“What’s happening, Billy?” asked the patrol leader, though of course he could see that the bear was busily engaged with something just then.
“He’s hooked your lovely bread, that’s what, Hugh!” gasped the other, pointing.
“Oh! well, let it go at that,” replied Hugh, with a short laugh. “Seems like a pity to waste Mrs. Benton’s prime bread on such a beast; but since he’s nearly starved, and has got his teeth in the loaf, there’s no stopping him now. But how did it happenyouhad the bread in your hands, Billy?”
“It was all my fault, I guess, Hugh,” answered the now contrite Billy. “I just thought I’d see how he acted when he got a whiff of that new bread, and would you believe me, he just leaned so hard on his rope that it snapped where it was fastened around the tree. Whoo! if I hadn’t had the good sense to drop the bread I reckon he’d have bitten a hunk out of my leg!”
“But he’s free now, Hugh,” spoke up Arthur. “What can we do about it?”
“While he’s so busy with the bread I’ll try and see if I can get hold of that rope and fix him again,” remarked the patrol leader, not believing it would prove a very difficult task.
“Be careful, Hugh. He’s got wicked-looking teeth! I can see ’em!” Billy warned his chum anxiously.
“And his claws haven’t been trimmed this long while, seems like,” added Arthur.
“I’ll look out, make your minds easy on that question,” Hugh told them. “Both of you stand where you are, and keep moving your arms so as to sort of hold his attention. I think I can see how the job is going to be done.”
“A good idea, sure it is!” Billy declared and immediately began to swing both of his arms as though they were parts of some windmill with a twenty-mile-an-hour gale blowing.
“Easy now, not quite so hard, Billy!” Hugh admonished as he started to pass to the rear of the munching brute, where he had discovered the broken end of the rope lying on the ground.
The others continued to move their arms and talk as they watched Hugh work. In the first place he bent down and secured the rope. He found that by advancing closer to the bear he would be able to pass it around a stout little sapling and knot the end securely. What if the munching beast did growl more or less as he became conscious of Hugh’s presence. That was just the way any dog would do when disturbed while crunching a bone between his teeth; and the scout master did not mean to let it deter him from the task he had set out to perform.
“All done, Hugh?” burst out the admiring Billy when he saw the other starting to move back.
“Yes, and if the rope only holds this time he’ll stay there till his master shows up to take him in charge,” came from the other.
“You did it in first-class style, and that’s a fact, Chief!” asserted the relieved Arthur.
“Now, what’s next on the program?” demanded Billy.
“Why, as I’ve managed to find the tracks of the foreigner leaving here, I thought we might start out and follow the trail,” suggested the patrol leader.
“Fine!” ejaculated Billy.
“And I think the same,” added Arthur, “though I hope that after we’re all through with this job you’ll still come back with me, and try out my wireless, Hugh. Promise me that, won’t you, please?”
“You can count on me, Arthur,” the other assured him. “I’m almost as much interested in your experiment as you can be yourself. I think it would be a great thing if we could talk across all the distance between while you’re home here and some of the scouts are on board theVixenbound up the coast. It would show the boys of the Naval Reserve that scouts are not soslowafter all to keep up with the procession. Yes, you can count on me, Arthur, to watch you work your wireless.”
“All right, Hugh. Let’s see if we can find out what’s become of the man who owns this poor bear.”
Hugh immediately led his chums over where he had been working at the moment that the tocsin of alarm from Billy announced that something unusual had happened, and that he was needed in another quarter.
“See here and here,” Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke to the ground.
“That is his trail as sure as anything,” admitted Billy instantly. “And he’s wearing shoes with great big hob-nails in them, too. Most of these foreigners do that, I guess. They make their shoes wear twice as long; and every cent saved means they can go back all the sooner to their old home with a little fortune tucked away in their corduroys or jeans. Lead off, Hugh, and we’ll be right at your heels. And show us anything queer you happen to run across on the trail, see?”
“Because as scouts,” added Arthur, promptly, “we want to be up to all the wrinkles of the business, you know. I find out new things every day, and it seems like the more you know the more you discover you don’t know.”
