The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tom Slade, by Percy K. Fitzhugh
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Title: Tom Slade
Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures
Author: Percy K. Fitzhugh
Posting Date: August 11, 2012 [EBook #6655]
Release Date: October, 2004
First Posted: January 10, 2003
Last Updated: September 2, 2003
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SLADE ***
Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: "I SWIPED TWO O' THEM QUARANTINE SIGNS OFFEN TWO DOORS."]
TOM SLADE
BOY SCOUT OF THE MOVING PICTURES
BY
PERCY K. FITZHUGH
Adapted and Illustrated from the Photo Play
"The Adventures of a Boy Scout"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. STICKS AND STONES
II. HATS OFF!
III. IN JAIL AND OUT AGAIN
IV. CAMP SOLITAIRE
V. CONNOVER'S PARTY
VI. HITTING THE BULL'S EYE
VII. "ON MY HONOR"
VIII. STUNG!
IX. "BURGLARS"
X. TOM TURNS DETECTIVE
XI. R-R-R-EVENGE!
XII. UP AGAINST IT FOR FAIR
XIII. HE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE
XIV. ROY TO THE RESCUE
XV. LEMONADE AND OLIVES
XVI. CONNOVER BREAKS LOOSE
XVII. THE REAL THING
XVIII. MRS. BENNETT COMES ACROSS
XIX. FIRST AID BY WIRELESS
XX. TOM TOSSES IT BACK
TOM SLADE
BOY SCOUT OF THE MOVING PICTURES
CHAPTER I
STICKS AND STONES
It happened in Barrel Alley, and it was Tom Slade, as usual, who did
it. Picking a barrel-stave out of the mud, he sidled up to Ching Wo's
laundry, opened the door, beat the counter with a resounding clamor,
called, "Ching, Ching, Chinaman!" and by way of a grand climax, hurled
the dirty barrel-stave at a pile of spotless starched shirts, banged
the door shut and ran.
Tom was "on the hook" this morning. In one particular (and in only one)
Tom was like "Old John Temple," who owned the bank as well as Barrel
Alley. Both took one day off a week. "Old John" never went down to the
bank on Saturdays and Tom never went to school on Mondays. He began his
school week on Tuesday; and the truant officer was just about as sure
to cast his dreaded net in Barrel Alley on a Monday as old John Temple
was sure to visit it on the first of the month--when the rents were
due.
This first and imminent rock of peril passed, Tom lost no time in
offering the opening number of his customary morning program, which was
to play some prank on Ching Wo. But Ching Wo, often disturbed, like a
true philosopher, and knowing it was Monday, picked out the soiled
shirts, piled up the others, threw the muddy stave out and quietly
resumed his ironing.
Up at the corner Tom emerged around John Temple's big granite bank
building into the brighter spectacle of Main Street. Here he paused to
adjust the single strand of suspender which he wore. The other half of
this suspender belonged to his father; the two strands had originally
formed a single pair and now, in their separate responsibilities, each
did duty continuously, since neither Tom nor his father undressed when
they went to bed.
His single strand of suspender replaced, Tom shuffled along down Main
Street on his path of glory.
At the next corner was a coal-box. This he opened and helped himself to
several chunks of coal. A little farther on he came to a trolley car
standing still. Sidling up behind it, he grabbed the pole-rope,
detaching the pulley from the wire.
The conductor emerged, shook his fist at the retreating boy and sent a
few expletives after him. Tom then let fly one piece of coal after
another at the rear platform of the car, keeping a single chunk for
future use.
For, whenever Tom Slade got into a dispute (which was on an average of
a dozen times a day), he invariably picked up a stone. Not that he
expected always to throw it, though he often did, but because it
illustrated his attitude of suspicion and menace toward the world in
general, and toward other boys in particular.
So firmly rooted had the habit become that even indoors when his father
threatened him (which was likewise on an average of a dozen times a
day) he would reach cautiously down behind his legs, as if he expected
to find a stone on the kitchen floor conveniently near at hand.
First and last, Tom had heard a good deal of unfavorable comment about
his fancy for throwing stones. Mrs. Bennett, the settlement worker, had
informed him that throwing stones was despicable, which went in one ear
and out the other, because Tom did not know what "despicable" meant.
The priest had told him that it was both wicked and cowardly; while the
police had gone straight to the heart of the matter by threatening to
lock him up for it.
And yet, you know, it was not until Tom met young Mr. Ellsworth,
scoutmaster, that he heard something on the subject which stuck in his
mind. On this day of Tom's wild exploits, as he moved along a little
further down the street he came to the fence which enclosed John
Temple's vacant lot. It was covered with gaudy posters and with his
remaining piece of coal he proceeded to embellish these.
He was so absorbed in his decorative enterprise that he did not notice
the person who was standing quietly on the sidewalk watching him, until
he was aware of a voice speaking very sociably.
"I don't think I should do that, my boy, if I were you."
Tom paused (in the middle of a most unwholesome sentence) and saw a
young gentleman, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old,
looking pleasantly at him. He was extremely well-dressed in a natty
blue serge suit, and to Tom his appearance was little less than
gorgeous.
The boy's first impulse was, of course, to run, and he made a start as
if to do so. Then, fearing perhaps that there was not a clear get-away,
he stooped for a stone.
"What are you going to do with that?" asked the young gentleman,
smiling.
"Nartin."
"You weren't going to throw it at me, I hope, while I am standing three
feet from you."
Tom was a little nonplussed. "I wouldn't t'row no stone standin' near
yer," he grumbled.
"Good," said the young man; "you have some ideas about sporting,
haven't you? Though, of course, you're no sport--or you wouldn't have
picked up a stone at all."
Now this was great news to Tom. He knew he was no gentleman; Mrs.
Bennett had told him that. He knew he was a hoodlum; the trolley
conductors had told him that. He knew that he was lazy and shiftless
and unkempt and a number of other things, for the world at large had
made no bones of telling him so; but never, never for one moment had he
supposed that he was no sport. He had always believed that to hit a
person with a stone and "get away with it" represented the very top-notch
of fun, and sporting proficiency.
So he looked at this young man as if he thought that he had
inadvertently turned the world upside down.
"Give me that piece of coal, my boy, and let's see if we can't mark out
that last word."
"Yer'll git yer hand all dirty wid coal," said Tom, hardly knowing what
else to say.
"Well, a dirty hand isn't as bad as a filthy word; besides, I'm rooting
in the dirt with my hands all summer, anyway," said the young man, as
he marked out Tom's handiwork. "There," he added, handing back the
coal, "that's not so bad now; guess neither one of us is much of an
artist, hey? See that scratch?" he went on, exhibiting his hand to Tom.
"I got that shinning up a tree. Come on, let's beat it; first thing you
know a cop will be here."
Tom hardly knew what to think of this strange, sumptuously-attired
creature whose hands were rooting in the dirt all summer, and who got a
scratch (which he proudly exhibited) from shinning up a tree; who said
"beat it" when he meant "go away," and who called a policeman a "cop."
Tom rather liked the way this strange man talked, though it was not
without a tinge of suspicion that he accompanied him along the street,
casting furtive glances at his luxurious attire, wondering how such as
he could climb a tree.
"You couldn't shin up no tree," he presently ventured.
"Oh, couldn't I, though?" laughed his companion. "I've shinned up more
trees than you've got fingers and toes."
"When you was a kid?"
"I'm a kid now, and don't you forget it. And I'll give you a tip, too.
Grind up some bark in your hands--it works fine."
They walked on silently for a little way; an ill-assorted pair they
must have seemed to a passer-by, the boy hitching up his suspender as
often as it slid from his shoulder in his shuffling effort to keep up
with the alert stride of his companion.
"Trouble with stone-throwing is that there isn't any skill in it. You
know what Buck Edwards said, don't you? He said he'd have learned to
pitch much easier if it hadn't been for throwing stones when he was a
kid. He used to be a regular fiend at it, and when he came to passing
curves he couldn't make his first finger behave. You think Buck can
beat that pitcher the Prep. boys have got?"
"Dem High School guys is all right."
"Well, Buck's a good pitcher. I don't suppose I've thrown a stone in
ten years. But I bet I could practice for ten minutes and beat you out.
You smoke, don't you?"
"N-no--yeer, I do sometimes."
"Just caught the truth by the tail that time, didn't you?" the young
man laughed. "Well, a kid can't aim steady if he smokes: that's one
sure thing."
Tom was seized with a strange desire to strengthen his companion's side
of the case. The poor boy had few enough arguments, goodness knows, in
defense of his own habits, and his information was meagre enough. Yet
the one little thing which he seemed to remember about the other side
of stone-throwing he now contributed willingly.
"It's bad too if you ever land a guy one in the temple."
"Well, I don't know; I don't think there's so much in that, though
there may be. I landed a guy one in the temple with a stick last
summer--accident, of course, and I thought it would kill him, but it
didn't."
Tom was surprised and fascinated by the stranger's frankness.
"But a fellow that throws stones is no sport, that's sure, and you can
mark that up in your brain if you happen to have a lump of coal handy."
"I chucked that coal--honest."
"Good."
It had been Tom's intention to go down through Chester Street and steal
an apple from Schmitt's Grocery, but instead he accompanied his new
friend until that mysterious person turned to enter a house.
"Guess we didn't swap names, did we?" the stranger said, holding out
his hand.
It was the first time that Tom Slade had grasped anyone's hand in many
a day.
"Tom--Tom Slade," he said, hitching up his suspender.
"So? Mine's Ellsworth. Come up to the Library building and see us some
Friday night--the boys, I mean."
"Oh, are you the boss o' them regiment fellers?"
"Not exactly the boss; scouts we call ourselves."
"What's a scout? A soldier, like?"
"No, a scout's a fellow that does stunts and things."
"I betcher _you_ kin do a few."
"I bet I can!" laughed Mr. Ellsworth; "you said it! I've got some of
those boys guessing." Which was the plain truth.
"Drop in some Friday night and see us; don't forget now."
Tom watched him as he ascended the steps of a neighboring porch. He had
a strange fascination for the boy, and it was not till the door closed
behind him that Tom's steady gaze was averted. Then he shuffled off
down the street.
CHAPTER II
"HATS OFF"
Tom Slade awoke at about eleven o'clock, swung his legs to the floor,
yawned, rubbed his eyes, felt blindly for his tattered shoes and
sniffed the air.
Something was wrong, that was sure. Tom sniffed again. Something had
undoubtedly happened. The old familiar odor which had dwelt in the
Slade apartment all winter, the stuffy smell of bed clothes and dirty
matting, of kerosene and smoke and fried potatoes and salt-fish and
empty beer bottles, had given place to something new. Tom sniffed
again.
Then, all of a sudden, his waking senses became aware of his father
seated in his usual greasy chair, sideways to the window.
And the window was open!
The stove-lifter which had been used to pry it up lay on the sill, and
the spring air, gracious and democratic, was pouring in amid the
squalor just as it was pouring in through the wide-swung cathedral
windows of John Temple's home up in Grantley Square.
"Yer opened the winder, didn' yer?" said Tom.
"Never you mind what I done," replied his father.
"Ain't it after six?"
"Never you mind what 'tis; git yer cap 'n' beat it up to Barney's for a
pint."
"Ain't we goin' to have no eats?"
"No, we ain't goin' ter have no eats. You tell Barney to give ye a cup
o' coffee; tell 'im I said so."
"Awh, he wouldn' give me no pint widout de money."
"He wouldn', wouldn' he? I'll _pint_ you!"
"I ain't goin' ter graft on him no more."
"Git me a dime off Tony then and stop in Billy's comin' back 'n' tell
him I got the cramps agin and can't work."
"He'll gimme the laugh."
"I'll give ye the other kind of a laugh if ye don't beat it. I left you
sleep till eleven o'clock--"
"You didn' leave me sleep," said Tom. "Yer only woke up yerself half an
hour ago."
"Yer call me a liar, will ye?" roared Bill Slade, rising.
Tom took his usual strategic position on the opposite side of the
table, and as his father moved ominously around it, kept the full width
of it between them. When he reached a point nearest the sink he grabbed
a dented pail therefrom and darted out and down the stairs.
Up near Grantley Square was a fence which bore the sign, "Post No
Bills." How this had managed to escape Tom hitherto was a mystery, but
he now altered it, according to the classic hoodlum formula, so that it
read, "Post No Bills," and headed up through the square for Barney
Galloway's saloon. Bill Slade had been reduced to long-distance
intercourse in the matter of saloons for he had exhausted his credit in
all the places near Barrel Alley.
In the spacious garden of John Temple's home a girl of twelve or
thirteen years was bouncing a ball. This was Mary Temple, and what
business "old" John Temple had with such a pretty and graceful little
daughter, I am not qualified to explain.
"Chuck it out here," said Tom, "an' I'll ketch it in the can."
She retreated a few yards into the garden, then turned, and gave Tom a
withering stare.
"Chuck it out here and I'll chuck it back--honest," called Tom.
The girl's dignity began to show signs of collapse. She wanted to have
that ball thrown, and to catch it.
"Will you promise to toss it back?" she weakened.
"Sure."
"Word and honor?"
"Sure."
"Cross your heart?"
"Sure."
Still she hesitated, arm in air.
"Will you promise to throw it back?"
"Sure, hope to die. Chuck it."
"Get back a little," said she.
The ball went sailing over the paling, Tom caught it, gave a yell of
triumph, beat a tattoo upon the can, and ran for all he was worth.
Outside the saloon Tom borrowed ten cents from Tony, the bootblack, on
his father's behalf, and with this he purchased the beer.
