CHAPTER VITHE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT
And so these two strolled on. And presently they came to a point where the wood was more sparse, for they were approaching the rugged lower ledges of a mighty mountain, and the last rays of the dying sun fell upon the rocks and scantier vegetation of this clearer area, emphasizing the solemn darkness of the wooded ascent beyond.
Few, even of the scouts, had ever penetrated the enshrouding wilderness of that dizzy, forbidding height. There were strange tales, usually told to tenderfeet around the camp-fire, of mysterious hermits and ferocious bears and half-savage men who lurked high up in those all but inaccessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had ever ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.
At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour of yarn telling, the seasoned habitués of the camp would direct the eye of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain, and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to war and had never been able to find his way down again—a quite just punishment for his cowardice. But time and again this freakish glint of light had been proven to be the reflection of that very camp-fire upon a huge rock lodged up there and held by interlacing roots.
Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake seemed a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.
“I bet there are wild animals up there,” Hervey said.
“Here’s one of them now,” commented Tom, pointing upward.
High above them in the dusk and with a background of golden-edged clouds, which gave the sun’s last parting message to the earth, a great bird hovered motionless. It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread. Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop. In less than ten seconds, as it seemed to Hervey, its body and great wings, and even its curved, cruel beak, were plainly visible circling a few yards above the tree. It seemed like a journey from the heavens to the earth, all in an instant.
“Watch him, watch him,” Hervey whispered.
But Tom was not watching him at all. He knew what that savage descent meant and he was looking for its cause. Stealthily, with no more sound than that of a gliding canoe, he stole to the trunk of the tree and looked about with quick, short, scrutinizing glances, away up among its branches.
Then he placed his finger to his lips, warning Hervey to silence, and beckoned him into the darker shadow under the great tree.
“Did you see anything beside the bird?” he whispered.
“No,” said Hervey. “Why? What is it?”
“Shh,” Tom said; “look up—shh——”
It was the most fateful moment of all Hervey Willetts’ scout career, and he did not know it.
CHAPTER VIITHE STREAK OF RED
“Look up there,” Tom said; “out near the end of the third branch. See? The little codger beat him to it.”
Looking up, Hervey saw amid the thicker foliage, far removed from the stately trunk, something hanging from a leaf-covered branch. Even as he looked at it, it seemed to be swaying as if from a recent jolt. At first glimpse he thought it was a bat hanging there.
“See it?” Tom said, pointing up. “You can see it by the little streak of red. I think the little codgers head is poking out. Some scare she had.”
Then all in an instant Hervey knew. It seemed incredible that the great bird, hovering at that dizzy height, could have seen the little songsterof the woods which even he and Tom had failed to see. And the thought of that smaller bird reaching its home just in time, and poking its head out of the opening to see if all was well, went to Hervey’s heart and stirred a sudden anger within him.
“I didn’t know they could see all that distance,” he said.
“Well, that’s one thing you’ve learned that you didn’t know before,” Tom said in his matter-of-fact way.
Scarcely had he spoken the words when the foliage above shook and there was a loud rustling and crackling of branches, while many leaves and twigs fell to the ground.
The monarch of the mountain crags, having circled the elm, had found a way in where the foliage was least dense, and had thus with irresistible power carried the outer defenses of that little hanging citadel.
And still the little streak of red showed up there in the dimness of those invaded branches, and one might have fancied it to be the colors of the besieged victim, flaunting still in a kind of hopeless defiance. Down out of the green twilightabove floated a feather, then another—trifling losses of the conqueror in his triumphal entry.
“You’re not going to get away with that,” said Hervey in a voice tense with wrath and grim determination; “you’re—you’re—not——”
What happened then happened so quickly as almost to rival the descent of the destroyer in lightning movement. Before Tom Slade realized what had happened, there was Hervey’s khaki jacket on the ground, his discarded hat was blowing away, and his navy blue scout scarf was plastered by the freshening breeze flat against the trunk of the tree.
Hervey Willetts, who had dreamed and striven all through the vacation season of “capturing the Eagle,” as they say, was on his quest in dead earnest.
CHAPTER VIIIEAGLE AND SCOUT
Up, up, he went, now reaching like a monkey, now wriggling like a snake. Now he loosed one hand to sweep back the hair which fell over his forehead. Again, unable to release his hold, he threw his head back to shake away the annoying locks. Tom Slade, stolid though he was, watched him, thrilled with amazement and admiration.