“That’s a queer way of saying it, Arthur,” laughed Hugh, “but it covers the ground, I think. You mean the field keeps on getting larger the more our horizon is extended, which is what one writer says. Come on then, we’ll leave the bear to finish his bread, and lick up the crumbs. I had thought to have a share of that brown loaf myself, but it went in a good cause and I don’t feel sorry.”
With the scout master leading them and all bending low so as to keep a close watch on the tracks, they started forth. None of them could tell just where that trail might take them,—a dozen possibilities opened up before their mental vision. If they thought anything at all, possibly Billy and Arthur were convinced that the foreigner may have wanted to get rid of his charge, and had thus basely abandoned the poor bear to its fate. Then again there was a chance that in going to town he may have been arrested for some trivial thing, and was even then languishing in the lockup, unable to make the police understand that his performing bear would starve unless some one went up to Cedar Hill to relieve the animal’s wants.
Several times Hugh did call a temporary halt. He had come upon some phase of the trail that might have mystified a greenhorn, but which proved no puzzle to him, because of his wide experience in these things. And he took pleasure in explaining to his comrades what the combination meant.
“It seems that the fellow might be trying to blind anybody that chanced to be following his tracks,” Hugh once told his mates. “Three times now he’s even gone to the trouble to walk along a fallen tree trunk, and jump from the further end. If I didn’t know the old Indian dodge, it would have fooled me, too.”
“And I never heard about such a game,” admitted Arthur, while Billy nodded his head acknowledging the same thing.
“But whatever do you think he wants to do that for, Hugh?” the last named asked.
“I don’t know, Billy,” replied the patrol leader thoughtfully. “Seems to me he might be following a series of marks somehow, for look here at this plain ‘blaze’ on this tree, made at least several months ago, perhaps even last year. Now, it might be possible that the man has got a secretcachesomewhere around, where he keeps his valuables; and whenever he finds himself in this neighborhood he goes there to add to the hoard, looking to the time when he thinks he will have enough saved to go back home with. And he has made a secret trail from where he left his bear to this hiding place.”
“Yes, but while that sounds all to the good, Hugh,” protested Billy, “why should he stay away so long?”
“We’ll hope to find that out before we’re done,” Hugh told them; “that is, fellows, if you don’t say you’ve had enough of this tracking game, and want to call it off.”
Both the others immediately vigorously protested that they were not dreaming of such a thing; that they stood ready to back the scout master up, even if they had to continue this rambling around up and down among the rough places of the mountain until dark set in.
“All right, that settles it,” said Hugh. “Let me tell you this is just pie for me. I’m never so happy as when trying to find out the answer to some knotty problem. We’ll keep right on, even if the zigzag trail takes us all the way to the town lock-up!”
Ten minutes later Hugh held up his hand warningly.
“Steady, boys!” he remarked quietly. “Here’s a bad place where the bushes seem to screen the brink of a little precipice; you can see for yourselves that the man we’re tracking must have stumbled at the worst spot he could have picked out to take the dip. Here is where he crashed through the bushes; and look, when I part them with my hands, you can see that there’s a bad drop beyond.”
“Listen!” said Arthur.
“What did you think you heard?” gasped Billy, looking somewhat awed.
“Sounded awfully like a groan!” replied the other solemnly.
All of them crouching there listened eagerly.
“There it comes again!” exclaimed Arthur, excitedly.
“And it is a groan as sure as anything!” added Billy.
“Yes, the poor fellow must have fallen over here, and been hurt so badly that he wasn’t able to get up again,” Hugh announced, and then crawling forward to the verge of the precipice he took an observation.
“See him, Hugh?” questioned Billy.
“Yes, he’s down there in a heap,” came the reply. “Looks as if he might have tried again and again to work his way up, and had to quit through weakness. Come on, let’s work our way around, boys. I think there must be some easier path down there than the one he took.”
“Gee whiz! I should hope so!” muttered Billy, who had also ventured to take a peep over the edge, though without seeing the fallen master of the bear.
They skirted the precipice and as Hugh had predicted, soon discovered that it was possible to make the descent by means of a shelving path, which doubtless the wretched man had not found out. Presently they had reached the place where he lay.