Meanwhile, the bad turn which he had done had begun to sprout and by
the time he reached home it had grown and spread to such proportions
that Jack's beanstalk was a mere shrub compared with it. Nothing was
farther from John Temple's thoughts that beautiful Saturday than to pay
a visit to Barrel Alley. On the contrary, he was just putting on his
new spring hat to go out to the Country Club for a turn at golf, when
Mary came in crying that Tom Slade had stolen her ball.
Temple cared nothing about the ball, nor a great deal about Mary's
tears, but the mention of Tom Slade reminded him that the first of the
month was close at hand and that he had intended to "warn" Bill Slade
with the usual threat of eviction. Bill had never paid the rent in full
after the second month of his residence in Barrel Alley. When he was
working and Temple happened to come along at a propitious moment, Bill
would give him two dollars or five dollars, as the case might be, but
as to how the account actually stood he had not the slightest idea.
If Tom had not sent Mary Temple into the house crying her father would
never have thought to go through Barrel Alley on his way out to the
Country Club, but as it was, when Tom turned into the Alley from Main
Street, he saw Mr. Temple's big limousine car standing in front of his
own door.
If there was one thing in this world more than another dear to the
heart of Tom Slade, it was a limousine car. Even an Italian organgrinder
did not offer the mischievous possibilities of a limousine. He
had a regular formula for the treatment of limousines which was as sure
of success as a "cure all."
Placing his pail inside the doorway, he approached the chauffeur with a
suspiciously friendly air which boded mischief. After a strategic word
or two of cordiality, he grasped the siren horn, tooted it frantically,
pulled the timer aroundr opened one of the doors, jumped in and out of
the opposite door, leaving both open, and retreated as far as the
corner, calling, "Yah-h-h-h-h!"
In a few minutes he returned very cautiously, sidled up to the house
door, and took his belated way upstairs.
Tom placed his pail on the lower step of the stair leading up to the
floor above his own, but did not enter the room whence emanated the
stern voice of John Temple and the lying excuses of his father. He went
down and out on the door step and sat on the railing, gazing at the
chauffeur with an exasperating look of triumph.
"I wouldn' be no lousy Cho-fure," he began.
The chauffeur (who received twenty-five dollars a week) did not see the
force of this remark.
"Runnin' over kids all de time-you lie, _yer did too_!"
The chauffeur looked straight ahead and uttered not a word.
"Yer'd be in jail if 'twuzn't fer old John paying graft ter the cops!"
The chauffeur, who knew his place, made never a sign.
"Yer stinkin' thief! Yer don't do a thing but cop de car fer
joy-rides--didn' yer?"
At this the chauffeur stirred slightly.
"Yes, yer will!" yelled Tom, jumping down from the railing.
He had just picked up a stone, when the portly form of John Temple
emerged from the door behind him.
"Put down that stone, sir, or I'll lock you up!" said he with the air
of one who is accustomed to being obeyed.
"G-wan, he called me a liar!" shouted Tom.
"Well, that's just what you are," said John Temple, "and if certain
people of this town spent less for canvas uniforms to put on their boys
to make tramps out of them, we should be able, perhaps, to build an
addition to the jail."
"Ya-ah, an' you'd be de first one to go into it!" Tom yelled, as Temple
reached the step of his car.
"What's that?" said Temple, turning suddenly.
"That's _what!_" shouted Tom, letting fly the stone. It went
straight to its mark, removing "old" John's spring hat as effectually
as a gust of wind, and leaving it embedded in the mud below the car.
[Illustration: "CAN'T YOU SEE WHAT THEY'RE A-DOIN?" ROARED HIS FATHER.]
CHAPTER III
IN JAIL AND OUT AGAIN
That night, when Tom Slade, all unaware of the tragedy which
threatened his young life, shuffled into Billy's garage, he announced
to his followers a plan which showed his master mind as leader of the
gang. "Hey," said he, "I heard Sissy Bennett's mother say she's goin'
ter have a s'prise party fer him Friday night, 'n' d'yer know wot I'm
goin' ter do?"
"Tell him and spoil it fer him?" ventured Joe Flynn.
"Na-a-h!"
"Tick-tack?" asked Slush Ryder.
"Na-ah, tick-tacks is out o' date,"
"Cord ter trip 'em up?"
"Guess agin, guess agin," said Tom, exultantly.
But as no one ventured any further guesses, he announced his plan
forthwith.
"Don't say a word-don't say a word," he ejaculated. "I swiped two o'
thim quarantine signs offen two doors, 'n' I'm gon'er tack one up on
Sissy's door Friday night! Can yer beat it?"
None of them could beat it, for it was an inspiration. To turn away
Master Connover's young guests by this simple but effectual device was
worthy of the leadership qualities of Tom Slade. Having thus advertised
the possibilities of the signs he took occasion to announce,
"I got anoder one, an' I'll sell it fer a dime." But even though he
marked it down to a dime, none would buy, so he announced his intention
of raffling it off.
Before the momentous evening of Connover's party arrived, however,
something else happened which had a curious and indirect effect upon
the carrying out of Tom's plan.
On Wednesday afternoon three men came down Barrel Alley armed with a
paper for Bill Slade. It was full of "whereases" and "now, therefores"
and other things which Bill did not comprehend, but he understood well
enough the meaning of their errand.
The stone which Tom had thrown at John Temple had rebounded with
terrific force!
One man would have been enough, goodness knows, to do the job in hand,
for there were only six or seven pieces of furniture. They got in each
other's way a good deal and spat tobacco juice, while poor helpless,
inefficient Bill Slade stood by watching them.
From various windows and doors the neighbors watched them too, and some
congratulated themselves that their own rents were paid, while others
wondered what would become of poor Tom now.
This was the scene which greeted Tom as he came down Barrel Alley from
school.
"Wot are they doin'?" he asked.
"Can't you see wot they're a-doin'?" roared his father. "'Tain't them
that's doin' it neither, it's _you--you done it!!_ It's _you_
took the roof from over my head, you and old John Temple!" Advancing
menacingly, he poured forth a torrent of abuse at his wretched son.
"The two o' yez done it! You wid yer rocks and him wid his dirty
marshals and judges! I'll get the both o' yez yet! Ye sneakin' rat!"
He would have struck Tom to the ground if Mrs. O'Connor, a mournful
figure in shoddy black, had not crossed the street and forced her way
between them.
"'Twas _you_ done it, Bill Slade, and not him, and don't you lay
yer hand on him--mind that! 'Twas you an' your whiskey bottle done it,
you lazy loafer, an' the street is well rid o' you. Don't you raise
your hand agin me, Bill Slade--I'm not afraid o' the likes o' you. I
tell you 'twas _you_ sent the poor boy's mother to her grave--you
and your whiskey bottle!"
"I--I--ain't scared uv him!" said Tom.
"You stay right here now and don't be foolish, and me an' you'll go
over an' have a cup o' coffee."
Just then one of the men emerged bearing in one arm the portrait of the
late Mrs. Slade and in the other hand Bill Slade's battered but trusty
beer can. The portrait he laid face up on the table and set the can on
it.
Perhaps it is expecting too much to assume that a city marshal would
have any sense of the fitness of things, but it was an unfortunate
moment to make such a mistake. As Mrs. O'Connor lifted the pail a dirty
ring remained on the face of the portrait.
"D'yer see wot yer done?" shrieked Tom, rushing at the marshal. "D'yer
see wot yer done?"
There was no stopping him. With a stream of profanity he rushed at the
offending marshal, grabbing him by the neck, and the man's head shook
and swayed as if it were in the grip of a mad dog.
It was in vain that poor Mrs. O'Connor attempted to intercede, catching
hold of the infuriated boy and calling,
"Oh, Tommy, for the dear Lord's sake, stop and listen to me!"
Tom did not even hear.
The marshal, his face red and his eyes staring, went down into the mud
of Barrel Alley and the savage, merciless pounding of his face could be
heard across the way.
While the other marshals pulled Tom off his half-conscious victim, the
younger contingent came down the street escorting a sauntering blue-coat,
who swung his club leisurely and seemed quite master of the
situation.
"He kilt him, he kilt him!" called little Sadie McCarren.
Tom, his scraggly hair matted, his face streaming, his chest heaving,
and his ragged clothing bespattered, stood hoisting up his suspender,
safe in the custody of the other two marshals.
"Take this here young devil around to the station," said one of the
men, "for assault and battery and interferin' with an officer of the
law in the performance of his dooty."
"Come along, Tom," said the policeman; "in trouble again, eh?"
"Can't yer leave him go just this time?" pleaded Mrs. O'Connor. "He
ain't himself at all--yer kin see it."
"Take him in," said the rising victim, "for interferin' with an officer
of the law in the performance of dooty."
"Where's his folks?" the policeman asked, not unkindly.
It was then the crowd discovered that Bill Slade had disappeared.
"I'll have to take you along," said the officer.
Tom said never a word. He had played his part in the proceedings, and
he was through.
"Couldn't yer leave him come over jist till I make him a cup o'
coffee?" Mrs. O'Connor begged.
"They'll give him his dinner at the station, ma'am," the policeman
answered.
Mrs. O'Connor stood there choking as Tom was led up the street, the
full juvenile force of Barrel Alley thronging after him.
"Wouldn' yer leave me pull my strap up?" he asked the policeman.
The officer released his arm, taking him by the neck instead, and the
last that Mrs. O'Connor saw Tom was hauling his one rebellious strand
of suspender up into place.
"Poor lad, I don't know what'll become uv him now," said Mrs. O'Connor,
pausing on her doorstep to speak with a neighbor.
"And them things over there an' night comin' on," said her companion.
"I wisht that alarm clock was took away--seems as if 'twas laughin' at
the whole thing--like."
"'Tain't only his bein' arrested," said Mrs. O'Connor, "but ther' ain't
no hope for him at all, as I kin see. Ther's no one can
in_floo_ence him."
In Court, the next morning, the judge ruled out all reference to the
disfigurement of Mrs. Slade's portrait as being "incompetent and
irrelevant," and when the "assault and battery" could not be made to
seem "an act done in self-defense and by reason of the imminent peril
of the accused," Tom was taken to the "jug" to spend the balance of the
day and to ponder on the discovery that a "guy" has no right to "slam"
a marshal just because he sets a dirty beer can on his mother's
picture.
His first enterprise after his liberation was a flank move on Schmitt's
Grocery where he stole a couple of apples and a banana, which latter he
ate going along the street. These were his only luncheon. The banana
skin he threw on the pave-ment.
In a few moments he heard footsteps behind him and, turning, saw a
small boy coming along dangling the peel he had dropped. The boy was a
jaunty little fellow, wearing a natty spring suit. It was, in fact,
"Pee-wee" Harris, Tenderfoot, who was just starting out to cover
Provision 5 of the Second Class Scout requirements, for he was going to
be a Second Class Scout before camping-time, or know the reason why.
"You drop that?" he asked pleasantly.
"Ye-re, you kin have it," said Tom cynically.
"Thanks," said Pee-wee, and the banana peel went sailing over the fence
into Temple's lot.
"First thing you know somebody'd get a free ride on that thing," said
Pee-wee.
"Ye-re?" said Tom sneeringly.
"And if anybody got anything free near John Temple's property----"
"Dere's where yer said it, kiddo," said Tom, approvingly.
"So long," said Pee-wee, and went gaily on, walking a little, then
running a little, then walk-ing again, until Tom thought he must be
crazy. Happening just at that minute to finish one of his apples (or
rather one of Schmitt's apples) he let fly the core straight for the
back of Pee-wee's head.
Then a most extraordinary thing, happened. Without so much as turning
round, Pee-wee raised his hand, caught the core, threw it over into the
lot, and then, turning, laughed, "Thanks, good shot!"
Tom had always supposed that the back of a person's head was a safe
target, and he could not comprehend the instinct which was so alert and
highly-tuned that it could work entirely independent of the eyes. But
this was merely one of Pee-wee's specialties, and his amazing progress
from Tenderfoot to Star Scout is a story all by itself.
Tom hoisted himself onto the board fence and attacked the other apple.
Just then along came "Sweet Caporal" demanding the core.
"Gimme it 'n' I'll put yer wise ter sup'm."
Tom made the speculation.
"Wop Joe's around de corner wid his pushcart? wot d'ye say we give him
de spill?"
They were presently joined by "Slats" Corbett, and the "Two Aces," Jim
and Jake Mattenberg, and shortly thereafter Wop Joe's little candystand
was carried by assault.
The gum-drops and chocolate bars which did not find their way into the
pockets of the storming host, were strewn about the street, the whistle
of the peanut-roaster was broken off and Tom went scooting down the
street tooting it vigorously.
This affair scattered the gang for the time, and presently Tom and
"Sweet Caporal" found themselves together. They got an empty bottle
from an ash wagon, broke it and distributed the pieces along Broad
Street, which they selected as a sort of "mine area" for the
embarrassment of auto traffic.
Tom then shuffled into the Public Library, ostensibly to read, but in
fact to decorate the books according to his own theories of art, and
was ejected because he giggled and scuffed his feet and interfered with
the readers.
It would not be edifying to follow Tom's shuffling footsteps that
afternoon, nor to enumerate the catalogue of unseemly phrase and
vicious mischief which filled the balance of the day. He wound up his
career of glory by one of the most contemptible things which he had
ever done. He went up at dusk and tacked his quarantine sign to the
outer gate of the Bennett place.
"Gee, I hope they're all home," he said.
They _were_ all at home and Mrs. Bennett, whom he hated, was busy
with preparation and happy anticipations for her unsuspecting son. That
the wretched plan did not succeed was due to no preparatory omission on
the part of Tom, but because something happened which changed the whole
face of things.
CHAPTER IV
CAMP SOLITAIRE
Tom's visit to the Library reminded him that it was here "them
regiment fellers" met, and since it was near the Bennett place he
decided to loiter thereabout, partly for the ineffable pleasure of
beholding the side-tracking of Connover's party, and partly in the hope
of seeing Mr. Ellsworth again.
