremony +there on the sunny clearing. Tying the +toy flag-staff to the top of his tall scout’s staff, +he planted the latter in some soft earth; then +both scouts stood at attention and saluted Old +Glory, after which they passed and repassed it at +marching pace, each time removing their broad-brimmed +hats with much respect and an eye on +Harold to see if he was taking notice.</p> + +<p>Subsequently the patrol leader stationed himself +by the impromptu flagstaff, and delivered a +simple lecture to Coombsie upon the history and +composition of the National Flag; a knowledge +of which, together with the proper forms of respect +due to that starry banner, would enter into +his examination for tenderfoot scout.</p> + +<p>Both were hoping that some crumbs of information—some +ray of patriotic enthusiasm—might +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +be absorbed by Harold, the boy who had never +been to school, and who had scantily profited by +some elementary and intermittent lessons in reading +and writing from his grandfather. His brown +eyes, shy as any rodent’s, watched this parade +curiously. But though Toiney tried to encourage +him by precept and gesticulation to follow +the boy scouts’ example and salute the Flag, +plucking off his own tasseled cap and going +through a dumb pantomime of respect to it, the +“scaree” could not be moved from his shuffling +stolidity.</p> + +<p>The starry flaglet waving from the scout’s +planted staff, might have been a gorgeous, drifting +leaf from the surrounding woods for all the +attention he paid to it!</p> + +<p>“Say! but it’s hard to land him, isn’t it?” +Nixon suspended the parade with a sigh almost of +despair. “Well, here goes, for one more attempt +to get him interested! Chuck me that rope-end, +Marcoo! I’ll show you how to tie a bowline +knot; perhaps, as his father was a sailor—a +deep-sea fisherman—knot-tying may be more in +his line than flag-raising.”</p> + +<p>The next minute Coombsie’s fingers were fumbling +with the rope rather blunderingly, for +Marcoo was by nature a bookworm and more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +efficient along lines of abstract study than at +anything requiring manual skill.</p> + +<p>“Pass the end up through the bight,” directed +Scout Warren when the bight or loop had been +formed upon the standing part of the rope. “I +said <i>up</i>, not down, jackass! Now, pass it round +the ‘standing part’; don’t you know what that +means? Why! the long end of the rope on which +you’re working. Oh! you’re a dear donkey,” +nodding with good-humored scorn.</p> + +<p>Now both the donkey recruit and the instructing +scout had become for the moment genuinely +absorbed in the intricacies of that bowline knot, +and forgot that this was not intended as a <i>bona-fide</i> +lesson, but as mere “show off” to awaken +the interest of a third person.</p> + +<p>Their tail-end glances were no longer directed +furtively at Harold to see whether or not he was +beginning to “take notice.”</p> + +<p>So they missed the first quiver of a peculiar +change in him; they did not see that his sagging +chin was suddenly reared a little as if by the +application of an invisible bearing-rein.</p> + +<p>They missed the twitching face-muscles, the +slowly dilating eye, the breath beginning to +come in quick puffs through his spreading nostrils, +like the smoke issuing from the punky +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +wood, heralding the advent of the ruddy spark, +when in the woods they started a fire with rubbing-sticks. +And just as suddenly and mysteriously +as that triumphant spark appeared—evolved +by Nixon’s fire-drill, from the dormant +possibilities in the dull wood—did the first +glitter of fascinated light appear and grow in +the eye of Harold Greer, the prisoner of Fear, +disparagingly nicknamed the “Hare”!</p> + +<p>“I—I can do that! I c-can do it—b-better +than he can!” Stuttering and trembling in a +strange paroxysm of eagerness, the <i>poltron</i> addressed, +in a nervous squawk, not the absorbed +scouts, but Toiney, his friend and protector.</p> + +<p>“I can t-tie it better ’n <i>he</i> does! I know—I +know I can!” The shrill boyish voice which +seemed suddenly to dominate every other sound +on the clearing was hoarse with derision as the +abnormally shy and timid boy pointed a trembling +finger at Marcoo still, like a “dear donkey,” +blundering with the rope-end.</p> + +<p>Had the gray rabbit, which suddenly at that +moment whisked out of the woods and across a +distant corner, opened its mouth and addressed +them, the surprise to the two scouts could scarcely +have been greater.</p> + +<p>“Oh! <i>you can</i>, can you?” said Nixon thickly. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +“Let’s see you try!” He placed the rope-end +in Harold’s hand, which received it with a fondling +touch.</p> + +<p>“Here you make a small loop on this part of +the rope, leaving a good long end,” he began +coolly, while his heart bounded, for the spark in +the furtive eye of the twelve-year-old “scaree” +was rapidly becoming a scintillation: the scouts +had struck fire from him at last.</p> + +<p>A triumph beside which the signal achievement +of their friction fire in the woods paled!</p> + +<p>The intangible dragon which held their brother +boy a captive on this lonely clearing, not permitting +him to mingle freely with his fellows for +study or play, was weakening before them.</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Harold! Go ahead: now pass +the end up through the loop! Bravo, you’re the +boy! Now, around the standing part—the rope +itself—and down again! Good: you have it. +You can beat <i>him</i> every time at tying a knot: +he’s just a blockhead, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>And Scout Warren pointed with much show of +scorn at Marcoo, the normal recruit, who looked +on delightedly. Never before did boy rejoice +so unselfishly over being beaten at a test as +Coombsie then! For right here on the little farm-clearing +a strange thing had happened.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the gloom of every beclouded mind there is +one chink by which light, more or less, may enter; +and a skillful teacher can work an improvement +by enlarging that chink.</p> + +<p>Harold’s brain was not darkened in the sense +of being defective. And the gray tent of fear in +which he dwelt had its chink too; the scouts had +found it in the frayed rope-end and knot.</p> + +<p>For while the timid boy watched Coombsie’s +bungling fingers, that drab knot, upon which they +blundered, suddenly beckoned to him like a star.</p> + +<p>And, all in a moment, it was no longer his +fear-stricken mother who lived in him, but his daring +fisherman-father whose horny fingers could +tie every sailor’s knot that was ever heard of, +and who had used that bowline noose in many an +emergency at sea to save a ship-wrecked fellow-creature.</p> + +<p>The bowline was the means of saving the +fisherman’s son now from mental shipwreck, or +something nearly as bad. Harold’s eager thoughts +became entangled in it, while his fingers worked +under Nixon’s directions; he forgot, for once, +to be afraid.</p> + +<p>Presently the noose was complete, and Nixon +was showing him how to tighten it by pulling +on the standing part of the rope.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>This achieved, the timid human “Hare” raised +his brown eyes from the rope in his hand and +looked from one to another of his three companions +as in a dream, a bright one.</p> + +<p>For half a minute a rainbowed—almost awed—silence +held the three upon the clearing. +Toiney was the first to break it. He flung his +arms rapturously round the hitherto fear-bound +boy.</p> + +<p>“Bravo! mo’ fin,” he cried, embracing Harold +as his “cute one.” “Bravo! mo’ smarty. Grace +à bon Dieu, you ain’ so scare anny longere! You +go for be de boy—de brave boy—you go for +be de scout—engh?” His eyes were wet and +winking as if, now indeed, he felt “lak’ cry”!</p> + +<p>“Certainly, you’re going to be a scout, Harold,” +corroborated Nixon, equally if not so eloquently +moved. “Now! don’t you want to learn +how to tie another knot, the fisherman’s bend? +You ought to be able to tie that, you know, because +your father was a great fisherman.”</p> + +<p>Harold was nothing loath. More and more his +father’s spirit flashed awake in him. Through the +rest of that afternoon, which marked a new era +in his life, he seemed to work with his father’s fingers, +while the October sky glowed in radiant +tints of saffron and blue, and a light breeze +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +skipped through the pine-trees and the brilliant +maples that flamed at intervals like lamps around +the clearing.</p> + +<p>“We’ll come again to-morrow or the day after, +Harold, and teach you more ‘stunts’; I mean +some other things, besides knot-tying, that a boy +ought to know how to do,” said Nixon as a filmy +haze hovering over the edges of the woods warned +them that it bore evening on its dull blue wings.</p> + +<p>“Aw right!” docilely agreed Harold; and +though he shuffled his feet timidly, like the “poltron” +or craven, which Toiney had in sorrow +called him, there was a shy longing in his face +which said that he was sorry the afternoon was +over, that he would look for the return of his +new friends, the only boys who had ever racked +their brains to help and not to hurt him.</p> + +<p>Before their departure he had learned how to +tie three knots, square or reef, bowline and the +fisherman’s bend. He had likewise admitted two +more persons within the narrow enclosure of his +confidence—the two who were to liberate him, +the <i>éclaireurs</i>, the peace scouts of to-day.</p> + +<p>And, for the first time in his life, he had awkwardly +lifted his cap and saluted the flag of his +country as it waved in miniature from the planted +staff.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>That afternoon was the first of several spent +by Scout Warren and his aide-de-camp, Coombsie, +on the little farm-clearing in the woods, trying +to foster a boyish spirit in Harold, to overcome +his dread of mingling with other boys, to awaken +in him the desire to become a boy scout and share +the latter’s good times at indoor meeting, on hike, +or in camp.</p> + +<p>When the date of the second meeting drew +near at which seven new recruits were to take +the scout oath and be formally organized into +the Owl Patrol, they had obtained the promise +of this timid fledgling to be present under +Toiney’s wing, and enlist, too.</p> + +<p>“I wonder whether he’ll keep his word or if +he’ll fight shy of coming at the last minute?” +whispered Nixon to Coombsie on the all-important +evening when the other recruits led by their +scoutmaster marched into the modest town hall, +a neutral ground where all of diverse creeds +might meet, and where the members of the local +council, including the doctor and Captain Andy, +had already assembled.</p> + +<p>“If he doesn’t show up, Nix, you won’t be +able to pass the twelfth point of test for becoming +a first-class scout by producing a recruit +trained by yourself in the requirements of a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +tenderfoot,” suggested Marcoo. “You’ve passed +all the active tests, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>Scout Warren nodded, keeping an anxious eye +on the door. Having been duly transferred from +his Philadelphia troop to the new patrol which +had just been organized in this tide-lapped corner +of Massachusetts—where it seemed probable +now that he would spend a year at least, as his +parents contemplated a longer stay in Europe—he +had already passed the major part of his +examination for first-class scout before the Scout +Commissioner of the district.</p> + +<p>He was an expert in first-aid and primitive +cooking. He had prepared a fair map of a certain +section of the marshy country near the tidal +river. He could state upon his honor that he had +accurately judged with his eye a certain distance +in the woods—namely, from the top of that +towering red-oak-tree which, when lost, he had +chosen as a lookout point, to the cave called the +Bear’s Den—on the never-to-be-forgotten day +when four painted boys and a dog finally took +refuge in that rocky cavern; the boy scout’s +judgment of the distance being subsequently confirmed +by lumbermen who knew every important +tree in that section of the woods.</p> + +<p>He had passed tests in swimming, tree-felling, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +map-reading, and so forth! But he would not +be entitled to wear, instead of the second-class +scout badge, the badge of the first-class rank, +beneath the two white bars of the patrol leader +upon his left arm, until he produced the tenderfoot +whom he had trained.</p> + +<p>But would that timid recruit from the little +woodland clearing—that half-fledged Owlet—appear?</p> + +<p>“Suppose he should ‘funk it’ at the last minute?” +whispered Marcoo tragically to the patrol +leader. “No! No! As I’m alive! here they come—Toiney, +with Harold in tow. Blessings on that +Canuck!” he added fervently.</p> + +<p>It was a strange-looking pair who now entered +the little town hall: Toiney, in a rough gray +sweater and those heelless high boots, removing +his tasseled cap and depositing in a corner the +lantern which had guided him with his charge +through the woods, as facile to him by night +as by day; and Harold, timidly clinging to his +arm.</p> + +<p>The brown eyes of the latter rolled up in panic +as he beheld the big lighted room wherein the +boy scouts and those interested in them were +assembled. All his mother’s unbalanced fear of +a crowd returning upon him in full force, he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +would have fled, but for Toiney’s firm imprisonment +of his trembling arm, and for Toiney’s +voice encouraging him gutturally with:—</p> + +<p>“Tiens! mo’ beau. <i>Courage!</i> Gard’ donc de +scout wit’ de flag on she’s hand! V’là! V’là!” +pointing to Nixon, the patrol leader, supporting +the Stars and Stripes. “Bon courage! you go +for be de scout too—engh?”</p> + +<p>His country’s flag, blooming into magnificence +under the electric light, had, to-night, a smile for +Harold, as he saw it the centre of saluting boys.</p> + +<p>Something of his brave father’s love for that +National Ensign, the “Color” as the fisherman +called it, which had presided over so many crises +of that father’s life, as when on a gala day in +harbor he ran it to the masthead, or twined it +in the rigging, at sea, to speak another vessel, or +sorrowfully hoisted it at half-mast for a shipmate +drowned,—something of that loving reverence +now began to blossom in Harold’s heart like a +many-tinted flower!</p> + +<p>“Well! here you are, Harold.” Coombsie was +promptly taking charge of the new arrival, piloting +him, with Toiney, to a seat. “I knew you’d +come; you’ve got the right stuff in you; eh?”</p> + +<p>It was feeble “stuff” at the moment, and in +danger of melting into an open attempt at flight; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +for Harold’s eyes had turned from the benignant +flag to the figure of Leon Chase.</p> + +<p>But Leon had little opportunity, and less desire, +to harass him to-night.</p> + +<p>For, as the kernel of the initiatory proceedings +was reached, the first of the seven new recruits +to hold up the three fingers of his right +hand and take the scout oath was Starrie Chase:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“On my honor I will do my best, to do my duty</span><br /> +to God and my country, and to obey the scout law:<br /> +To help other people at all times, to keep myself physically<br /> +strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”</div> + +<p>Captain Andy cleared his throat as he listened, +and the doctor wiped his glasses.</p> + +<p>Then, as corporal or second in command of +the new patrol, Leon stood holding aloft the +brand-new flag of that patrol—a great, horned +hoot-owl, the Grand Duke of the neighboring +woods, embroidered on a blue ground by Colin’s +mother—while his brother recruits, having +each passed the tenderfoot test, took the oath +and were enrolled as duly fledged Owls.</p> + +<p>Harold, the timid fledgling, came last. Supported +on either side by his sponsors, Nixon and +Coombsie, he distinguished himself by tying the +four knots which formed part of the test with +swiftness and skill, and by “muddling” through +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +the rest of the examination, consent having been +obtained from headquarters that some leniency +in the matter of answers might be shown to this +handicapped boy who had never been to school +and for whom—as for Leon—the Boy Scout +Movement might prove The Thing.</p> + +<p>Captain Andy declared it to be “The Thing” +when later that night he was called upon for a +speech.</p> + +<p>“Boys!” he said, heaving his massive figure +erect, the sky-blue rift of his eye twinkling under +the cloudy lid. “Boys! it’s an able craft, this +new movement, if you’ll only buckle to an’ work +it well. And it’s a hearty motto you have: <span class="sc">Be +Prepared</span>. Prepared to help yourselves, so that +you can stand by to help others! Lads,”—the +voice of the old sea-fighter boomed blustrously,—”there +comes a time to ’most every one who +isn’t a poor-hearted lubber, when he wants to +help somebody else more than he ever wanted to +help himself; and if he hasn’t made the most o’ +what powers he has, why! when that Big Minute +comes he won’t be ‘in it.’ Belay that! Make it +fast here!” tapping his forehead. “Live up to +your able motto an’ pretty soon you’ll find yourselves +going ahead under all the sail you can +carry; an’ you won’t be trying to get a corner +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +on the breeze either, or to blanket any other fellow’s +sails! Rather, you’ll show him the road +an’ give him a tow when he needs it. God bless +you! So long!”</p> + +<p>And when the wisdom of the grand old sea-scout +had been cheered to the echo, the eight +members of the new patrol, rallying round their +Owl flag, broke into the first verse of their song, +a part of which Nixon had sung to them by the +camp-fire in the woods:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“No loyal Scout gives place to doubt,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But action quick he shows!</span><br /> +Like a knight of old he is brave and bold,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And chivalry he knows.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then hurrah for the brave, hurrah for the good!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hurrah for the pure in heart!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At duty’s call, with a smile for all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Scout will do his part!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>“Sing! Harold. Do your part, and sing!” +urged Nixon, the patrol leader. “Oh, go on: +that isn’t a scout’s mouth, Harold!” looking at +the weak brother’s fear-tightened lips. “A scout’s +mouth turns up at the corners. Smile, Harold! +Smile and sing.”</p> + +<p>A minute later Scout Warren’s own features +were wreathed by a smile, humorous, moved, +glad—more glad than any which had illumined +his face hitherto—for by his side the boy who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +had once feared the stars as they stole out above +the clearing, was singing after him:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Hurrah for the sun, hurrah for the storm!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hurrah for the stars above!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>“He’s going to make a good scout, some +time; don’t you think so, Cap?” Nixon, glancing +down at the timid “poltron,” nudged Captain +Andy’s arm.</p> + +<p>“Aye, aye! lad, I guess he will, when you’ve +put some more backbone into him,” came the +optimistic answer.</p> + +<p>But Captain Andy’s gaze did not linger on +Harold. The keen search-light of his glance was +trained upon Leon—upon Corporal Chase, who, +judging by the new and lively purpose in his +face, had to-night, indeed, through the channel +of his scout oath, “deepened the water in which +he floated,” as he stood holding high the royal-blue +banner of the Owl Patrol.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER IX</p> + +<p class="center chap2">GODEY PECK</p> + +<p>That stirring initiation meeting was the forerunner +of others thereafter held weekly in the +small town hall, when the members of the new +patrol had their bodies developed, stiffened into +manly erectness by a good drill and various +rousing indoor games, while their minds were +expanded by the practice of various new and exciting +“stunts” as Leon called them.</p> + +<p>To Starrie Chase the most interesting of these +in which he soon became surprisingly proficient +was the flag-signaling, transmitting or receiving +a message to or from a brother scout stationed +at the other end of the long hall. Spelling out +such a message swiftly, letter by letter, with the +two little red and white flags, according to either +the semaphore or American Morse code, had a +splendid fascination for him.</p> + +<p>More exciting still was it when on some dark +fall evening, at the end of the Saturday afternoon +hike, he gathered with his brother scouts +around a blazing camp-fire on the uplands, with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +the pale gray ribbon of the tidal river dimly unrolling +itself beyond the low-lying marshes, and +the scoutmaster would suggest that he should +try some outdoor signaling to another scout stationed +on a distant hillock, using torches, two +red brands from the fire, one in each hand, instead +of the regulation flags.</p> + +<p>“Oh! but this is in-ter-est-ing; makes a fellow +feel as if he were ‘going some’!” Starrie would +declare to himself in an ecstatic drawl, as, first +his right arm, then his left, manipulated the rosy +firebrands, while his keen eyes could barely discern +the black silhouette of his brother Owl’s +figure on its distant mound, as he spelled out a +brief message.</p> + +<p>It certainly was “going.” There was progress +here: exciting progress. Growth which made the +excitement squeezed out of his former pranks +seem tame and childish!</p> + +<p>And more than one resident of the neighborhood—including +Dave Baldwin’s old mother, +who lived alone in her shallow, baldfaced house, +almost denuded of paint by the elements, at a +bleak point where upland and salt-marsh met—drew +a free breath and thanked God for a +respite.</p> + +<p>In addition to the indoor signaling there were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +talks on first-aid to the injured by the busy doctor +and on seamanship by Captain Andy whose +big voice had a storm-burr clinging to it in which, +at exciting moments, an intent ear could almost +catch the echo of the gale’s roar, of raging seas, +shrieking rigging and slatting sails—all the +wild orchestra of the storm-king.</p> + +<p>Then there were the Saturday hikes, and once +in a while the week-end camping-out in the +woods from Friday evening to Saturday night, +whenever Scoutmaster Estey, Colin’s much-admired +brother, could obtain a forenoon holiday, +in addition to the customary Saturday afternoon, +from the office where he worked as naval +architect, or expert designer of fishing-vessels, +in connection with a shipbuilding yard on the +river.</p> + +<p>A notable figure in relation to the scouts’ outdoor +life was Toiney Leduc, the French-Canadian +farmhand. As time progressed he became an inseparable +part of it.</p> + +<p>For Harold, the abnormally timid boy, for +whom it was hoped that the new movement would +do much, was inseparable from him: Harold +would not come to scout meeting or march on +hike without Toiney, although with his brother +Owls and their scoutmaster he was already +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +beginning to emerge from his shadowy fears like +a beetle from the grub.</p> + +<p>In time he would no doubt fully realize what +impotent bugaboos were his vague terrors, and +would be reconciled to the world at large through +the medium of the Owl Patrol.</p> + +<p>Already there was such an improvement in his +health and spirits that his grandfather raised +Toiney’s wages on condition that he would consent +to work all the year round on the little +farm-clearing, and no longer spend his winters +at some loggers’ camp, tree-felling, in the +woods.</p> + +<p>Moreover Old Man Greer, to whom the abnormal +condition of his only grandson had been +a sore trial, was willing and glad to spare Toiney’s +services as woodland guide to the boy scouts, +including Harold, whenever they were required +for a week-end excursion.</p> + +<p>And so much did those eight scouts learn from +this primitive woodsman, who could not command +enough English to say “Boo!” straight, according +to Leon, but who understood the language +and track-prints of bird and animal as if they +the shy ones had taught him, that by general +petition of all members of the new patrol, Toiney +was elected assistant scoutmaster, and duly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +received his emblazoned certificate from headquarters.