He was looking terribly gaunt and haggard, more from the result of his intense pain and anxiety than because he had been imprisoned so long in that trap. When the trio of scouts came upon him, the man’s face lighted up with new hope. He held out his hands eagerly toward them, bursting into a torrent of words, most of which they failed to understand because they may have been Russian, and like so much gibberish in their ears.
If the poor fellow was in any doubt as to their pacific and kindly intentions, the reassuring smiles on the faces of the scouts must have soon allayed his fears.
Hugh tried to tell him that they had found his bear, and followed his trail all the way along the side of old Stormberg Mountain to this place where he had met with his accident. He also gave the man to understand that they would stay by, and get him to a place of safety.
First of all the young scout master started to make an examination so that he might understand the extent of the man’s injuries.
“Isn’t it queer how history likes to repeat itself?” remarked Billy while he and the third chum stood there watching Hugh go through with this examination. “Just the other day it seems we saw our leader look over another party who had met with an accident, only in his case it was a fractured arm and not his leg.”
“Yes,” added Arthur, “an aeronaut in one case, and the owner of a dancing bear this time. They say extremes meet, and I guess that’s so with us. But it makes no difference who’s in pain and trouble, a scout has got to stand by him; isn’t that right, Hugh?”
“Every time,” replied the scout master promptly. “I find that this man has broken a bone in his left leg. I can feel it grate when I press it, even if it hasn’t come through, like some do when the fracture is extra bad. But he’s been trying to stand on it, and drag himself up here, only to fall back again and again, so that it’s pretty badly inflamed by now. Want of attention has hurt him more than the original break. I’m going to fix that leg as best I can, and wrap it up with the fresh surgeons’ tape I happen to be carrying with me.”
There was really no “happen” about it, for Hugh always made it a point to carry a small supply of that useful bandage tape with him all the time. It is one of those things which when required at all is needed badly. On several previous occasions the scout master had found cause to thank his forethought in thus going prepared for emergencies. Boys take so many desperate chances in their rough play that they are in constant danger of meeting with some accident.
The man seemed to understand that he was in the hands of Good Samaritans, though it doubtless hurt him keenly when Hugh worked; he stifled many a groan, he gritted his teeth, and managed to keep from fainting under the strain.
“There, that’s all done, and as good a job as anything I ever tackled,” Hugh finally declared, as he arose and stretched his cramped limbs. “And now the next thing is to get him up out of here. Suppose both of you try taking him by the shoulders while I look after his legs. I know how to handle him with as little pain as can be done. We can move him a little way, and then rest, till we’re up on the level again. Ready, boys?”
The others understood what Hugh had in mind. They had practiced carrying a helpless person in some of their “first aid to the injured” lessons; and hence were quite competent to attend to their end. Hugh knew that the wounded man was in for more painful experiences, but then there was no other way of getting him out of that deep gully.
Resting as many as half a dozen times, the three scouts finally reached the level ground again. All of them were panting heavily, for the man was no light weight, and climbing the steep side of the ravine under such conditions was a much more difficult task than they had found when descending.
“And now what?” asked Billy as he looked to Hugh to lay out a plan.
“We must make a litter or stretcher, just as we’ve done more than a few times when practicing this game of carrying a wounded comrade,” the scout master told them.
“That would be easy enough if only we had some sort of hatchet along,” Arthur declared, “but you see, none of us dreamed we’d need such a thing. Now, I’ve got an old one hidden near where my wireless masts stand up on the top of Cedar Hill, if only you’d wait till I could go there and back.”
“No need,” observed Hugh, who had as usual been keeping his eyes on the alert, and made a few discoveries. “Here are all the poles we’ll need, lying in a bunch. Probably some fellow had been gathering them for bean poles or something like that, and then forgot to take them away.”
“Talk to me about luck, we get it in hunks, don’t we?” cried Billy. “Why, where could we have run across better poles to make a stretcher? All we want is some stout cord to fasten the ends together, so they won’t slip.”
“Here’s a piece of rope the bear man seemed to have been carrying along with him for some purpose or other,” said Hugh. “I picked it up near where he lay, knowing we might make use of it some way. By unwinding these strands we’ll have more than all the cord we need to tie the poles across each other.”