So he shuffled around a little before dark and did sentinel duty
between the two places. He wanted something to eat very much indeed,
and he surmised that such a sympathetic fellow as young Mr. Ellsworth
would "give him the lend of a nickel" especially if he were tipped off
in regard to the coming ball game.
Standing outside, Tom heard the uproarious laughter through the
basement windows and wondered what it was all about. Strange that
fellows could be enjoying themselves so thoroughly who were not up to
some kind of mischief.
Presently, the basement door opened and the scouts began to come out.
Tom loitered in the shadow across the way.
The first group paused on the sidewalk bent on finishing their
discussion as to whether "whipping" was as good as splicing for two
strands of rope. One boy insisted that splicing was the only way if you
knew how to do it, but that you had to whittle a splicing needle.
"I wouldn't trust _my_ weight on any double whipping," said
another fellow. "The binding wouldn't stand salt water--not unless you
tarred it."
"If _my_ little snow-white hand is going to grab that loop, it'll
be spliced," said the first speaker.
Another boy came out and said _he_ could jump the gap without any
rope at all; it was only seven feet, and what was the use of a rope
anyway? Then someone said that Pee-wee would do it scout pace, and
there was a great laugh. The group went on up the street.
Then out came the renowned Pee-wee himself in hot pursuit of them,
running a little, walking a little, according to his habit.
Two more boys came out and one of them said it was going to rain to-morrow.
Tom wondered how he knew. Then three or four of the Ravens
appeared and one said it would be a great stunt if they could work that
on the Silver Foxes at midnight.
Tom didn't know what the Silver Foxes were (he knew there were no foxes
in Bridgeboro), and he had no notion what "that" meant, but he liked
the idea of doing it at midnight. He would like to be mixed up in
something which was done at midnight himself.
But his trusty pal, Mr. Ellsworth, did not appear. Whether he was
absent that evening, Tom never knew. The last ones to emerge from the
Library basement, were a couple of boys who were talking about dots and
dashes.
"You want to make your dot flares shorter," one said.
"Shall I tell you what I'm going to say?" the other asked.
"No, sure not, let me dope it out."
"Well, then, get on the job as soon as you reach home."
"All right, then I won't say good-night till later. So long."
"See you to-morrow."
How these two expected to say good night without seeing each other Tom
could not imagine, but he thought it had something to do with "dot
flares"; in any event, it was something very mysterious and was to be
done that night. He rather liked the idea of it.
The two boys separated, one going up toward Blakeley's Hill and pausing
to glance at the quarantine sign on the Bennett house as he passed. Tom
was rather surprised that he noticed it since he seemed to be in a
hurry, but he followed, resolved to "slam" the fellow if he took it
down.
Then there came into his head the bright idea that if he followed this
boy up the hill to an unfrequented spot he could hold him up for a
nickel.
A little way up the hill the boy suddenly turned and stood waiting for
him. Tom was hardly less than amazed at this for he had thought that
his pursuit was not known. When they came face to face Tom saw that it
was none other than the "half-baked galook" Roy Blakeley.
He wore the full Scout regalia which fitted him to perfection, and upon
his left breast Tom could see a ribbon with something bright depending
from it, which seemed to be in the shape of a bird. He had a trim
figure and stood very straight, and about his neck was a looselyknotted
scarf of a silvery gray color, showing quite an expanse of bare
throat. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and on one wrist he
wore a leather band.
"What are you following me for?" he asked.
"Who's follerin' yer?"
"You are."
"I ain't follerin' yer neither."
"Yes, you are."
"Yer mean ter tell me I'm lyin'?" shouted Tom, advancing with a
threatening air.
"Sure."
Tom's hulking form was within a few inches' of Blakeley and he thrust
forward his lowered head and held his clenched fist conveniently ready
at his side, but Roy did not budge. On the contrary, he seemed rather
amused. He did not scare worth a cent.
"Yer want me ter hand ye one?"
"No, sure not."
"Well then, was I lyin'?"
"Surest thing you know."
There was a pause.
"Gimme a nickel 'n' I'll leave ye off," said Tom magnanimously.
The boy laughed and asked, "What do you want the nickel for?"
"Fer a cup o' coffee."
Roy paused a minute, biting his lip ruminatively, frankly contemplating
him.
"I can make you a better cup of coffee," said he, "than any lunch wagon
juggler in this town. You're halfway up the hill now; come on up the
rest of the way--just for a stunt. Ever up on the hill?"
Tom hesitated.
"Come on, you're not in a hurry to get home, are you? I'll give you
some plum-duff I made and you can have a belt axe to chop it with if
you want to. Come on, just for a stunt."
"Who's up dere?"
"Just 'Yours sincerely.'"
"Yer live in de big house, don'cher?"
"Not fer me; guess again. Nay, nay, my boy, _I_ live in Camp
Solitaire, with a ring round it. Anybody steps inside that ring gets
his wrist slapped and two demerits. I let the house stay there on
account of my mother and father and the cat. Don't you worry, you won't
get within two hundred feet of the house. The house and I don't speak."
Tom, half suspicious but wanting a cup of coffee, shuffled along at
Roy's side. The scout's offhand manner and rather whimsical way of
talking took the wind out of his belligerence, and he allowed himself
so far to soften toward this "rich guy" as to say,
"Me an' our house don't speak neither; we wuz chucked."
"Chucked?"
"Ye-re, put out. Old John Temple done it, but I'm hunk all right."
"When was that?"
"Couple o' days ago."
He told the story of the eviction and his companion listened as they
plodded up the hill.
"Well," said Roy, "I haven't slept indoors for two weeks, and I'm not
going to for the next six weeks. And the best way to get hunk on a
fellow that puts you out of a house is just to sleep outdoors. They
can't put you out of there very well. Camp, and you've got the laugh on
them!"
"Gee, I thought nobuddy but poor guys slep' outdoors."
"It's the poor guys that sleep _indoors,_" said Roy.
"Don' de wind git on ye?"
"Sure--gets all over you; it's fine."
"My father give _me_ a raw hand-out, all right, and then some
more."
"Well, there's no use fighting your pack."
"Yer what?"
"Your pack--as Dan Beard says."
"Who's he--one o' your crowd?"
"You bet he is. 'Fighting your pack' is scrapping with your job--with
what can't be helped--kind of. See?"
They walked along in silence, Tom's half-limping sideways gait in
strange contrast with his companion's carriage, and soon entered the
spacious grounds of the big old-fashioned house which crowned the
summit of Blakeley's Hill, one of the show places of the town.
"Can you jump that hedge?" said Roy, as he leaped over it. "This'll be
your first sleep outdoors, won't it? If you wake up all of a sudden and
hear a kind of growling don't get scared--it's only the trees."
Under a spacious elm, a couple of hundred feet from the house, was a
little tent with a flag-pole near it.
"That's where Old Glory hangs out, but she goes to bed at sunset.
That's what gives her such rosy cheeks. We'll hoist her up and give her
the salute in the morning."
Near the tent was a small fire place of stones, with a rough bench by
it and a chair fashioned from a grocery box. Before the entrance stood
two poles and on a rough board across these were painted the words,
CAMP SOLITAIRE, as Tom saw by the light of the lantern which Roy held
up for a moment.
The tent was furnished with a cot, blankets, mosquito-netting, several
books on a little shelf, and magazines strewn about with BOYS' LIFE on
their covers. On the central upright was a little shelf with a
reflector for the lantern, and close to the pole a rickety steamer
chair with a cushion or two. The place looked very inviting.
"Now this out here," said Roy, "is my signal pedestal. You know Westy
Martin, don't you? He's patrol leader, and he and I are trying out the
Morse code; you'll see me hand him one to-night. We're trying it by
searchlight first, then, later we'll get down to the real fire works.
He lives out on the Hillside Road a little way."
The signal pedestal was a little tower with a platform on top reached
by a ladder.
"Doesn't need to be very high, you see, because you can throw a
searchlight way up, but we use it daytimes for flag work. Here's the
searchlight," Roy added, unwrapping it from a piece of canvas. "Belongs
on the touring car, but I use it. I let my father use it on the car
sometimes--if he's good.
"Now for the coffee. Sit right down on that parlor chair, but don't
lean too far back. Like it strong? No? Right you are. Wait a minute,
the lantern's smoking. Never thought what you were up against to-night,
did you? You're kidnapped and don't know it. By the time we're through
the eats Westy'll be home and we'll say good-night to him.
"Can you beat that valley for signalling? Westy's nearly as high up as
we are. Now for the fire and then the plum-duff. Don't be afraid of it-you
can only die once. Wish I had some raisin pudding, but my mother
turned me down on raisins to-day."
He sat down on the ground near Tom, scaled his hat into the tent, drew
his knees up, and breathed a long, exaggerated sigh of fatigue after
his few minutes' exertion.
"Let's see, what was I going to ask you? Oh, yes; how'd you get hunk on
John Temple?"
"Put a quarantine sign on Sissy Bennett's house."
"What?"
"Sure; didn't yer see it?"
"What for?"
"He's a rich guy, ain't he?"
Roy looked at him, puzzled.
"Dere's a gang comin' over from Hillside ter s'prise him to-night."
"In a car?"
"Ye-re. An' I put de sign up fer ter sidetrack 'em."
"You did?"
In the glare of the glowing fire Roy looked straight at Tom. "How will
that--what good--" he began; then paused and continued to look
curiously at him with the same concentrated gaze with which he would
have studied a trail by night. But that was not for long. A light came
into his eyes. Hurriedly he took out his watch and looked at it.
"Nine o'clock," he said, thoughtfully; "they must have started back."
He rose, all the disgust gone from his face, and slapped Tom on the
shoulder.
"Ain't he a rich guy?" explained Tom.
"Never mind that," said Roy. "I'm glad you told me--I'm going to show
you something as sure as you're a foot high! You and I are going to
have the time of our lives to-night, and _don't you forget it!_"
CHAPTER V
CONNOVER'S PARTY
"Quick, now, hand me the light and look out you don't trip on the
wires. If they once get past Westy's house--g-o-o-d-_night!_ Just
inside the garage door there you'll see a switch-turn it on. Here, take
the lantern. If Westy don't get this right, we'll kill him."
Tom, with but the haziest idea of what was to be done, followed
directions. It evidently had something to do with the mysterious "dot
flares" and with his own mean act. These excited nocturnal activities
had a certain charm, and if it wasn't mischief Roy was up to it had at
least all the attractive qualities of mischief.
"You'll see a book just inside the tent--paper covered--hand me that
too, and come up yourself. Look out for the wires," cautioned Roy.
He opened the Scout Handbook to about the middle and laid it flat on
the tower rail.
"That's the Morse Code," said he, "easy as eating ice cream when you
once get the hang of it. I know it by heart but I'm going to let you
read them to me so as to be sure. Better be sure than be sorry--hey? I
hope they don't speed that auto till we get through with them."
"Can he answer?" ventured Tom.
"No, they haven't got a car at Westy's and no searchlight. He brings me
the message all writ, wrot, wrote out, in the morning. They've got a
dandy team there, though. Cracky, I'd rather have a pair of horses than
an auto any day, wouldn't you. Now be patient, Conny dear, and we'll
see what we can do for you."
"It's a long, long way to Tip--Hillside. Do you s'pose Westy's home
yet? Oh yes, sure, he must be. Well, here we go--take the lantern and
read off the ones I ask for and get them right or I'll-make you eat
another plate of plum-duff! Feeding with intent to kill, hey?"
Tom couldn't help laughing; Roy's phrases had a way of popping out like
a Jack-in-the-Box.
He had a small makeshift wooden bracket which stood on a grocery box on
the tower platform, and in this the auto searchlight swung.
"Wait a second now till I give him 'Attention' and then we're off.
Guess you must have seen this light from downtown, hey?"
"Ye-re, I wondered what'twas."
"Well, here's where you find out."
There was a little click as he turned the switch, and then a long
straight column of misty light shot up into the darkness, bisecting the
heavens. Far over to the west it swung, then far to the east, while Tom
watched it, fascinated. Then he heard the click of the switch again and
darkness reigned, save for the myriad stars.
It wac the first time in his life that Tom had ever been charged with a
real responsibility, and he waited nervously.
"That meant, 'Get ready,'" said Roy. "We'll give him time to sharpen
his pencil. Do you pull much of a stroke with Machelsa, the Indian
spirit? She smiles a smile at me once in a while, and if you want her
to see you through any kind of a stunt you just rub your cheek with one
hand while you pat your forehead with the other; try it."
"Can't do it, eh?" he laughed. "That's one of Mr. Ellsworth's stunts;
he got us all started on that. You'd think the whole troop was crazy."
"I know him," said Tom.
"He's the worst of the lot," said Roy. "Well, off we go, let's have S-call
them dots and lines; some say 'dashes' but lines is quicker if
you're working fast."
"Tree dots," said Tom.
Three sudden flashes shot up into the sky, quickly, one after another.
"Now T."
"Line," said Tom.
The switch clicked, and the long misty column rose again, remaining for
several seconds.
"Now O."
"T'ree lines," said Tom, getting excited.
"Now P--and be careful--it's a big one."
"I'm on de job," said Tom, becoming more enthusiastic as he became more
sure of himself. "Dot--line--line--dot."
The letter was printed on the open page of the heavens and down in
Barrel Alley two of the O'Connor boys sitting on the rickety railing
watched the lights and wondered what they meant.
So, across the intervening valley to Westy's home, the message was
sent. The khaki-clad boy, with rolled-up sleeves, whose brown hand held
the little porcelain switch, was master of the night and of the
distance, and the other watched him admiringly.
Down at the Western Union office in Bridgeboro, the operator sauntered
out in his shirtsleeves and smilingly watched the distant writing,
which he understood.