</p> + +<p>His presence and songs lent a primitive charm +to many a camp-fire gathering; no normal boy +could feel temporarily dull in his company, for +Toiney, besides being an expert in woodlore and +a good trailer, was essentially a <i>bon enfant</i>, or +jolly child, at heart, meeting every experience +with the blithe faith that, somehow—somewhere—he +would come out on top.</p> + +<p>In the woods his songs were generally inaudible, +locked up in his heart or throat, though occasionally +they escaped to his lips which would +move silently in a preliminary canter, then part +to emit a gay bar or two, a joyous “Tra la +la ... la!” or:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Rond’, Rond’, Rond’, peti’ pie pon’ ton’!”</span> +</div> + +<p>But on these occasions the strain rarely soared +above a whisper and was promptly suspended lest +it should startle any wild thing within hearing, +while he led his boy scouts through the denser +woods with the skill and stealth of the Indian +whose wary blood mingled very slightly with the +current in his veins.</p> + +<p>Those were mighty moments for the young +scoutmaster and members of the Owl Patrol +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +when they “lay low,” crouching breathlessly in +some thicket, with Toiney, prostrate on his face +and hands, a little in advance of them, his black +eyes intent upon a fox-path, a mere shadow-track +such as four of their number had seen on that +first memorable day in the woods, where only the +lightly trampled weeds or an occasional depression +in some little bush told their assistant scoutmaster, +whom nothing escaped, that some airy-footed +animal was in the habit of passing there +from burrow to hunting-ground.</p> + +<p>The waiting was sometimes long and the enforced +silence irksome to youthful scouts; there +were times when it oppressed one or other of the +boys like a steel cage against the bars of which +his voice, like a rebellious bird, dashed itself in +some irrepressible sound, a pinched-off cry or +smothered whistle.</p> + +<p>But that always drew a backward hiss of +“Mak’ you s-silent! W’at for you spik lak +dat?” from the advance scout, Toiney, or a +clipped, sarcastic “<i>T’as pas besoin</i> to shoutee—engh?”</p> + +<p>And the needless semi-shout was repressed next +time by the reprimanded one, many a lesson in +self-control being learned thereby.</p> + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both;" summary="Illustration"> +<tr><td class="figcenter"><img style="width:392px; height:603px" src="images/illus165.jpg" alt="" /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="caption">“MAK’ YOU S-SILENT! W’AT FOR YOU SPIK LAK DAT?”</td></tr></table> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<p>More than once patience was at last rewarded +by a glimpse of the trotting traveler, the sly red +fox, maker of that shadow-path: of its sandy +coat, white throat, large black ears, and the bushy, +reddish tail, with milk-white tip, the “flag” as +woodsmen call it.</p> + +<p>Instinctively on such occasions Leon at first +yearned for his gun, his old “fuzzee,” with which +he had worked havoc—often purposeless and +excessive—among shore birds, and from which +he had to part when he enlisted in the Boy +Scouts of America, and adopted principles tending +toward the conservation of all wild life rather +than to destruction.</p> + +<p>Gradually, however, Starrie Chase, like his +brother scouts, came under the glamour of this +peaceful trailing. He began to discover a subtler +excitement, more spicy fun—the spicier for +Toiney’s presence—in the brief contemplation +of that dog-fox at home, trotting along, unmolested, +to his hunting-ground, than in past fevered +glimpses of him when all interest in his wiles and +habits was merged into greed for his skin and +tail.</p> + +<p>Many were the opportunities, too, for a glimpse +at the white flag of the shy deer as it bounded +off into some deeper woodland glade, and for +being thrilled by the swift drumming of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +partridge’s wings when it rose from its dusting-place +on the ground or on some old log whose +brown, flaky wood could be reduced to powder; +or from feasting on the brilliant and lowly partridge-berries +which, nestling amid their evergreen +leaves, challenged November’s sereness.</p> + +<p>Each woodland hike brought its own revelation—its +special discovery—insignificant, perhaps—but +which thereafter stood out as a beauty +spot upon the face of the day.</p> + +<p>The hikes were generally conducted after this +manner: seven of the Owls with their tall scoutmaster +would leave the town bright and early on +a Saturday morning, a goodly spectacle in their +khaki uniforms, and, staff in hand, take their +way through the woods to the little farm-clearing +where they were reinforced by the assistant scoutmaster +in his rough garb—Toiney would not +don the scout uniform—and by Harold, the still +weak brother.</p> + +<p>Their coming was generally heralded by modified +shouting. And the impulsive Toiney would +suspend some farm task and stand erect with an +explosive “<i>Houp-là!</i>” tickling his throat, to witness +that most exhilarating of present-day sights, +a party of boy scouts emerging from the woods +into a clearing, with Mother Nature in the guise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +of the early sunshine rushing, open-armed, to meet +them, as if welcoming her stray children back to +her heart.</p> + +<p>Then Toiney, as forest guide, would assume +the leadership of the party, and not only was his +thorough acquaintance with “de bird en de littal +wil’ an-ni-mal” valuable; but his fund of +knowledge about “heem beeg tree,” and the uses +to which the different kinds of wood could be +put, seemed broad and unfailing, too.</p> + +<p>The most exciting discovery of that season to +the boys was when he pointed out to them one +day the small hole or den amid some rocky ledges +near Big Swamp where the Mother Coon—as +sometimes happens, though she generally prefers +a hollow tree—had brought forth her intrepid +offspring; both the one which had raided Toiney’s +hencoop, and Raccoon Junior who had come to a +warlike issue with the crows.</p> + +<p>Toiney, as he explained, had investigated that +deep hole amid the ledges when the woods were +green with spring, and had discovered some wild +animal which by its size and general outline +he knew to be a coon, crouching at the inner +end of it, with her young “littal as small cat.” +He had beaten a hasty retreat, not willing to +provoke a possible attack from the mother +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +rendered bold by maternity, or to disturb the infant +family.</p> + +<p>He was radiant at finding the coon’s rocky +home again, though tenantless, now.</p> + +<p>“Ha! I’ll know we fin’ heem den”; he beamed +upon his comrades with primitive conceit. “We +arre de boy—engh? We arre de bes’ scout ev’ry +tam!”</p> + +<p>And that was the aim of each member of the +Owl Patrol, with the exception, perhaps, of Harold, +not indeed to be the “best scout,” but to +figure as the equal in scoutcraft of any lad of his +age and a corresponding period of service, in the +United States. To this end he drilled, explored +and studied, somewhat to the mystification of boys +who still held aloof from the scout movement!</p> + +<p>“Where are ye off to, Starrie?” inquired +Godey Peck, a youth of this type, one fair November +afternoon, intercepting Leon about an +hour after school had closed. “Don’t you want +to come along with me? I’m going down to +Stanway’s shipyard to have a look at the new +vessel that they’re going to launch at daybreak +to-morrow. She’s all wedged up on the ways, +ready to go. Say!” Godey edged slyly nearer +to Leon, “us boys—Choc Latour, Benjie Lane +an’ me—have hit on a plan for being launched +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +in her. You know they won’t allow boys to be +aboard, if they know it, when she shoots off the +launching ways. But those ship carpenters’ll +have to rise bright and early if they want to get +ahead of us! See?”</p> + +<p>Godey laid a forefinger against the left side +of his nose, to emphasize a high opinion of his +own subtlety.</p> + +<p>“How are you going to work it?” Leon +asked briefly.</p> + +<p>“Why! there’s a vessel ’most built on the +stocks right ’longside the finished hull. Us boys +are going to wake very early, trot down to the +shipyard before any of the workmen are around; +then we’ll shin up the staging an’ over the half-built +vessel right onto the white deck o’ the new +one that’s waiting to be launched. ’Twill be +easy to drop below into the cabin an’ hide under +the bunks until the time comes for launching +her. When we hear ’em knocking out the last +block from under her keel—when she’s just +beginning to crawl—then we’ll pop up an’ be +on deck when she’s launched; see?”</p> + +<p>“Ho! So you’re going to do the stowaway +act, eh?” Starrie Chase, with that characteristic +snap of his brown eyes, seemed to be taking +a mental photograph of the plan.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Only for an hour or two. You want to be in +this too; don’t you, Starrie?”</p> + +<p>Leon was silent, considering. The underhand +scheme ran counter to the aboveboard principles +of the scout law which he had sworn to obey; +of that he felt sure. “On my honor I will do my +best ... to keep myself morally straight!” +Voluntarily and enthusiastically he had taken +the chivalrous oath, and he was “too much of a +fellow” to go back on it deliberately.</p> + +<p>“No! I don’t want to play stowaway,” he +answered after a minute. “It’s a crazy plan anyhow! +Give it up, Gode! Likely enough you’ll +scratch up the paint of the new cabin with your +boots, skulking there all three of you—then +there’ll be a big row; and ’twould seem a pity, +too, after all the months it has taken to build +an’ paint that dandy new hull.”</p> + +<p>Such a view would scarcely have presented +itself to Leon two months ago; he certainly was +“deepening the water” in which he floated.</p> + +<p>“Well, let’s pop down to the shipyard anyhow, +an’ see her!” urged Godey, hoping that a +contemplation of the new vessel, airily wedged +high on the launching ways, with her bridal +deck white as a hound’s tooth, would weaken the +other’s resolution.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>“No, I’ll be down there to-morrow morning, +on the river-slip, to see her go. But I want to do +something else this afternoon. I’m going home +to study.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Flag-signaling in the Boy Scout Handbook. +I can send a message by semaphore now, twenty +letters per minute; I must get it down to sixteen +before I can pass the examination for first-class +scout!” Starrie threw this out impetuously, his +face glowing. “We’re going to have an outdoor +test in some other things this evening—if I +pass it I’ll be a second-class scout. I don’t want +to be a tenderfoot for ever! Say! but the signaling +gets me; it’s so interesting: I’m beginning +to study the Morse code now.”</p> + +<p>“Pshaw! You boy scouts jus’ make me tired.” +Godey leaned against the parapet of the broad +bridge above the tidal river whereon the boys +stood, as if the contemplation of so much energy +ambitiously directed was too much for him. +“Here comes another of your kind now!”</p> + +<p>He pointed to Colin Estey who came swinging +along out of the distance, his quick springy step +and upright carriage doing credit to the scouts’ +drill.</p> + +<p>Colin halted ere crossing the bridge to hail a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +street-car for an old gentleman who was making +futile attempts to stop it, and then courteously +helped him to the platform.</p> + +<p>Godey shook his head over the action. “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” +he crowed scornfully. “Ain’t we +acting hifalutin?”</p> + +<p>Yet there was nothing at all bombastic about +the simple good turn or in Colin’s bright face as +he joined the other scout upon the bridge and +marched off homeward with him, their rhythmic +step and erect carriage attracting the attention +of more than one adult pedestrian.</p> + +<p>Godey lolled on the parapet, looking after +them, racking his brain for some derisive epithet +to hurl at their backs; he longed to shout, +“Sissies!” and “Spongecakes!” But such belittling +terms clearly didn’t apply.</p> + +<p>The only mocking shaft in his quiver that +would come anywhere near hitting the mark of +those well-drilled backs—straight as a rod—was +one which even he felt to be feeble:—</p> + +<p>“Oh! you Tin Scouts,” he shouted maliciously. +“Tin Soldiers! <i>Tin Scouts!</i>” sustaining the cry +until the two figures disappeared from view in +the direction of the Chase homestead.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER X</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE BALDFACED HOUSE</p> + +<p>But Leon did not study signaling and the +Morse alphabet that afternoon. He was presently +dispatched by his father, who owned a pleasant +home on the outskirts of the town, on an errand +to a farm some two miles distant on the uplands +that skirted the woods.</p> + +<p>The afternoon had all the spicy beauty of +early November, with a slight frost in the air. +The fresh breeze laughed like a tomboy as it +romped over the salt-marshes. Each eddying +dimple in the tidal river shone like a star sapphire, +while the broad, brackish channel wound +in and out between the marshes with as many +wriggles as a lively trout.</p> + +<p>“Those little creeks look like runaways,” +thought Leon as he paused upon the uplands +and beamed down upon the wide panorama of +golden marsh-land and winding water. “They’re +for all the world like schoolboys that have cut +school, giggling an’ running to hide!” His eye +dreamily followed the course of many a truant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +creek that half-turned its head, looking under +the tickling sunbeams as if it were glancing back +over its shoulder, while it burrowed into the +marshes vainly trying to hide where the relentless +schoolmaster, called, for want of a better +name, Solar Attraction, might not find it and +compel its return to the ocean.</p> + +<p>“And the Sugarloaf Sand-Dunes; don’t they +look fine?” reflected the boy scout further, his +eye traveling off downstream to where the curving +tidal channel broadened into pearly plains of +water, bounded at one distant point, near the +juncture of river and sea, by a dazzlingly white +beach.</p> + +<p>There the fine colorless sand, which when +viewed closely had very much the hue of skim +milk, the white being shot with a faint gray-blue +tinge, had been piled by the winds of ages into +tall sand-hills, into pyramids and columns: one +dazzling pillar, in especial, being named the +Sugarloaf from its crystalline whiteness, had +given its name to the whole expanse of dune and +beach.</p> + +<p>The tall Sugarloaf gleamed in the distance +now like a snowy lighthouse whose lamps are +sleeping, presiding over the mouth of the tidal +river; its brother sand-hills capped by vegetation +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +might have been the pure bright cliffs of some +fairy shore.</p> + +<p>The boy scout stood for many minutes upon +the uplands, gazing afar, his mouth open as if he +were physically drinking in that distant beauty.</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz! this is gr-reat; isn’t it, Blinkie?” +he murmured to the squatting dog by his side. +“I never before saw that old Sugarloaf look as +it does to-day; did you, Mr. Dog?”</p> + +<p>It had appeared just as radiantly beautiful, +off and on, during all the seasons of Leon’s life. +But his powers of observation had not been +trained as was the case of late. In the years prior +to his becoming a scout, when his inseparable +companion on uplands and marsh had been a +shotgun—from the time he was permitted free +use of one—and the all-absorbing idea in his +mind how to contrive a successful shot at shore +bird or animal, he had gone about “lak wit’ eye +shut,” so far as many things just now beginning +to fill him with a wonderful, speechless gladness +were concerned.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’re not heading for that farmhouse, +are we, pup?” he said at length, turning from +the contemplation of runaway creeks and radiant +dunes to the completion of his father’s errand.</p> + +<p>But the sunlit beauty at which he had been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +gazing coursed through his every vein, finding +vent in a curly, ecstatic whistle that ascended in +spirals until it touched the high keynote of exultation +and there hung suspended; while the +rest of the trip to that upland farmhouse was +accomplished in a series of broad jumps, the +terrier being as wild with delight as his master.</p> + +<p>The errand performed and the boy scout having +put in half an hour condescendingly amusing +the farmer’s two small children, while Blink exchanged +compliments with his kind, master and +dog started upon the return walk.</p> + +<p>“Oh! it’s early yet; don’t you want to come +a little way into the woods, doggie?” said Leon, +doubling backward after they had taken a few +steps. “We haven’t had many runs together +lately. Your nose has been out of joint; poor +pup!” stooping to caress the terrier. “Toiney +says we can’t take you on our scout hikes, because +you’d scare every ‘littal wil’ an-ni-mal’ +within a mile. You would, too; wouldn’t you? +But there’s an outdoor scout meeting to-night +to be held over in Sparrow Hollow, each fellow +lighting his own camp-fire—using not more +than two matches—and cooking his own supper. +And you may come. Yes, I said you might +come!” as the dog, gyrating like a feather, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +seized his coat-sleeve between strong white teeth +in his eagerness not to be excluded from any +more fun that might be afoot.</p> + +<p>They were soon on the sere skirts of the woodland, +prancing through leafy drifts.</p> + +<p>“We can’t go far,” said Leon. “We must +get back to the town and buy our half-pound of +beefsteak that we’re to cook without the use of +any ordinary cooking-utensil, and so pass one of +the tests for becoming a second-class scout. I’ll +divvy up with you, pup! But whew! isn’t this +just fine?... The woods in November can put +it all over the September woods to my mind.”</p> + +<p>He added the last words to himself. There +was something about the rugged strength of the +stripped trees, with the stealing blue haze of +evening softening their bareness, about the evergreen +grandeur of pine and hemlock lording it +over their robbed brethren, about the drab, +parchment-like leaves clinging with eerie murmur +to the oak-tree, and the ruddy twigs of bare +berry-bushes, that appealed to the element of +rugged daring in the boy himself.</p> + +<p>He could not so soon break away from the +woods as he had intended, though he only explored +their outskirts.</p> + +<p>Dusk was already falling when he found himself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +on the open uplands again, bound back toward +the distant town.</p> + +<p>“The scouts are to start for Sparrow Hollow +at six o’clock: we must hustle, if we want to +start with them,” he said to the dog. “The only +way we can make it is by taking a short cut +across the marshes and wading through the +river; that would be a quick way of reaching +the town and the butcher’s shop, to buy our +beefsteak,” muttering rapidly, partly to himself, +partly to his impatient companion. “The tide is +full out now, the water will be shallow; I can +take off my shoes and stockings and carry you, +pup. Who cares if it’s cold?”</p> + +<p>The boy scout, with an anticipatory glow all +over him, felt impervious to any extreme of temperature +as he bounded down the uplands, with +the breeze—the freshening, freakish breeze—driving +across the salt-marshes directly in his +face, racing through every vein in him, stirring +up a whirligig within, presently bringing waste +things to the top even as it stirred up dust and +refuse in the roadway.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! there’s the old <i>baldfaced house</i>,” +he cried suddenly to the dog. “Here we are on +our old stamping-ground, Blink! Wonder if +‘Mom Baldwin’ is doing her witch stunts still? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +We haven’t said ‘Howdy!’ to her for a long +time; have we, pup?”</p> + +<p>Slackening pace, for that fickle breeze was +blowing away many things that he ought to +have remembered, among them the lateness of +the hour, he turned aside a few steps to where a +lonely old house stood at the foot of the slope as +the uplands melted into the salt-marshes.</p> + +<p>It was a shallow shell of a dwelling—all face +and no rear apparently—and that face was bald, +almost stripped of paint by the elements. Just +as storm-stripped was the heart of the one old +woman who lived in it, and whom Leon had been +wont to call a “solitary crank!”</p> + +<p>To the neighborhood generally she was known +as Ma’am Baldwin, mother of the young scape-grace, +Dave Baldwin, who had so troubled the +peaceful town by his pranks that he had finally +been shut up in a reformatory, and who was +now, a year after his release, a useless vagrant, +spending, according to report, most of his time +loafing between the white sand-dunes on one side +of the river and the woods on the other—incidentally +breaking his mother’s heart at the same +time.</p> + +<p>She had lived here in the old baldfaced house, +with him, her youngest boy, the child of her middle +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +age, until his wild doings brought the law’s +hand upon him. After his imprisonment shame +prevented her leaving the isolated dwelling and +going to live with her married daughter near the +town, though that daughter’s one child, her little +grandson Jack, possessed all the love-spots +still green in her withered heart.</p> + +<p>In her humiliation and loneliness “Mom Baldwin,” +as the boys called her, had become rather +eccentric.</p> + +<p>She had more than once been seen by those +town boys—Leon and his gang—stationed behind +the smeared glass of her paintless window, +doing strange signaling “stunts” with a lighted +lantern, whose pale rays described a circle, dipped +and then shot up as, held aloft in her bony old +hand, it sent an amber gleam over the salt-marshes.</p> + +<p>“She’s a witch—a witch like Dark Tammy, +who lived on the edge of the woods over a hundred +years ago and who washed her clothes at +the Witch Rock,” whispered Starrie Chase and his +companions one to another as they lay low among +the rank grass of the dark marshes, spying upon +her. “She’s a witch, working spells with that +lantern!”</p> + +<p>Older people surmised that she was signaling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +to her vagabond son, who might be haunting the +distant marshes, trying to lure him home; shame +and grief on his account had half-unbalanced her, +they said.</p> + +<p>But the boys pretended to stick to their own +superstitious belief, because, to them, it offered +some shabby excuse for tormenting her.</p> + +<p>Leon Chase in particular made her rank little +garden his nightly stamping-ground, and was the +most ingenious in his persecuting attentions.</p> + +<p>He it was who devised the plan of anchoring +a shingle or other light piece of wood by a short +string to the longest branch of the apple-tree +that grew near her door.</p> + +<p>When the wind blew directly across the marshes, +as it did this evening, and drove against that +paintless door, it operated the impromptu knocker; +the wooden shingle would keep up an intermittent +tapping, playing ticktack upon the painted +panels all night.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Ma’am Baldwin had come to the +door a dozen times and peered forth over the +dark salt-marshes, believing that it was her vagrant +son who demanded entrance, while the perpetrators +of the trick, Leon Chase, Godey Peck +and others of their gang—tickled in the meanest +part of them by the fact that they “kept +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +her guessing”—hid among the marsh-grass and +watched.</p> + +<p>Hardly any prank could have been more senseless, +childish, and unfeeling. Yet Starrie Chase +had actually believed that he got some sham +excitement out of it.</p> + +<p>And to-night as his feet pressed his old stamping-ground +beneath that apple-tree beside the +house, while the wind raked the marshes and +whipped his thoughts into dusty confusion, the +old waste impulses which prompted the trick +were mysteriously whirled uppermost again.</p> + +<p>The mischievous tide rip boiled in him once +more.</p> + +<p>Just as he became conscious of its yeasty bubbling, +his foot touched something on the ground—a +hard winter apple. He picked it up and +threw it against the house, imposing silence on +his dog by dictatorial gesture and word.</p> + +<p>There was a stir within the paintless dwelling. +Through the blurred window-panes he caught +sight of a shrunken form moving.</p> + +<p>“Ha! there’s the old ‘witch’ herself. She +looks like a withered corn-stalk with all those +odds and ends of shawls dangling about her. +Ssh-ssh! Blinkie. Down, doggie! <i>Quiet, sir!