All of them immediately busied themselves, and so well had their lesson been learned that in a very short time they had fashioned a splendid litter. The wounded man watched them work with a sparkle of gratitude in his eyes. He must have realized by now that those khaki uniforms which these boys wore meant succor for him, and it is greatly to the credit of Boy Scouts everywhere that seldom does this confidence in their willingness to give aid in times of distress meet with disappointment.
After the litter had been finished, they laid enough hemlock browse upon it to make a pretty soft mattress. As Billy felt of that and scented the delightful piney odor, he nodded his head and remarked:
“I only hope that if ever I break a leg and have to be carried to the doctor’s, I’ll be lucky enough to lie on as fine a stretcher as this, that’s all I can say.”
Hugh took hold of one end, and Billy started at the other. They meant to take turns and in this way “rest up,” as Billy called it.
“You’re heading so as to reach the road, I take it?” remarked Arthur presently.
“Just what I’m doing,” the scout master replied. “We ought to make use of our wheels in some way to take off most of the strain of carrying this man to town.”
“Who’d ever have thought of that but you, Chief?” cried Billy, who was looking a little tired. The task of stumbling along, bearing half of that weight over rough ground, was far from an easy one.
When they reached the spot where the bicycles had been hidden these were brought out, and it was found that the stretcher could be rested on the handle bars of two of the wheels. By taking care, there was little danger of an upset. So presently a queer procession was passing along the road. Everything seemed to work so nicely that while they met several farmers going home from market, the boys declined the offer when they proposed turning back so as to carry the wounded Russian to the hospital.
Perhaps there was a little vein of pride about it, and the scouts wanted to let scoffers see how well they were able to manage when a sudden emergency confronted them. They were only boys after all, and felt that they had a perfect right to be proud of the way they had managed.
Hugh at such times as they paused—once to rest and again to give the injured man a drink from a spring that bubbled up near the road—managed to converse a little with the grateful fellow. He told the boy, whom he now looked upon as a good and tried friend, that he did have a littlecacheamong the rocks on the side of Stormberg, where he kept his savings, being afraid to trust banks, and knowing what danger there must always be of his being robbed if he carried all his money along with him in his erratic wanderings. For three years he had come back here late every summer and in the early spring to add secretly to his hoard.
On the present occasion it had been his intention to carry his accumulations away with him, for he meant to sail across the sea to his old home, where he could live in what he considered comfort on the amount he had saved. Misfortune had overtaken him, however, and with a broken leg he must delay his departure a long time.
They reached the town limits at length, and great was the surprise of the good citizens when this queer ambulance took its way along the main street, headed for the hospital. As the excitement spread, people rushed out of stores and dwelling houses, and upon every tongue could be heard praises of the Boy Scouts.
“What won’t they be doing next?” men asked each other as they noted how splendidly Hugh and his two chums had made that stretcher for the wounded man, and how cleverly they were utilizing their wheels in place of a wagon in order to convey him from a distance to the town hospital. “It certainly was the best thing that ever happened for the boys of this country when that scout movement started here, and it has spread like wildfire. Why, it was only lately that they rescued that aeronaut, and the doctor said they’d fix his broken arm about as well as he could have done the job himself under the same conditions. If your boy doesn’t belong already, you can’t coax him to be a scout any too soon, believe me, neighbor.”
Having seen the wounded man safely cared for, and received his thanks, uttered in broken English it is true, but just as heartfelt for all that, Hugh next thought of the bear, left there in the hills. He hunted up a lot more of the scouts who were of a stripe to enjoy any lark of that kind, and armed with plenty of rope they started forth.
In the end they succeeded in bringing the trained bear all the way back to town, and as Hugh had been thoughtful enough to take along a supply of food for the animal, the task proved much easier than any of them had anticipated. All they had to do was to keep him well roped from several quarters, and then tempt him to shuffle along by holding some of the food so he could see it.
Their arrival created another furore. People once more came flocking to the streets to watch the little procession pass by. They were telling each other that nowadays there hardly seemed to arise any sort of necessity but what somehow the Boy Scouts were being counted on to meet and overcome the difficulty,—from finding a lost child to rescuing a wrecked balloon pilot or saving the life of a poor foreigner who had fallen over a precipice and broken his leg.