Stop all autos send car with
young folks back to Bennett's sure
not practice serious.
"Good-night," said Roy, and two fanlike swings of the misty column told
that it was over. "If they haven't passed Westy's yet, we win. Shake,
Tom," he added, gayly, "You did fine--you're a fiend at it! Wouldn't
you rather be here than at Conny's party--honest?"
"_Would I?_"
"Now we'll rustle down the hill and see the bunch co'me back--if they
do. Oh, cracky, don't you hope they do?"
"_Do I?_" said Tom.
"Like the Duke of Yorkshire, hey? Ever hear of him? Up the hill and
down again. We'll bring the sign up for a souvenir, what do you say?"
"Mebbe it oughter go back where it come from," said Tom, slowly.
"Guess you're right."
"Ever go scout's pace?" said Roy.
"What's that?"
"Fifty running-fifty walking. Try it and you'll use no other. Come on!
The kind of pace you've always wanted," said Roy, jogging along.
"Beware of substitutes."
It was just about the time when Roy was showing Tom his camp that a big
touring car rolled silently up to the outer gate of the Bennett place.
(The house stood well back from the road.) The car was crowded with
young people of both sexes, and it was evident from their expressions
of surprise and disappointment that they saw the yellow sign on the
gate.
There were a few moments of debate; some one suggested tooting the
horn, but another thought that might disturb the patient; one proposed
going to the house door and inquiring, while still another thought it
would be wiser not to. Some one said something about 'phoning in the
morning; a girl remarked that the last time she saw Connover he had a
headache and looked pale, and indeed Connover's general weakness,
together with the epidemic which prevailed in Bridgeboro, made the
appearance of the sign perfectly plausible.
The upshot was that the auto rolled away and turned into the Hillside
Turnpike. Scarcely had it gone out of sight when a patch of light
flickered across the lawn, the shade was drawn from a window and the
figure of Mrs. Bennett appeared peering out anxiously.
Ten minutes out of Bridgeboro, as the big car silently rolled upon the
Hillside Turnpike, one of its disappointed occupants (a girl) called,
"Oh, see the searchlight!"
"Oh, look," said another.
The long, misty column was swinging across the heavens.
"Now you see it, now you don't," laughed one of the fellows, as Tom's
utterance of "Dot," sent a sudden shaft of light into the sky and out
again as quickly.
"Where is it, do you suppose?" asked one of the girls.
"Does it mean anything?" asked another.
It meant nothing to them, for there was not a scout in the car. And yet
a mile or two farther along the dark road there hung a lantern on an
upright stick, directly in their path, and scrawled upon a board below
it was the word, "Stop."
Out of the darkness stepped a figure in a white sweater (for the night
was growing cold) and a large-brimmed brown felt hat. One of his arms
was braced akimbo on his hip, the other hand he laid on the wind shield
of the throbbing auto.
"Excuse me, did you come from Bennett's in Bridgeboro?"
"Yes, we did," said a musical voice.
"Then you'd better turn and go back; there's a message here which says
so."
"Back to Bennett's? Really?"
"I'll read it to you," said the boy in the white sweater.
He held a slip of yellow paper down in front of one of the acetylene
headlights, and read,
"Stop all autos, send car with young folks back to Bennett's, sure."
(He did not read the last three words on the paper.)
"Did you _ever_ in _all_ your _life_ know anything so
perfectly extraordinary?" said a girl.
"You can turn better right up there," said Westy. He was a quiet,
uncommunicative lad.
The sign was gone from the Bennetts' gate when the car returned, and
the two boys standing in the shadow across the way, saw the party go up
the drive and disappear into the house; there was still plenty of time
for the festive program.
They never knew what was said on the subject of the sign and the
mysterious telegram.
They kept it up at Bennetts' till long after midnight. They played
"Think of a Number," and "Button, button, who's got the button?" and
wore tissue-paper caps which came out of tinselled snappers, and had
ice cream and lady-fingers and macaroons and chicken salad.
When Connover went to bed, exhausted but happy, Mrs. Bennett tripped
softly in to say good-night to him and to see that he had plenty of
fresh air by "opening the window a little at the top."
"Isn't it much better, dearie," she said, seating herself for a moment
on the edge of the bed, "to find your pleasure right here than to be
tramping over the country and building bonfires, and getting your
clothing all filled with smoke from smudge signals, or whatever they
call them, and catching your death of cold playing with searchlights,
like that Blakeley boy up on the hill? It's just a foolish, senseless
piece of business, taking a boy's thoughts away from home, and no good
can ever come of it."
CHAPTER VI
HITTING THE BULL'S EYE
What did Tom Slade do after the best night's sleep he ever had? He went
to Mrs. O'Connor's, where he knew he was welcome, and washed his face
and hands. More than that, he attended to his lessons in school that
day, to the teacher's astonishment. And why? Because he knew it was
right? Not much! But because he was anxious not to be kept in that
afternoon for he wanted to go down and peek through the fence of
Temple's lot, to see if there were any more wonders performed; to try
to get a squint at Mr. Ellsworth and Westy.
In short, Tom Slade had the Scout bug; he could not escape it now. He
had thrown it off once before, but that was a milder dose. As luck
would have it, that very afternoon he had an amusing sidelight on the
scouting business which gave him his first knowledge of the "good turn"
idea, and a fresh glimpse of the character of Roy Blakeley.
Inside Temple's lot the full troop was holding forth in archery
practice and Tom peered through a knothole and later ventured to a
better view-point on top of the fence.
When any sort of game or contest is going on it is absolutely necessary
to the boy beholder that he pick some favorite whom he hopes to see
win, and Tom lost no time in singling Roy out as the object of his
preference.
It was not a bad choice. As Roy stood sideways to the target, his feet
firmly planted, one bared brown arm extended horizontally and holding
the gracefully curving bow, and the other, bent but still horizontal,
holding the arrow in the straining cord, he made an attractive picture.
"Here's where I take the pupil out of the Bull's-eye," he said, and the
arrow flew entirely free of the target.
"No sooner said than stung!" shouted Pee-wee Harris.
"Oh, look who's going to try,--mother, mother, pin a rose on me!"
shouted another boy.
"Mother, mother, turn the hose on me," called another.
"Stand from behind in case the arrow goes backwards!"
"I bet he hits that fellow on the fence!"
Tom could not help laughing as Mr. Ellsworth, with unruffled
confidence, stepped in place.
"Oi--oi--oi--here's where Hiawatha turns over in his grave!"
It surprised Tom quite a little that they did not seem to stand at all
in awe of the scoutmaster. One boy began ostentatiously passing his hat
around.
"For the benefit of Sitting Bull Ellsworth," said he, "highest salaried
artist in Temple's lot--positively last appearance this side of the
Rockies!"
But "Sitting Bull" Ellsworth had the laugh on them all. Straight inside
the first ring went his arrow, and he stepped aside and gave an
exceedingly funny wink at Tom on the fence.
Tom changed his favorite.
Presently Roy sauntered over to the fence and spoke to him. "Regular
shark at it, isn't he?"
"Which one is Westy?" Tom asked.
"Westy? That fellow right over there with the freckles. If you get up
close you can see the Big Dipper on his left cheek. He's got Orion
under his ear too."
"O'Brien?"
"No, Orion--it's a bunch of stars. Oh, he's a regular walking
firmament."
Tom stared at Westy. It seemed odd that the invisible being who had
caught that message out of the darkness and turned the car back, should
be right here, hobnobbing with other mortals.
"Come over here, Westy," shouted Roy, "I want Tom Slade to see your
freck--well, I'll be--if this one hasn't shifted way over to the other
side. Westy's our chart of the heavens. This is the fellow that helped
send you the message last night, Westy. He ate two plates of plum-duff
and he lives to tell the tale."
"I understand Roy kidnapped you," said Westy.
"It was fun all right," said Tom.
"Too bad his parents put him out, wasn't it?" said Westy.
"Did you ever taste any of his biscuits?" asked another fellow, who
sauntered over. They formed a little group just below Tom.
"We've got two of them in the Troop Room we use for bullets," he
continued.
"What do you think of Camp Solitaire?" Westy asked.
Tom knew well enough that they were making fun of each other, but he
did not exactly know how to participate in this sort of "guying."
"'Sall right," said he, rather weakly.
"What do you think of the Eifel Tower?"
"'Sall right."
"Did he show you the Indian moccasins Julia made for him?"
This precipitated a wrestling match and Tom Slade witnessed the slow
but sure triumph of science, as one after another the last speaker's
arms, legs, back, neck and finally his head, yielded to the invincible
process of Roy's patient efforts until the victim lay prone upon the
grass.
"Is Camp Solitaire all right?" Roy demanded, laughing.
"Sure," said the victim and sprang up, liberated.
Tom's interest in these pleasantries was interrupted by the voice of
Mr. Ellsworth.
"Come over here and try your hand, my boy."
"Sure, go ahead," encouraged Westy, as the group separated for him to
jump down.
"_I_ couldn' hit it," hesitated Tom, abashed.
"Neither could he," retorted Roy, promptly.
"If you let him get away with the championship," said another boy,
indicating the scoutmaster, "he'll have such a swelled head he won't
speak to us for a month. Come ahead down and make a stab at it, just
for a stunt. You couldn't do worse than Blakeley."
Everything was a "stunt" with the scouts.
Reluctantly, and smiling, half pleased and half ashamed, Tom let
himself down into the field and went over to where the scoutmaster
waited, bow and arrow in hand.
"A little more sideways, my boy," said Mr. Ellsworth; "turn this foot
out a little; bend your fingers like this, see? Ah, that's it. Now pull
it right back to your shoulder--one--two--three--" The arrow shot past
the target, a full three yards shy of it, past the Ravens' patrol flag
planted near by, and just grazed the portly form of Mr. John Temple,
who came cat-a-cornered across the field from the gate.
A dead silence prevailed.
"I presume you have permission to use this property," demanded Mr.
Temple in thundering tones.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Temple," said the scoutmaster.
"Good afternoon, sir. Will you be good enough to let me see your
authority for the use of these grounds?" he demanded frigidly. "If I
gave any such permission I cannot seem to recall it."
"I am afraid, Mr. Temple," said Mr. Ellsworth, "that we can show no
written word on--"
"Ah, yes," said the bank president, conclusively, "and is it a part of
your program to teach young boys to take and use what does not belong
to them?"
The scoutmaster flushed slightly. "No, that is quite foreign to our
program, Mr. Temple. Some weeks ago, happening to meet your secretary I
asked him whether we might use this field for practice since it is in a
central and convenient part of town, and he told me he believed there
would be no objection. Perhaps I should have--"
"And you are under the impression that this field belongs to my
secretary?" asked Mr. Temple, hotly. "If you have nothing better to do
with yourself than to play leader to a crew of--"
Here Mr. Ellsworth interrupted him.
"We will leave the field at once, sir."
"When _I_ was a young man," said Mr. Temple, with frosty
condescension, "I had something more important to do with myself than
to play Wild West with a pack of boys."
"There were more open fields in those days," said the scoutmaster,
pleasantly.
"And perhaps that is why my wealth grows now."
"Very likely; and the movement which these boys represent," Mr.
Ellsworth added with a suggestion of pride in his voice, "is growing
quite as fast as any man's wealth."
"Indeed, sir! Do you know that this boy's father owes me money?" said
Mr. Temple, coldly indicating Tom.
"Very likely."
"And that the boy is a hoodlum?"
Mr. Ellsworth bit his lip, hesitatingly. "Yes, I know that, Mr.
Temple," he said.
"And a thief and a liar?"
"Don't run, Tom," whispered Roy.
"No, I _don't_ know that. Suppose we talk apart, Mr. Temple."
"We will talk right here, and there'll be very little talking indeed.
If you think I am a public target, sir, you are quite mistaken! You
clear out of this lot and keep out of it, or you'll go to jail--the
whole pack of you! A man is known by the company he keeps. If you
choose to cast your lot with children--and hoodlums and rowdies--I
could send that boy to jail if I wanted to," he broke off. "_You
know_ he's a vicious character and yet you--"
[Illustration: "NEITHER YOU NOR ANY OTHER MAN CAN BREAK UP THIS
MOVEMENT."]
The Scoutmaster looked straight into the eyes of the enraged Temple,
and there was a little prophetic ring in his voice as he answered.
"I'm afraid it would be hard to say at present just what he is, Mr.
Temple. I was thinking just a few minutes ago, as I saw him dangling
his legs up there, that he was on the fence in more ways than one. I
suppose we can push him down on either side we choose."
"There's a right and wrong side to every fence, young man."
"There is indeed."
"As every good citizen should know; a public side and a private side."
"He has always been on the wrong side of the fence hitherto, Mr.
Temple." Mr. Ellsworth held out his hand and instinctively Tom shuffled
toward him and allowed the scoutmaster's arm to encircle his shoulder.
Roy Blakeley elbowed his way among the others as if it were appropriate
that he should be at Tom's side.
"I have no wish to interfere with this 'movement' or whatever you call
it," said John Temple, sarcastically, "provided you keep off my
property. If you don't do that I'll put the thumb-screws on and see
what the law can do, and break up your 'movement' into the bargain!"
"The law is helpless, Mr. Temple," said Mr. Ellsworth. "Oh, it has
failed utterly. I wish I could make you see that. As for breaking up
the movement," he continued in quite a different tone, "that is all
sheer bluster, if you'll allow me to say so."
"What!" roared John Temple.
"Neither you nor any other man can break up this movement."
"As long as there are jails--"
"As long as there are woods and fields. But I see there is no room for
discussion. We will not trespass again, sir; Mr. Blakeley's hill is
ours for the asking. But you might as well try to bully the sun as to
talk about breaking up this movement, Mr. John Temple. It is like a dog
barking at a train of cars."