The great bird was embarrassed in the confines of the foliage by its big wings. But the freedom and strength of its cruel beak and talons were unimpaired and every second brought it nearer to the hanging nest.
But every second brought also the scout nearer to the hanging nest. Up, up he went, now straddling some bending limb, now swinging himselfwith lightning agility to one above. Once, crawling on a horizontal branch, he slid over and hung beneath it, like an opossum.
Twisting and wriggling his way out of this predicament, he scrambled on, handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and hanging by one hand.
Tom Slade watched spellbound, as the agile form ascended, using every physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning, but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching the nest before the eagle, or in the more serious contingency of an encounter with that armed warrior.
For, thrilled as he was at the young scout’s agility and fine abandon, he was yet doubtful of Hervey’s power of deliberation and presence of mind. But no one could advise a creature capableof being carried away in a very frenzy of nervous enthusiasm, and Tom, sober and sensible, knew this. Hervey Willetts would do this thing or crash his brains out, one or the other, and no one could help or hinder him.
Amid the crackling sound of breaking limbs and a shower of leaves and smaller twigs, the mighty bird of prey, extricating himself from every obstacle, tore his way into the leafy recess where his little victim waited, trembling. Every branch seemed agitated by his ruthless, irresistible advance, and the hanging nest swayed upon its slender branch, as the cruel talons of the intruder fixed themselves in the yielding bark. The weight of the monster bird upon the very branch which his little victim had chosen for a home caused it to bend almost to the breaking point, and the hanging nest, agitated by the shock, swung low near the end of the curving bough.
HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE.HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE.
That was bad strategy on the part of the invader. As the end of the bough descended under his weight, there was the appalling sound of a splitting branch, which made Tom Slade’s blood run cold, and he held his breath in frightfulsuspense, expecting to see the form of his young friend come crashing to earth.
But the boy who had ventured out so far upon that straining branch had swung free of it just in time, and was swinging from the branch above. The great bird had played into the hands of his dexterous enemy when he had placed his weight upon the branch above, from which the nest hung.
Hervey could not have trusted his own weight upon that upper branch, and he knew it. But even had he dared to do this he could not have passed the enraged bird who stood guard within a yard or two of his little victim. When the weight of the bird’s great body bent the branch down, Hervey, close in toward the trunk just below, saw his chance. He did not see the danger.
Scrambling out upon that slender branch, he moved cautiously but with beating heart, out to a point where the bending branch above was within his reach. If the eagle had left the branch above, that branch would have swung out of Hervey’s reach and he would have gone crashing to the ground when his own branch broke. He knewthat branch must break under him. He knew, hemusthave known, that the chances were at least even that the eagle would desert the branch above in either assault or flight.
Hervey’s chance was the chance of a moment, and it lay just in this: in getting far enough out on the branch before it broke to catch the branch above before it sprang up and away from him. Also he must trust to the slightly heavier branch above not breaking.
It would be impossible to say by what a narrow squeak he saved himself in this dare-devil maneuver. His one chance lay in lightning agility.
Yet, first and last, it was an act of fine and desperate recklessness—the recklessness of a soul possessed and set on one dominating purpose. This was Hervey Willetts all over. And because he had a brain and the eagle none or little, he thus used his very enemy to help him accomplish his purpose.
In that very moment when Tom Slade heard with a shudder the appalling sound of that splitting branch, something beside the brown nest was also dangling from the branch which the baffled eagle had suddenly deserted. Right close to the swayingnest the boy hung, his limbs encircling it, his two hands locked upon it, trusting to it, just trusting to it. It bent low in a great sweeping curve, the nest swayed and swung from the movement of the swing downward, a little olive-colored, speckled head peeking cautiously out as if to see what all the rumpus was about.
It must have seemed to those little frightened eyes that the familiar geography of the neighborhood was radically changed. But there was nothing near to strike terror to it now. There was nothing near but the green, enshrouding foliage, and the brown object hanging almost motionless close by.
This was Hervey Willetts of the patrol of the blue scarf, scout of the first class (if ever there was one) and winner of twenty-one merit badges....
No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.