All of which must have been so intensely gratifying to Hugh and his chums that the fatigue caused by their strenuous exertions was for the time being quite forgotten.
“To-morrow is the day set for starting to Boston to go aboard the Government vessel handed over to the Naval Reserve for their late summer cruise and practice, isn’t it, Hugh?” remarked Billy Worth sadly on the Monday following their adventure up on the side of Cedar Hill and Stormberg Mountain.
He and Arthur happened to meet at Hugh’s house that afternoon to help the scout master finish his packing, though that was probably only an excuse to be in his society, for Hugh was not the one to neglect the slightest thing, or leave it to annoy him in the rush toward the last moment.
“Yes, we leave on the ten-five morning train, and will be aboard before sunset, if all goes well,” replied Hugh. “I wish both of you were going along; but as only two could be selected from each patrol, and Billy just missed being the second Wolf chosen, it can’t be helped.”
“Worst streak of luck I ever ran up against!” declared that individual with a look of supreme disgust on his face. “Just a measly five points stood between me and that dandy cruise. Oh! I’ll never get over it, I tell you. Slowly but surely I’m crumbling away, losing flesh every single day, until when you come back none of you’ll recognize me.”
Hugh only chuckled at hearing this, but Arthur jeered the speaker.
“Well, my word for it you can keep on ‘crumbling’ like you say you are, for the next sixteen years and then beat me in weight two to one. Crumbling agrees with some people, it seems. But besides you and Andy Scott, who’s on the lucky list, Hugh? I’ve been feeling so bad about it, and so busy working on my wireless, that I haven’t paid much attention to these other things lately.”
“From the Hawks there are Walter Osborne and Blake Merton; from the Fox Patrol Don Miller and that new member who took the place of the one moving away from our town; and they do say that ‘Monkey’ Stallings has belonged to a New York troop—he is entitled to wear the badge of a first class scout—and certainly gave Don a close race for first honors in the examination. Then from the Otters of course there will be Alec Sands and with him Sam Winter. That makes the full eight boys.”
“But how about the Owl Patrol; don’t they send representatives along too?” asked Arthur, surprised.
“No,” Hugh replied, “because it was stipulated that only first-class scouts could go on this great voyage up the coast with the Naval Reserve; and you know that nearly all of our new members belonging to the Owl Patrol are tenderfeet, fellows who have a lot to learn before they can call themselves real scouts.”
“I am glad that you think I have done a pretty decent job with my affair up at the Cedar Hill Station of the wireless circuit, Hugh,” remarked Arthur.
“It was only what I expected to find. I happened to know what a clever hand you were at all such contraptions, Arthur,” the scout master told him.
“And to think how fortunate it was that we were all there just when my aerials were working in sympathy with that Government station over on the coast near Cape Cod,” continued the other with a happy light dancing in his eyes. “Say, let me tell you it was the proudest time of my whole life when I stood there and actually read a part of that Marconigram sent from the beach station to some other point, telling about a wreck that had happened on the coast. What was better, each of you had the pleasure of listening to some of that message too, sent a hundred miles away from here.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “and that was further than I had ever heard a message before by wireless. One thing seems sure, Arthur, if they let us get in touch with you, we can have great times while we’re away from home. And that code you gave me will enable us to simplify matters just fine. A letter stands for a sentence to the home folks, and every one of us has a particular sign. By the way, who’s heard the latest news about our friend, the Russian bear man, and his pet?”
“Somebody was saying at our house they heard he meant to be around on crutches soon,” remarked Billy, “but we happen to know the reason he won’t leave town till he can pay another visit up there to the rocky side of old Stormberg. He wants to gather in that snug little nest egg he’s got hidden away there. He sold his bear to the park people, who are thinking of starting a sort of zoo, you must know, to interest the children and teach them more about wild animals than they can ever get from traveling shows.”
“I’m glad of that,” Hugh observed. “Whenever any of us happens to be in the park we can give the old chap some peanuts, and remember the great times we had up there when we found him hitched to that tree, and as hungry as they make them.”