"Do you know," said the capitalist, in a towering rage, "that this boy
hurled a stone at me only a week ago?"
"I do not doubt it; and what are we going to do about it?"
"Do about it?" roared John Temple.
"Yes, do about it. The difference between you and me, Mr. Temple, is
that you are thinking of what this boy did a week ago, and I am
thinking of what _he is going to do to-morrow_."
The boys had the last word in this affair and it was blazoned forth
with a commanding emphasis which shamed "old John's" most wrathful
utterance. It was Roy Blakeley's idea, and it was exactly like him.
He invited the whole troop (Tom included) up to Camp Solitaire and
there, before the sun was too low, they printed in blazing red upon a
good-sized board the words
TRESPASSING PROHIBITED
UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW
When darkness had fallen this was erected upon two uprights projecting
above the top of Temple's board fence.
"He'll be sure to see it," commented Roy, "and it's what he always
needed."
When a carpenter arrived on the scene the next morning to put up such a
sign, as per instructions, he went back and told John Temple that there
was a very good one there already, and asked what was the use of
another.
It was the kind of thing that Roy Blakeley was in the habit of doing--a
good turn with a dash of pepper in it.
CHAPTER VII
"ON MY HONOR"
During the next few days a dreadful document appeared which had to do
with Tom, though he never saw it and only heard of it indirectly.
Whence it emanated and what became of it he never knew, but he knew it
was originated by the "rich guys" and that Mrs. Bennett and John Temple
and the Probation Officer and the Judge had something to do with it.
It said that "Whereas one Thomas Slade, aged fourteen, son of William
Slade, whereabouts unknown, and Annie Slade, deceased, was an
unprotected minor, etc., etc., that said Thomas Slade should therefore
be brought into court by somebody or other at a certain particular
time, for commitment as a city charge," and so forth and so on. There
was a good deal more to it than this, but this was the part of it which
Tom heard of, and he rose in rebellion.
He had been sleeping, sometimes at Mrs. O'Connor's and sometimes up at
Camp Solitaire with Roy, as the fancy took him. When the news of what
was under way fell like a thunderbolt upon him, in a frenzy of
apprehension he went to Mr. Ellsworth.
Mr. Ellsworth himself went to court on the fatal day. The judge asked
what facilities the "Scout movement" had for handling a boy like Tom
Slade and whether they had an "institution." He thought Tom might be
placed under the supervision of competent people in the Home for
Wayward Boys. The Probation Officer said that was just the place for
Tom for he had a "vicious proclivity." Tom thought presently he would
be accused of having stolen that, whatever it was. Happily, though, in
the end, he was committed to Mr. Ellsworth's care and he and Tom went
forth together.
"Now Tom," said the Scoutmaster, "you and I are going to have a little
pow-wow--you know what a pow-wow is? Well, then I'll tell you. When the
Indians get together to chin about important matters, they call it a
pow-wow. They usually hold it sitting around a camp fire, and we'll do
that too when we get to Salmon River, for the Indians haven't got
anything on us. But we'll have our first pow-wow right now walking
along the street. What do you say?"
"Yer--yessir."
"You heard the judge say you haven't any relations and, in a way, he
was right, but he was mistaken, too, for a scout is a brother to every
other scout and you've got lots of brothers, thousands of them; or will
have when you get to be a scout. And after you get to be a scout, why
you'll have a pretty big pack to carry. The question is, can you carry
it?"
"Yessir."
"You'll have to carry the pack for all these brothers of yours. If
_you_ make a slip--tell a lie or throw a stone or interfere with
Ching Wo--everybody'll say it's the Boy Scouts. Just the same as if
Roy Blakeley should send a flash message wrong. The telegraph operator
would give us the laugh and say the Scouts didn't know what they were
doing. You and I'd get the blame as well as Roy. So you see, Roy's got
a pretty big pack to carry, but he manages to stagger along with it.
"You may have noticed that the Scouts are great fellows for laughing.
If there's any laughing to be done, we're going to be the ones to do
it. We don't let anybody else have the laugh. That's our middle
name--laughter.
"There's one other little thing, and then I'll tell you the main thing
I want to say--flash it, as you fellows would say. We have to be
careful about talking. Stick your tongue out a little way between your
teeth and say them."
"Them," said Tom.
"The first thing for you to do is to make a list of all the words you
use that begin with 'th' and say them that way. You know we have troop
calls and patrol calls and all sorts of calls, and we've got to be able
to make them just right--see?"
"Sure-yessir."
"Now you take that word you use so much--'ye-re.' 'Yes' is better
because it's only got three letters and you can flash it quicker. So
one of the first things to do is to make the school books work overtime
(there's only two or three weeks more) and get all those words just
right; _them, those, three_--because if you said 'tree' and meant
'three' it might throw everything endways. We have a lot to do with
trees in the summertime, and you want to be able to say'three' just
right, for another reason.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE SCHMITT'S GROCERY THEY FOUND A "BOY WANTED"
SIGN.]
"There are three parts to the Scout Oath and we don't want to get those
three parts mixed with trees. So whenever you're thinking of the oath,
say _three_ and whenever you're thinking of going to Salmon River
Grove, say tree."
The boy was much impressed.
"But, Tom, the immediate thing to do is to go down to Schmitt's Grocery
and take down that sign he's got outside."
"I told Roy Blakeley I wouldn't take down no more signs."
"You can tell Roy you took this one down with me--just for a stunt."
Outside Schmitt's Grocery they found a "Boy Wanted" sign, and then Tom
understood. He hesitated a little when Mr. Ellsworth went in, for his
relations with Mr. Schmitt had not been altogether cordial.
"How'd do, Mr. Schmitt," said the scoutmaster breezily. "How's the
Russian advance?"
"Dem Roosians vill gett all vot's coming to dem," said Mr. Schmitt.
"Yes? Well, how about this boy?"
"Veil, vot about him?"
"He wants to take down that sign out there."
"Och! I know dot poy!"
"No, you don't; this is a different fellow--a Boy Scout."
"Veil, if dis iss der kind of a poy scouts--"
"Now, look here, Mr. Schmitt, don't you say anything about the Boy
Scouts. Who stopped your runaway horse for you last week?"
"I didn't say noddings about dem--"
"Well, a scout is a brother to every other scout, and if you say
anything against one you say it against all."
He winked significantly at Mr. Schmitt. "Come back here, I want to
speak to you," said he.
They retired to the rear of the store, where Mr. Schmitt leaned his arm
affectionately over the big wheel of the coffee-grinder and listened,
all attention.
Tom overheard the words, "fresh air," "Boys' Home," "something to do,"
"appeal to honor," "sense of responsibility," and more or less about
woods and country and about a "boy to-day being a man to-morrow," and
about "working with him," and other odds and ends which he did not
understand.
"Veil, it's a goot ting, I'll say dot mooch," said Mr. Schmitt, as they
returned to the front of the store. "Dere is too mooch cities--dey
don't got no chance."
"Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, "I've been telling Mr. Schmitt about that
signal work. (He was wondering what the light was.) And I've told him
about your wanting to earn a little money before camping time. He's
going to start you in on three dollars and a half a week, school-days
after three and all day Saturdays and Saturday nights. He asked me if
you could deliver goods and I told him there wasn't a boy in town who
could "deliver the goods" like you. Remember the pack you've got to
carry for the whole troop. If you fall down, you'll queer the troop-Roy
Blakeley and all of us.
"Mr. Schmitt's a busy man and he has no time to think of what you were
doing a few days ago, so don't you think about that either. You can't
follow a trail looking backward--you have to keep your squinters ahead.
Isn't that so, Mr. Schmitt?"
"You can'd look forwards vile you are going packwards," said Mr.
Schmitt. "You come aroundt at dree o'clock, to-morrow."
"Now, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, as they left the store, "my idea is for
you to stay at Mrs. O'Connor's, and give her your money every week. Roy
says he'd like to have you go up several nights a week and stay at Camp
Solitaire, so I think maybe three dollars a week to Mrs. O'Connor will
be all right. Then she'll save the other fifty cents for you and by
the time we start for Salmon River you'll have enough, or pretty near
enough, for a uniform.
"For instance, you might go up to Camp Solitaire every other night and
eat plum-duff and eggs with Roy. He says they've got chickens enough
up there to keep the camp going. He uses so many eggs, one way or
another, I should think he'd ashamed to look a hen in the face. And
remember about the colors coming down at sunset. Uncle Sam's a regular
old maid about such things, you know. And don't forget page--what was
it?"
"Tree--three hundred and seventy-five," said Tom.
"That'll tell you all about the flag. Then I want you to turn to page
28 in the Handbook and study our law. We have our own home-made laws
same as everything else, plum-duff and fishing rods--all home-made."
Tom laughed.
"I'll want to know what you think of those laws. I think they're
pretty good; Roy thinks they're great, but then Roy's half crazy----"
"No, he isn't."
"He doesn't know as much as he thinkgs he does," the scoutmaster came
back.
"He knows all dem--them signs backwards."
"You'll beat him out at it," said the scoutmaster. "Anyway, he's going
to post you about the sign and the salute, and that leaves only the
knots. You take a squint at those knots in the Handbook. I can improve
on two of them, but I won't tell you how. You've got to get the hang
of four of them, and I want you to see if you can't do all this by
Sunday afternoon. But remember, Mr. Schmitt comes first."
Mr. Ellsworth blew into Mrs. O'Connor's with the same breezy pleasantry
that he had shown Mr. Schmitt, to the great edification and delight of
Sadie McCarren. He created quite a sensation in Barrell Alley and Mrs.
O'Connor, good woman that she was, fell in with his plan
enthusiastically.
The next morning Tom was up at six, wrestling with the O'Connor
clothes-line, and by half past seven he had mastered the reef-knot and
the weaver's knot, which latter he used to fasten two loose ends of the
broken line for permanent use, and he wondered whether this by-product
of his early morning practice might pass as a "good turn."
Before he went to school, Mrs. Beaman, a neighbor, came in and said
that after long consultation with her husband she had decided to offer
three dollars for the Slade possessions, and in the absence of Bill
Slade, the estate was settled up in Tom's interest on that basis. So he
went forth feeling he and John Temple were alike in at least one thing-they
were both capitalists.
Mr. Ellsworth was somewhat of a stickler for form and organization, and
it was a pleasant scene which took place the following Sunday afternoon
under the big elm up at Camp Solitaire. The ceremony of investing a
Tenderfoot was always held on a Sunday because he believed it made it
more impressive, and whenever possible it was held out of doors.
The First Bridgeboro Troop was highly organized and all its ceremonies
emphasized the patrol. The two patrols, the Ravens and the Silver Foxes
(and later the Elks) participated in the investing ceremony, but it was
the affair particularly of the patrol into which the Tenderfoot was to
enter, and this idea was worked out in the ceremony.
Each patrol stood grouped about its flag, and a little apart, near the
national colors, stood Mr. Ellsworth and Worry Sage, Troop Scribe,
armed with a book and fountain pen. Down near the signal pedestal was
Roy's sister, Esther, in company with her mother and one or two
servants from the house. Carl, the gardener, was there, too, to watch
the ceremony.
Roy Blakeley, as sponsor for the new member, stepped forward with Tom.
"Whom have you here?" Mr. Ellsworth said, in accordance with their
regular form.
"An applicant for membership in our Troop and a voice in our councils,"
answered Roy.
"Is he worthy to be a member of our Troop?"
"I come as his friend and his brother," said Roy, "and to certify that
he is as desirable to us as we to him."
"Has he made satisfactory proof of the tests?"
"He has."
"And is he prepared to take the oath?"
"He is prepared."
"Raise your right hand in the Scout Salute," Mr. Ellsworth said to Tom.
Then Worry Sage stepped forward and repeated the oath, Tom following
him, line by line:
On my honor I will do my best--
To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally
straight.
"How say you? Is this applicant familiar with the law?" asked the
scoutmaster.
"He is familiar with the law and finds it good."
"Let the law be read."
Worry Sage read the first law, which was the one Tom broke when he
stole Mary Temple's ball.
"You find this law good?" asked the scout-master.
"Yes sir, I do."
Then Worry read the next one, "A Scout is loyal. He is loyal to all to
whom loyalty is due; his scout leader, his home and parents and country."
"You find this law good?"
There was a slight pause.
"Do I have to obey that one?" said he. "Do I have ter be loyal ter
him?"
Mr. Ellsworth stepped forward amid a tense silence and laid his hand on
Tom's shoulder. "I think you have been loyal to your mother already,
Tom," he said in a low tone, "as for your father," he hesitated; "yes,
I think you must be loyal to him too. There weren't any Boy Scouts when
he was a boy, Tom. We must remember that."
"All right," said Tom.
"You find this law good?" asked the scoutmaster, resuming the
ceremonial form.
"Yes--I do. I'll be--loyal."
The reading of the law completed, he stepped back with Roy to the
Silver Fox emblem.
The Silver Fox patrol leader asked, "Do you promise to stand faithful
to this emblem, and to these your brother scouts of the Silver Fox
Patrol?"
And then, "Are you familiar with the patrol call which is the voice of
the silver fox, and with the patrol sign, which is the head of the
silver fox, and do you promise to use this call and this sign and no
other so that your name may be honorable in all the Troop, and among
all troops?"
And Tom answered, "I promise."
Mr. Ellsworth pinned the Tenderfoot Badge on his breast.
Tom Slade of Barrel Alley had become a Scout. He could not see where
the trail led, but that he had hit the right one he felt sure.
CHAPTER VIII
STUNG!
"Got the linen thread?"
"Right here in the tin cup."
"All right, put the tin cup in the pint measure and the pint measure in
the coffee-pot; now put the coffee-put in the kettle and the kettle in
the duffel-bag. Then put the duffel-bag in the corner."