</i>”</p> + +<p>Leon’s fingers groped upon the ground, where +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +twilight shadows were merging into darkness, +for another apple. Since he enlisted as a boy +scout mischief had been sentenced and shut up +in a dark little cell inside him. But Malign Habit, +though a captive, dies hard.</p> + +<p>Those seeking fingers touched something else, +a worm-eaten shingle blown from the old roof. +He picked it up and considered it in the darkness, +while his left hand felt in his pocket for +some twine.</p> + +<p>“Gee! it would be a great night for that trick +to work,” he muttered with a low chuckle that +had less depth to it than a parrot’s. “The wind is +just in the right direction—driving straight +through the house. Eh, Blink! Shall we ‘get her +on a string’ again?”</p> + +<p>The dog whined softly with impatience. Of +late, in his short excursions with his master, he +had not been used to such stealthy doings. With +the exception of the trailing expeditions through +the woods from which canines were debarred, +movements had been open, manly, and aboveboard +since the master became a boy scout.</p> + +<p>But Leon had forgotten that he was a scout, +had momentarily forgotten even the outdoor test +in Sparrow Hollow, and the necessary preparations +therefor.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>His fingers trifled with the shingle and string. +His brain going ahead of those fingers was +already attaching the one to the other when—the +paintless door opened and Ma’am Baldwin +stepped out.</p> + +<p>She did look like a wind-torn corn-stalk, short +and withered, with the breeze catching at the +many-colored strips of shawls that hung around +her, uniting to protect her somewhat against +that marsh-wind driving straight from the river +through her home.</p> + +<p>From her left hand drooped a pale lantern, +the one with which boyish imagination had accused +her of working spells.</p> + +<p>It made an island of yellow light about her as +she stepped slowly forth into the dusk. And +Leon saw her raise her right arm to her breast +with that timid, pathetic movement characteristic +of old people—especially of those whom life has +treated harshly—as if she was afraid of what +might spring upon her out of the gusty darkness.</p> + +<p>Not for nothing had Starrie Chase been for +two months a boy scout! Prior to those eight +weeks of training that feebly defensive arm would +have meant naught to him; hardly would he have +noticed it. But just as his eyes had been opened +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +to consider at length, with a dazzled thrill, that +distant Sugarloaf Sand-Pillar and other of Nature’s +beauties as he had seldom or never contemplated +them before; so those scout’s eyes were +being trained to remark each significant gesture +of another person and to read its meaning.</p> + +<p>Somehow, that right arm laid across an old +woman’s breast told a tale of loneliness and lack +of defenders which made the boy wince. The +distance widened between his two hands holding +respectively the shingle and string.</p> + +<p>There was a wood-pile within a few yards of +him. Ma’am Baldwin stepped toward it, breathing +heavily and ejaculating: “My sen-ses! How +it do blow!” While Leon restrained the terrier +with a “<i>Quiet</i>, Blink! Don’t go for her!”</p> + +<p>Ma’am Baldwin, intent on holding fast to her +shawls and procuring some chunks from the +wood-pile—nearsighted as she was, to boot—did +not notice the boy and dog standing in the +blackness beneath the bare apple-tree.</p> + +<p>She set the lantern atop of the pile. As she +bent forward, groping for a hatchet, its yellow +rays kindled two other lanterns in her eyes by +whose light the lurking boy gazed through into +her heart and saw for a brief moment how tired, +lonely, and baffled it was.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the glimpse he straightened up very stiffly. +There was a gurgle in his throat, a stirring as of +panic at the roots of his hair.</p> + +<p>But not scare produced the rigidity! It was +caused by a sudden great throe within which +scraped his throat and sent a dimness to his eyes. +The captive, Malign Habit, imprisoned before, +was dying now in the grasp of the Scout.</p> + +<p>To put it otherwise,—at sight of an old +woman’s arm pathetically shielding her breast, +at a startled peep into her heart, the tight little +bud of chivalry in Leon, watered of late by his +scout training, fostered by the good turn to +somebody every day, burst suddenly, impetuously +into flower!</p> + +<p>With a low snarl at himself, he thrust the coil +of string deep into his pocket, and flung the +shingle as far as he could into the night.</p> + +<p>“Ughr-r-r! Guess I was meaner’n you’d be, +Blink!” he muttered, swallowing the discovery +that sometimes of yore, in his dealings with his +own kind, he had been less of a gentleman than +his dog.</p> + +<p>To which Blink, freed from restraint, returned +a sharp, glad “Wouf!” that said: “I’m glad +you’ve come to your senses, old man!”</p> + +<p>“Hullo! ‘Mom Baldwin,’” Leon stepped forward +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +as the bowed woman started at the monosyllabic +bark, and peered fearfully into the darkness. +“Don’t you want me to split those chunks +for you? You can’t manage the hatchet.”</p> + +<p>Ma’am Baldwin’s experience had taught her to +distrust boys—Leon especially! As her peering +eyes recognized him, she backed away, raising +her right arm to her breast again with that helpless +gesture of defense.</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase blenched in turn. That pathetic +old arm warding him off hurt him more at the +core than a knockdown blow from a stronger +limb.</p> + +<p>But remembering all at once that he was a +scout, trained to prompt action, he picked up +the hatchet where she had dropped it, and set +to work vigorously, chopping wood.</p> + +<p>“Now! I’ll carry these chunks into the house +for you,” he said presently. “Aw! let me. I’d +just as soon do it!”</p> + +<p>Ma’am Baldwin had no alternative. Leon +pushed the paintless door open and carried the +wood inside, while she hobbled after him, well-nigh +as much astonished as if Gabriel’s trump +had suddenly awoke the echoes of the gusty +marshland.</p> + +<p>The scout went to and fro for another ten +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +minutes, splitting more chunks, piling them ready +to her hand within.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his beneficiary, the old woman, +seemed to have got a little light on the surprising +situation. Grunting inarticulately, chewing +her bewilderment between her teeth, she disappeared +into a room off the kitchen and returned +holding forth a ten-cent piece to her knight.</p> + +<p>“No, thanks! I’m a boy scout. We don’t +take money for doing a good turn.” Leon shook +his head. “Say! this old house is so draughty; +you burn all the wood you want to-night; I’ll +run over to-morrow or next day an’ split some +more. Is there anything else I can do for you +before I go? You’ve got enough water in from +the well,” he peered into the water-pail, which +winked satisfactorily.</p> + +<p>Ma’am Baldwin had sunk upon a chair, alternately +looking in perplexity at the energetic boy, +and listening to the frisky gusts: “My sen-ses! +Whatever’s come over you, Leon?” she gasped; +and then wailingly: “Deary me! if it should +blow up a gale to-night, some things in this +house’ll ride out.”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t going to blow up a storm,” +Leon reassured her. “The wind’s not really +high, only it gets such a rake over the marshes. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +Here, I’ll tie these old shutters together for you, +the fastening is broken,” and the coil of string +was produced from his pocket for a new purpose. +“But it must be <i>awful</i> lonely for you, living +here by yourself, Ma’am Baldwin. You’ll be +snowed in later on; we’ll have to come and dig +you out.”</p> + +<p>Still chewing the cud of her bewilderment, +she stared at him, mumbling, nodding, and +stroking the gray hair from her forehead with +nervous fingers. But there was a humid light in +the old eyes that spilled over on the boy as he +worked.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you go to live with your daughter +an’ your grandson in the town?” went on Leon +as he tied together the last pair of flapping shutters. +“And you’re so fond of little Jack too; +he’s a nice kid!”</p> + +<p>“So he is!” nodded the grandmother; a +change overspread her entire face now, she +looked tender, grandmotherly, half-hopeful, as +if for the moment trouble on behalf of her +ne’er-do-well son was forgotten. “Well! perhaps +I will move there before the winter sets in +hard, Leon. I’m not so smart as I was. I’m sure +I don’t know how to thank you! Good-night!”</p> + +<p>“Good-night!” returned the scout. “You +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +can untie those shutters easily enough in the +morning.”</p> + +<p>And he found himself outside again upon the +dark marshland, with the obedient terrier who +had trotted at his heels during the late proceedings, +waltzing excitedly at his side.</p> + +<p>“Ah, la! la! as Toiney says, it’s too late +now, Blink, for us to put back to the town to +buy our supper—half a pound of beefsteak and +two potatoes, to be cooked over each one’s special +fire,” muttered the boy, momentarily irresolute. +“Well! we’ll have to let the grub go, and +race back across the uplands, over to the Hollow. +Stir your trotters, Mr. Dog!”</p> + +<p>As the two regained the crest of the hilly uplands, +Leon paused for breath. On his left hand +stretched the dark, solemn woods, where the +breeze hooted weirdly among leafless boughs. +On his right, beyond upland and broad salt-marsh, +wound the silver-spot river in whose now +shallow ripples bathed a rising moon.</p> + +<p>Quarter of a mile ahead of him a rosy flush +upon the cheek of darkness told that in the sheltered +hollow, between a clump of pines that +served as a windbreak and the woods, the Owls’ +camp-fires were already blazing.</p> + +<p>“Tooraloo! I feel as if I could start my fire +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +to-night without using a match at all—just by +snapping my fingers at it, or with a piece of +damp bark and a snowball, as the woodsmen say,” +he confided half-audibly to the dog.</p> + +<p>Whence this feeling of prowess, of being a +firebrand—a genial one—capable of kindling +other and better lights in the world than a camp-fire?</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase did not analyze his sensations +of magnificence, which bloomed from a discovery +back there on the marshes of the secret which is +at the root of the Boy Scout Movement, at the +base of all Christian Chivalry, at the foundation +of golden labor for mankind in every age: +namely, that the excitement of helping people is +vastly, vitally, and blissfully greater than the +spurious excitement of hurting them!</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XI</p> + +<p class="center chap2">ESTU PRETA!</p> + +<p>“Hullo! here’s Starrie. Well! it’s about +time you turned up. We waited quarter of an +hour for you before leaving town.—Hey! Starrie, +we’ve got our six cook-fires all going. I only +used two matches in lighting mine; I’ve passed +one half of to-night’s test.—So’ve I! Whoopee! +<i>I</i> ‘went the jolly test one better’: I lit my fire +with a single, solitary match.”</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase, bounding down the grassy side +of Sparrow Hollow, with these lusty cries of his +brother Owls greeting him, stood for a moment +in the brilliant glare of a belt of fires, as if dazed +by the ruddy carnival, while his dog, making a +wild circuit of the ring, bayed each bouquet of +flames in turn.</p> + +<p>“Yaas; we’ll get heem littal fire light lak’ +wink—sure! We ar-re de boy! We ar-re de +scout, you’ll bet!” supplemented the merry voice +of Toiney, the assistant scoutmaster, who, with +the tassel of his red cap bobbing, and the flame-light +flickering on his blue homespun shirt, was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +on his knees before Harold’s cook-fire, using his +lungs as a pair of bellows.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah! I’m in this: I’ll light my fire with +one match, too. Kenjo Red shan’t get ahead of +me: no, sir!” Corporal Leon Chase was now +working like lightning, piling dry leaves, pine +splinters, dead twigs into a carefully arranged +heap in a gap which had been left for him in the +ring of half a dozen fires kindled by six tenderfoot +scouts, ambitious of being admitted to a +second-class degree.</p> + +<p>But he, the behind-time tenderfoot, was abruptly +held up in his tardy labors by the voice +of the tall scoutmaster, who with Scout Warren, +the patrol leader of the Owls, was superintending +the tests.</p> + +<p>“I want to speak to you for a minute, Leon,” +said Scoutmaster Estey, with a gravity that +dropped like a weighty pebble into the midst of +the fun.</p> + +<p>And Corporal Chase, otherwise Scout 2, of +the Owls, obediently suspended fire-building, +approached his superior officer and saluted.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know where you have been for +the last hour,” began the scoutmaster with the +dignity of a brigadier-general holding an investigation, +while his keen eyes from under the drab +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +broad-brimmed hat searched Leon’s face in the +sixfold firelight. “Jimmy Sweet,” nodding toward +a squatting Owl, “said he caught a distant +glimpse of you nearly an hour ago over on the +edge of the salt-marshes near Ma’am Baldwin’s +old house. I hope you haven’t been plaguing +her again?”</p> + +<p>The voice of the superior officer was all ready +to be stern, as if he had visions of a corporal +being requested to hand over his scout-badge +of chivalry until such time as he should prove +himself worthy of wearing it.</p> + +<p>“Have you?”</p> + +<p>“No!” Leon cleared his throat hesitatingly. +“No,”—he suddenly lifted steady eyes to the +scoutmaster’s face,—”I have been chopping +wood and doing a few other little things for her; +that made me late!”</p> + +<p>A moment’s breathless silence enveloped the +six cook-fires. The face of the scoutmaster himself +was set in lines of amazement: genially it +relaxed.</p> + +<p>“Good for you, Corporal!” He clapped the +late-comer approvingly on the shoulder, and in +his voice was a moved ring.</p> + +<p>For, as he scanned the boy’s face in the sixfold +glow, he read from it that, to-night, Leon had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +really become a scout: that, back there on the +salt-marshes, the inner and chivalrous grace of +knighthood, of which his oath was the outward +and heralding sign, had been consciously born +within him.</p> + +<p>The scoutmaster was feeling round in his broad +approval for other words of commendation, when +Toiney’s sprightly tones broke the momentary +tension.</p> + +<p>“Ha! dis poor ole oomans,” he grunted, +vivaciously pitying Ma’am Baldwin. “She’s lif’ +all alone en she’s burst she’s heart for she haf +such a <i>bad boy</i>, engh? She’s boy, Dave, heem +<i>canaille</i>, <i>vaurien</i>—w’at-you-call, good-for-nodings—engh?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he is,” agreed the scoutmaster +regretfully. “Yet I pity Dave too. His elder +brother went West when he was a little fellow; +his father, who was a deep-sea fisherman, like Harold’s +father, was away nearly all the year round. +Dave grew up without any strong man’s hand +over him; out of school-hours he had to work +hard on a farm, and I suppose in his craving for +fun of some kind he played all sorts of foolish +pranks. After he left school and was old enough +to know better, he kept them up—ran a locomotive +out of the little railway station one night, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +came near killing a man and was sent to a reformatory!”</p> + +<p>“Bah! heem jus’ vagabond—<i>errant</i>—how-you-say-eet—tramp-sonne-of-a-gun—<i>vaurien</i>, +engh?” declared Toiney, gutturally contemptuous, +while he poked Harold’s fire with a dry +stick.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he’s a mere vagrant now, loafing about +the Sugarloaf Sand-Dunes and the woods; and +likely to get into trouble again through petty +thefts, so people say. When he had served his +sentence he seemed to think there wasn’t much +of a future before him, and didn’t stick to the +job he got. I pity his old mother! I think that +every boy scout should make it a point to do a +good turn for her when he can.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! <i>oui</i>; shes break in pieces, engh?” +murmured Toiney, the irrepressible, still punching +up the fire, to prepare it for the cooking +tests.</p> + +<p>Somehow, his eloquent sympathy sent a stab +through Leon—whom everybody was at the +moment regarding with admiration—for it +brought a sharp recollection of an old woman +backing away from him in fear, with her right +arm laid across her breast in piteous self-defense.</p> + +<p>“Gee! I wish I could do something more for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +her than chopping wood—something that would +make up for being mean to her,” thought Corporal +Chase, as he returned to his fire-building, +arranging the fuel methodically so as to allow +plenty of draught, and then triumphantly rivaling +Kenjo’s feat by lighting his cook-fire with +one match.</p> + +<p>The tiny, snappy laughter of that matchhead, +seeming to rejoice that another baby light was +born into the world, as he drew it along a dry +stick, restored his towering good spirits.</p> + +<p>“And now for the cooking test!” cried the +scoutmaster. “Each scout to put his two potatoes +to roast in the embers of his fire, and make a +contrivance for broiling his beefsteak! And look +out that you don’t ‘cook the black ox,’ boys, as +Captain Andy would say!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by ‘cooking the black +ox’?” from two or three excited and perspiring +scouts.</p> + +<p>“Why! that’s what the sailors say when their +beef is burnt to the color of a black-haired ox,” +laughed the superior officer. “Scout Chase, +haven’t you brought any beefsteak and +potatoes?”</p> + +<p>“No, I meant to go back to the town for them +an’ meet you there. Blink an’ I don’t want any +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +supper; we’ll get it when we go home,” returned +Leon nonchalantly, swallowing his mortification +at not being able to complete the outdoor test, +this evening.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’ll share my rations with you, Starrie,” +volunteered Colin Estey. “I shan’t ‘cook the +black ox’: I’m too nifty a cook for that; trust +me!” Colin was concocting a handsome gridiron +of peeled twigs as he spoke.</p> + +<p>“Don’t mind him, Starrie: I could cook better +when I was born than Col can now! I’ll +divide my beefsteak and ‘taters’ with you,” came +from another primitive chef, the offer being repeated +more or less alluringly by every boy scout.</p> + +<p>“Well! you’re a generous-hearted bunch,” +put in Nixon, the patrol leader, from his over-seer’s +post. “But the scout-master and I have +more than a pound of raw beefsteak here which +we brought along for our supper. As I’m not +in these tests” (Nixon was now a full-fledged +first-class scout) “I’ll cut off a piece for Leon +so that he can cook it himself; I guess we can +spare him a couple of potatoes too; then he can +pass the test, with the others.”</p> + +<p>During the supper which followed while each +scout, sitting cross-legged by his own cook-fire, +partook of the meal in primitive fashion and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +Toiney made coffee for the “crowd,” more than +one Owl shared in the opinion once enunciated +by Leon that eating in the woods—or in a +woodsy hollow such as sheltered them now from +the breeze that drove keenly across the marshes—was +the “best part of the business.”</p> + +<p>They modified that opinion later when the +seven small fires, which had sputtered merrily +under the cooking, were reinforced by logs and +branches, and stimulated into a belt of vivacious +camp-fires, each rearing high its topknot of +crested flame, and throwing wonderful reflections +through the stony hollow.</p> + +<p>“I always wanted to be a savage. To-night, +I feel nearer to it than ever before,” said Colin, +listening with an ecstatic shiver to the wind as +it chanted among the pines that formed their +windbreak, capered round the hollow, flinging +them a gust or two that made the camp-fires roar +with laughter, and then, as if unwilling to disturb +such a jolly party, rushed wildly on to take +it out of the trees in the woods. “And now for +the powwow, Mr. Scoutmaster!” he suggested, +looking across the ring of fires at his tall brother +and superior officer.</p> + +<p>“Hark! that’s an owl hooting somewhere,” +broke in Coombsie. “It’s the Grand Duke, I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +think—the big old horned owl! One doesn’t +hear him often at this time of year. He wants to +be present at the Owl Powwow.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, la! la! I’ll t’ink he soun’ lak’ hongree +ole wolf, me,” murmured Toiney dreamily.</p> + +<p>But the distant hoot, the deep “Whoo-hoo-hoodoo +hoo,” or “Whoo-hoo-whoo-whah-hoo!” +as some of the boys interpreted it, from the far +recesses of the woods, added a final touch of +mystic wildness to the sevenfold radiance of the +firelit scene which was reflected in the sevenfold +rapture of boyish hearts.</p> + +<p>And now the heads of human Owls were +bent nearer to the golden flames as notebooks +were drawn out containing rough pencil jottings, +and scouts compared their observations of man, +beast, bird, fish, or inanimate object, encountered +in the woods, on the uplands or marshes, or upon +the river during the past few days!</p> + +<p>Kenjo Red offered the most important contribution.</p> + +<p>“I went to Ipswich yesterday to spend the +day with my uncle,” he began, as he lay, breast +downward, gazing reflectively into his fire. “In +the afternoon we walked over to the Sugarloaf +Sand-Dunes and lounged about there on the +white beach, watching the tide go out. We didn’t +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +see many birds, only a few herring gulls. But +I’ll tell you what we did see: two big harbor +seals and a young one, lying out on a sand-spit +which the tide had just left bare. They were +sunning themselves an’ having a dandy time! +One was a monster, a male, or big old dog-seal, +my uncle said; he must have been nearly six +feet long, and weighed about half a ton.”</p> + +<p>“More or less?” threw in the scoutmaster, +laughing at Kenjo’s jesting imagination. “Generally +a big male weighs almost two hundred +pounds, occasionally something over. Hereabouts, +he is indifferently called the ‘dog-seal’ +or ‘bull-seal,’ according to the speaker’s taste; +his head is shaped rather like a setter dog’s, with +the ears laid flat back,—for the seal has no ears +to speak of,—but the eyes are bovine,” he explained +to Nixon, who knew less about this sea +mammal than did his brother scouts, and who +had never seen him at close quarters.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it unusual to find seals high and dry +at this time of year?” asked Coombsie. “In the +spring and summer one sees plenty of them down +near the mouth of the river, sprawling in the sun +on a reef or sandbar. But in the late fall and +winter they mostly stay in the water.”</p> + +<p>“Not when the river is frozen over—or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +partially frozen,” threw in Leon. “They love to +take a ride on a drifting ice-cake, so Captain +Andy says! Is there any bounty on their heads +now, Mr. Scoutmaster?” he addressed the troop +commander.</p> + +<p>“No, that has been removed. The marbled +harbor seal, so called because of his spots, was +being wiped out, as he was wiping out the fish +many years ago, before the Government put a +price on his head. Now that he is no longer +severely persecuted the mottled dotard, as he is +sometimes called,—I’m sure I don’t know why, +for I see no signs of senility about him,—is +becoming tamer and more prevalent again. Still, +he’s wilder and shyer than he used to be.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there’s an old fisherman’s shack on one +corner of the Sugarloaf Dunes, where a clam-digger +keeps his pails and a boat,” said Kenjo. +“He let my uncle take the boat and we rowed +across to the sand-spit. The seals let us come +within thirty yards of them: then they stirred +themselves lazily, with that funny wabble they +have—just like a person whose hands are tied +together, and his feet tied more tightly still—lifting +the head and short fore-flippers first and +swinging them to one side, then the back part +of the body and long hind-flippers, giving them +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +a swing to the other side. Say! but it was funny. +So they flopped off into the water.”