“Wonder if he’ll always look at me the same way he did then,” mused Billy as he rubbed his chin reflectively. “Honest, fellows, I believe only for that loaf of Mrs. Benton’s home-made bread that I tossed him as a coaxer, he’d have taken a nab at one of my legs. But we did our duty as scouts, didn’t we?”
“Why, we found a hungry and thirsty bear tied up, and not only fetched him water in our hats but fed him with the best there was,” Arthur went on to say in a tone that was full of boyish satisfaction. “Then not only that but we tracked his master, and rescued him from that bad hole, fixed his broken leg, toted him all the way to the hospital on a stretcher that only scouts would know how to make, and then brought the bear down in the bargain. I’m glad I took my camera that last time because I got a dandy picture of him standing on his hind legs and dancing, holding that long pole all the while. I have to laugh every time I look at that picture, boys. It enlarges fine, and some day I’ll print each of you one six inches square, because all three of us are in the picture, along with Dancing Jumbo.”
“That’s good of you to make such an offer, Arthur,” avowed Billy, “and I’ve got just the right place to put it over the desk in my den. It’s fine to have something to show for your work, and a picture is the best every time. When you look at it you seem to be living the whole thing over again. That album of yours is something I never get tired of hanging over whenever I’m at your house. What great times it covers, and how some of those adventures stand out, eh?”
“How about that new member of the Foxes, Monkey Stallings, though I believe he is called Eben at home? Have you seen enough of him to know whether he’s going to make a good addition to our troop, Hugh?” Arthur asked, changing the subject.
“I know that he’s seen more or less service as a scout, and that counts for considerable, you know,” the patrol leader answered. “Somehow I haven’t happened to see enough of him at close quarters to say I know him real well. He’s a regular gymnast and contortionist, they tell me, and can hang from the highest limb of a tree by his toes without a quiver, climb like a regular monkey, stand on his head as well as walk on his hands or his toes as it pleases him. In fact, he’s a bundle of nerves, and can hardly keep quiet.”
“Perhaps you’ll be apt to know him better by the time you get back from this gay cruise,” Billy told him. “Don Miller seems to think he’s the best thing that’s struck the troop this season, and I reckon he ought to know. But isn’t there anything I could help you do in packing your outfit, Hugh? If I can’t go along myself, the next best thing is to have a hand in getting you ready.”
“Not a single thing left to do, Billy,” the scout master assured him. “You see, I made out this little list, taking along only what I must have. We got pointers about that from Lieutenant Denmead, who was afraid some of the boys would load themselves down with all sorts of truck from camping stuff to banjoes. I checked things off as I put them in my knapsack, and it’s all there with my blanket. When the time comes to say good-by, I’ll be ready to shoulder this and be off.”
Billy drew a tremendous sigh that seemed to come straight from his big heart. If he had ever been grievously disappointed in his life, it was right when Hugh and those seven other lucky fellows were about starting off on what promised to be a most glorious cruise on salt water, and he had to stay home all through those two long dreary weeks, just going along in the same old rut day after day with nothing exciting happening.
“There’s somebody ringing your ’phone bell like fun, Hugh!” remarked Arthur.
“That’s so, and I forgot that about everybody happens to be out now; so I’d better go and attend to it myself. Excuse me, boys, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” And with these words Hugh hurried into the hall where the telephone hung.
They heard him talking with some one, but paid little or no attention to what was going on. Arthur was examining some pictures he had run across on Hugh’s table taken by a cousin out West, which depicted cowboy scenes that stirred the blood of the boy, who loved life in the open. Billy on his part was studying the list mentioned by Hugh, which had a blue pencil check against every item; and he seemed so intent on this labor that one might even think he contemplated packing his own knapsack, waylaying the column somewhere, and forcibly taking the place of some other scout.
When Hugh came back, his face was shining and his eyes dancing so that both of the other boys guessed he must have been hearing some very pleasant news over the wire.
“Who was it, and what did they want?” asked Arthur with a chum’s familiarity.
“It was Lieutenant Denmead,” replied Hugh, still smiling broadly as he looked straight at Billy.