"Where'll I put the corner?" laughed Tom.
"There we are," said Roy, "all ready before the Ravens have started to
pack. They ought to be called the 'Snails.'"
They were up at Camp Solitaire, the whole patrol, and the standing of
the duffel-bag in the corner of the tent was the last act of a busy
day.
"I'll be sorry to see Camp Solitaire break up," said Tom. "We've had
some good sport up here."
"There hasn't been much 'solitaire' to it lately," said Eddie Ingram.
"Well, down it comes in the morning," said Roy. "What are we going to
catch, the three-thirty?"
"I bet the Ravens won't be ready," said one of the boys.
"It would be just like them," observed an-other.
"And we'll have to wait for the five-fifteen."
Just then Esther Blakeley came running out from the house.
"I saw Walter Harris," said she, panting from running and excitement,
"and he told me to tell you that if the Ravens aren't at the station
not to wait for them but go right along on the three-thirty and they'll
see you later at Salmon River Grove."
"What did I tell you!" laughed Roy. "Can you beat the Snail Patrol?"
"Hurrah for the Turtles!" shouted Westy.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't show up till the next day."
"Or next week," said Tom.
The Ravens were not on hand for the three-thirty next day and the
Silver Foxes went without them, bag and baggage.
"They're some rear guard, all right," said Roy.
"Bet they're still buying fishing-tackle," said Westy.
"The Also Ran Patrol," commented Dorry Benton.
"The Last Gasp Patrol," said another boy.
"The Tardy Turtles," ventured Tom.
"We'll have our tent up before they leave Bridgeboro--you see," said
Roy. "Somebody ought to set a fire-cracker off underneath that
patrol--they're hopeless."
Salmon River Grove was about an hour out on the train. Some of the
wealthier of the Bridge-boro people had cottages there. The Bennetts
had a pretty bungalow in the village and here, in a hammock on the wide
veranda, Connover was wont to loll away the idle summer hours in
cushioned ease, reading books about boys who dwelt in the heavens above
and in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth. They went
down in submarines, these boys, and up in airships, and to the North
Pole and the South Pole and the Desert of Sahara. They were all Boy
Scouts and it was from these books that Mrs. Bennett gleaned her
notions of scouting.
It was a dangerous season for Connover, for in the spring his fancy
softly turned to thoughts of scouting, but Mrs. Bennett stood guard
against these perils with a tennis racquet and a bottle of cod liver
oil and a backgammon board and an automatic piano. And so by hook or
crook Connover was tided over the dangerous season, and allowed to read
the _Dan Dreadnought Series_ as a sort of compromise.
But the show place at Salmon River Grove was Five Oaks, the magnificent
new estate of John Temple with its palatial rubble-stone residence, its
garage and hot-houses and "No Trespassing" signs, of which latter he
had the finest collection of any man in the state. The latest edition
of these did not say "No Trespassing" at all, but simply, "Keep out."
These signs stood about the newly graded lawns seeming to shake their
fists at the curious who peered at the great tur-retted structure.
Mr. Blakeley, Roy's father, also owned an extensive tract of woods a
little way from the village and here the First Bridgeboro Troop was
monarch of all it surveyed from the day school closed until almost the
day it opened; and here Mr. Ellsworth spent the happy days of a well-earned
vacation, going into town occasionally as business demanded.
From Salmon River Grove Station the Silver Fox Patrol had to hike it
out for about three miles, and when they hit Camp Ellsworth (as the
boys insisted upon calling it) there was the Ravens' tent pitched under
the trees, and the Ravens' flag flying, and the Ravens' fire crackling
away, and the Ravens themselves gathered about it. On a tree was
displayed a glaring sign done in charcoal, which read,
The Follow-Afters are cordially invited to dine with the Rapid Ravens.
Supper is ready and
WAITING.
When Mr. Ellsworth came out from Bridgeboro at seven o'clpck, he
declined to be interviewed as to what he might know of this affair. But
whatever he knew, it was evident that the whole plan was known in
another quarter, for the very next day the "mail-hiker" (who was Dorry
Benton) brought up from Salmon River Village a post card addressed to
Roy, which read,
"MR. SMARTY:
"Perhaps you know by this time the cause of my 'scout smile.' Do you
still think Walter Harris is a turtle?
ESTHER."
Scout-Pace Pee-wee got possession of this card, made an elaborate
birch, bark frame for it, and hung it up in the Ravens' tent, where it
remained ostentatiously displayed until the bitter day of reckoning,
which came not long after.
To Tom Slade the wretched, slum-stained boy whose whole poor program
had been to call names and throw stones, the camp routine, the patrol
rivalries and reprisals, the hikes, the stunts, the camp-fire yarns,
the stalking and tracking, were like the designs in a kaleidoscope.
Observant persons noticed how he began to say "I saw" instead of "I
seen"; "those" instead of "them," and how his speech improved in many
other ways. This was largely in the interest of the signalling, about
which he had come to be a perfect fiend. It sent him to the dictionary
to find out how to spell words which were to be flashed or wigwagged;
and from spelling them properly he came to pronounce them properly.
When he found that it was possible to tell a piece of oak from a piece
of ash by smelling it, if the sense of smell were good, why, that was a
knock-out blow for cigarettes. He wasn't going to let the Ravens get
away with that species of scouting proficiency.
Next to signalling work the thing that engrossed Tom's thoughts was
tracking, which he was forever practicing and which he now looked to as
the one remaining accomplishment which would advance him to the Second
Class.
More than a month of scout life had passed for him and he was eligible
in that particular; he was ready, though a trifle shaky, on the "first
aid" business; as for signalling, he had but one rival and that was
Roy; and he could jog along at scout pace with anyone except Pee-wee.
He was prepared to chop his way into the Second Class with knife or
hatchet, as per requirements; he could kindle a fire in the open and
cook you a passable meal, though he would never be the equal of Roy as
a chef.
He knew the points of the compass also, and there were but two things
about which he was still in doubt. These were the tracking and the
financial business. He felt that if he could do a good tracking stunt
it might compensate for his lack in cooking proficiency and for his
omission in another particular.
It was now the ambition of his life to be a Second Class Scout; he
thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night, and he wrestled with a
dogged persistence with those things in which he was not skillful
because they were not in his line.
It was in the interest of this ambition that he joined Mr. Ellsworth
one morning as the latter was starting out from camp on one of his
"auto confabs," as the boys called his strolls, for on these he was
wont to formulate new policies and schemes and, as a rule, he went
alone.
"Come along, Tommy boy," said he cheerily. "Got something you want to
say?"
"Yes, sir. I think I can do that tracking stunt in Paragraph Four an'
if I do an' make it a good one, I was wondering if--I s'pose--would
you--would you think those potatoes I cooked yesterday were all
right?"
"Very fair, Tommy."
"Would it pass for Test Eight?"
"Oh, I think maybe so; we all have our specialties, Tom."
"I'm a little shaky on first aid."
"I guess you can get away with that all right."
"Well then," said Tom, "there's only one thing to prevent--that is, if
I do the tracking stunt."
"Yes? What's that?"
"It's about the money."
"So?"
"Yes, sir; I've got that five dollars Mr. Schmitt gave me for the extra
work when he opened the branch store."
"Where've you got that, Tom?"
"I've got it 'round my neck on a strong cord. I made a bow line knot.
It's in my membership book to keep it clean."
It was a new bill and he had always kept it clean.
"The rule says it must be in the bank--one dollar anyway. But I don't
want to break it. One day I was going to ask Roy to give me five ones
for it and then I decided not to. I like one bill better, don't you?"
"Yes, I don't know but what I do, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, smiling.
"Did I tell you it was a new one?"
"No."
"Well, 'tis."
"All right, Tommy. Don't you worry about that. Just keep the bow line
knot good and tight and think of potatoes and bandages and if you can
make that tracking stunt something special so as to just knock the
Commissioner off his feet, I guess it'll land you in the Second Class.
One thing has to make up for another, you know. I've got to stand guard
because if I didn't you fellows would be all waltzing scout-pace into
the Second Class. But don't worry about financial matters--that's
what's turning Mr. Temple's hair gray. When I go into town I'll put
that five-spot in the bank for you, hey?"
"Then if I took it out of the bank would it be the same bill?"
"No, it would be a different one."
"But would it be a new one?"
"If you wanted a new one they'd give you a new one. Now you hike it
back to camp and tell Worry there are to be no leaves of absence to-night
on account of camp-fire yarns, and to post a notice. Tell him to
make duplicate prints of the chipmunk Eddie stalked and paste one in
the Troop Book. I've got a call to make up toward the village."
Tom made him the full salute and started back. That night he dreamed
that the "Be Prepared" scroll was pinned upon him and that he was a
Silver Fox Scout of the Second Class, having passed with much
distinction.
Mr. Ellsworth had designs on the Bennett bungalow and he blew into the
porch like a refreshing breeze that sultry morning.
"Hello, Connie, old boy," he called to the youth in the hammock. "How's
the state of your constitution?"
"I've got a little touch of rheumatism," said Connover.
"Yes?" said the scoutmaster. "What right have _you_ got to have
rheumatism? I thought John Temple had a controlling interest in all the
rheumatism around here."
"It gets me in the arm," said Connover.
"So? That's too bad. May I lift these books off the chair, Connie?"
"Surely--sit down. Just push them on the floor."
"Regular Carnegie Library, eh? What are they all about, Con?"
Connover quite welcomed the interruption for Mr. Ellsworth's offhand
cordiality was nothing less than contagious. He fell immediately and
completely into the spirit of whatever was on the boards.
"'Bout the Boy Scouts."
"No--really?" said Mr. Ellsworth, running through one of the volumes
amusedly. "Who's this fellow, Dan Dreadnought?"
"He's lieutenant of the Eureka Patrol."
"So? I thought maybe he was a battleship from his name. And what does
Dan do to pass the time?"
"This one I'm reading now," said Connover, "is the _Eureka Patrol in
the Fiji Islands; Dan stabs two natives._"
"Get out! Does he really?"
"And the captain of the squad--"
"What squad?"
"Of Boy Scouts-the captain is taken prisoner by the cannibals--"
"You don't say! How many of these books are there, Connie?"
"Twenty-seven--all one series."
"Well, Dan's some boy, isn't he? How would you like to be a scout,
Connie?"
"My mother wouldn't let me have a musket."
"They all have muskets, do they?"
At this point Mrs. Bennett appeared and greeted the scoutmaster
cordially. She could never find it in her heart to dislike Mr.
Ellsworth.
"How'd do, Mrs. Bennett."
"Good morning, Mr. Ellsworth," she said, and added smilingly, "I hope
you are not trying to contaminate Connover again."
"Me? Oh, dear, no! A fellow who can witness the murder of two innocent
South Sea natives isn't in much danger from me!"
But Mrs. Bennett failed to see the point.
"I tell Connover," said Mrs. Bennett, "that if it must be'scouts' and
'wild west' it is better in the books than in real life."
"Well, that's a matter of taste, Mrs. Bennett. You can have Dan
What's-his-name up here, if you want to, but I wouldn't allow him near my
camp. No siree!"
"Yet he's a scout boy," said Mrs. Bennett triumphantly.
"From all I can see he's a silly blackguard. Why, Mrs. Bennett," added
the scoutmaster pleasantly, "you've hit the wrong trail--"
"I've what?"
"Hit the wrong trail. We don't have 'Eureka' Patrols or captains or
lieutenants or squads or muskets. This book has got no more to do with
real scouting than it has with a Sunday School picnic. I tell you what,
Mrs. Bennett, I just came up out of the woods, and I tell you it's a
shame that good trees should be cut down to get wood-pulp to make paper
on which to print such stuff as this! It's a waste of good trees!"
"I have always done everything for Connover--" began Mrs. Bennett.
"Well, do one thing more for him and let him come and join the scouts-the
real scouts. That's what I wanted to see you about. I'm going to
work up a new patrol, the Elks. Like that name, Connie?"
"Yes, sir."
"And I want Connie in the Elks."
"It's quite out of the question, Mr. Ellsworth. I am willing that he
should read about them, but there it must end. We have always done
everything for Connover. I have never stinted him in the matter of
wholesome pleasure of any kind."
"You don't call murder wholesome pleasure, do you?"
"Here he is under my eye. There is no use arguing the matter. I have no
thought but of Connie's welfare and happiness, but I am not willing
that he should dress up like Mrs. Blakeley's boy--a perfect
_sight_--his clothes _redolent_ of smoke-and play with fire
and sleep in a draught."
[Illustration: MRS. TEMPLE WAS TOO WEAK TO WALK AND THE BOYS IMPROVISED
A LITTER FOR HER.]
"There aren't any draughts outdoors, Mrs. Bennett."
"There's the damp air. Oh, it's quite out of the question!"
"Don't you think those O'Connor boys would be better out here?"
"I think a boy is better in his home, where his mother is. I have done
everything for Connover--everything, and he is ready to do this much
for me. Aren't you, dearie?"
As Mr. Ellsworth walked back to camp through the silent woods, he was
puzzled at the reasoning of the fond mother who thought that _Dan
Dreadnought_ was a better companion for her son than Roy Blakeley.
CHAPTER IX
"BURGLARS"
On one of their morning rambles, Mrs. Temple and Mary wandered to an
unusual distance from home, and as the sun mounted higher Mrs. Temple
felt greatly fatigued. Mary looked about for a spot where her mother
might sit down and rest, but was startled by a slight sound and ran
back just as Mrs. Temple sank fainting against a tree.
Greatly frightened, the girl looked wildly around for assistance, but
there was no house nor sign of life in sight. Not knowing what to do
she ran along the road a little way, calling aloud, when suddenly she
heard a sound. Pausing to listen she distinctly heard again what
sounded like a bugle call, and turning in the direction from which it
seemed to come she ran through the woods until she came, breathless, to
the camp of the Bridgeboro Scouts.