</p> + +<p>“Goodness! I wish that I’d been with you, +Kenjo,” exclaimed Scout Warren. “I haven’t +seen a harbor seal yet, except just his head as +he swam round in the water, when Captain Andy +took me down the river in his power-boat, the +Aviator. We rowed ashore in the Aviator’s Pill,” +laughingly, “in that funny little tub of a rowboat +which dances attendance on the gasolene +launch, but though we landed on the white sand-dunes +and stayed round there for quite a while, +not a seal did we see sprawling out on any +reef.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll see heem <i>gros seal</i> on reever,” broke in +Toiney gutturally. “I’ll see heem six mont’ past +on reever <i>au printemps</i>—in spring—w’en, he +go for kill todder gros seal; he’ll hit heem en +mak’ heem go deaded—engh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the males have bad duels between themselves +occasionally. But they’re mild enough +toward human beings. However, my father had +a strange experience with them once,” said the +scoutmaster, pushing back his broad hat, so that +the sevenfold glow from the fires danced upon +his strong face. “He’s told me about it ever +since I was a little boy, and Colin too. When +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +he was a very young man he rowed down to the +mouth of the river one day with some sportsmen +who went off to shoot ducks, leaving him to +dig clams and get a clambake ready for them on +the white dunes. Well, sir! left alone, he pulled +off to the clam-flats, drew up his boat, stepped +out, and the tide being at a low ebb, set to work +to dig up the clams which were here and there +thrusting their long necks up from the wet sand, +to feed on the infusoria—their favorite feeding-time +being when it is nearly, but not quite, +low water.</p> + +<p>“The tide had receded altogether from the +other side of the sand-flats, so that they joined +the marshy mainland, and as my father landed +he saw that there was a big herd of twenty or +thirty seals lying out on those flats. It was before +a bounty was set upon their heads, when +they were very plentiful and tame. My father +was not in the least afraid of them and was +proceeding to dig his clams peacefully, when he +suddenly saw that the whole herd was thrown +into a wild panic by the discovery that <i>he</i> was +between them and the water. They broke into a +floundering stampede and came straight for him—or +rather for the water behind him—at a +fast clip, half sliding, half throwing themselves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +along. A funny sight they must have been! +Father says one big fellow came at him with his +mouth wide open: the four sharp white teeth in +front, two upper and two lower, shining. So Dad +just turned tail and ran for the water as he +had never run before; not waiting to jump into +his boat, he plunged into the channel up to his +waist!”</p> + +<p>“But the seals wouldn’t have attacked him, +would they?” incredulously from Nixon.</p> + +<p>“No; I think not. But he might not have +been able to keep his feet. They would, perhaps, +have struck him with their heavy bodies and +knocked him down. And to feel a dozen or so +of damp seals sliding over a fellow, their weights +ranging anywhere from a hundred to two hundred +and fifty pounds, wouldn’t be a pleasant +sensation, to say the least!”</p> + +<p>“I guess not!” chuckled the Owls.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to catch a creamy pup-seal—isn’t +that what you call the only child, the young +one? ’Twould be fun to tame it,” said Nixon. +“Perhaps I’ll get a chance to do so when we +camp out on the Sugarloaf Dunes next summer. +Aren’t we going to have a camp there for two +weeks during the end of August and beginning +of September, Mr. Scoutmaster? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“I hope so, if I can get permission from the +landlord who owns the dunes.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe we’ll run across Dave Baldwin too—the +<i>vaurien</i>, as Toiney calls him—if he stays +round there a part of the time?” This from +Leon.</p> + +<p>“That wouldn’t be a desirable encounter, +I’m afraid. Now! has any scout a suggestion +to make that would be useful in planning our +work for this winter?” Scoutmaster Estey +looked round at the ring of boyish faces, reflecting +the sevenfold glow, at Harold, lying on +his face and hands, blinking dreamily under +Toiney’s wing, while the firelight burnished the +latter’s swarthy features beneath the tasseled +cap.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Scoutmaster!” Nixon Warren sprang to +his feet impulsively, “Marcoo and I have a suggestion +to offer,”—Nixon glanced at his cousin +Coombsie,—”it hasn’t any direct relation to our +work, but we humbly submit it as an idea that +might be useful, not only to our boy scout organization +here, but to the movement everywhere +all over the world.”</p> + +<p>“Ho! Ho! What do you know about that? +Out with it, Nix, if it’s worth anything,” came +the dubious encouragement of his brother Owls.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I must tell a little yarn first. The day before +yesterday Marcoo and I were in Boston. We +lunched at a fine restaurant. At a table near us +was a gentleman—he looked like a Mexican or +Spaniard—who couldn’t speak any English and +addressed the waiter by signs. There was a boy +with him, a classy-looking fellow of about fourteen, +his son, I guess. ‘I’ll wager that boy is a +scout!’ I whispered to Marcoo. ‘His eyes take +in everything, without seeming to stare about +him much—and see the way he carries himself—straight +as a string!’”</p> + +<p>“So I suggested that we should try the scout +salute on him as we passed out,” struck in Marcoo. +“We did! And fellows, he was on his feet +like a flash, holding up his right hand, thumb +resting on the little finger-nail, and the other +three fingers upright, saluting back! We guessed +then that he was a Mexican boy scout, traveling +with his father.”</p> + +<p>“He seemed jolly glad to see us,” Nixon +again took up the anecdote; “just beamed! But +he didn’t apparently understand a word of +English except ‘Good-day!’ not even when we +passed the scout motto to him as a watchword: +‘Be Prepared!’ We might all three have been +mutes saluting each other.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>“We talked it over, coming home, Marcoo +and I,” went on the patrol leader. “And we arrived +at the conclusion that it would be a great +thing if our hearty motto, as Captain Andy calls it, +could be taught to boy scouts all over the world, +in some common form understood by all, as well +as in their mother tongue. So that when scout +meets scout of another country he could pass it +on as a kind of bond and inspiration—together +with the Scout Sign which is understood in almost +every land to-day.”</p> + +<p>“So we looked it up in Esperanto—the only +attempt at a world-language of which we know, +and in which my father is interested.” Marcoo +leaped to his feet, too, as he excitedly spoke. +“And it sounded fine! Give it to them, Nix!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Estu preta!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Estu preta! Estu preta! <span class="sc">Be Prepared</span>!” +One and all these present-day scouts took it +up, shouting it to the seven fires, and to the +wind which caught it from their lips like a +silver feather to bear it away beyond the hollow, +as if it would girdle the world with that hearty +motto, in some universal form, as Nixon had +suggested.</p> + +<p>“Estu preta!” it was still on their tongues +when, camp-fires extinguished, they marched +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +home. They flung it at each other in joyous +challenge as they said good-night.</p> + +<p>It entwined itself with the drowsy thoughts of +the patrol leader from whom it emanated when +he lay down to sleep, eclipsing his interest in the +future summer camp, in marbled seals and cooing +pup-seals—though such might not have been +the case could he have foreseen how exciting +would be his first glimpse of the “gros seal” at +close quarters.</p> + +<p>It mingled with Leon’s dreamy reminiscences +too, as the first ripple of slumber, like the inflowing +tide, invaded his consciousness.</p> + +<p>“Whew! this certainly has been a great day,” +he murmured, after repeating the Lord’s Prayer +with an elated fervor which he had never put +into it before.</p> + +<p>Yet there was one smirch upon the day’s +golden face in the sudden memory of an old woman +shrinking away from him with uplifted arm.</p> + +<p>“Gee! I wish I could do something for her +beyond a few good turns.” His drowsy tongue +half-formed the words.</p> + +<p>And like a silver echo, stealing through his +confused consciousness came the automatic answer: +“<i>Estu preta!</i> Live up to your able motto! +Be Prepared!”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE CHRISTMAS BRIGADE</p> + +<p>“Estu preta!” During the days that followed, +while the fall season was merged in winter, the +Owls who had passed their outdoor tests in Sparrow +Hollow, six of whom were tenderfeet no +longer, but second-class scouts, did try to live up +to their hearty motto. And this not only in the +development of their strong young bodies by exercise +and drill, so that every expanding muscle +was under control, not only in the training of +their mental faculties toward keen observation +and alert action, but also in the chivalrous practice +of the little every-day kindness to man or +beast—almost too trivial to be noticed, perhaps, +yet preparing the heart for the rendering of a +supreme good turn!</p> + +<p>Thus the Owl Patrol presently began to be +recognized as a patriotic and progressive force. +The Improvement Society of the little town +sought its coöperation, and it soon became “lots +more fun” to the boy scouts to lend a hand in +making that too staid town a more beautiful +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +and lively place to live in than to pile—as had +often been the case formerly—destruction on its +dullness.</p> + +<p>Under the direction of their energetic young +scoutmaster they engaged in other crusades too, +besides that against things ugly and retarding, +in crusades for the rescue of many a needless and +undue sufferer of the animal kingdom, their most +noted enterprise along these lines being an attack +upon the use of the steel trap among boys, especially +those of the woodland farms, whereby +many a little fur-bearing animal met its slow end +in suffering unspeakable.</p> + +<p>The use of this steel-jawed atrocity was bad +enough in the hands of the one or two adult +professional trappers of the neighborhood who +visited their traps regularly. (And it is to be +hoped that the Boy Scouts of America, who +champion the cause of their timid little brothers +of the woods, will some day sweep this barbarous +contrivance altogether from the earth!) But +its use by irresponsible boys who set the traps +in copse or thicket, and, in the multitudinous +interests of boydom, frequently forgot all about +them for days—leaving the little animal luckless +enough to be caught to suffer indefinitely—is +a cruelty too heinous to flourish upon the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +same free soil that yields such a fair growth of +chivalry as that embodied in the Scouts of the +U.S.A.</p> + +<p>One or two of the Owls, who shall remain incognito, +had possessed such traps in the past: +now, they took them out into a back yard, shattered +them with a hammer, relegated the fragments +to a refuse heap, and instituted a zealous +crusade against the use of the steel trap by non-scouts +of the neighboring farms, such as Godey +Peck and his gang.</p> + +<p>There was a hand-to-hand skirmish over this +matter before the Owl Patrol had its way; and +the result thereof gave Godey cause for reflection.</p> + +<p>“It hasn’t made ‘softies’ of ’em anyhow, this +scout movement,” he soliloquized. “They got +the better <i>of us</i>. And they seem to have such +ripping good times, hiking an’ trailing! But—”</p> + +<p>The demurring “but” in this boy’s mind +sprang from the proviso that if he enlisted in +the Boy Scouts of America, he would be obliged, +like Leon, to part with his gun. Also, from a +feeling that he would be debarred in future from +the planning of such lawless escapades as playing +stowaway aboard an unlaunched vessel; a scheme, +it may be said, which was never carried through, +being nipped in the bud by watchful shipwrights!</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>Godey Peck was on the fence with regard to +the new movement. And he did not yet know on +which side he would drop down. Meanwhile from +his wavering point of indecision, beset with discomfort, +he soothed his feelings by renewed and +vehement shouts of “Tin Scouts! Tin Soldiers!” +whenever a khaki uniform and broad drab hat +hove in view.</p> + +<p>He had ample opportunity to air his feeble-shafted +malice during the week preceding Christmas, +for scouts, in uniform and out of it, were +constantly to be seen engaged in “hifalutin +stunts,” according to Godey, which meant that +they had been organized into a brigade by the +scoutmaster for the doing of sundry and many +good turns befitting the season.</p> + +<p>It might be only the carrying of parcels, for a +heavy-laden woman, who had visited a distant +city on a shopping expedition, from the little railway +station on the edge of the yellow wintry +salt-marshes to her home! Or the bearing of +gifts from a benevolent individual or society to +some poor or solitary human brother or sister +who otherwise might forget the meaning of +Christmas.</p> + +<p>It was on behalf of one such person that Corporal +Leon Chase—detailed for duty on this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +brigade—took counsel with his mother on the +afternoon of Christmas Eve.</p> + +<p>“You don’t suppose that <i>she’ll</i> stay alone in +that old baldfaced house to-day and to-morrow, do +you, mother?” he said, rather ambiguously. “The +town authorities ought to forbid her living on +there all by herself; she’ll be snowed in pretty +soon if this cold snap continues. Why! the river +is all frozen over—ice fairly firm too. I’m going +skating by an’ by.”</p> + +<p>“I’d wait until it is a little more solid, if I +were you,” returned the mother anxiously. “You +know our brackish ice is apt to be treacherous; +the salt in the water softens it, so your father +says, renders it more porous and unsafe. I suppose +you were speaking of old Ma’am Baldwin. +I don’t see what the authorities can do. They +can’t force her into an institution; she owns that +old house. And I don’t know that her daughter’s +husband—little Jack’s father—wants her in his +home. It’s too bad that her son Dave should +have turned out such a good-for-nothing! Trouble +about him has aged her, I guess; she’s not as old +as she seems.”</p> + +<p>Then Starrie Chase inveigled his dimpling +mother into a pantry and, while she made passes +at him with a rolling-pin, proceeded to whisper +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +in her ear—with a measure of embarrassment, +for he was not accustomed to himself in the rôle +of alms-bearer. But in a shadowy corner within +him, once tenanted by Malign Habit, there still +lurked a vision which sprang out on him at times, +of an old woman raising her feeble arm to ward +him off: it caused him to grit his teeth and mutter: +“I wish I could do something more than to +chop her wood occasionally!” And vaguely the +mental answer would come: “<i>Estu preta!</i> At +a time when you least expect it, you may find +yourself up against the Big Minute!”</p> + +<p>And in the mean time Starrie cornered his +mother in the pantry—floury shrine of Christmas +culinary rites!—and presently listened, well-pleased, +to her answer:—</p> + +<p>“Yes! I’m glad that you put it into my head, +son. I’ll pack some things into a basket for her, +and you can take it across the marshes now. It +must be bitterly lonely for her, poor old woman! +And oh! Leon, as you’ll be in that direction, +could you go on into the woods and get me some +red berries for Christmas decorations?”</p> + +<p>“Sure, mum!” And Leon stepped forth to +speak to Colin Estey, who was awaiting him at the +rear of the Chase homestead, exercising in a preliminary +canter a new pedalomotor which Santa +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +Claus, masquerading as the expressman, had +dropped at his home a little too soon.</p> + +<p>“Take care you don’t run into a tree, smash +it up, and drive a splinter through your nose, as +Marcoo did when he got his, last year!” admonished +Starrie. “Say! Col, I can’t go skating for +a little while: I’m bound for the woods first to +get some alder-berries for decorations. Want to +come?”</p> + +<p>“Guess so!”</p> + +<p>“You can leave that ‘pedalmobile’ here. Wait +a minute! Mother’s just putting some Christmas +‘grub,’ mince-pies an’ things, into a basket +for old Ma’am Baldwin; we’ll deposit it at her +door as we go along!”</p> + +<p>“How’d it be to write on it, ‘Merry Christmas +from the Owls’?” suggested young Colin +whimsically: “that would keep her guessing; +she’d maybe think birds had come out o’ the +woods to feed her as they did Elijah or Elisha +of old.”</p> + +<p>So a card was tacked to the basket, on which +was traced with a stub-end of colored chalk the +outline of a perching owl, highly rufous as to +plumage, with the proposed salutation beneath it.</p> + +<p>But the two Owls who placed the gift did not +find the recipient at home. That baldfaced house +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +beyond the frost-spiked marshes was empty, its +paintless door, half screened by the icy boughs +of the wind-beaten apple-tree, fast locked.</p> + +<p>“I guess she’s gone over to the town to spend +Christmas Eve with her daughter,” suggested +Colin. “She dotes on her gran’son, little Jack +Barry; he’s quite a boy for nine years old! What +shall we do with the basket?”</p> + +<p>“Raise that kitchen window an’ slip it inside—the +fastening’s broken!”</p> + +<p>“Say! but you’re as barefaced as the house.” +Colin hugged himself with a sense of having got +off a good joke as he watched Leon boldly raise +the loose window and deposit the present within. +“Let’s put for the woods now!” he added, the +deed accomplished.</p> + +<p>And the two scouts climbed the uplands toward +those midwinter woods that crowned the heights +in dismantled majesty.</p> + +<p>But they were not robbed of beauty, the December +woods: the frosty sunshine knew that as +it picked out the berry-laden black alders displaying +their coral branches against the velvet +background of a pine, and embraced the regiment +of hemlock bushes, green dwarfs which, +together with their full-sized brothers, held the +fort for spring against all the hosts of winter.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Whee-ew! I think the woods are just dandy +at this time o’ year!” Leon led a whistling onslaught +upon the vividly laden black alder bushes, +while the white gusts of the boys’ breath floated +like incense through the coral and evergreen +sanctuary of beauty, guarded by the silvery pillars +of white birch-trees, where, in the bare forest, +Nature had not left herself without a witness to +joy and color.</p> + +<p>“These berries are as red as Varney’s Paintpot,” +laughed Colin by and by, as the two scouts +retraced their steps across the salt-marshes, crunching +underfoot the frozen spikes of yellow marsh-grass. +“Well, we had a great time on that day +when we found the old Paintpot—though we +succeeded in getting lost!”</p> + +<p>“We surely did! I wonder if the frost will +hold, so that we’ll have some good skating after +Christmas? It’s freezing now.” Leon’s gaze +strayed ahead to the solid white surface of the +tidal river, stained with amber by the setting +sun.</p> + +<p>They were within a hundred yards of it by +this time, and caught the shrill cries and yells +of boyish laughter from youthful skaters who +careered and pirouetted at a short, safe distance +from the bank. But a clear view of what was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +going on was shut off from the two berry-laden +scouts, crossing the saffron marshes at a leisurely +pace, by some tumble-down sheds that intervened +between them and the river.</p> + +<p>“Well, the kids seem to be having a good +time on the ice anyhow—though I don’t think +it can be very firm yet. Whew! what’s that?” +exclaimed Colin suddenly, as a piercing cry came +ringing from the river-bank whereon each blade +of the coarse beach-grass glittered like a jeweled +spike under the waning sunlight.</p> + +<p>“Oh! <i>somebody</i> is blowing off the smoke of +his troubles,” laughed Leon unconcernedly.</p> + +<p>The afternoon was so sharply delectable, with +the sky all pale gold in the west, flinging them +a remote, lukewarm smile like a Christmas greeting +from some half-reminiscent friend, the hearts +of the two scouts reflecting the beauty of the +Christmas woods were so elated that they could +not all in a moment slide down from Mount +Happiness into the valley where danger and +pain become realities.</p> + +<p>But <i>now</i> a volley of cries, frenzied and appealing, +rang out over the salt-marshes. Mingling with +them—outshrilling them—came a call which +made each scout jump as if an arrow had struck +him.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the weird hoot of an owl uttered by a +human throat, shrill with desperation, the signal +call of the Owl Patrol—but with a violent note +of distress in it such as to their ears had never +sharpened it before.</p> + +<p>“<i>Gee whiz!</i> Something’s wrong—something’s +up! I’ll wager ’twas Nix Warren who hooted +that time!”</p> + +<p>Starrie Chase dropped his coral-laden branches +upon the frozen ground.</p> + +<p>“The Owls to the rescue!” he cried, and +dashed toward the frozen river-bank.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XIII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE BIG MINUTE</p> + +<p>When Scouts Chase and Estey reached that +frosty bank a confused scene met their eyes.</p> + +<p>Before the tumble-down sheds some wildly terrified +small boys were stumbling to and fro on +the pale brink of the ice, floundering like river +seals in their attempts to walk upon the skates +which they were too distracted to remove, and +shrieking at intervals:—</p> + +<p>“He’s drown-dr-rowning! Oh! he’s <i>drowning</i>. +Jack Barry’s drowning in the river!”</p> + +<p>“Who’s drowning? What’s the matter, +Marcoo? Has anybody gone through the ice?” +questioned Leon sharply of the one older boy +upon the bank, who turned upon him over a +heaving shoulder the pleasant, ruddy face, empurpled +by shock, of Coombsie.</p> + +<p>“Yes, the ice gave way out there.” Marcoo +pointed to a wide hole thirty yards from the +bank, where the dark, imprisoned water bubbled +like a whirlpool. “Little Jack Barry has fallen +through. Ice rotten there! Couldn’t reach him +without a rope! Nix gone for it!” Coombsie +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +flung the words from him like broken twigs. +“Here he comes now!”</p> + +<p>Bareheaded, breathless, the patrol leader of +the Owls tore toward the bank, in his hand a +coil of rope. Behind him ran two distracted women +from a near-by house; the drowning boy’s mother +and his grandmother—whose one unshattered +idol he was—old Ma’am Baldwin.</p> + +<p>She looked more like a ragged cornstalk than +ever, that little old woman, thought Leon—in +the way that trivial reflections have of being +whirled to the surface upon the tempest of a +moment like this—with all her odds and ends +of shawls streaming on the icy breeze that skated +mockingly to meet her. With her long wisps of +gray hair outstreaming too!</p> + +<p>And as she came she raised her right arm to +her breast with that pathetic gesture familiar to +Starrie Chase, as though to shield her half-broken +old heart from the last blow that Fate might deal +to it: as if she would defend the image it held +of the drowning child, and therewith little Jack +himself, from the robber Death.</p> + +<p>Starrie’s brown eyes took one rapid snapshot +of the old woman in her quaking anguish, and +his mind passed two resolutions: that the Big +Minute had come: and that there wasn’t water +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +or ice enough in the tidal river to keep him +from saving Ma’am Baldwin’s grandson.</p> + +<p>“Tie this rope round me! <i>Quick!</i> Bowline +knot! I’ll try an’ crawl out to him!” Nixon was +shrieking in his ear.</p> + +<p>“You can’t alone! The ice is too rotten. You’d +break through—and we mightn’t be able to +pull you out that way. Must make a chain! I’ll +go first. Crawl after me, Nix, and hang on tight +to my feet!”</p> + +<p>Corporal Chase was already lying flat on his +stomach, working himself out over the infirm ice +where, here and there, within the white map of +lines and circles traced by the skates of the small +boys, were small holes through which the captive +water heaved like Ma’am Baldwin’s breast, under +a thin, glassy fretwork.</p> + +<p>After him crawled Nixon, grasping his ankles +in a strong grip. And, performing a like service +for the patrol leader, came Coombsie, and after +Coombsie Colin; the four forming a human +chain, trusting their lives to the unstable, saline +ice, and to the grip of each other.