CHAPTER IXTO INTRODUCE ORESTES
Hervey moved cautiously in along the limb to a point where he felt sure that it would hold his weight, and as he did so it moved slowly up into place. What the little householder thought of all this topsy-turvy business it might be amusing to know. For surely, if the world war changed the map of Europe, the little neighborhood of leaf and branch where this timid denizen of the woods lived and had its being, had been subject to jolts and changes quite as sweeping. Now and again it poked its downy speckled head out for a kind of disinterested squint at things, apparently unconcerned with mighty upheavals so long as its little home was undisturbed.
Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of it.
“You all right?” he heard Tom call from below.
“Yop,” he called back; “did you see his nobs fly away? Back to the crags for him, hey? Wait down there a few minutes, I’m going to bring a friend.”
Hervey had now a very nice little calculation to make. In the first place he must not frighten his new acquaintance by approaching too near again. Neither must he make any sudden and unnecessary noise or motions. He knew that a nest of that particular sort was more than a home, it was a comparatively safe refuge, and he knew that its occupant would not emerge and desert it without good cause. One of those precious twenty badges was evidence of that much knowledge.
His purpose was to cut the branch as near to the nest as he dared, both from the standpoint of the bird’s peace of mind and his own safety. The further from the nest he cut, the thicker would be the branch, and the more cutting there would be to do. To cut too near to the nest might frighten his little neighbor on the branch, and endanger his own life.
Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, howcould he handle it after it was detached? How would he get down with it through all that network of lower branches?
In his quandary he hit on a plan involving new peril for himself and doubtless some agitation to his little neighbor. He would not detach the nest from its branch, for how could he ever attach it to another branch in a way satisfactory to that finicky little householder? He knew enough about his business to know that no bird would continue to live in a nest which had been tampered with to that extent.
So he advanced cautiously out on the branch again till he could reach the nest. Then very gently he bound his handkerchief about the opening. Having done this, he cut into the branch with his scout knife within about six or eight inches of the nest. When he had cut the branch almost through it was a pretty ticklish matter, straddling the stubby end, for he had the tip of the branch with the nest still in his hand and was in danger of losing his balance.
Sitting there with his legs pressed up tight against the under side of the branch so as to hold his balance on his precarious seat, he held theend in one hand while he carefully pulled away the twigs from the end beyond the nest. Thus he had a piece of branch perhaps twenty inches long, with the nest hanging midway of it. This he held with the greatest care, lest in turning the branch the delicate fabric by which it hung should strain and break away. You would have thought that that little prisoner of the speckled head owned the tree, which in point of fact was owned by Temple Camp, notwithstanding its distance from the scout community. So it was really Hervey’s more than it was little downy-head’s if it comes to that.
It is not every landlord that goes to so much trouble for a tenant.
CHAPTER XOFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, ON WITH THE NEW
“All right, we’re coming down; kill the fatted calf,” Hervey called with all his former gay manner. “No more up and down trails for me. This is moving day.”
When he had descended a little nearer, Tom heard the cheery voice more clearly. “It’s no easy job moving a house and family. I have to watch my step. Oh, boy,coming down!This tree is tied in a sailor’s knot.”
“Are you bringing the bird?” Tom called.
“I’m bringing the bird and the whole block he lived in,” Hervey called back merrily. “I’m transplanting the neighborhood. He’s going to move into a better locality—very fashionable. He’s coming up in the world—I mean down.O-o-h, boy, watch your step; there was a narrow escape! I stepped on a chunk of air.”
So he came down working his way with both feet and one hand, and holding the precious piece of branch with its dangling nest in the other.
“Talk about your barbed wire entanglements,” he called. Then, after a minute, “This little codger lives in a swing,” he shouted; “I should think she’d get dizzy. No accounting for tastes, hey? Whoa—boy! There’s where I nearly took a double-header. If I should fall now, I wouldn’t have so far to go.”
“You won’t fall,” said Tom with a note of admiring confidence in his brief remark.
“Better knock wood,” came the cheery answer from above.
And presently his trim, agile form stood upon the lowest stalwart limb, as he balanced himself with one hand against the trunk. His khaki jacket was in shreds, a great rent was in his sleeve, and a tear in one of his stockings showed a long bloody scratch beneath. In his free hand he held the piece of branch with its depending nest, extending his arm out so as to keep the rescued trophy safe from any harm of contact.