It happened that the Silver Foxes were that morning practising in first
aid, and as soon as Mr. Ellsworth could gather from the frightened girl
that her mother was in real need, he rushed "Doc" Carson, the first-aid
boy, and Roy off to the rescue, instructing the other members of the
patrol to follow scout pace.
Water was brought and Mrs. Temple quickly revived. Her head had been
slightly cut as she fell, and this Carson bandaged skilfully. She was
still too weak to walk, however, and the boys improvised a litter in
which she was carefully borne back to camp, Mary walking at her side.
The Ravens, meanwhile, under Mr. Ellsworth's direction, had prepared a
sort of couch of fir boughs. Onto this they helped Mrs. Temple and the
scoutmaster sat down beside her.
Perhaps it was not entirely by chance that he had instructed the two
patrols to go through their signalling maneuvers at a little distance,
so that they should not disturb the invalid, but yet in full view and
near enough so that she might follow the course of the proceedings if
she cared to. Mary had a thousand questions to ask as to the meaning of
the various signals, and the kind scoutmaster answered them all
patiently, finally summoning Eddie Ingram to show her about the camp
and explain all its mysteries. Then, seeing that Mrs. Temple showed
some interest in the maneuvers, the guileful Mr. Ellsworth proceeded to
explain their practical value and the good uses to which the scout
"stunts" were often put, tactfully pointing out the change that had
taken place in Tom Slade, who at this moment was bashfully showing Mary
how to blow whistle signals on a small bottle.
Mrs. Temple, however, showed but a courteous interest, and feeling that
her husband would be alarmed at her long absence she called to Mary and
insisted upon returning home immediately, despite Mr. Ellsworth's
urgent invitation that she stay and share the scouts' luncheon.
The Silver Fox patrol was ordered to escort the ladies home, and with
this ample bodyguard they returned to Five Oaks, the boys laughingly
contesting for the honor of walking with Miss Mary--all save Tom, who
lingered somewhat shamefacedly in the rear.
As they walked up the gravel path through the spacious lawn, it was
evident that something was wrong. One of the servants was in the
_portecochere_, wringing her hands, and the stoical Japanese valet
stood near her, calm and unsmiling.
The unusual sight of the uniformed scouts did not seem to ruffle him at
all.
Carl, the gardener, was craning his neck to look up and down the road
from the window of the library, a room which he would never have dared
to enter save on a very urgent matter.
"Where is Mr. Temple?" Mrs. Temple asked. "I have had quite an
adventure."
"Yes'm--he went after you, ma'am--with the runabout. He thought you was
lost and he took on so--not knowing which way to go at all--and he
sent James the other way to look for you--an' there was burglars--"
"What?"
"There was someone entered the house an' has gone away an' all Miss
Mary's things out of her bureau is all over the bed--"
The story of the afternoon's events was quickly extracted from the
excited servant, prompted by Carl and the Jap. Mr. Temple, having grown
anxious about the prolonged absence of his wife and daughter, had
started out in the runabout in quest of them. The butler had been sent
in another direction and shortly thereafter one of the maids had heard
footsteps on the floor above. Thinking that Mrs. Temple must have
returned, she went upstairs when, to her terror, a frightful-looking
man brushed past her and went down the back stairs. She had screamed,
and Carl and Kio had both come to her, but a search of the house and
grounds had not discovered the burglar. The screen in the pantry window
was ripped away, and Kio volunteered the suggestion that the "honorable
burglar gentleman" had made his exit through it.
A systematic search of all the rooms by Mrs. Temple and the patrol
revealed no loss or evidence of ransacking except that in Mary's room
the contents of the top bureau drawer were disheveled and some trinkets
and an upset box lay upon the bed.
"It looked as if they were interrupted," said Roy.
"They took my class pin," said Mary, running over the things. "Oh,
isn't that a shame! I don't care what else they took--that's the only
thing I care about! Oh, I think they were too mean for anything! It was
my class pin!" She was crying a little.
"It wasn't worth very much, dear," said her mother.
"It isn't that," said the girl; "you don't understand. I thought as
much of it as you boys do of those badges."
"I understand," said Westy.
"Sure, we understand--don't we, Tom?" said Roy.
Tom said nothing his eyes were fixed on the girlish trinkets which lay
in confusion on the bed.
"I think it was too mean of them," Mary said.
"I'd ask papa to give them my ruby out of his safe if they'd only bring
that back!"
"Where did Tom go?" asked Westy, noticing that Tom had left the room.
"I guess maybe he's afraid he might meet Mr. Temple," whispered Dorry
Benton. "I don't believe he wants to see him, and I don't blame him."
Tom had gone downstairs and around the house to the pantry window.
Nothing was farther from his thoughts than John Temple, but in those
few minutes upstairs something had been said which recalled to his mind
something else which had been said in the same half-doubtful, half-trustful
voice, many weeks before. "_Will you promise to toss it back?_"
And out of the past he heard a rough, sneering voice answer, "_Sure,
didn' I tell yer?_" The words, "_If they'd only bring that back_,"
seemed almost to counter-felt that haunting voice out of the past, and
they stung Tom Slade like a white-hot coal.
The rubber ball, which had been the subject of the half-pleading
question, had gone the way of most rubber balls, and the memory of the
episode would have gone the way of all such memories in the hoodlum
mind, except that something had happened to Tom Slade since then. He
was familiar now with Paragraph I, Scout Law, and was presently to show
that he had pondered on other paragraphs of that law as well.
Outside the pantry window was a nail keg and on this Tom sat down. It
was in a jog formed by an angle in the back of the house, and there was
not much danger of being seen from any of the rear ground floor
windows, for these were all of heavy cathedral glass. The ground
beneath them was littered with nails and shavings; a scrap or two of
colored glass and some little bars of lead lay strewn about where the
men had been working.
Presently he heard voices and guessed that his companions were leaving.
Then he heard the honk of an auto horn and caught a fleeting glimpse of
a gray car rolling up the private way toward the _porte-cochere_.
He heard other voices, the excited greetings of Mrs. Temple and Mary,
and the sonorous and authoritative tones of John Temple.
For a moment he forgot what he had come out here for, as he realized
that it would be difficult to leave without being seen. His hatred of
John Temple had modified somewhat since he had become a scout, and had
now given place to a feeling of awe for the man who could own a place
of such magnificence as Five Oaks. Never before had Tom been in such a
house. He had supposed that Roy's beautiful home was about the most
luxurious abode imaginable. He realized now that he was stranded in
this despotic kingdom with "No Trespassing" signs all about glaring at
him like sentinels.
Tom had acquired many of the scout virtues and his progress in the arts
(save in one or two which he could not master) had been exceptional.
But he had still to acquire that self-confidence and self-possession
which are the invariable result of good breeding. He had not felt at
home in the house and though his conscience was perfectly clear, he was
ill at ease now.
Presently he heard voices again; he saw the car leave with the
chauffeur alone, and heard the smothered ringing of the telephone bell
in the house.
These evidences of the power of wealth hit his boyish imagination hard,
and for a minute John Temple seemed like a hero. He could despatch a
car to Bridgeboro, another to Keensburgh; he could call up every police
station in the state and offer rewards which would cause sheriffs and
constables to sit up and take notice. He could pay ten thousand dollars
for the capture of the man who had stolen that little class pin. John
Temple might be an old grouch, but he was a wonderful man!
Then the words came rushing into Tom's head again, _Will you promise
to toss it back?_ and those other words, _If they would only bring
it back!_
Then he remembered what he had come out here for, and it seemed very
silly and futile alongside the approved methods which were being
followed within. While he knew the Scout Handbook did not lie, just the
same he hesitated to give this deducing and tracking business a
practical test. Then, suddenly, there came to his mind the words Mr.
Ellsworth was so fond of repeating to the troop, _He who has eyes to
see, let him see_.
CHAPTER X
TOM TURNS DETECTIVE
As Tom rose he saw that the fresh paint on the pantry window ledge had
been smeared. Then he looked at the ground. Below the window was a long
smooth mark on the soil. "The fellow had jumped from that window," said
he, "slid when he touched the groun'." He stopped, but not to pick up a
rock. Then he went down on his hands and knees, with never a thought of
those treasured khaki trousers, and while the telephone bell rang and
rang again in the house he read the writing which is written all over
the vast, open page of nature for those who have eyes and know how to
see.
He was very much engrossed now; he forgot everything. He was a scout of
the scouts, and he screwed up his face and studied the ground as a
scholar pores over his books.
"Huh," said he, "his shoes need soling, that's one sure thing."
He examined with care a little thin crooked indentation in the soil, as
if a petrified angleworm had been pushed into the hard earth.
"Huh," said he, "I hope he kicked into it hard enough so it stays
there."
He was satisfied that the fugitive's shoe was worn in the sole so that
the outer layer, worn thin and flopping loose, had slid onto one of the
little malleable leaden bars used in the cathedral-glass windows. This
had evidently pushed its way into the tattered sole, bent a little from
the impact, and lodged securely. Either the fugitive did not feel it,
or did not care to pause and remove it. It made a mark as plain as
Tom's patrol sign.
He cast one apprehensive look at the open windows of the upper floor
and, taking a chance, made a bold dash across the rear lawn, where he
thought he could discern footprints in the newly-sprouting grass.
Several hundred feet away was the boundary fence and here the
correctness of his direction was confirmed by a painty smooch on the
top rail where the fugitive had climbed over.
Tom leaped across the fence and, as usual, after any vigorous move, he
felt instinctively to see if his precious five-dollar bill was safe. He
lived in continual dread of losing it. He paused a minute scrutinizing
the small crooked marks left by the leaden bar. Then he thought of
something which added fresh zest to his thus far successful search. It
was provision four of the Second Class Scout tests:
Track half a mile in twenty-five minutes, or,...
"If I do that," said he, looking at his dollar watch, "it'll land me in
the Second Class with a rush, and if I should get the pin for her that
would knock the Commissioner off his feet, all right. Here's my
tracking stunt mapped out for me. I never claimed I could cook. Oh,
cracky, here's my chance!"
He got the word "Cracky" from Roy.
As he turned and cast a last look toward the house someone (a woman, he
thought) seemed to be waving her arm from one of the upper casements.
He could not make up his mind whether she was beckoning to him or only
scrubbing the window. Then he entered the woods where the ground was
sparsely covered with pine-needles.
He had to stoop and search for the guiding mark and there were places
where for thirty or forty feet at a stretch it was not visible, but the
tumbled appearance of the pine-needle carpet showed where someone had
recently passed. Then the marks took him into a beaten way and he
jogged along with hope mounting high.
He had tracked for more than twenty-five minutes and a very skillful
tracking it had been, entirely independent of its possible result. So
far as the tracking requirement was concerned he had fulfilled that in
good measure, and the possible danger in connection with it would
commend it strongly to the Scout Commissioner. Moreover, the deductive
work which preceded the tracking and the chivalrous motive would surely
make up for any lack in first aid and cooking. "One thing has to make
up for another," he thought, recalling Mr. Ellsworth's words.
He was breathing hard, partly from a nervous fear as to what he should
do if he succeeded in overtaking the robber, and his little celluloid
membership booklet with the precious bill in it, flapped against his
chest as he hurried on. "I'll be in the Second Class before Pee-wee,"
he thought.
Suddenly he came to a dead stop as he saw a figure sitting against the
trunk of a tree a couple of hundred feet away. The tree trunk was
between himself and the man and about all he could see was two knees
drawn up.
Now was the time for discretion. Tom was a husky enough boy; he seemed
much larger since he had acquired the scout habit of standing straight,
but he was not armed and he felt certain that the stranger was.
"I wish I had Roy's moccasins," he thought.
He retreated behind a tree himself and quietly removed his shoes. The
position of the stranger was favorable for a stealthy approach and Tom
advanced cautiously. A flask lay beside the man and he was just taking
a measure of encouragement in the prospect of the man's being asleep
when the drawn-up knees went down with a sudden start and the figure
rose spasmodically, reeled slightly and clutched the tree.
Tom stepped back a pace, staring, for it was the face of Bill Slade
which was leering, half stupidly, at him.
"Stay--stay where you are," said Tom, his voice tense with fear and
astonishment, as his father made a step toward him. "I--I tracked you-stay
where you are--I--didn' know who I wuz trackin'--I didn'. Don't
you come no nearer. I--I wouldn' do yer no hurt--I wouldn'."
It was curious how in his dismay and agitation he fell into the old
hoodlum phraseology and spoke to his father just as he used to do when
the greasy, rickety dining-table was between them.
The elder Slade was a pathetic spectacle. He had gone down quite as
fast as his son had gone up. He leered at the boy with red and heavy
eyes out of a face which had not been shaved in many a day. His cheek
bones protruded conspicuously. The coat which at the time of Mrs.
Slade's funeral had been black and which Tom remembered as a sort of
grayish brown, was now the color of newly rusted iron. His shoe, which
had turned traitor to him and whispered the direction of his flight to
the trailing scout, was tied with a piece of cord. He was thin, even
emaciated, and there was a little twitch in his eye which grotesquely
counterfeited a wink, and which jarred Tom strangely. He did not know
whether it was his lately-acquired habit of observation which made him
notice this or whether it was a new warning from Mother Nature to his
father. But Tom was not afraid of a man whose eye twitched like that.
He stood as firm as Roy Blakeley had stood that night of his first
meeting with him. That is what it means to be a scout for two months.
"Yer--a--a one o' them soldier lads, hey, Tommy?" said his father
unsteadily.
"You stay there," said Tom. "Yer seen what I d-did ter de marshal. I'm
stronger now than I wuz then, but I'm--I'm gon'er be loyal."