</p> + +<p>“Hold on tight, Nix! I see his head. We’ll +land him—yet!” Leon flung the last challenge +between his set teeth at the white, porous ice and +the little dark wells of bubbling water.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>Worming his body in and out between those +fretting holes, he reached the glassy skirts of the +larger fissure which imprisoned little Jack. There +the nine-year-old victim’s hands clutched frantically +at the jagged edges of the encircling ice, +while his screams for help grew weaker. To Jack +himself they seemed not to rise above the cold, +pale ring that hemmed him in.</p> + +<p>“<i>Hold—tight!</i>” The clenched word was +passed along the chain as Leon at its head, hearing +the tidal current beneath him sobbing, straining +to be free, flung his hands out and grasped +the victim’s collar and shoulder, trying to lift +him out of the hole.</p> + +<p>But with a groan the brittle ice surrounding +it gave way: the foremost rescuer’s body was +plunged too into the freezing, brackish water.</p> + +<p>“We’ll both go now—Jack an’ I—unless +Nix hangs on to me like a bulldog!” was the +thought that stabbed him as an ice-spear while +the dark tidal current, shot with glints of light +like cruel eyes, engulfed his shoulders.</p> + +<p>But Nixon held on to his ankles, like grim +death fighting grim Death himself. Not a link +in that human chain parted, though the ice +cracked ominously beneath it!</p> + +<p>And Leon, half submerged, battling for breath, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +clung steadfastly to Jack, as if indeed there was +not water enough in the seven miles of tidal river +to sunder them.</p> + +<p>Presently, while his comrades backed cautiously, +dragging upon the lower part of his +body, his head and arms reappeared, the latter +clasping Ma’am Baldwin’s grandson.</p> + +<p>A sob, half hysterical, burst from the gathering +spectators on the bank.</p> + +<p>“If—if the Lord hadn’t been with him, he +couldn’t have hung on to him that time!” muttered +Captain Andy, the old life-saver, who had +limped to the scene.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, it did seem as if the Lord was +with Leon Chase and made his strength in this +desperate minute—like that of one of the famous +knights of the Round Table—as the +strength of ten because his heart was pure!—Purified +of all but the desire to help and save!</p> + +<p>“Starrie’s got him! Starrie’s holding on to +him!” came in an exultant cry from a group of +boys rigid upon the river-brink; in their midst +gleamed the face, pale and fixed as the ice itself, +of Godey Peck; and from Godey’s eyes streamed +the first ray of ardent hero-worship those rather +dull eyes had ever known—leveled at the Tin +Scouts.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Keep cool, boys! Take it easy an’ you’ll +land him now!” shouted Captain Andy.</p> + +<p>Afraid, for their sakes, to burden farther the +ice with his massive body, he, too, stretched +himself, breast downward, on the more solid +crust near the bank, and seizing Colin’s ankles +directly they came within reach added another +link to that human chain by means of which +Jack’s half-conscious body was finally drawn +ashore and placed in his mother’s arms.</p> + +<p>“You saved him, Leon. I’ll thank you as +well—as well as I can—Leon!” quavered the +grandmother’s broken voice.</p> + +<p>“Aw! that’s all right,” came in an embarrassed +shiver from between the chattering teeth +of the foremost rescuer, from whom the water +ran in rivulets that would freeze in another +minute.</p> + +<p>“I’ll forward the names of you four boys to +National Headquarters, to receive the scout medal +for life-saving!” proudly cried Scoutmaster Estey, +who at this minute appeared upon the river-bank, +while he plucked Jack’s numbed body from his +mother’s shaking arms and set off at a run with +it toward the nearest house.</p> + +<p>Leon was hustled in the same direction by an +admiring crowd.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>But whence came that shrill challenge waking +the echoes of the Christmas Eve? Did Godey’s +lips utter the cry: “What’s the matter with the +Boy Scouts? They’re all right!”</p> + +<p>And a score of throats gave back the answer:—</p> + +<p>“Three cheers for the Boy Scouts of America! +Three cheers—an’ a tiger—for the Owl +Patrol.”</p> + +<p>“Say, Mister!” Half an hour later, as Scoutmaster +Estey issued from the cottage where, with +the help of Kenjo Red and another scout, he +had been turning his first-aid knowledge to account +in the resuscitation of little Jack, he heard +himself thus addressed and felt a hand pluck at +his sleeve. Looking down, in the twilight, he +saw Godey Peck.</p> + +<p>“Say! it hasn’t made ‘softies’ of ’em, this +scout business,” declared Godey oracularly. “I +want to be a scout too. Us boys all want to come +in!” He glanced behind him at his gang who +had constituted him their spokesman.</p> + +<p>“Really? Do you <i>all</i> want to enlist in the +Boy Scouts of America?”</p> + +<p>“Sure! We want to come in now at the +rate of sixty miles an hour, you bet!” Godey +chuckled.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh! well, if you’re in such a hurry as that, +come round to my house to-night; we’re going +to have a Christmas celebration there.” And the +tall scoutmaster walked off, laughing.</p> + +<p>Thus on Christmas Eve did Godey drop off +the fence on the side of the boy scouts, whose +code of chivalry is only an elaboration of the +first Christmas message: “Peace on earth, good +will to men!”</p> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XIV</p> + +<p class="center chap2">A RIVER DUEL</p> + +<p>With the enlisting of Godey and his gang, +who mainly represented whatever tendency there +might be to youthful rowdyism in the demure +little town, the whole vicinity of the tidal river +was won over to the Boy Scout Movement.</p> + +<p>The new recruits, those who gave in their +names on Christmas Eve as would-be scouts, together +with one or two later additions, were +formed into a second patrol, of which Godey became +patrol leader, called the Foxes in honor of +the commonest animal of moderate size to be +found in their woods; the red fox being prevalent, +too, among the white sand-hills, the Sugarloaf +Dunes, that formed part of the wild coast +near the mouth of the Exmouth River.</p> + +<p>Those milky dunes, formed of pale sand which +was popularly supposed to have drifted down +from New Hampshire to the sea and to have +been swept in here by the winds and tides of +ages, were a sort of El Dorado to the boys of +the little town far up the tidal river.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>Pirates’ treasure was confidently believed to be +buried there; each lad who made the trip by +steam launch, motor-boat, or plodding rowboat +downstream for several miles to the dunes, was +certain that if he could only hit upon the right +sand-hill and dig deep enough, he would find its +whiteness richly inlaid with gold.</p> + +<p>Other wild tales centred about the romantic +dunes, of smugglers and their lawless doings in +earlier and less law-enforcing times than the +beginning of the twentieth century.</p> + +<p>It was even hinted that within recent years +there had been unlawful importations at rare +intervals of certain dutiable commodities, such +as intoxicating liquors and cigars, by means of a +rowboat that would lie up during the day in the +sandy pocket of some little creek that intersected +the marshes near the white dunes, stealing forth +at night into the bay to meet a mysterious +vessel.</p> + +<p>The latest report connected the name of Dave +Baldwin, the <i>vaurien</i>, as Toiney contemptuously +called him, with this species of petty smuggling.</p> + +<p>Wiseacres, such as Captain Andy and the doctor, +were of opinion that no such lawless work +could be carried on to-day under the Argus eyes +of revenue officers. But it was known that Dave +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +spent most of his vagrant days hanging round +the milky dunes and their neighborhood, sleeping +on winter nights in some empty camp or deserted +summer cottage, and occasionally varying +the pale monotony of the dunes by sojourning +in the woods at the opposite side of the river.</p> + +<p>The possibility of running across him during +a visit to the Sugarloaf Sand-Hills, or of seeing +his “pocketed” boat reposing in some little +creek where the mottled mother-seal secreted her +solitary young one, had little interest for the +boy scouts.</p> + +<p>Toiney’s contempt for the skulking vagrant +who had caused his mother’s heart to “break in +pieces,” had communicated itself to them. They +were much more interested in the prospect of +pursuing acquaintance with the spotted harbor +seal, once the floundering despot of the tidal +river, now scarcer and more shy.</p> + +<p>As winter merged into spring a third patrol +of boy scouts was formed, composed of boys +from farms down the river, who had recourse to +this harbor mammal for a name and called themselves +the Seals.</p> + +<p>Thus when April swelled the buds upon the +trees, and the salt-marshes were all feathery with +new green, there were three patrols of boy scouts +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +who met in the little town hall of Exmouth, forming +a complete scout troop, to plan for hikes and +summer camps; and to go on their cheery way +out of meeting, ofttimes creating spring in the +heart of winter by doing the regulation good +turn for somebody.</p> + +<p>In especial, good turns toward the sorrow-bowed +old woman, Ma’am Baldwin, were in vogue +that season, because a first-rate recipe for sympathy +is to perform a service for its object. The +greater and more risky the service, the broader +the stream of good will that flows from it!</p> + +<p>So it was with the four members of the Owl +Patrol who had received the boy scout medal +for life-saving—the silver cross suspended from +a blue ribbon, awarded to the scout who saves +life with considerable risk to himself—for their +gallant work in rescuing the old woman’s grandson +from the frozen waters of the tidal river. +Their own moved feelings at that the finest +moment of their young lives were thereafter +as a shining mantle veiling the peculiarities of +her who, solitary and defenseless, had once been +regarded as fair game for their most merciless +teasing.</p> + +<p>She was not so solitary now. Much shaken by +the accident to her grandchild, she was in no fit +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +state to return to her baldfaced house on Christmas +Eve or for many days after; so Public Opinion +at length took the matter into its own hands +and decreed that henceforth she must find a +home with her daughter.</p> + +<p>There, in a little dwelling on the outskirts of +the town, she often watched the khaki-clad scouts +march by. Invariably they saluted her. And Jack, +the rescued nine-year-old, would strut and stretch +and stamp in a vain attempt to hasten the +advent of his twelfth birthday when he might +enlist as a tenderfoot.</p> + +<p>The Saturday spring hikes were varied by trips +down the river when each patrol in turn was +taken on an excursion in Captain Andy’s motor-boat. +It was on such an occasion that Nixon +Warren, who had begun his scout service as a +member of the Peewit Patrol of Philadelphia, +obtained his coveted chance of seeing Spotty +Seal at close quarters.</p> + +<p>“You stay round Exmouth during the spring +an’ summer, Nix, and I’ll take you where you’ll +see a seal close enough for you to shake his flipper,” +promised the sea-captain; and he kept his +word, though the pledge was fulfilled after a +fashion not in accordance with his intentions.</p> + +<p>It was a glorious day, when the power-boat +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +Aviator, owned by Captain Andy, left the town +wharf with six of the Owls aboard in charge of +the assistant scoutmaster, Toiney Leduc, and with +the absurd little rowboat that danced attendance +upon the Aviator, and which was jocosely named +the Pill, bobbing behind them on the tidal ripples +at the end of a six-foot towrope.</p> + +<p>Spring was on the river to-day. Spring was in +the clear call of the greater yellow-legs as it +skimmed over the marshes, in the lightning dart +of the kingfisher, in the wave of the tall black +grass fringing each marshy bank, showered with +diamonds by the advance and retreat of a very +high tide tickled into laughter by the April +breeze.</p> + +<p>And spring was in the scouts’ hearts, focusing +all Nature’s joy-thrills, as they glided down the +river.</p> + +<p>“<i>Houp-e-là!</i> I’ll t’ink heem prett’ good day +for go on reever, me,” announced Assistant Scoutmaster +Toiney, his black eyes dancing.</p> + +<p>And he presently woke the echoes, while they +wound in and out between the feathery marshes, +with a gay “Tra-la!” or “Rond’! Rond’! +Rond’!” that seemed the very voice of Spring +herself bursting into song.</p> + +<p>“Goodness! I can hardly wait for the end of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +August when our scoutmaster will get his vacation +and we’re to camp out on the Sugarloaf +Dunes,” said Leon Chase. “You can see the +white dunes from here, Nix. It’s a great old +Sugarloaf, isn’t it?” pointing across broad, +pearly plains of water which at high tide spread +out on either side of the central tidal channel, at +the crystalline sand-pillar, guarding the mouth of +the tidal river.</p> + +<p>“The other sand-hills look like a row of tall, +snowy breakers at this distance. Whew! aren’t +they splendid—with that bright blue sky-line +behind them? I expect we’ll just have the ‘time +of our lives’ when we camp out there!” came in +blissful accents from the patrol leader.</p> + +<p>“Well! we’re not going to land on the dunes +to-day,” said Captain Andy, who was standing +up forward, steering the gasolene launch, his +keen eyes scanning the plains of water from +under his visored cap, in search of Spotty Seal’s +sleek dog-like head cleaving the ripples as he +swam, with his strong hind-flippers propelling +him along.</p> + +<p>“Whoo’! Whoo’! she threw the water a bit +that time; didn’t she, lads?” alluding to his +motor-boat, as the April breeze plucked a crisp +sheet of spray from the breast of the high tide, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +like a white leaf from a book, and laughingly +threw it at the occupants of the launch. “But +that’s nothing!” went on the old skipper. +“Bless ye, boys, I’ve been down this river in a +rowboat when the seas would come tumbling in +on me from the bay, each looking big as a house +as it shoved its white comb along! ’Twould +rear itself like a glassy roof over the boat and +I’d think it meant ‘day, day!’ to me, but I’d +crawl out somehow. An’ I’ve lived to tell the +tale.</p> + +<p>“But I’m gettin’ too old for such scrapes +now,” went on the old sea-fighter. “I’m going +to turn ‘Hayseed!’ You mayn’t believe it, but +I am!” glowering at the laughing, incredulous +scouts. “I’m about buying a piece o’ land that’s +only half cleared o’ timber yet, up Exmouth way; +going to start a farm. But, great sailor! how’ll +I ever get along with a cow. That’s what stumps +me.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll come out an’ milk her for you, Captain +Andy,” volunteered with one breath the boy +scouts, their merry voices ringing out over the +mother-of-pearl plains of water, bounded on one +side by the headlands of a bold shore, on the +other by green peninsulas of salt-marsh, insulated +at high water by the winding creeks that burrowed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +among them, and farther on by the radiant +dunes.</p> + +<p>“I’ll t’ink he no lak’ for be tie to cow, me!” +Toiney nodded mischievously at the sea-captain. +Then, all of a sudden, his voice exploded gutturally +like a bomb: “<i>Gard’ donc!</i> <i>Gard’ donc</i>, +de gros seal! <i>Sapré tonnere!</i> <i>deux</i> gros seal. +Two beeg seal! <i>V’là V’là!</i> shes jomp right +out o’ reever—engh!”</p> + +<p>The excited Canadian’s gesticulating hands +drew every eye in the direction he indicated, +which was a little to the left of the central tidal +channel, between them and the straying creeks.</p> + +<p>And the scouts’ excitement fairly fizzed like +a burning fuse as, mingled with Toiney’s cry, +sounded a hoarse bark, wafted across the plains +of water, the harsh “Beow!” or “Weow!” according +as the semi-distant ear might translate it, +of an angry bull-seal.</p> + +<p>Each boy’s heart leaped into his distended +throat at the sound, but not so high as leaped +the bull-seal, to whom the other term significant +of his male gender—that of dog-seal—hardly +applied, for he outweighed half a dozen good-sized +dogs.</p> + +<p>Breathlessly gazing, the scouts saw him jump +clear out of the water not quarter of a mile from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +them, his sleek, dark bulk sheathed in crystal +armor, wrought of brine and sunbeams—his +flippers dripping rainbows! Down he came again +with a wrathful splash that sent the foam flying, +and struck his companion, an apparently smaller +animal whose head alone was visible, a furious +blow on that sleek head with one of his clawed +flippers.</p> + +<p>“<i>Gard’ donc!</i> <i>Gard’ donc</i>, les gros seal <i>qui +se battent</i>! De beeg seal dat fights—dat strike +heem oder, engh?” exploded Toiney again.</p> + +<p>“So they are—fighting! Goodness! that big +fellow is pitching into the one in the water. +Going for him like fury, for some reason!” +broke from the excited boys, as they stared, +open-mouthed, while this belligerent performance +was repeated, accompanied once or twice by the +grunting bark of the larger seal.</p> + +<p>“Great guns! he’s a snorter, isn’t he? You +could hear that battle-cry of his nearly a mile +off, at night, when the weather is decently calm +as to-day,” came from Captain Andy while he +slowed down the panting motor-boat in order +that the scouts might have a good view of the +angry sea-calf—another name for the harbor +seal—which Nixon yearned to see, and which +was so absorbed in wreaking vengeance on a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +flippered rival that it paid no attention at all to +the approaching launch.</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz! isn’t he a monster?”—”Must +be five or six feet long!”—”Can’t he make the +foam fly, though?”—”You’d think he owned +the river!” came at intervals from the gasping +spectators.</p> + +<p>“<i>Nom-de-tonnerre!</i> she’s <i>gros</i> seal: shes mak +de watere go lak’ scramble de egg—engh?” +gurgled Toiney, mixing up his pronouns in guttural +excitement over this river duel, such as he had +witnessed once before, when two male seals contested +for the favor of some marbled sweetheart.</p> + +<p>In this case the duelists were evidently unevenly +matched, for presently a wild cry came +from Scout Nixon:—</p> + +<p>“See! See! he has him by the throat now. +That big fellow has his fangs in the other seal’s +throat! Must have! For he’s dragging him +along to that little creek! He’s going to kill +him.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Mille tonnerres!</i> I’ll t’ink shes go for choke +heem, me: dat’s de tam he’ll go deaded sure—engh?” +Thus Toiney came gutturally in on the +excited duet, as seven strained faces peered over +the motor-boat’s side at the one-sided battle.</p> + +<p>“<i>Mille tonnerres</i>”—”a thousand thunders”—were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +being launched, indeed, upon the spotted +head of the weaker animal, half stunned by the +furious blows rained on him by the clawed hind-flippers +of his adversary, and now finding himself +dragged, willy-nilly, through the water into +the secluded creek, like a prisoner to the block.</p> + +<p>He tried diving, to loosen those cruel fangs, +but was mercilessly forced to the surface again +by his big rival.</p> + +<p>“Well! I think this fight has gone on long +enough; I’m going to separate them,” cried +Captain Andy. “I guess the tide is high enough +for us to overhaul them in that little creek, +without danger of being pocketed, or hung +up aground, there!”</p> + +<p>And with a warning <i>chug! chug!</i> the power-boat +Aviator made straight for the bubbling +mouth of the creek, across the foamy wake left +by the fighting seals, and dashed in after them.</p> + +<p>Not until it was almost upon them did the +triumphant male tear his four fangs from his +rival’s throat. Then, startled at last, he swam +off a few strokes in a wild flurry, and dove, +while Captain Andy drove his throbbing boat in +between the combatants.</p> + +<p>For a thrilling minute the scouts found themselves +at the centre of a grand old mix-up that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +churned the waters of the creek; the weaker +seal, now half dead, was right beneath the boat. +Presently his head appeared upon the surface a +few yards ahead of it. Swimming feebly a short +distance, he crawled out of the water a little +higher up the creek and lay upon the marshy +bank entirely played out.</p> + +<p>His merciless rival reappeared too, to the rear +of the boat, strong as ever, swimming rapidly +for the creek’s mouth and the open water beyond +it.</p> + +<p>“That seal is ‘all in’;” Nixon pointed to the +victim. “If we could go on to the head of the +creek, we might step out on the bank and have +a good look at him.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t land you from the power-boat, but +you can get into the little Pill if you like, an’ +row up ’longside him.” Captain Andy pointed +to the tubby rowboat bobbing astern. “No! +only three of you may go, more might capsize +her; she ain’t much of a boat, though she’s a +slick bit o’ wood for her size! Easy there now! +Steady!”</p> + +<p>The sturdy Pill was drawn alongside. Scouts +Warren and Chase, with one brother Owl, stepped +into her, and rowed to the head of the creek, +whence they had a near view of the half-throttled +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +creature as he lay, mouth open, stretched out +upon the marshy bank, his strong hind-flippers +extended behind him, their brown claws glistening +with brine.</p> + +<p>“Whew! he’s spotted like a sandpiper’s egg,” +said Nixon, looking at the head and back of the +marbled seal. “Seems to me he’s of a lighter +color than the big fellow who nearly did for +him; <i>he</i> looked almost black out of water—but +then he was all wet. And what a funny little tail +this one has, not bigger than a pair of spectacles!”</p> + +<p>“See his black nose an’ short fore-flippers!” +whispered Leon. “Don’t his eyes stick out? +They’re a kind o’ blue-black an’ glazy. There! +he’s noticing us now. He’s trying to flounder +off—with that funny, teetering kind o’ wabble +they have! Say! hadn’t we better row back to +Captain Andy, and leave him to recover? He’s +all used up; that big one gave him an awful +licking.”</p> + +<p>And this merciful consideration from Starrie +Chase, who, prior to his scout days, would have +had no thought save how to finish the cruel +work of the big bully and put an end to the +beaten rival!</p> + +<p>“Well! you did see a harbor seal, Nix, ’most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +near enough to shake his flipper, eh?” challenged +Captain Andy as the three scrambled +back aboard the motor-boat, and made the little +Pill fast astern by its short towrope, while the +Aviator bore out of the blue creek, to head upstream +toward the town again.</p> + +<p>“Yes! I’d have tried to do it too, if he +hadn’t been so completely ‘all in,’” laughed the +scout. “I suppose we’ll have plenty of opportunities +to see seals and listen to their barking +when we camp out on the white dunes during +the last days of August and the beginning of +September. They say the young ones make a +kind of cooing noise, much like a turtle-dove, +only stronger; I’m bent on capturing a pup-seal, +to tame him!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you’d have no trouble about the taming, +only you couldn’t feed him! But you’ll see seals +a-plenty an’ hear ’em, too, next summer. They +just love to lie out on a reef o’ rocks in the sun, +when the tide’s low, especially if the wind’s a +little from the no’thwest,” said the ex-skipper. +“A lonely reef, a warm sun, and light no’thwesterly +breeze make up the harbor-seal’s heaven, +I guess!”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XV</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE CAMP ON THE DUNES</p> + +<p>And when those fervently anticipated last +days of August did in due time dawn, they +brought with them many opportunities to Nixon +and his brother scouts of watching Spotty Seal +and his kindred in the enjoyment of their mundane +paradise, whose pavement of gold was a +wave-washed reef and its harpings the mild +bluster of a northwesterly breeze.</p> + +<p>During the final week of August and the first +of September their scoutmaster, a rising young +naval architect, had a respite from designing +wooden vessels, from considering how he could +best combine speed and seaworthiness in an up-to-date +model; and he arranged to devote the +whole of that holiday to camping out with his +boy scout troop upon the milky Sugarloaf Dunes.