“What did he want with you, Hugh, tell us?” appealed Arthur. “It had something to do with that trip to-morrow, didn’t it?”
“You are a good guesser, Arthur—it certainly did,” Hugh told him.
“Look here, I hope there hasn’t been any fluke, or that something’s happened to block the game?” Billy exclaimed, though he ought to have known that such a dreadful disaster would never have made Hugh grin as he was doing.
“It has been blocked for one scout, it appears, because his folks have decided at the last minute they don’t want him to go,” Hugh explained. “You see his brother was drowned only last summer, and they tremble at the thought of their only boy spending two long weeks aboard a boat at sea and in the coast harbors.”
Billy became almost white as he clutched the arm of the other.
“A boy drowned, did you say, Hugh? Why, that must be Benjy Scott you’re referring to! Am I right, Hugh? Oh! please hurry and tell me, for I’m nearly choking with suspense. Because you see it was his brother, Andy Scott, that just nosed me out of going on this bully trip. IsAndythe one that’s had to back down? Is that what our scout master said, Hugh? Tell me!”
“That was what happened, Billy,” replied the other as he held out his hand to the excited boy, “and when he tried to get you at your home, they said you were probably over here. Anyway, the lieutenant told me that as you were a closethirdon the list, and as Andy couldn’t go along with the rest, I was commissioned to say that the place was open to you, if you cared to accept!”
“What, me accept?” gasped Billy, beginning to recover his usual rosy color as the delightful prospect arose before him. “Why, I’d stay up half the night getting my pack ready so I wouldn’t miss that train! Whoop! think of it, will you! I’m to go along after all? The same old lucky jinx is playing his tricks on me. Hugh, loan me this list of yours; it will save me lots of trouble. And where’s my hat? I ought to slide over home in three shakes of a wolf’s tail and get busy packing up. No sleep for me to-night, I’m afraid, with my nerves all singing little songs of joy like they are right now. If I don’t see you again, Arthur, till at the train, here’s the best of luck to you with your wireless! Be sure to stay up around that tree station every day you can! We’ll try our level best to talk with you. Just to think how things change around! One minute I was eating my heart out with envy, and now I know I’m going along. Whoop! don’t stop me—I’m off!”
“That was the go-ashore whistle, Hugh! It means we’re due to leave the dock in five or ten minutes more!”
“And still nothing to be seen of those two hold-out scouts, Sam Winter and the latest recruit, Monkey Stallings. I’m beginning to believe they’ve got adrift seeing the sights of old Boston, and will lose the number of their mess.”
“What fools some fellows can be, Hugh! As for me, now that I’m on the deck of this bully boat, nothing could hire me to go ashore again till the cruise is over. A life on the wide, wide sea for me, tral-la-la!” and Billy Worth danced a few steps as though he might already imagine himself a seasoned old salt practicing what is known as the “sailor’s hornpipe.”
“Better wait and see before you boast too loud, Billy,” returned the scout master, grimly. “I’ve heard about all sorts of terrible things that happen to landsmen the first time they feel the roll of the ship under them. Solid earth may seem like the finest thing you can think of before many hours.”
“Huh! don’t make me out a regular greeny, Chief. Remember I’ve sailed on a bay before. I reckon some fellows with weak stomachs will double up; but it’s different with me.”
“You never can tell,” Hugh remarked dryly. “So I say it’s wise not to blow your horn too loud before you know. But whatever can be keeping those boys? Looks as if we might only count six noses at roll-call instead of the full eight.”
The two members of the Wolf Patrol were leaning over the side of the Government vessel of the type known as a scout cruiser. This one had been fitted up especially for the convenience and education of the young jack tars who thronged the deck and the dock nearby, dressed for the most part in white togs, and with all the airs of experienced sea-going mariners.
These jaunty looking fellows constituted a branch of the auxiliary arm of the United States Government known as the Naval Reserve, upon which Uncle Sam expected to call immediately should any war break out, to man his extra ships, and defend the coasts against an enemy.
They were from all walks of life, and as a rule bright, eager young men who knew considerable about what the duties aboard a warship were like. They had nearly all been afloat on preceding summers, since this cruise was a regular institution. Still, they desired to learn all possible new wrinkles connected with their vocation as voluntary naval men; and the two weeks’ cruise along the New England coast was going to widen their knowledge wonderfully.