“Some rags, hey?” he called down good-humoredly, and exposing his figure in grotesque attitude for sober Tom’s amusement. “If mother could only see me now! Get out from under while I swing down. Back to terra cotta—I mean firma. Here goes——”
Down he came, tumbling forward, and sprawling on the ground, while he held the branch above him, like the Statue of Liberty lighting the world.
“Here we are,” he said. “Take it while I have a look at my leg. It’s nothing but an abrasion. It looks like a trail from my ankle up to the back of my knee. What care we? I’ve got trails on the brain, haven’t I?”
Tom took the branch and stood looking admiringly, yet with a glint of amusement lighting his stolid features, at the younger boy, who sat with his knees drawn up humorously inspecting the scratch on his leg.
“Well, what do you think of eagles now?” Tom asked, in his dull way.
“Decline to be interviewed,” Hervey said, with irrepressible buoyancy. “What kind of a crazy bird is this that lives upside down in a house that looks like a bat. It reminds me of a plum pudding,hanging in the pantry. What’s that streak of red, anyway? His patrol colors? You’d think he’d get seasick, wouldn’t you?”
“You’ve got the bird badge,” Tom said, smiling a little; “can’t you guess?”
What Tom did not realize was that this merry, reckless, impulsive young dare-devil, whose very talk, as he jumped from one theme to another, made him smile in spite of himself, could not be expected to bear in mind the record of his whole remarkable accomplishment. He was no handbook scout.
There is the scout who learns a thing so that he may know it. But there is the scout who learns a thing so that he may do it. And having done it, he forgets it. Perhaps there is the scout who learns, does, and remembers. But Hervey was not of that order. He had made a plunge for each merit badge, won it and, presto, his nervous mind was on another. It takes all kinds of scouts to make a world.
Perhaps Hervey was not the ideal scout, but there was something very fascinating about his blithe way of going after a thing, getting it, and burdening his mind with it no more. He livedfor the present. His naïve manner of asking Tom for a tip as to a trail had greatly amused the more experienced scout, who now could not understand how Hervey had used the handbook so much and knew it so imperfectly.
“Didn’t you ever see one before?” Tom asked.
“Not while I was conscious,” Hervey shot back, “but if he likes to live that way it’s none of my business. He’s inside taking a nap, I guess. He had some rocky road to Dublin coming down. I wonder what he thinks? That wasn’t the right kind of a trail, was it?”
“Wasn’t it?” Tom queried.
“No; I want a trail along the ground.”
“Still after the Eagle, huh? Do you realize what you have done?”
“I’ve torn my suit all to shreds, I know that. Right the first time, hey? I’d look nice going up on the platform Saturday night? Good I won’t have to, hey?”
“I thought you were going to,” Tom said soberly.
“So I am,” Hervey shot back at him; “trails up in the air don’t count. Never mind, I’ll find a trail to-morrow. It’s my troop I’m thinking of.I’ll land it, all right. When I get my mind on a thing.... Hey, Slady, what in the dickens is that streak of red in the nest? Is it a trade mark or something like that? You’re a naturalist.”
“It’s an oriole’s nest,” Tom said, with just a note of good-humored impatience in his voice. “I thought you’d know that.”
“You see my head is full of the Eagle badge just now,” Hervey pleaded, “but I’m going to look up orioles.”
Tom smiled.
“I’m going to look up orioles, and I’m going to get Doc to put some iodine on my leg, and I’m going to do that tracking stunt to-morrow. There’s three things I’m going to do.”
Tom paused, seemingly irresolute, as if not knowing whether to say what was in his mind or not. And presently they started toward the camp, Hervey limping along and carrying the branch.
“An oriole picks up everything he can find and weaves it into his nest,” Tom said; “string, ribbon, bits of straw, any old thing. He likes things that are bright colored.”
“He’s got the right idea, there,” Hervey said.
Tom tried again to interest the rescuer in thislittle companion, imprisoned within its own cozy little home, whom they were taking back to camp. He could not comprehend how one who had performed such a stunt as Hervey had just performed, and been so careful and humane, could forget about his act so soon and take so little interest in the bird which had been saved by his reckless courage. But that was Hervey Willetts all over. His heart went where action was. And his interest lapsed when action ceased.
“Somebody in a book called the oriole Orestes, because that means dweller in the woods,” Tom ventured.