</p> + +<p>A more ideal camping-ground could scarcely +have been found than among the white sand-hills, +capped with plumy vegetation which formed the +background for an equally dazzling line of beach, +where the gray-and-white gulls strutted in feathered +rendezvous, and were hardly to be scared +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +away by the landing in their midst of the first +patrol of scouts, put ashore from Captain Andy’s +motor-boat in a light skiff, a more capacious rowboat +than the Pill.</p> + +<p>But they had brought the tubby Pill down +the river too, in tow of the launch; and Captain +Andy, who was partial to scouts, had arranged +to leave that rotund little rowboat with them, +so that, two or three at a time, they might explore +the tidal river with the creeks that intersected +the marshes in the neighborhood of the +white dunes.</p> + +<p>“Just look at that gray gull, will you?” +laughed Patrol Leader Nixon, as he landed from +the skiff. “He’s made up his mind that we +Owls have no rights here: that this white beach +is his stamping-ground, and he won’t be frightened +away!”</p> + +<p>Other gulls had reluctantly taken wing and +wheeled off during the prolonged process of +landing the eight members of the Owl Patrol, +with their scoutmasters and camp outfit, in various +detachments from the launch, which was too +large to run right in to the beach.</p> + +<p>But this one youthful sea-gull, a mere boy in +plumage gray, held his ground, parading the +lonely beach with head turning alertly from side +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +to side, as if he were admonishing his wheeling +brothers with: “These are boy scouts! Look at +me: I tell you, you have nothing to fear!”</p> + +<p>So bold was his mien, so peaceful the attitude +of the human invaders, that presently the regiment +of sea-gulls fluttered back to a point of +rendezvous only a little removed from their +former one.</p> + +<p>“We won’t have much company beyond ourselves +and the birds, I guess!” remarked Nixon +presently. “There are no houses in sight except +those three fine bungalows about quarter of a +mile off on the edge of the dunes. And the fisherman’s +shack on the beach below them!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that belongs to an old clam-digger,” +said Kenjo Red. “He keeps his pails there. +Don’t you remember my telling you about his +letting us—my uncle an’ me—have his boat +one day last November, so’s we could row over +to the sand-spit opposite, and take a look at some +seals that were sunning themselves there?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! yes, <i>we</i> remember, Kenjo; you’ve told +about that at half a dozen camp-fire powwows, +at least.” Starrie Chase plucked off Kenjo’s cap +and combed his ruddy locks with a teasing forefinger. +“They say Dave Baldwin, the <i>vaurien</i>,” +with guttural mimicry of Toiney’s accents, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +“hangs out among the dunes here, when he +isn’t loafing in the woods up the river,” added +Corporal Chase, peering off among the white +sand-hills, capped with biscuit-colored plumes +of dry beach-grass, and the more verdant beach-pea, +as if he expected to see young Baldwin’s head +pop up among them.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if we’ll run across him?” said +Nixon. “He can’t ‘make camp’ among the +dunes. Nobody is allowed to camp out here, without +special permission. Boy scouts are privileged +persons; they know we won’t set fire to the +brush.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! when he needs a fire—when he knocks +a woodchuck on the head and wants to cook it—I +suppose he rows over to one of those little +islands there; they say he has an old rowboat +here.” Leon pointed to two small islets rising from +the plains of water a little higher up the river.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t envy him!” Marcoo shrugged +his shoulders. “He must have a bitter time of it +in winter, when the river is frozen over down to +the bay, an’ you don’t hear a sound here beyond +the occasional pop of a sportsman’s gun, or the +barking of the seals—and even they’re pretty +quiet in midwinter. Hey! Look at that spotted +sandpiper. ‘Teeter-tail’ we call him: see his tail +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +bob up and down!” exclaimed Coombsie, who was +an enthusiast about birds.</p> + +<p>In watching the sandpiper rise from the white +beach and dart across the water, in listening to +his sweet, whistling “peet-weet!” note, speculations +about the habits of the <i>vaurien</i>, the good-for-nothing +young vagrant, were forgotten.</p> + +<p>He, Dave Baldwin, faded completely from the +campers’ thoughts as the narrow skiff grounded +its sharp nose for the fourth time on the beach, +landing the remainder of their camp dunnage +and commissariat; and the work began of selecting +a site for the camp amid the milky sand-hills, +interspersed with a few trees, slender and short +of stature.</p> + +<p>Those gray birches and ash-trees formed pleasant +spots of shade amid the dazzling whiteness +of the dunes. But there was other and more +unique vegetable growth to be considered.</p> + +<p>“Say! but will you just look at the cranberry +patch, growing out of the white beach?” shrieked +young Colin after an ecstatic interval, addressing +no one scout in particular.</p> + +<p>“Cranberries there near the tide!”—”Growing +out of the sand!”—”Tooraloo!”—”Nonsense!” +came from his brother Owls who were +already getting busy, erecting tents.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<p>But cranberries there were, in ripening beauty—as +the workers presently saw for themselves—cranberries +whose roots underran the dazzling +beach, whose crimson creepers trailed delicately +over its whiteness, whose berries nestled their rosy +cheeks daintily, each upon its snowy pillow.</p> + +<p>“<i>Gee!</i>” The one united ejaculation—the +little nondescript, uncouth monosyllable which +expresses so many emotions of the boyish heart, +from panic to panegyric—was all that the scouts +could find voice for in presence of this red-and-white +loveliness secreted by Nature upon a lonely +shore.</p> + +<p>“Hey! fellows, Captain Andy is going,” the +voice of the busy scoutmaster broke in upon their +bliss. “He’s to bring the Foxes down to-morrow +in his motor-boat,” alluding to the Fox Patrol, +of which Godey was leader. “The Seals will row +over, to-morrow forenoon, from the other side of +the river; so our scout troop will be complete. +We owe a lot to Captain Andy. Don’t you want +to show him that you can make a noise: don’t +you want to give your yell, with his name at the +end? Now, all in line, and together!”</p> + +<p>And each scout with his arm around a comrade +upon either side—Leon’s clasping the back +of Harold Greer who, a year ago, had cowered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +at sight of him—all in a welded line, swaying +together where the ripples broke upon the milky +beach, they proved their prowess as chief noise-makers +and made the welkin ring with:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">AMERICA</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Boy Scouts! Boy Scouts!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Rah! Rah! Rah!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Exmouth! Exmouth! Exmouth!</span><br /> +Captain Andy! Captain Andy! <i>Cap-tain An-dy!</i> +</div> + +<p>The weatherbeaten ex-skipper, standing “up +for’ard” in his launch, which was just beginning +its panting trip up the river, waved his hand in +acknowledgment, while the Aviator’s whistle returned +a triple salute to that linked line upon +the water’s edge.</p> + +<p>“They’re fine lads!” A little moisture gathered +in the captain’s narrowed blue eye as he +gazed back at the beach—moisture which did +not come in over the Aviator’s rail. “Some one +has spoken of this Boy Scout Movement as the +‘Salvation of England’—as I’ve heard! So +here’s to it again as the Future of America!” +And he sounded three more whistles—and yet +another three—giving the scouts three times +three, until it seemed as if his power-boat would +burst its steel throat.</p> + +<p>Then comparative silence reigned again upon +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +the sands and certain startled birds resumed their +feeding avocations, notably that white-breasted +busybody, the sanderling or surf-snipe, called by +river-men the “whitey.”</p> + +<p>“See! the ‘whitey’ doesn’t believe that ‘two +is company, three none’: they’re chasing after +their dinner in triplets! They run out into the +ripples and back again, pecking in the sand, so +quickly that the larger waves can’t catch them: +don’t they, Greerie?” said Leon Chase, pointing +them out to Harold in the overflowing brotherliness +established by that yell.</p> + +<p>Harold was no longer the “Hare.” That nickname +had been forbidden by the patrol leader of +the Owls under pain of dire penalties. The “poltron,” +or coward, as Toiney had once in pity +called him, was “Greerie” now; and was gradually +learning what mere bugaboos were the fears +which had separated him from his kind and from +boyhood’s activities—something which might +never have come home to him thoroughly, save +in the stimulating society of other boys who +aimed earnestly at helping him.</p> + +<p>“We’re going to have a splendid time here +for the next two weeks, Greerie, camping among +the dunes,” Leon assured him. “To-morrow +Nix an’ you and I will go out in the little rowboat, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +the Pill, and hunt up a creamy pup-seal +and bring him back to camp for a pet. Now! +you must come and do your share of the work—help +to set up the other tents among the sand-hills.”</p> + +<p>One was already erected, a large canvas shelter, +to contain four boys, another went up like unto +it for the other four members of the patrol, then a +smaller tent for the scoutmaster, and the cook-tent +which sheltered the “commissariat,” stocked +with cans of preserved meats, vegetables, and all +that went to make up the scouts’ daily rations.</p> + +<p>“Where are <i>you</i> going to sleep, Toiney?” +asked Patrol Leader Nixon.</p> + +<p>“Me—I’ll lak’ for sleep out in de air, me—wit’ +de littal star on top o’ me!” Toiney +shrugged his shoulders complacently at the summer +sky, now taking on the hues of evening, as +if the firmament were a blanket woven for his +comfort.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’ll sleep out with you.—And I!—Me, +too!” Each and every member of the patrol, +from the leader downward, longed to feel the +white sand beneath him as a mattress, to have +the stars for canopy, to hear the night-tide as +it broke upon the near-by beach crooning his +lullaby.</p> + + + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both;" summary="Illustration"> +<tr><td class="figcenter"><img style="width:387px; height:608px" src="images/illus255.jpg" alt="" /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="caption">IN CAMP</td></tr></table> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You may take it in turns, fellows—each +sleep out with him one night, when the weather +is fine,” decided the scoutmaster. “Now! I’m going +to appoint Scouts Warren and Chase cooks +for to-night.”</p> + +<p>A first-rate supper did those cooks turn out, +of flapjacks and scrambled eggs, the latter +stirred with a peeled stick, while the great coffee-pot, +brooding upon its rosy nest of birch-logs, +grinned facetiously when a stray flame wreathed +its spout, then broke into bubbling laughter.</p> + +<p>Night fell upon the pale dunes that turned to +silver monuments under the smile of a moon in +its third quarter. A gentle, lowing sound came +to the scouts’ ears from the tide at far ebb upon +the silvery beach, as, the cook-fire abandoned, they +gathered round a blazing camp-fire that cast weird +reflections upon the surrounding white hillocks.</p> + +<p>The holding of a calm powwow on this first +night in camp, when each heart was thrilling +tumultuously to the novelty of the surroundings, +was impossible. Toiney sang wild fragments of +songs that found a suitable accompaniment in +the distant, hoarse barking of the harbor seal, +and in the plaintive “Oo-oo-ooo!”—the dove-like +call of the creamy pup-seal to its marbled +mother in some lonely tidal creek.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<p>Once and again from the shore side of the +scouts’ camp-fire, from among the shimmering +sand-hills, came the weaker, more snappy bark of +the little dog-fox, as he prowled the dunes.</p> + +<p>The dazzling Sugarloaf Pillar near the mouth +of the river was wrapped in night’s mantle. But +lights flickered out in two of the handsome summer +bungalows which the boys had noticed, standing +at some distance from their camping-ground, +looming high above the beach, erected upon +stilt-like props driven into the sandy soil.</p> + +<p>“Those houses were only built last spring; +they’re occupied for the first time this summer,” +said Kenjo Red, who was more familiar with this +region than the others. “Say! let’s chant our +African war-song, fellows. This is just the night +for it.” And the barbaric chant rang weirdly +among the sand-hills, the leader shouting the first +line, his companions answering with the other +three, to the accompaniment of the flames’ +crackle and the night calls of bird and beast:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Een gonyâma—gonyâma.</span><br /> +Invoboo!<br /> +Yah bô! Yah bô<br /> +Invoboo!” +</div> + +<p>Presently the bark of the dog-fox was heard +farther off. <i>He</i> knew, the stealthy slyboots, that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +he was not the only lone prowler among the +pale dunes that night who listened intently to the +boisterous revelry round the scouts’ camp-fire.</p> + +<p>His keen sense of smell informed him that +behind one plumed sand-hill, between his own +trotting form and the noisy company in the firelight, +there lurked a solitary man-figure.</p> + +<p>But he, the sandy-coated little trotter from +burrow to burrow, could neither hear nor interpret +the sound, half groan, half oath, savagely +envious, that escaped from the other night-prowler’s +lips as he listened to the boys’ voices.</p> + +<p>Silence, broken only by ringing snatches of +laughter, reigned temporarily over the dunes. +Then once again it blossomed into song:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“Hurrah for the brave, hurrah for the good,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hurrah for the pure in heart!</span><br /> +At duty’s call, with a smile for all,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Scout will do his part!”</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And the soft purr of the low tide, with the +breeze skipping among pallid dunes that looked +like capped haystacks in the darkness, flung +back the cheer for the “Scouts of the U.S.A.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Aghrr-r!</i>” snarled the testy dog-fox, his +distant petulant growl much resembling that of +Leon’s terrier, who, unfortunately, was not +present upon the dunes to-night. Blink had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +already added the word “Scout” to his limited +human vocabulary, but the wild fox had no +such linguistic powers. The foreign music upon +the lonely dunes was irritating, alarming to him.</p> + +<p>It seemed to have something of the same +effect upon his brother-prowler, upon the man +who skulked among the sand-hills within hearing +of the song: at any rate, the semi-articulate +sound which from time to time he uttered, deepened +into an unmixed groan that escaped from +his lips again later when the clear notes of a +bugle rang over the Sugarloaf Dunes, warning +the scouts by the “first call” that fun was at +an end for to-night, and sleep would be next +upon the programme.</p> + +<p>Then when lights were out, came the sweet +sound of “Taps,” the wind-up of the first day in +camp, the expert bugler being Corporal Chase.</p> + +<p>For the Exmouth doctor had kept his word: +Leon had been given the “bugle” literally and +figuratively since he enlisted as a scout, symbol +of the challenge to all the energy in him to advance +along new lines, instead of the “foghorn” +reproofs and warnings that had been showered +on him prior to his scouting days.</p> + +<p>Then, at last, stillness reigned, indeed, upon +the moonlit dunes.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>The bark of the dog-fox melted into distance, +becoming indistinguishable from the voice of the +returning tide.</p> + +<p>The man-prowler among the sand-hills slipped +away to some lair as lonely as the fox’s.</p> + +<p>And Toiney, with Scout Nixon Warren +wrapped in his camper’s blanket beside him, +slept out upon the white sands “wit’ de littal +star on top o’ them!”</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XVI</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE PUP-SEAL’S CREEK</p> + +<p>The music of “Taps” was eclipsed by the +blither music of “Reveille,” the morning blast +blown by Leon standing in front of the white +tents, the sands beneath his feet jeweled by the +early sunshine, the blue ribbon attached to his +bugle flirting with the breeze that capered among +the plumy hillocks.</p> + +<p>The tide which had ebbed and flowed again +since midnight—when the last excited scout had +fallen asleep lulled by its full purr—broke high +upon the beach, where the white sands gleamed +through its translucent flood like milk in a crystal +vase.</p> + +<p>Far away in dim distance, higher up the tidal +river upon its other side, beyond the plains of +water, the woods which enclosed Varney’s Paintpot +and the cave called the Bear’s Den smiled +remotely through a pearly veil of haze.</p> + +<p>And all the waking glee of tide, dunes, +and woods was personified in the boy bugler’s +face.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>The sight of him as he stood there, face to the +tents where his comrades scrambled up from cot +or ground, his brown eyes snapping and flashing +under the scout’s broad hat, with the delight of +having found an absorbing interest which stimulated +and turned to good account every budding +activity within him—that sight would have +made the veriest old Seek-sorrow among men +take heart and feel that a new era of chivalry +was in flower among the Scouts of the U.S.A.</p> + +<p>And the old religious reverence, that fortifying +kernel of knighthood, was not neglected by this +boy scout patrol.</p> + +<p>Bareheaded, and in line with their scoutmasters +presently, while their eyes gazed off over the +sparkling dunes and crystal tide-stretches, they +repeated in unison the Lord’s Prayer, offering +morning homage to the Power, dimly discerned, +of whom and through whom and to whom are +all things. Of his, the Father’s, presence chamber, +gladness and beauty stand at the threshold!</p> + +<p>“<i>Now</i>, for our early swim! The tide’s just +right. Come along, Harold; I’m going to give <i>you</i> +your first swimming-lesson; and I expect you’ll +be a star pupil!” cried Nixon, the patrol leader, +when the brief adoration was over. “What! you +don’t want to learn to swim? Nonsense! You <i>are</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +going into that dandy water. Oh! that’s not a +scout’s mouth, Harold.”</p> + +<p>And the corners of Harold’s mouth, which had +drooped with fear of this new experience, curled +up in a yielding grin.</p> + +<p>Once he was in the invigorating salt water, +feeling the boisterous tidal ripples, fresh and not +too cold, rise about his body, the timid lad underwent +another lightning change, just as at the +moment of his tying the bowline knot, the spirit +of his fisherman father became uppermost in him, +and he learned to swim almost as easily and naturally +as a pup-seal.</p> + +<p>The improvement in his condition was such +that his brother Owls had won his promise to enter +school when it should reopen after this jolly +camping period was over. “And if any boy picks +on you or teases you, Harold, mind you’re to let +us know at once, because we’re your brother +scouts—and he won’t try it a second time!” +So they admonished him.</p> + +<p>Thus Harold, under the Owls’ sheltering wing, +was gradually losing his inherited and imbibed +dread of a crowd, of any gathering of his own +kind.</p> + +<p>Although this bugbear fear returned upon him +a little when, later on that morning, the Fox +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +Patrol, with Godey Peck as its leader, was landed +upon the Sugarloaf Dunes from Captain Andy’s +motor-launch, and still later in the day the Seals +rowed across in two large rowboats from certain +farms or fishermen’s houses upon the opposite +side of the river, to join the other two patrols. +So that the boy scout troop was complete, and +Harold found himself one of twenty-four boisterous, +though good-natured, boys upon this +strange white beach.</p> + +<p>A little homesickness beset him for the farm-clearing +in the woods and his grandfather’s staid +presence, to cure which Scouts Warren and +Chase took him off with them in the little rowboat, +the Pill, lent by Captain Andy, to explore +the tidal river and the little truant creeks +that escaped from it to burrow among the salt-marshes.</p> + +<p>“We’re going to try and hunt up a creamy +pup-seal, Harold, and bring it back to camp,” said +Nixon; and in the excitement of this quest the +still shy boy forgot his nervous qualms.</p> + +<p>Fortune favored the expedition. It was now +between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. +The tide, which had been high at six in the +morning and again at twelve, was once more on +the ebb, as the two elder scouts rowing in leisurely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +fashion, turned the Pill’s snub nose into a +pearly creek whose shallow water was clear and +pellucid, over its sandy bed.</p> + +<p>Hardly half a dozen strokes had they taken between +bold marshy banks when, from some half-submerged +rocks near the head of the creek, they +heard a prolonged and dulcet “Oo-oo-oo-ooo” +that might have been the call of a dove, save +that it was louder.</p> + +<p>“<i>Hear him?</i>” cried Leon, shipping his oar in +blinking excitement. “That’s our pup-seal, Nix! +We’ve got him cornered in this little creek; if +he dives, the water is so shallow that we can pick +him up from the bottom; and he can’t swim fast +enough to get away from us—though as likely +as not he won’t want to!”</p> + +<p>The last conjecture proved true. The young +seal, little more than two months old, which lay +sprawled out, a creamy splotch, upon the low +reef which the tide was forsaking, with his baby +flippers clinging to the wet rock and his little +eyes staring unwinkingly into the sunlight, had +not the least objection to human company. He +welcomed it.</p> + +<p>When the scouts rowed up alongside the ledge +he suffered Nixon to lift his moist fat body into +the boat, where he stretched himself upon the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +bottom planks in perfect contentment, and took +all the caresses which the three boys lavished +upon him like any other lazy puppy.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he ‘cunning’, though?” gasped Harold, +trying to lift the youthful mammal into his arms, +an attempt which failed because he, the weak +one of the Owls, was not strong enough to do +so without capsizing the Pill—not because the +pup-seal objected. “I thought he’d be a kind of +whitish color, eh?” appealing diffidently to Leon.</p> + +<p>“So he was, when born; his hair is turning +darker now, to a dull yellow; by and by it will +be a brownish drab. See, Greerie! his spots are +beginning to appear!” Leon ran his finger down +the seal’s dog-like head and back, already faintly +dotted with those round markings which gain +for his family the name of the “marbled seal.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he a ‘sprawly’ pup, and so friendly? +The other scouts will be ‘tickled to death’ with +him—” Nixon was beginning, when a shadow +suddenly fell across the boat and its three occupants, +whose attention was entirely upon the +young seal.</p> + +<p>“Hi, there! You’ll get pocketed in this little +creek, you fellows—hung up aground here—if +you don’t look out! Can’t you see that the water +is leaving you?” cried a harsh voice from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +bold marsh-bank which overhung the creek to +the right of them, so suddenly that the three +jumped.</p> + +<p>Looking up, they saw the unkempt figure of +a young man, short of stature and showing a +hungry leanness about the neck and face. This +sudden apparition which had approached noiselessly +over the soft marshes, was plainly outlined +against the surrounding wildness of salt-marsh +and tideway.</p> + +<p>Had the little dog-fox which prowled among +the moonlit dunes been near, he might have +recognized in the shabby figure his brother-prowler +of the night before.</p> + +<p>Recognition was springing from another source. +Starrie Chase caught his breath with such a wild +gasp that he rocked the Pill as if a gust had +struck it. Something about that stocky figure +and in the expression of the face, half wistful, +half savage, reminded him overwhelmingly of an +old woman whom he had seen issuing, lantern in +hand, from her paintless home, and who had +raised her trembling arm to her breast at sight +of him, Leon.