Just what the Boy Scouts were expected to do aboard theVixen, Hugh did not as yet fully know. It was supposed, however, that they would be very useful in many capacities, especially when landing parties went ashore, defended by the big guns of the cruiser, with a force concealed behind land defenses to carry out the part of a hostile army.
It had all been a piece of tremendous good luck, this chance that came to some of the scouts to accompany the Naval Reserve on this summer cruise. Such a thing had, so far as Hugh knew, never been dreamed of before; and it all came about through the gratitude of the rich aeronaut, Mr. Perkins, whom Hugh and several of his chums had rescued from the top of a tall tree, where he had been stranded when his runaway balloon lurched and threw him out.
It seemed that he was a personal friend of the Secretary of the Navy; in fact they had been old-time chums in their school days. And Professor Perkins had used his influence with the Naval Department so as to have this wonderful invitation extended to the troop in which he had taken such a keen interest.
The scouts had all left the home town on the scheduled train, and before five that evening were aboard the cruiser, wild with delight over the prospect that loomed up ahead. They were given quarters forward with the men, and being accustomed to camping, believed they would be able to make themselves very comfortable while sleeping in hammocks.
And indeed, that night they had no complaint to make, though it did seem pretty noisy around the docks, especially to lads accustomed to the quiet of country life.
On the following day they were allowed shore leave with explicit instructions to be aboard at one o’clock, since that was close to the hour set for sailing; and as Hugh put it, “neither time, nor tide, nor yet Government war vessels wait for any man.”
Here one o’clock had come, and as yet two of the scouts had failed to show up, so that Hugh was naturally bothered, for he considered this tardiness inexcusable in boys who had been taught the value of keeping their engagements to the letter.
All of the other scouts had lined up on that side of the vessel with scores of the Naval Reserves, deeply interested in what was going on. As is usually the case when a boat is due to move out, there was great confusion. Trucks were being rushed this way and that, to get some late luggage or food supplies aboard; officers were shouting orders; men bidding good-by to wives and friends; and all in all, it was a sight the boys would never be apt to forget no matter what they might experience in coming days, such an indelible impression did it make on their young minds.
Again did the long and shrill whistle start blowing with frequent breaks. The Reserves, knowing that this meant “all aboard,” broke away from the various little groups on the crowded dock and started up the gangways. Gradually order was coming out of apparent chaos, and it could be seen that every man was now aboard theVixen; the vessel trembled from the escaping steam that roared like a giant, impatient to be off.
“Too bad,” said Hugh, as this racket suddenly ceased, and he saw the men begin to unfasten the heavy hawsers that held the cruiser close to the wharf. “Those fellows have missed the chance of their lives.”
“Look! there comes one on the run!” exclaimed Walter Osborne near by.
“It’s Sam Winter, and he’ll just make it, and no more!” echoed Alec Sands, who probably felt a deeper interest in the success or failure of the runner than any of the other boys, since he and Sam represented the Otter Patrol aboard.
The six scouts started a cheer to encourage the runner, and recognizing the familiar signal of the scout’s troop, Sam looked up and waved his hand. He just managed to set his foot on the last gangway as it trembled on the rise; and the next moment was dragged aboard the boat, saved by an inch.
“That makes seven, anyhow!” said Billy. “But that new recruit, Monkey Stallings, is left in the lurch. Wow! what’s that I see back yonder, Hugh? Looks mighty like a scout in uniform breaking through the crowd, doesn’t it? Say, they’ve gone and got that boy blocked so he just can’t make it in time! Now isn’t that too bad? Whatever can he do, I’d like to know? So near and yet so far, with the boat beginning to move out, too. Poor Monkey, I’m sorry for you, sure I am!”
“Oh! look at that! Look at him, boys!” shrieked Blake Merton.
“It’s going to be a cold day when Monkey gets left, let me tell you!” cried Don Miller, who, being the leader of the Fox Patrol, to which the new recruit belonged, probably knew more about the varied accomplishments of Monkey than any other scout.