“He dwells in a sky-scraper, that’s whatIsay,” Hervey commented. “In a hall bedroom upside down, twenty floors up.”
Tom tried again. “What do you mean to do with her now that you’ve got her?” he asked.
“I’m going to turn her over to you, Slady. You’re the real scout; none genuine unless marked T. S. You’ve got the birds all eating out of your hands.”
“You didn’t tear the nest from the branch,” Tom said. “You must have had some idea.”
“Well,” said Hervey, “my idea was to stick itup in an elm tree down at camp. Think she’d stand for it?”
“Guess so,” Tom said.
“You see I’m all through bird study,” Hervey said with amusing artlessness, “so I think you’d better adopt Erastus—is that the way you say it?”
“Orestes,” Tom corrected him.
“Pardonme,” Hervey said.
“Maybe you don’t even care if I tell them what you did?” Tom queried.
“Tell them whatever you want,” Hervey said. “I don’t care. What I’m thinking now is——”
“The next stunt,” Tom interrupted him.
“You said it,” Hervey answered cheerily; “just about a mile or so of tracks. I guess you think I’m kind of happy-go-lucky, don’t you?”
“I don’t blame you for not remembering all the things you’ve done,” Tom said, “and all the rules and tests and like that. But most every scout goes in for some particular thing. Maybe it’s first aid, or maybe it’s signaling. And he keeps on with that thing even after he has the badge.”
“That’s right,” Hervey concurred with surprising readiness. “You’ve got the right idea. My specialty is the Eagle badge. See?”
“Well, that’s twenty-one badges,” Tom said.
“Right-o, and all I need to do now is test three for the stalking badge and I’mit. And if I can’t go over the top between now and this time Saturday, I’ll never look the fellows in my troop in the face again, that’s what.”
Tom whistled to himself a moment as they strolled along. Perhaps he knew more than he wished to say. Perhaps he was just a little out of patience with this sprightly, irresponsible young hero.
“Well, there isn’t much time,” he said.
“That’s the trouble, Slady, and it’s got me guessing.”
CHAPTER XIOFF ON A NEW TACK
It is doubtful if ever there was a scout at Temple Camp for whom Tom felt a greater interest or by whom he was more attracted than by this irrepressible boy whose ready prowess he had just witnessed. And the funny part of it was that no two persons could possibly have been more unlike than these two. Hervey even got on Tom’s nerves somewhat by his blithe disregard of the handbook side of scouting, except for what it was worth to him in his stuntful career.
The handbook was almost a sacred volume to sober Tom. Still, he was captivated by Hervey, as indeed others were in the big camp.
“Well, you were after the Eagle and you got an oriole,” he said, half jokingly. “That’s what Imeant when I said that sometimes you don’t know where a trail will bring you out. You got a lot to learn about scouting. What you did to-day was better than tracking a half a mile or so.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Hervey, in bantering acknowledgment of the compliment, “but if there’s anything higher in scouting than the Eagle award, I’d like to know what it is.”
“How much good has it done you trying for it?” Tom asked. “Nobody is supposed to go after a thing in scouting the same as he does in a game. He’s supposed to learn thingswhilehe’s going after something,” he added in his clumsy way. “You went through the bird study test and you didn’t even know it was an oriole’s nest that you rescued. And you forgot all about something else too, and it makes me laugh when I think about it; when I think about you and your tracks.”
“You think I’m a punk scout,” Hervey sang out, gayly.
“I think you’re a bully scout,” Tom said.
“If I win the Eagle you’ll say so, won’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“And do you mean to tell me that a scout canbe any more of a scout than that—an Eagle Scout?”
“Sure,” said Tom uncompromisingly.
For a few seconds the young hero of the lofty elm was too astonished to reply. Then he said, “Gee, you’re a peachy scout, everybody says that, but you’re a funny kind of a fellow, that’s whatIthink. I don’t get you. The Eagle award is the highest award in scouting. It means, oh, it means a couple of hundred stunts—hard ones. You can’t get above that. You’re one yourself, you can’t deny it. No, sir, you can’t get above that—no,siree.... Do you mean to tell me that there’s anything higher in scouting than the Eagle award?” he asked defiantly, after a pause.
“Yop, there is,” said Tom, unmoved.
Hervey paused in consternation. “Well, I’m for the Eagle award, anyway,” he finally said. “That’s good enough forme. And I’m going to get it, too; right away, quick.”