</p> + +<p>“Forevermore! it’s <i>Dave Baldwin</i>,” he ejaculated +in a whisper audible only to Nixon. +“That’s who it is—Nix! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you see that the tide is leaving you?” +snapped the stranger again. “There won’t be a +teaspoonful of water in this creek presently.”</p> + +<p>He was looking down at the Pill and its occupants, +with a gleam in his eyes fugitive and +phosphorescent as a marsh-light, which revealed +a new expression upon his mud-smeared face, +one of passionate envy—envy of the boy +scouts healthily rejoicing over their captive pup-seal.</p> + +<p>“Tide leaving us! S-so it is!” Nixon seized +an oar as if awakening from a dream. “Thank +you for warning us! We don’t want to be hung +up in the pocket of this little creek—until it +rises again!”</p> + +<p>“Then pull for all you’re worth! Your boat—she’s +a funny one,” broke off the stranger with +the ghost of a boyish twinkle in his eye; “she +looks as if she was made from a flat-bottomed +dory that had been cut in two!”</p> + +<p>“So she was, I guess!” Leon too found his +voice suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Well! luckily for you, she doesn’t draw much +water; you may scrape by an’ get out into the +open channel while there’s tide enough left to +float her!” And with an inarticulate grunt that +might have been construed into some sort of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +farewell, the stranger disappeared over the +marshes abruptly as he had come.</p> + +<p>Their own plight now engrossed the boys. It +was clear that if they did not want to be pocketed +in this out-of-the-way creek with their amphibious +prize, grounded in the sand for the next five +or six hours, without a hope of getting back to +their camp on the dunes until the tide should +rise again, they certainly must row for all they +were worth!</p> + +<p>Even as it was, the two older scouts, divesting +themselves of shoes and stockings, rolling up +their khaki trousers, had to “get out and shove” +ere they could propel the flat-bottomed Pill +through the mouth of the creek.</p> + +<p>“If that fellow hadn’t warned us just in time, +we’d have been in a bad scrape,” said Scout +Chase. “We’re not out of the misery yet, Nix! +See the old mud-shadow poking its nose up on +either side of the main channel!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the water on those shallows looks +like the inside of an oyster-shell,—thick and iridescent. +‘Shove’ is the word again, Starrie!” +returned his toiling companion, arduously putting +that watchword in practice, pushing the +little boat containing Harold and the pup-seal +(the latter being the only member of the party +placidly unmoved by the situation) through the +iridescent opaqueness of the ebbing ripples that +now barely covered vast silvery stretches of tidal +mud.</p> + + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both;" summary="Illustration"> +<tr><td class="figcenter"><img style="width:394px; height:610px" src="images/illus271.jpg" alt="" /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="caption">“CAN’T YOU SEE THE TIDE IS LEAVING YOU?”</td></tr></table> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Look at that old clam-digger, who has his +shack on the white beach, about quarter of a +mile from our camp! He’s left his boat behind +and is wading out to the clam-flats.” Nixon +paused, with his breast to the boat’s stern, in the +act of propelling it. “Goody! I’d like to stop +and dig clams with him. But we’d never get back +to camp! What ho! she sticks again. There! +that brings her.”</p> + +<p>By dint of alternately propelling and rowing +the three scouts, with their prize, finally reached +the white beach of the dunes before the tide +completely deserted them. They brought a full +cargo of excitement into camp in their tale of +the stranger who had warned them; who, with +worthless vagrancy stamped all over him, they +felt must be the <i>vaurien</i>, Dave Baldwin; and in +their engaging prize, the flippered pup-seal.</p> + +<p>The latter quite eclipsed the interest felt in +the former. Never was there a more docile, fatter, +or more amiable puppy. He enjoyed being +fondled in a scout’s arms, under difficulties, as, +for a pup, he was quite a heavy-weight and slippery +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +too, on account of the amount of blubber +secreted under his creamy skin. His oily brown +eyes were softly trustful.</p> + +<p>But the tug-of-war came with feeding-time. +Vainly did the boy scouts offer him of their +best, vainly did Marcoo and Colin tramp a mile +over the dunes to bring back a quart of new +milk for him from the nearest farm, and try to +pour it gently down his infant throat!</p> + +<p>He set up a dove-like moaning that was plainly +a call for his mother as he lay sprawled out on +the white sands. And, at nightfall, by order of +the scoutmaster, Scouts Warren and Chase rowed +out into the channel and returned him to the +water in which he was quite at home.</p> + +<p>But he was possessed of a contradictory spirit, +for he swam after the Pill, crying to be taken +aboard again. They could hear his dulcet “Oo-oo-ooo!” +as they gathered round their camp-fire +in the white hollow among the sand-hills.</p> + +<p>At the powwow to-night the encounter with +Dave Baldwin, if the vagrant of the marshes was +really he, came in for its share of discussion. +Guesses were rife as to the probability of the +scouts running across him again, and as to how +he might occupy his time in the lazy vagabond +life which he was leading.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was here that Harold broke through the +semi-shy reserve which still encrusted him and +contributed a remark, the first as a result of his +observations, to the powwow.</p> + +<p>“Well! he had an <i>awful</i> sorry face on him,” +he said impulsively, alluding to the vagrant. “It +just made me feel badly for a while!”</p> + +<p>“You’re right, Greerie, he had!” corroborated +Leon. “Whatever he’s doing, it isn’t +agreeing with him. We’ll probably come on him +again some time on the marshes or among the +dunes.”</p> + +<p>But eleven days went by, eleven full days for +the scout campers, golden with congenial activity, +wherein each hour brought its own interesting +“stunt,” as they called it; and they saw no more +of the <i>vaurien</i>, the worthless one, who had caused +his mother’s heart to “break in pieces.”</p> + +<p>And they gave little thought to him. For +those breezy days, the last of August and the first +of September, were spent in observation tours +over marsh and dune or on the heaving river, in +playing their exciting scout games among the +sandhills, in clam-bakes, in practising signaling +with the little red-and-white flags according to +the semaphore or wig-wag code—one scout +transmitting a message to another posted on a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +distant hill—and in the various duties assigned +to them in pairs, of cooking, and keeping the +camp generally in order.</p> + +<p>The more fully one lives, the more joyously +one adventures, the more quickly flutters the present +into the past, like a sunny landscape flitting +by a train! It had come to be the last night but +one in camp. Within another two days the Sugarloaf +Dunes would be deserted so far as campers +were concerned.</p> + +<p>School would presently reopen. And at the end +of the month the Owls would lose their brother +and patrol leader: during the first days of October +Scout Nixon Warren’s parents were expected +home from Europe, and he would rejoin his former +troop in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>To-night, every one was bent upon making +the end of the camping trip a season of befitting +jollity. They sang their scout songs as they gathered +round the camp-fire. They retailed the last +good joke from their magazine. They challenged +the darkness with their hearty motto,—both in +the strong sweet mother tongue wherein it had +been given to the world, and in the pretty <i>Estu +preta!</i> form, which two of their number thought +might serve as a universal link.</p> + +<p>But the night refused to rejoice with them. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +It was chilly, colder than on the same date one +year ago when four lost boys camped out in the +Bear’s Den. The inflowing tide broke on the +beach with sobbing clamor. There was no moon, +few stars. The white sand-hills were wild-looking +sable mounds waving blood-red plumes of +beach-grass or beach-pea wherever the light of +camp-fire or camp-lantern struck them.</p> + +<p>The clusters of gray birches and ash-trees scattered +here and there among the dunes cowered +like ebony shadows fearful of the rising wind.</p> + +<p>“Bah! De night she’s as black as one black +crow,” declared Toiney with a shrug as he threw +another birch log on the camp-fire and set one of +the two bright oil-lanterns on a sand-hill where +it spied upon the gusty, secretive darkness like a +watchful eye.</p> + +<p>With the exception of a few small carbide +lamps attached to tent-posts, those lanterns were +the only luminaries in camp.</p> + +<p>“An’ de win’ she commence for mak’ noise +lak’ mad cat! Saint Ba’tiste! I’ll t’ink dis iss +night for de come-backs—me.” And Toiney +glanced half-fearfully behind him at the sable +mounds so milky in daylight.</p> + +<p>“He means it’s a night for spooks—ghosts! +He doesn’t believe much in ‘come-backs,’ though: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +look at his face!” Leon pointed at the assistant +scoutmaster’s black eyes dancing in the firelight, +at the tassel of his red cap capering in the breeze. +“By the way, Nix and I saw one ‘come-back,’ +about an hour ago—a human one!” went on +Corporal Chase suddenly, after a minute’s pause: +“that rough customer, Dave Baldwin, as we suppose +him to be, turned up again this evening +near the summer bungalows away over on the +beach. He was acting rather queerly, too!”</p> + +<p>“He certainly was!” chimed in Nixon, looking +thoughtfully at a little topknot of flame that +sprouted upon the blazing log nearest to him as +he lay, with his brother Owls, prone upon his +face and hands, gazing into the fire.</p> + +<p>“What was he doing?” asked Jesse Taber, +a member of the Seal Patrol.</p> + +<p>“Why, he was up on the high piazza of the +largest bungalow—that house built just on the +edge of the dunes which looks as if it was standing +on stilts, and getting ready to walk off! He +seemed to be trying one of the windows when we +came along as if attempting to get in.”</p> + +<p>“The summer people who own that house left +there this morning; we saw them going,” broke +in Godey Peck of the Fox Patrol. “I guess all +the three houses are empty now; those dandified +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +‘summer birds’ don’t like staying round here +when the wind ‘makes noise like mad cat’!” +Godey hugged himself and beamed over the wild +noises of the night, and at the voice of the tidal +river calling lustily.</p> + +<p>“Well! did he get into the house?” asked +Jemmie Ahern of the Seals.</p> + +<p>“No, as we came along over the dunes he saw +us and scooted off!” Thus Corporal Leon Chase +again took up the thread of the story. “But Nix +an’ I looked back as we walked along the beach; +it was getting dusk then, but we made out his +figure disappearing into a large shed belonging +to that bungalow.”</p> + +<p>“I hope he wasn’t up to any mischief,” said +the scoutmaster gravely. “Now! let’s forget +about him. Haven’t any of you other scouts +some contribution to make to to-night’s powwow +about things you’ve observed during the day?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Scoutmaster, I have!” Marcoo lifted his +head upon the opposite side of the camp-fire +where he lay, breast downward, on the sand. +“Colin and I and two members of the Seal Patrol, +Howsie and Jemmie Ahern, saw an <i>awfully</i> +big heap of clam-shells between two sand-hills on +the shore-edge of the beach. They were partly +covered with sand; but we dug them out; and—somehow—they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +looked as if they had been +there for ages.”</p> + +<p>“Likely enough, they had! The Indians used +to hold clam-bakes here.” The firelight danced +upon the scoutmaster’s white teeth; he greatly +enjoyed the camp-fire powwow. “You see, fellows, +this fine, white sand is something like snow—but +snow which doesn’t harden—the wind +blows it into a drift; then, perhaps, another big +gale comes along, picks up the drift and deposits +it somewhere else. That’s what uncovered your +clam-shells.”</p> + +<p>“Then how is it these white dunes aren’t +traveling round the country?” Colin waved his +arm toward the neighboring sand-hills with a +laugh.</p> + +<p>“Because they are held in place by the vegetation +that quickly sprang up on and between +them. That beach-grass has very coarse strong +roots which interlace under the surface. Now! +let’s listen to Toiney singing; we must be merry, +seeing it’s our second last night in camp.” +Scoutmaster Estey waved his hand toward his +assistant in the blue shirt and tasseled cap.</p> + +<p>Toiney, tiring of the conversation which it +was an effort for him to follow, was crooning +softly an old French ditty wherewith he had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +been sung to sleep by his grandfather when he +was a black-eyed babe in a saffron-hued night-cap +and gown:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“À la clair-e fontain-e</span><br /> +M’en allant promener,<br /> +J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle,<br /> +Que je m’y suis baigné!”</div> + +<p>“Oh! you took a walk near the fountain and +found the water so fine that you went in bathing!” +cried one and another of the scouts who +were in their first year in high school. “Must +have been a pretty big fountain! Go ahead: +what did you do next, Toiney?”</p> + +<p>But the singer had suddenly sprung to his feet +and stood, an alert, tense figure, in the flickering +twilight.</p> + +<p>“<i>Gard’ donc!</i>” he cried gutturally, while the +cat-like breeze capered round him, flicking his +short red tassel, catching at his legs in their +queer high boots. “<i>Gard’ donc!</i> de littal light +in de sky—engh? <i>Sapré tonnerre!</i> I’ll t’ink +shee’s fire, me. No camp-fire, <i>non</i>! Beeg fire—engh? +<i>V’là! V’là!</i>”</p> + +<p>He glanced round sharply at his scout comrades, +and pointed, with excited gesticulations, +across the sable dunes in the direction of those +recently erected summer residences.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XVII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE SIGNALMAN</p> + +<p>“Patrol leaders and corporals, muster your +men!” The voice of the young scoutmaster rang +sharply out upon the night.</p> + +<p>The three boy patrols, Owls, Seals, and Foxes, +who fell quickly into line at his order, were no +longer surrounding their camp-fire amid the +dusky sand-hills. That had been deserted even +while Toiney was speaking, while he was pointing +out the claims of a larger fire on their attention.</p> + +<p>From the glare in the sky this was evidently +a threatening blaze; its fierce reflection overhung +like an intangible flaming sword the trio +of recently erected summer residences about +quarter of a mile from the scouts’ camp—those +handsome bungalows from which the summer +birds had flown.</p> + +<p>“That’s no brush fire,” Scoutmaster Estey had +exclaimed directly he sighted the glare. “It’s +a building of some kind. Come on, fellows; +there’s work for us here!” And snatching one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +of the two camp-lanterns from its sandy pedestal +he led the way across the dark wilderness of +the dunes.</p> + +<p>Nixon caught up the second luminary and +followed his chief. In their wake raced the three +patrols, down in a sandy hollow one moment, +climbing wildly the next, tearing their way +through the plumed tangle of beach-grass and +other vegetation that capped each pale mound +now swathed in blackness, Toiney keeping Harold +by his side.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t one of the houses, thank goodness! +Only a big shed!” cried the scoutmaster as +they neared the scene of the fire, where golden +flames tore in two the darkness that cowered on +either side of them, having gained complete mastery +of an outbuilding which had been used as a +modest garage during the summer.</p> + +<p>“<i>Whee-ew!</i> Gracious!” Nixon vented a prolonged +whistle of consternation. “Why! ’twas +into that very shed that we saw Dave Baldwin—or +the man whom we took for him—disappear +a couple of hours ago.”</p> + +<p>But the demands of the moment were such, +if the three houses were to be saved, that the +remark, tossed at random into the darkness, was +lost there amid the reign of fiery motes and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +rampant sparks that strove to carry the destruction +farther.</p> + +<p>“Luckily, the wind isn’t setting toward the +house—it’s mostly in another direction!” The +scoutmaster by a breathless wave of his blinking +lantern indicated the largest of the three bungalows +to which the blazing outbuilding belonged. +“No hope of saving that shed! But if the little +wood-shed near-by catches, the house will go too. +We may head the fire off!”</p> + +<p>It was then that he issued the ringing order +to patrol leaders and those second in command +to muster their men.</p> + +<p>And as the boy scouts fell into line, while +Toiney was muttering, aghast: “Ah, <i>quel gros +feu</i>! She’s beeg fire! How we put shes out—engh?” +the alert brain of the American scoutmaster +had outlined his plan of campaign; and +the air cracked with his orders:—</p> + +<p>“Toiney, take the Owls and break into that +clam-digger’s shack on the beach: get his pails! +Foxes and Seals form a line to the beach; fill +the pails as you get them an’ pass ’em along to +me! Tide’s high; you need only wade in a little +way! Hey! Leon,”—to Corporal Chase, who +was obeying the first order with the rest of his +patrol,—”you’re good at signaling: take these +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +lanterns, get up on the tallest sand-hill an’ signal +Annisquam Lighthouse; tell them to get help! +Men there can probably read semaphore!”</p> + +<p>“<i>We</i> may not be able to prevent the fire’s +spreading. And if it attacks that bungalow, the +others will go too—the whole colony! Lighthouse +men may take the glare in the sky to mean +only a brush-fire,” added the scoutmaster, <i>sotto +voce</i>, as he stationed himself upon the crest of +the sandy slope that led from the burning shed +to the dim lapping water.</p> + +<p>That doomed shed was now blazing like a +mammoth bonfire. The flames flung their gleeful +arms out, seizing a solemn gray birch-tree for a +partner in their wild dance, scattering their rosy +fire-petals broadcast until they lodged in the +roof of the wood-shed adjacent to the house, and +upon the piazza of the bungalow itself.</p> + +<p>But they had a trained force to reckon with +in the boy scouts. In the clam-digger’s shack +were found more than a dozen pails which their +owner had cleaned and set in order before he +went home that evening. And among the excited +raiders who seized upon them with wild eagerness +was Harold Greer—Harold who a year ago +was called “poltron” and “scaree” even by the +friend who protected him—Harold, with the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +last wisp of bugbear fear that trammeled him +burned off by the contagious excitement of the +moment—acquitting himself sturdily as a Scout +of the U.S.A!</p> + +<p>Under his patrol leader’s direction he took his +place in the chain of boys that formed from the +conflagration to the wave-edge of the beach, +where half a dozen of his comrades rushed bare-legged +into the howling tide, filled the pails and +passed them along, up the line, to their scoutmaster +on the hill.</p> + +<p>And he held to his place and to his duty +stanchly, did the one-time “poltron,” even when +Toiney, his mainstay, was summoned to the hill-top, +to aid the commander-in-chief in his direct onslaughts +upon the fire. Seeing which, Scout Warren +touched his shoulder once proudly, in passing, +and said in a voice huskily triumphant: “Well +done, Harold! I always knew you were a boy!”</p> + +<p>The dragon which had held sway upon that +woodland clearing was slain at last, and the +scars which he had left upon his victim were +being cauterized by the fire.</p> + +<p>“Go to it, boys! Good work! That’s fine!” +rang out the commanding shout of the scoutmaster +above the sullen roar of semi-defeated flames +and the hiss of contending elements.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>“<i>Houp-là!</i> <i>Ça c’est bien!</i> Dat’s ver’ good!” +screamed Toiney airily from his perch atop +of a ladder which he had found in the wood-shed.</p> + +<p>From this vantage-point he was deluging with +salt water the roof of the smaller shed and also +the walls of the bungalow wherever a fire-seed +lodged, ready to take root. Like a huge monkey +he looked, swarming up there, with the flame-light +dancing deliriously upon his dingy red +cap! But his voice would put merriment into +any exigency.</p> + +<p>“<i>Houp-e-là!</i> We arre de boy! We arre de +bes’ scout ev’ry tam’!” he carolled gayly, as he +launched his hissing pailfuls at each threatened +spot. “<i>Continue cette affaire d’eau</i>—go on wit’ +dis watere bizness. We done good work—engh?”</p> + +<p>So they were, doing very good work! But +the issue was still exceedingly doubtful as to +whether, without any proper fire-fighting apparatus, +they could hold the flames in check, restricting +their destruction to the large shed whose +roof toppled in with a resounding crash, and a +volcano-like eruption of sparks.</p> + +<p>And what of Leon? What of Corporal Chase, +alone upon the tallest sand-hill he could pick +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +out, a solitary scout figure remote from his comrades +with the dune breeze shrieking round +him?</p> + +<p>What were his feelings as he shook his two +bright signaling lanterns aloft at arm’s length, +to attract the attention of the men who kept the +distant lighthouse beyond the dunes at the mouth +of another tidal river, and then spelled out his +message with those flashing luminaries, instead +of the ordinary signal-flags: “Fire! Get help! +House afire! Get help!” calling assistance out +of the black night?</p> + +<p>Well! Starrie Chase was conscious of a monster +thrill shooting through him to his feet which +firmly pressed the sandy soil: breaking up into +a hundred little thrills, it made most of the +sensations which he had misnamed excitement a +year ago seem tame, thin, and unboyish.</p> + +<p>He stood there, an isolated, sixteen-year-old +boy. But he knew himself a trained force +stronger than the “mad-cat” wind that clawed +at him, than the tide which moaned behind him, +even than the fire he combated; stronger always +in the long run than these, for he was growing +into a man who could get the better of them +ninety-nine times out of a hundred.</p> + +<p>He was a scout, in line with the world’s progress, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +allied with rescue, not ruin, with healing, +not harm, with a chivalry that crowned all.</p> + +<p>“Fire! Get help!” Thus he kept on signaling +at intervals, his left arm extending one flashing +lantern at arm’s length, while the companion +light was lowered to his knees for the formation +of the first letter of the message. And so on, the +twin lights held at various angles illumining the +youthful signalman until he stood out like a +black statue on a pedestal among the lonely +dunes.</p> + +<p>To Starrie Chase that sand-peak pedestal +seemed to grow into a mountain and his uniformed +figure to tower with it—become colossal—in +the excitement of the moment!</p> + +<p>While, not twenty yards distant, behind a +smaller sand-hillock, crouched another figure +whose half-liberated groan the wind caught and +tossed away like a feather as he gazed between +clumps of beach-grass at the gesturing form of +the scout.</p> + +<p>It was the same figure which had haunted the +dunes, listening to the camp-fire revelry upon +the boy scouts’ first night in camp, the same +which had so suddenly appeared upon the marshes +near the pup-seal’s creek.</p> + +<p>But distress seemed now to lie heavier upon +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +that vagrant figure, instead of diminishing. For, +as he still studied the light-girdled form of the +signalman, Dave Baldwin vented a groan full +and unmistakable, and blew upon a pair of +burned hands.</p><hr class="art" /><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center chap">CHAPTER XVIII</p> + +<p class="center chap2">THE LOG SHANTY AGAIN</p> + +<p>“This fire has been the work of some incendiary—that’s +what I think!” was the opinion +delivered later that night by the captain of the +nearest fire-brigade, who, with his company, had +been summoned by Leon’s signaled message, +passed on via telephone wires by the lighthouse +men.