“You’ll get it,” Tom said.
“Think I will?”
“I don’t think, I know.”
“You mean you’resureI will?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Positive?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, then I’d better get busy hunting for some tracks, hadn’t I? I’ve got to make good toyouas well as to my troop, haven’t I?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” said Tom in his funny, sober way. “You don’t need to make good with me.”
“Believeme, I’ve got you and my troop both on my mind now. Are you going to give me a tip about some tracks?”
“Maybe—to-morrow,” Tom said.
“Do you know what I think I’ll do, Slady?” Hervey suddenly vociferated as if caught by an inspiration. “I think I’ll follow this ledge around a little way and see if there are any prints. Good idea, hey?”
This was too much for Tom. “Aren’t you coming back to camp with me?” he asked. “They’ll want to hear about your adventure. It’s getting pretty late, too.”
“Oh, I’m a regular night owl,” Hervey said. “You take Asbestos back to camp and hang himup in a tree and I’ll blow in later. I’m going on the war path for tracks. So long.”
Before Tom had recovered from his surprise, Hervey was picking his way along the rocky ledge at the base of the mountain, apparently oblivious to all that had happened, and intent upon a rambling quest for tracks. It was quite characteristic of him that he based his search upon no hint or well considered plan, but went looking for the tracks of a wild animal as one will hunt for shells, along the beach.
And there stood Tom, holding the memorial of Hervey’s heroism in his hand. Hervey had apparently forgotten all about it....
CHAPTER XIIAS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT
Hervey picked his way among the rocks, looking here and there in the crevices and upon the intervening ground as if he had lost something. A more random quest could scarcely be imagined. Tom watched him for a few minutes, then took the shorter way to camp with his little charge.
Hervey followed the rocky ledge for about fifty yards to a point where the dry bed of a stream came winding down out of the mountain. It ran in a tiny canyon between two rocks and so out upon the level fields to the south where the camp lay.
The twilight was well advanced now, the last vivid patches were mellowed into a pervading gray, which seemed to cover the rocks and woods likea mantle. Clad in this somber robe, the wooded height which rose to the north seemed the more forbidding. Not a sound was to be heard but the voice of a whip-poor-will somewhere. Even Hervey’s buoyant nature was subdued by the solemn stillness.
Suddenly something between the two rocks caught his eye. The caked earth looked as if a narrow board had been drawn over it. Bordering this broad line, about half an inch from it on either side, were two narrow fancy lines—or at least that is what Hervey called them. Examining these carefully, he saw that they were made up of tiny, diagonal lines. In the place where this ran between the rocks, in the deep shadow, these singular marks were surprisingly legible, and bore not a little the appearance of a border design. The big stones formed a sort of shadow box, causing the markings to appear in bold relief.
Hervey knew nothing of the freakish influence of light on tracks and trails, but he saw here something which he knew had been made by a moving object. The continuous design was so nearly perfect that it seemed like the work ofhuman beings, but Hervey knew that it could hardly be this.
What, then, was it?
Where the lines emerged from between the rocks the marking was less regular and less clear, but plain enough in the damp, crusted earth which covered the mud in the old stream bed.
With heart bounding with joy and elation, Hervey followed the bed of the stream. The tracks, or whatever they were, were so clear that he could keep to the side of the muddy area and still see them.
It was characteristic of him that having made this great discovery, he did not trouble himself about the direction he was taking. In point of fact he was going in a southwesterly direction toward the camp.
For perhaps a quarter of a mile the strange markings were clearly legible in the dusk, running as they did in the yielding caked surface of the stream bed. They were as clear as tracks in caked snow. Then the path of the dried up waterway petered out in an area of rocks and pebbles and beyond that there was no clearly defined way; the brook had evidently trickled down into the lowerland taking the path of least resistance among the rocks.
No doubt Tom Slade could have followed that water path to its end, but Hervey was puzzled, baffled. Yet the enthusiasm which carried him, as though on wings, to his triumphs was aroused now. He had the prophecy of Tom Slade to strengthen his determination. He must make good for Tom’s sake now, as well as for the sake of his troop. He had told Tom that if he only once found a trail, nothing would stop him—nothing. Very fine. All that talk about there being something higher than the Eagle award was nonsense, and Tom Slade knew it was nonsense. “He said I’d do it, and I’m going to,” Hervey muttered to himself.