</p> + +<p>“Of course, it may have been a case of accident +or spontaneous combustion, but the former +seems out of the question, seeing that the houses +were empty, and the latter not probable,” went +on the grizzled chief. “Anyhow, I congratulate +you on your boys, Mr. Scoutmaster! Under your +leadership they certainly did good work in saving +this whole summer colony.”</p> + +<p>“So they did; I’m proud of them!” returned +the scoutmaster impulsively, which made the +three patrol leaders within hearing, Scout Warren +of the Owls, Godey Peck of the Foxes, and +Jesse Taber of the Seals, straighten their tired +bodies, feeling repaid.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well! I expect you’ll see one or two officers +landing upon these Sugarloaf Dunes to-morrow, +to try and get at the cause of the fire,” +said the chief again. “It started in that shed +where, so far as we know, there was nothing inflammable.”</p> + +<p>“I ought to tell you,” Scoutmaster Estey +looked very grave, “that two of my scouts saw +a man entering the shed,” pointing to what was +now a mere smouldering heap of ashes, “just +about an hour, or a little over, before the fire +broke out. When they first caught sight of him +he was on the piazza of the bungalow itself, and +seemed trying to get into the house.”</p> + +<p>“Ho! Ho! I thought so. This is a case for +the district police, I guess!” muttered the grizzled +fire-chief.</p> + +<p>That was the opinion also of the police representatives +who landed upon the white dunes from +a motor-boat early the next morning. And when +the sharp questioning of one of the officers +brought out the fact that the individual who +had lurked about the scene of the fire was believed +to be a youthful ne’er-do-weel, Dave Baldwin, +with a prison record behind him, whose +name was known to the two policemen, though +his person was not, suspicion fastened upon that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +vagrant as possibly the malicious author of the +fire.</p> + +<p>“That fellow first got into trouble through a +morbid craving for excitement,” said one of the +officers. “The same craving <i>may</i> have led him +on from one thing to another until he hasn’t +stopped at arson—especially if he had a spiteful +motive for it, which is likely with a tramp. That +may have been his purpose in trying to enter the +house.”</p> + +<p>“I can scarcely imagine Dave’s having become +such an utter degenerate,” answered the scoutmaster +sadly. “I went to school with him long +ago. And Captain Andy Davis knew his father +well; they were shipmates on more than one +trawling trip to the Grand Banks. Captain Andy +speaks of the elder David Baldwin as a brave +man and a big fisherman. Even if the son did +start this fire, it may have been accidental in +some way.”</p> + +<p>“Well! we must get our hands on him, anyhow,” +decided the officer. “I wonder if he’s +skulking round among the dunes still; that’s +not probable? I’d like to know whether any one +of these observant boy scouts of yours saw a +boat leave this shore since daybreak?”</p> + +<p>It transpired that Coombsie had: after a night +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +of unprecedented excitement—like his tossing +brother scouts who sought the shelter of their +tents about one o’clock in the morning—he had +been unable to sleep, had crept out of his tent at +daybreak and climbed a white sand-hill, to watch +the sun rise over the river.</p> + +<p>“I saw a rowboat shoot out of a little creek farther +up the river, I should say about half a mile +from the dunes,” said Marcoo. “There was only +one person in it; seemed to me he was acting +rather queerly; he’d row for a while, then +stand up in the stern and scull a bit, then row +again.”</p> + +<p>“Could you see for what point he was heading?”</p> + +<p>“For the salt-marshes high up on the other +side of the river, I guess! I think he landed +there.”</p> + +<p>“Then, he’s probably hiding in the woods beyond +the marshes. We must search them. That +French-Canadian, Toiney Leduc, who’s camping +with you, has worked as a lumberman in those +woods; he knows them well, and is a good trailer. +I’d like to have him for a guide this morning.” +Here the officer turned to the scoutmaster. +“And if you have no objection I think it would +be well that those two boys should come with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +us,” he nodded toward Scouts Warren and Chase. +“They can identify the man whom they saw +trying to enter that bungalow last night.”</p> + +<p>There is nothing at all inspiriting about a +man-hunt; so Nixon and Leon decided when, +within an hour, they landed from the police boat +on the familiar salt-marshes high up the river, +and silently took their way across them, in company +with Toiney and the policemen, over the +uplands into the woods.</p> + +<p>They had come upon the fugitive’s boat, +hidden among a clump of bushes near the river. +Using that as a starting-point, Toiney followed +Dave Baldwin’s trail into the maze of woodland; +though how he did so was to the boy scouts a +problem, for to them it seemed blind work.</p> + +<p>But the guide in the tasseled cap, blue shirt, +and heelless high boots, would stop now and +again at a soft spot on the marshes or uplands, +or when they came to a swampy patch in the +woods; at such times he would generally drop on +all fours with a muttered: “Ha! <i>V’là ses pis!</i>” +in his queer patois. “Dere’s heem step!” And +anon: “Dere me fin his feets again!”</p> + +<p>When there was no footprint to guide him +Toiney would stoop down and read the story of +the dry pine-needles, just faintly disturbed by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +the toe of a rough boot which had kicked them +aside a little in passing.</p> + +<p>Or he would carefully examine a broken twig, +the wood of which, being whitish and not discolored, +showed that it had been recently snapped +by a tread heavier than that of a fox; and again +they would hear him mutter in his quaint dialect: +“<i>Tiens! le tzit ramille cassé</i>: de littal +stick broke! I’ll t’ink hees step jus’ here—engh?”</p> + +<p>It was a lesson in trailing which the two boy +scouts never forgot as they took their way through +the thick woods, fairly well known to them now, +past Varney’s Paintpot, Rattlesnake Brook, and +other points of interest.</p> + +<p>Ere they reached the Bear’s Den, however, the +trail which Toiney had been following seemed to +turn off at an angle and then double backward +through the woods, in an opposite direction to +that in which they had been pursuing it.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe she’s no’ de same trail?” pondered +the guide aloud. “Mebbe dere’s oder man’s +feets, engh?”</p> + +<p>It was now that a sudden idea, a swift memory, +struck Scout Warren.</p> + +<p>“Say! Starrie,” he exclaimed in a low tone to +his brother scout. “Do you remember our looking +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +all over that loggers’ camp last year, the +shanty back there in the woods, with the rusty +grindstone trough and mountain of sawdust beside +it? We found some fresh tobacco ash on +the table and in one of the bunks which showed +that, though the shanty was deserted in summer, +somebody was using it for a shelter at night. +That somebody may have been Dave Baldwin.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, they say he has spent his time—or +most of it—loafing among the dunes or in the +woods,” returned Leon, well recalling the incident +and how, too, he had scoffed at the boy +scout for taking the trouble to read the sign +story told by every article in and about the +rough shanty, including the overturned trough.</p> + +<p>“Eh! what’s that, boys?” asked one of the +two policemen, catching part of the conversation.</p> + +<p>As in duty bound they told him; and the +search party turned in the direction of the log +shanty.</p> + +<p>As they surmised it was not empty. On the +discolored mattress in the lower bunk left there +by the lumbermen who once occupied it, was +stretched the figure of a man, fast asleep. One +foot emerging from a charred, torn trouser-leg +which looked as if it had come into contact with +fire, hung over the edge of the deal crib.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the party filed into the shanty the +sleeper started up and rubbed his eyes. At sight +of the two policemen his smudged face took on +a pinched pallor.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t do it on purpose!” he cried in the +bewilderment of this sudden awakening, without +time to collect his senses. “So help me! I never +meant to set that shed on fire!”</p> + +<p>“You were seen hanging round there an hour +before the blaze broke out, and trying to get +into the house too,” challenged the elder of the +policemen.</p> + +<p>Dave Baldwin slipped from the bunk to the +ground; he saw that his best course lay in making +a clean breast of last night’s proceedings.</p> + +<p>“So I was!” he said. “And these two fellows,” +he pointed to the boy scouts, “saw me up on the +piazza of the house, trying a window. I was +hungry; I’d had nothing to eat all day but the +last leg of a woodchuck that I knocked on the +head day before yesterday. I thought the summer +people who had just gone away might have left +some canned stuff or remnants o’ food behind +’em. I didn’t want to steal anything else, or to +do mischief!” he went on with that same passionate +frankness of a man abruptly startled out of +sleep, while the policemen listened patiently. “I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +didn’t, I tell ye! I’d been hangin’ round those +Sugarloaf Dunes for nigh on two weeks, watching +the boys who were camping there, having a +ripping good time—doing a lot o’ stunts that +I knew nothing about—wishing I’d had the +chanst they have now!”</p> + +<p>“How came you to go into the shed that was +burned down?” asked one of the officers.</p> + +<p>“I was hungry, as I tell you, an’ I couldn’t +get into the house, so I thought I’d lie down +under the nearest cover, that shed, go to sleep +an’ forget it. I guess I knocked the ashes out o’ +my pipe an’ dozed. Smoke an’ the smell o’ wood +burning woke me. I found one side o’ the shed +was on fire. Maybe, some one had left an oily +rag, or one with turpentine on it, around, and +the spark from my pipe caught it. I don’t know! +I tried to stamp out the fire—to beat it out +with my hands!” He extended blistered palms +and knuckles. “I’ve made a mess o’ my life I +know! But I ain’t a crazy fire-bug!”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you try and get help to fight +it?”</p> + +<p>“I was too scared. I thought, likely as not, +nobody would believe me, seeing I had a ‘reformatory +record,’” the youthful vagrant’s face +twitched. “I was afraid o’ being ‘sent up +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>’ +again, so I hid among the dunes and crossed to +the woods this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you can tell all that to the judge; you +must come with me now,” said the older policeman +inflexibly, not unkindly; he knew that men +when suddenly aroused from sleep usually speak +the truth; he was impressed by the argument of +those blistered palms; on the other hand, the +youthful vagrant’s past record was very much +against him.</p> + +<p>But those charred palms were evidence enough +for Toiney; though they might leave the officers +of the law unconvinced.</p> + +<p>“Ha! <i>courage</i>, Dave,” he cried, feeling an +emotion of pity mingle with the contempt which +he, honest Antoine, had felt for the <i>vaurien</i> +who had caused his old mother’s heart to burst. +“<i>Bon courage</i>, Dave! I’ll no t’ink you do dat, +for sure, me. Mebbe littal fire fly f’om you’ pipe. +I’ll no t’ink you do dat for de fun!”</p> + +<p>“We don’t think you did it on purpose, Dave,” +struck in the two boy scouts, seconding their +guide.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Dave Baldwin passed that night +in a prison cell and appeared before the judge +next morning with the certainty confronting him +that he would be remanded to appear before the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +higher court on the grave charge of being an +incendiary.</p> + +<p>And it seemed improbable that bail would be +offered for the prisoner, so that he would be allowed +out of jail in the mean time.</p> + +<p>Yet bail was forthcoming. A massive, weatherbeaten +figure, well known in this part of Essex +County, stood up in court declaring that he was +ready and willing to sign the prisoner’s bail +bonds. It was Captain Andy Davis.</p> + +<p>And when all formalities had been gone +through, when the prisoner was liberated until +such time as his case should come up for trial, +Captain Andy took him in tow.</p> + +<p>“You come along home with me, Dave!” he +commanded. “I’m going to put it up to you +straight whether you want to live a man’s life, or +not.”</p> + +<p>And so he did that evening.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been wanting to get hold of you for +some time, Dave Baldwin,” said the sea-captain. +“Your father an’ I were shipmates together on +more’n one trip. He was a white man, brave an’ +hard-working; it’s hard for me to believe that +there isn’t some o’ the same stuff in his son.”</p> + +<p>The youthful ne’er-do-weel was silent. Captain +Andy slowly went on: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>“As for the matter of this fire, I don’t believe +you started it on purpose. I doubt if the policemen +who arrested you do! It’s your past record +that’s against you. Now! if I see the district attorney, +Dave Baldwin,” Captain Andy’s eyes narrowed +meditatively under the heavy lids, “and +succeed in getting this case against you <i>nol +prossed</i>—I guess that’s the term the lawyer +used—it means squashed, anyhow, do you want +to start over again an’ head for some port worth +while?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody would give me the chance,” muttered +the younger man huskily.</p> + +<p>“I will. I’ve bought a piece of land over there +on the edge of the woods, lad; it ain’t more’n +half cleared yet. I’m intending to start a farm. +But I don’t know much about farming; that’s +the truth!” The grand old Viking looked almost +pathetically helpless. “But you’ve worked on a +farm, Dave, when you were a boy and since: if +you want to take hold an’ help me—if you want +to stick to work an’ make good—this is your +chance!”</p> + +<p>An inarticulate sound from the <i>vaurien</i>; it +sounded like a sob bitten in two by clenched +teeth!</p> + +<p>“The two boys who were with the officers who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +arrested you told me that you declared you’d +been hangin’ round the Sugarloaf Dunes lately, +watching those scouts at their signaling stunts +an’ the like, an’ wishing that you’d had the +chance they have now, when you were a boy. +Well! <i>theirs</i> is a splendid chance—better than +boys ever had before, it seems to me—of joining +the learning o’ useful things with fun.” +Captain Andy planted an elbow emphatically +upon a little table near him. “Now! Dave, you +don’t want to let those boy scouts be the ones to +do the good turns for your old mother that you +should do? If you ain’t set on breaking her +heart altogether—if you want to be a decent +citizen of the country that raises boys like these +scouts—if you want to see your own sons scouts +some day—well, give us your fin, lad!”</p> + +<p>The captain’s voice dropped upon the last +words, the semi-comical wind-up of a peroration +broken and blustering in its earnestness.</p> + +<p>There was a repetition of the hysterical sound +in Dave Baldwin’s throat which failed to pass +his gritting teeth. He did not extend his hand +at Captain Andy’s invitation. But his shoulders +heaved as he turned his head away; and the +would-be benefactor was satisfied.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And so Captain Andy is going to stand back +of Dave Baldwin and give him another chance to +make good in life!” said the Exmouth doctor, +member of the Local Council of Boy Scouts, +when he heard what had come of the vagrant’s +arrest. “That’s like Andy! And I don’t think +he’ll have much difficulty with the district attorney; +nobody really believes that Baldwin started +that fire maliciously, and the district attorney +will be very ready to listen to anything Captain +Andy has to say!”</p> + +<p>Here the doctor’s eye watered. He was recalling +an incident which had occurred some +years before at sea, when the son of that district +attorney, who did not then occupy his present +distinguished position, and the doctor’s own son, +with one or two other young men of Dave Baldwin’s +age, had been wrecked while yachting upon +certain ragged rocks of Newfoundland, owing to +their foolhardiness in putting to sea when a +storm was brewing.</p> + +<p>At daybreak upon an October morning their +buffeted figures were sighted, clinging to the +rocks, by the lookout on the able fishing vessel, +Constellation, of which Captain Andrew Davis +was then in command.</p> + +<p>The furious gale had subsided. But as Captain +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +Andy knew, the greatest danger to his own +vessel lay in the sullen and terrible swell of the +“old sea” which it had stirred up.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the Constellation bore down upon +the shipwrecked men, getting as near to them as +possible, without being swept on to the rocks +herself.</p> + +<p>Then Captain Andy gave the order to put +over a dory, stepped into it, and called for a +volunteer. Twice, to and fro through the towering +swell of the old sea, went that gallant little +dory. She was smashed to kindling wood on her +second trip, but not before the men in her could +be hauled aboard the Constellation with ropes—not +before every member of the yachting party +was saved!</p> + +<p>“And I guess if Captain Andy wants a chance +to haul Dave Baldwin off the rocks where the +old sea stirred up by the gusts of his own waywardness +and wrongdoing have stranded him, +the district attorney won’t stand in the way!” +said the doctor to himself.</p> + +<p>His surmise proved correct.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was just one month after the fire upon the +dunes that the three patrols of boy scouts, Owls, +Foxes, and Seals, assembled at a point of rendezvous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +upon the outskirts of the town, bound off +upon a long Saturday hike through the October +woods.</p> + +<p>But some hearts in the troop were at bottom +heavy to-day, though on the surface they rose +above the feeling.</p> + +<p>For it was the last woodland hike, for the +present, that Scout Warren of the Owls would +take with his patrol. The return of his parents +from Europe was expected during the coming +week; and he—now with two white stripes +upon his arm, signifying his two years of service +in the Boy Scouts of America, wearing also the +patrol leader’s bars and first-class scout badge—would +rejoin his Peewit Patrol in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>However, his comrades’ regrets were softened +by Nixon’s promise that he would frequently +visit the Massachusetts troop with which he had +spent an exciting year, and which, unintentionally, +he had been instrumental in forming.</p> + +<p>And on this brilliant October Saturday Assistant +Scoutmaster Toiney Leduc, perceiving +that the coming parting was casting a faint +shadow before, exerted himself to banish that +cloudlet as the troop started on its hike.</p> + +<p>“<i>Houp-e-là!</i> We arre de boy! We arre de +stuff! We arre de bes’ scout ev’ry tam’!” he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +shouted with an <i>esprit de corps</i> which found its +echo in one breast at least—that of the terrier, +Blink, who to-day capered with the troop as its +mascot. “We arre de bes’ scout; <i>n’est-ce pas</i>, +mo’ smarty?” And Toiney embraced Harold, +marching at his side—Harold, whose lips +turned up to-day and every day now in the +scout’s smile, for since the night of the dune +fire had not each of his comrades and the scoutmasters +too, kept impressing on him that he had +“behaved like a little man and a good scout” +at duty’s call!</p> + +<p>There were individuals among the onlookers, +too, watching the three patrols march out of the +town that morning, who shared Toiney’s primitive +conceit that they were the “best scouts”; +or at least fairly on the way to being a model +troop.</p> + +<p>Little Jack Baldwin, gazing at his rescuers, +Scouts Warren and Chase, Marcoo and Colin +Estey, marching two and two at the head of the +leading patrol, clapped his hands and almost +burst his heart in wishing that he could be +twelve years old to-morrow so that he might +enlist as a tenderfoot scout.</p> + +<p>Whereupon his old grandmother smilingly +bade him “take patience,” for the two years +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +which now separated him from his heart’s desire +would not be long in passing.</p> + +<p>And the boy scouts, as they raised their broad-brimmed +hats to old Ma’am Baldwin, saw a happier +look upon her face than it had ever worn +before, to their knowledge.</p> + +<p>Farther on they came upon the explanation of +this! They were taking a different route to-day +from that which they usually followed in entering +the woods. About a mile from the town they +struck a partial clearing, where the land, not yet +entirely relieved of timber, was evidently being +gradually converted into a farm.</p> + +<p>As the scouts approached they heard the ringing +strokes of a woodsman’s axe, and presently +came upon a perspiring young man, putting all +his strength into felling a stubborn oak-tree.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Dave; how goes it?” cried the scoutmaster, +halting with his troop.</p> + +<p>“Fine!” came back the panting answer from +the individual engaged in this scouting or pioneering +work, who was the former <i>vaurien</i>, +Dave Baldwin.</p> + +<p>“Find this better than loafing about the +dunes, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Well! I should say so,” came the answer +with an honest smile.</p><p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the boy scouts were hardly noticing Dave +Baldwin: Owls, Foxes, and Seals, they were +gazing in transfixed amusement at their hero-in-chief, +Captain Andy, owner of this half-cleared +land.</p> + +<p>He, who in his seagoing days had been known +by such flattering titles as the Grand Bank +Horse, the Ocean Patrol, and the like, was seated +in the midst of a half-acre of pasture land, holding +on like grim death to one end of a twenty-foot +rope coiled round his hand, the hemp’s other +extremity being hitched to the leg of a very +lively red cow which presently dragged him the +entire length of the pasture and then across and +across it, in obedience to her feminine whims.</p> + +<p>“She’ll be the death o’ me, boys!” he shouted +comically to the convulsed scouts. “Great Neptune! +I’d rather take a vessel through the +breakers on Sable Island Bar than to be tied to +her heels for one day.”</p> + +<p>“For pity’s sake! Hold on to her, Cap!” +Dave Baldwin paused in his energetic tree-felling. +“Yesterday, she got into that little plowed field +that I’d just seeded down with winter rye, and +thrashed about there!”</p> + +<p>“Ha! I’ll t’ink you go for be good <i>habitant</i>—farmer—Dave,” +broke in Toiney suddenly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +and genially. “I’ll t’ink you get dere after de +w’ile, engh?”</p> + +<p>It was plain to each member of the troop +that so far as Dave himself was concerned he was +already “getting there,”—reaching the goal of +an honest, industrious manhood.</p> + +<p>The triple responsibility of starting a farm, +directing the energies of his benefactor, and +combating the cow, was rapidly making a man +of him.</p> + +<p>They heard the virile blows of his axe against +the tree-trunk as they marched on their woodland +way. And their song floated back to him:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“At duty’s call, with a smile for all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Scout will do his part!”</span><br /></div> + +<p>Dave Baldwin paused for a minute to listen; +then, as he swung his axe in a tremendous, final +blow against the tottering oak, he too broke +triumphantly into the refrain:—</p> + +<div class="poemr"> +<span style="margin-left: -0.4em;">“And we’ll shout, shout, shout,</span><br /> +For the Scout, Scout, Scout,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the Scouts of the U.S.A!”</span></div> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center1">Transcriber's note: <br /> Both ‘Ne’er-do-weel’ and +‘Ne’er-do-well’ are used, so both spellings have been +preserved.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Scout of To-day, by Isabel Hornibrook + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SCOUT OF TO-DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 38540-h.htm or 38540-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/4/38540/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Paul Fernandez and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://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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