Hervey had no patience with obstacles, he must be always moving, so now he began frantically scrutinizing the ground to see if he could find some sign of the marks which had eluded him. Since he could no longer distinguish the stream bed, he looked for some sign of those marks outside the stream bed.
And presently he was rewarded by the discovery of tracks, animal tracks sure enough, without anyribbon, so to speak, printed between them. There they were upon the hard, bare earth, two lines of claw marks, continuing to a point where they disappeared again at the edge of a close cropped field. Evidently his mysterious predecessor had known just where he wished to go and had forsaken the stream bed when it no longer went in his direction. These were no aimless tracks, they were the tracks of a creature that had particular business in the southwest, and that knew how to get there.
CHAPTER XIIITHE STRANGE TRACKS
Hervey had not the slightest idea in which direction he was going, but in point of fact he washeadingstraight in the direction of Temple Camp. But he had found his precious tracks and nothing would stop him now. He would go over the top in a blaze of glory next day, and then perhaps a telegram could be sent to scout headquarters to have the Eagle badge sent up immediately so that he could receive the very award itself on Saturday night. He was on the home stretch now, as luck would have it, and nothing would stop him—nothing....
Nothing!He would send a line to his mother that very night and tell her all about it, and put E. S. after his name.Eagle Scout.The bicyclehis father had promised him when he should attain that pinnacle of scout glory, he would now demand. That would be where dad lost out....
If Tom Slade knew some secret about a higher award, that meant more stunts, Hervey would do those stunts, too; the more the merrier. He should worry....
Yes, he was on the trail at last, and at the end of that trail was the stalking badge—and the Eagle award.Hervey Willetts, Eagle Scout.It sounded pretty good....
He realized now that this discovery of his was just a streak of luck, that the chances would have been altogether against his finding real tracks in these two remaining days. “I’m lucky,” he said. Which must have been true, else he would have lost his life long ere that....
Darkness was now coming on apace, and it must be long past supper-time. But this was no time to be thinking of eating. Nothing would stop him now,nothing. When he set his mind on a thing....
The tracks changed again in traversing the fields. They were not tracks at all, in fact, but a narrow belt of trampled grass, which was not visible close by. It was only by looking ahead that Hervey could distinguish it. Half way across the field he lost it altogether, but, remembering the fact that it could be seen better at a distance, he climbed a tree and there lay the long narrow belt of trampled grass running under the rail fence at the field’s edge and into the sparse woods beyond. He had not to follow it, only pick out the rail of the fence near where it passed and hurry to that spot.
And there it was, waiting for him. If Hervey had been well versed in tracking lore and less of a seeker after glory, he would have scrutinized the lowest rail of the fence, under which the track went, for bits of hair. But Hervey Willetts was not after bits of hair. It was quite like him that he did not care two straws about what sort of animal he was tracking. He was tracking the Eagle badge.
In the sparse woods the tracks appeared as regular tracks again, sharply cut in the hard earth. Where the ground was bare under the trees, the tracks were as clear as writing on a slate, but in the intervening spaces the vegetation obscured them and he found them with difficulty. Thistracking in the woods was the hardest part of his task because it required patience and deliberation, and Hervey had neither.
But he managed it and was beginning to wonder how far his tracking had led him and whether he was near to covering the required distance. When he felt certain of that, he would drive a stake in the ground, fly his navy blue scarf from it to prove his claim, and go back to camp in triumph. He had made up his mind that he would at once report his feat in Council Shack, and offer to escort any or all of the trustees back over the ground in verification of his crowning accomplishment. The only Eagle Scout at Temple Camp, except Tom Slade; and Tom Slade didn’t count....
Still, as he looked back, the base of the mountain seemed almost as near as when he had made his discovery, the fields and wood which had seemed so long to the tracker were but small to the casual glance and he realized that his whole journey was yet far short of a quarter mile.
The tracks now ran, as clear as writing, across one of those curious patches of damp ground with a thin, slippery skin, which was torn straight across in a kind of furrow. Hervey was so intent onstudying this that he did not notice in the shadow about a hundred feet ahead of him a log directly in line with the tracks. When suddenly he looked up, he paused and stared ahead of him in consternation.
Some one was sitting on the log.