"Yer one o' them soldier fellers, hey?"
"I'm a scout of the Second Class," said Tom with a tremor in his voice:
"or I would be if 'twasn't for you. I--I can't tell 'em the trackin' I
done _now_. I gotter obey the law."
"Yer wouldn' squeal on yer father, would yer, Tommy?" said Slade,
advancing with a suggestion of menace. "I wouldn' want ter choke yer."
Tom received this half-sneeringly, half-pityingly. He felt that he
could have stuck out his finger and pushed his father over with it, so
strong was he.
"Gimme the pin yer took," he said. "I don't care about nothin' else-but
gimme the pin yer took."
"What pin?" grumbled Slade.
"You know what pin."
"Yer think I'd steal?" his father menaced.
"I _know_ yer did an' I want that pin."
For a minute the elder Slade glared at his son with a look of fury. He
made a start toward him and Tom stood just as Roy had stood, without a
stir.
"Yer'd call me a thief, would yer--yer--"
"I was as bad myself once," said Tom, pitying him. "I swiped her ball.
Gimme the pin."
"'Taint wuth nothin'," he said.
"Gimme it."
Slade made an exploration of his pockets as if he could not imagine
where such a thing could be. Then he looked at Tom as if reconsidering
the wisdom of an assault; then off through the woods as if to determine
the chance for a quick "get away."
"Yer wouldn' tell nobuddy yer met me," he whined.
"No, I'll _never_ tell--gimme the pin."
"I didn' hev nothin' to eat fer two days, Tommy, an' I've got me cramps
bad."
The same old cramps which had furnished the excuse for many an idle
day! Tom knew those cramps too well to be affected by them, but he saw,
too, that his father was a spent man; and he thought of what Mr.
Ellsworth had said, "There wasn't any First Bridgeboro Troop when he
was a boy, Tom."
"I wouldn' never tell I seen yer," he said. "I wouldn' never-_ever_
tell. It's my blame that we wuz put out o' Barrel Alley. It
was you--it was you took me--to the--circus."
He remembered that one happy afternoon which he had once, long ago,
enjoyed at his father's hands.
"An' I know yer wuz hungry or you wouldn' go in there in the daytime-'cause
you'd be a fool to do it. I'm not cryin' 'cause I'm--a-scared--I
don't get scared so easy--now."
Fumbling at his brown scout shirt he brought forth on its string the
folding membership card of the Boy Scouts of America, attached to which
was Tom's precious crisp five-dollar bill in a little bag.
"Gimme the pin," said he. "Yer kin say yer sold it fer five dollars-like,"
he choked.
"Is this it?" asked Slade, bringing it forth as if by accident, and
knowing perfectly well that it was.
"Here," said Tom, handing him the bill. "It ain't only becuz yer give
me the pin, but becuz yer hungry and becuz--yer took me ter the
circus."
It was strange how that one thing his father had done for him kept
recurring to the boy now.
"Yer better get away," he warned. "Old John sent automobiles out and
telephoned a lot. Don't--don't lose it," he added, realizing the large
amount of the money. "If yer tied it 'round yer neck it 'ud be safer."
He stood just where he was as his father reeled away, watching him a
little wistfully and doubtful as to whether he was sufficiently
impressed with the sum he was carrying to be careful of it.
"It 'ud be safer if you tied it 'round yer neck," he repeated as his
father passed among the trees with that sideways gait and half-limp
which bespeaks a prideless and broken character.
"I'll never tell 'em of the tracking I do--did," he said, "so I won't
pass on that; but even if I did I couldn't pass, 'cause I haven't got
the money to put in the bank--now."
He had lost his great fortune and his cherished dream in one fell
swoop.
And this was the triumph of his tracking
CHAPTER XI
R-R-R-EVENGE
Tom Slade had not the moral courage to crown his splendid triumph by
going straightway and giving the pin to Mary Temple. He could not
overcome his fear of John Temple and the awe of the palatial residence.
You see, he had not the legacy of refined breeding to draw upon. The
Scout movement had taken a big contract in the making of Tom Slade, but
Mr. Ellsworth (good sport that he was) was never daunted. Tom did not
know how to go alone up to the luxurious veranda at Five Oaks, ring the
bell, face that stoical Japanese, ask to see the pretty, beautifullydressed
girl, and restore her pin to her. He could have done it without
revealing the identity of the fugitive, but he did not know how to do
it; he would not ask Roy to come to his assistance, and he missed the
best fruits of his triumph.
So he went back to camp (scout pace, for it was getting late), his
empty membership booklet flapping against his chest as he ran.
It was fortunate for his disturbed and rather sullen state of mind that
an unusual diversion was on the boards at camp. The Ravens' tent was
quite deserted; Mr. Ellsworth was in his own tent, busily writing, and
he called out cordially, "Hello, Tommy," as Tom passed on to the Silver
Foxes' tent.
Within Roy was standing on a box holding forth to the entire patrol,
and he was in that mood which never failed to fascinate Tom.
"Sit down; you get two slaps on the wrist for being late," said he.
This was the only reference he or any of them made to Tom's
disappearance at Five Oaks. A scout is tactful. "I don't see any
seat," Tom said.
"Get up and give Tom a seat," ordered Roy.
"_I_ wouldn't get up and give President Wilson a seat," announced
Eddie Ingram.
"Not me," laughed Dorry Benton, "I stalked for six miles to-day."
"Get up and give Mr. Thomas Slade a seat, somebody," shouted Roy.
"Keep still, you'll wake the baby," said Westy.
"You wouldn't catch me getting up to give George Washington a seat,"
said Bert Collins, "not after that hike."
"I'll make them get up," said Roy, fumbling in his pocket.
"Yes, you will--_not_," said Westy.
"Look at Eddie, he's half asleep," said Dorry.
"Wake up, Ed," shouted Roy. "It's time to take your sleeping powder.
"I wouldn't get up if you set a firecracker off under me, that's how
tired I am," mumbled Eddie.
"I'll make them get up," Roy whispered, winking at Tom.
He pulled out his trusty harmonica and began to play the national air.
Tom could not help laughing to see how they all rose.
"Now's your chance, sit down, Tom," said Roy. "The Pied Piper of
What's-his-name hasn't got anything on me! The object of the puzzle,
ladies and gentlemen," he continued.
"Hear! Hear!"
"Go to it. You're doing fine!"
"The object of the puzzle," said Roy, rolling up his sleeves as if he
intended to do the puzzle then and there, "the object of the puzzle is
to get inside the Ravens' tent without entering it. Will some gentleman
in the audience kindly loan me a high hat and a ten-dollar gold piece?
No? Evidently no gentleman in the audience."
"Cut it out," said Westy. "They'll be back in an hour. What are we
going to do?"
"We are not going to do anything until the silent hour of midnight,"
said Roy. "Then we are going to make reprisals."
"How do you make those?" called Westy.
"That's some word, all right," said Ed.
"I tracked that all the way through the Standard Dictionary," said Roy.
"How about Mr. Ellsworth?"
"He has announced his policy of strict neutrality," said Roy. "The
field is ours! The obnoxious post-card will be ours if you, brave
scouts, will do your part! For one month now has that obnoxious post-card
hung in the Ravens' tent. For one month has Pee-wee Harris smiled
his smile and gone unshaved--I mean unscathed. Shall this go on?"
"No! No!"
"Shall it be said that the Silver Foxes are not Sterling silver but
only German silver?"
"Never!"
"Shall the silver of the Silver Foxes be tarnished by that slanderous
card?"
"Never!"
"They have called us the 'Follow Afters'--they have said that we are
nothing but 'Silver _Polish_'"!
"We'll rub it into them," shouted Westy.
"They have taken cowardly refuge in the troop rule that no Silver Fox
shall enter their tent except on invitation, and this insertion--"
"You mean aspersion."
"Glares forth from the upright of their sordid lair--"
"'Sordid lair' is good!"
"No extra charge," said Roy; "until now the worm has turned. If we
cannot enter their tent then we must take down their tent, remove the
card, and put the tent up again."
"Oh, joy!" said Ed.
"And it must not be done sneakingly in their absence, but to the soft
music of their snoring. The enterprise is beset with many dangers.
Those who are not willing to venture (as What-do-you-call-him said when
he stormed Fort Something-or-other) may stay behind!"
Before camp-fire yarns, an elaborate card was prepared in the privacy
of the Silver Foxes' tent in Roy's characteristically glaring style, on
which appeared the single word, STUNG!
The night for this bold deed had been well chosen. The Ravens had been
stalking all day and at camp fire Tom listened wistfully to the account
of the day's most notable stunt which was Pee-wee's tracking of a
muskrat more than half a mile within the required twenty-five minutes
of the Second Class provision.
"Pee-wee'll be the first to jump out of the Tenderfoot Class this
summer," said Mr. Ellsworth, as he poked the crackling fire. "You
Silver Foxes will have to get busy." He looked pleasantly at Tom. "Hey,
Tommy?"
"I was wondering," said Roy, as he stretched himself on the ground
close to the cheerful blaze, "if we couldn't work in something special
for next Wednesday--it's troop birthday. We'll be two years old."
"That's right, so it is," said Artie Van Arlen, Raven. "I'm a charter
member; the Silver Foxes weren't even heard of or thought of at that
time."
"No, they're a lot of upstarts," said Doc. Carson, the first-aid boy.
"You'd think to hear them talk that they started before National
Headquarters did. I remember when this troop was a one-ring circus:
just us Ravens, and we had some good times too. I had my first-aid
badge before those triple-plated Silver Foxes were born!"
"They have no traditions," said the Ravens' patrol leader.
"They're an up-to-date patrol, though," said Roy. "The Ravens are
passe--like the old Handbook. That kind of patrol was all right when
the thing first started; the Silver Foxes are a last year's model."
"Well," laughed Mr. Ellsworth, raking up the fire and drawing his
grocery-box seat closer, "maybe the Silver Foxes will be ancient
history soon. I'm thinking of a new pack of upstarts for you foxes to
make fun of."
"You haven't made another flank move on Connie Bennett, have you?"
laughed Roy. They were all familiar with Mr. Ellsworth's dream of
another patrol.
"Connie rests his head on a pine cushion and imagines he's a Boy
Scout," said Artie.
"He blows the dust off a _Dan Dreadnought_ book and imagines it's
the wind howling through the forest," said Westy.
"He runs the tennis-marker over the lawn and thinks he's tracking,"
said Pee-wee.
"No, not as bad as that, boys," laughed the scoutmaster. "Between you
and me and the camp fire, I suspect Connie's got the bug."
"Haven't given up hope yet?" said Roy.
"Never say die," answered Mr. Ellsworth, good-naturedly.
Once, twice, thrice had he made a daring assault on the Bennett
stronghold and once, twice, thrice had he been gallantly repulsed by
the Bennett right wing, which was Mrs. Bennett. He had planted the
Bennett veranda with mines in the form of _Boys' Life_ and
_Scouting,_ but all to no avail. Yet his hopeful spirit in regard
to the visionary Elk Patrol was almost pathetic.
The tent of the venerable Raven patrol was pitched under a spreading
tree and they retired with their proud and ancient traditions,
blissfully unaware of the startling liberty which was to be taken with
their historic dignity by those upstart Silver Foxes. Mr. Ellsworth,
with a commendable application of his policy of strict neutrality,
retired to his own tent to dream of the new patrol.
Never in the history of the troop had a Silver Fox trespassed unknown
into the ancient privacy of the Ravens, and never had a Raven
condescended to enter the Silver Fox stronghold save honorably and by
invitation. They knew the Silver Foxes for a sportive crew pervaded by
the inventive spirit of Roy Blakeley, but they had no fear of any
violation of scout honor and the obnoxious card hung ostentatiously on
the central upright of their tent.
In the still hour of midnight the enterprising Silver Foxes emerged in
spectral silence from their lair and the battle-cry (or rather,
whisper) was "Revenge," pronounced by Roy as if it had a dozen rattling
R's at the beginning of it. Every boy was keyed to the highest pitch of
excitement.
The Ravens' tent was a makeshift affair of their own manufacture and
when its sides were not up it was more of a pavilion than a tent: the
Ravens believed in fresh air. There were two forked uprights and across
these was laid the ridgepole. The canvas was spread over this and drawn
diagonally toward the ground on either side. There were front and back
and sides for stormy weather but they were seldom in requisition.
The program, discussed and settled beforehand, was carried out in scout
silence, which is about thirty-three and one-third per cent greater
than the regular market silence. Tom and Eddie Ingram, being the
tallest of the foxes, stationed themselves at either upright, the other
members of the patrol lining up along the sides where they loosened the
ropes from the pegs. Then Tom and Ed lifted the ridgepole, the scouts
along the sides held the canvas high, and the entire patrol moved
uniformly and in absolute silence. The tent, intact, was moved from
over the sleeping Ravens as the magic carpet of the _Arabian
Nights_ was moved. It was a very neat little piece of work and
showed with what precision the patrol could act in concert. Thanks
partly to their strenuous day of stalking, never a Raven stirred except
Doc. Carson, who startled them by turning over.
In the centre of the Ravens' tent a sapling had been planted, its
branches cut away to within several inches of its trunk, so that it
made a very passable clothes-tree. This still stood, like a ghostly
sentinel, among the slumbering Ravens, laden with their clothes and
paraphernalia. The sudden and radical transformation of the scene was
quite grotesque and the unsheltered household gods of the Ravens looked
ludicrous enough as they lay about in homelike disposition with nothing
above them but the stars.
"Great!" whispered Roy, gleefully.
Eddie Ingram laid his end of the ridgepole on the ground and stealing
cautiously over among the sleeping Ravens, removed the post card from
the sapling and put the other card in its place. Then, stealing back to
where the others were waiting, he resumed his end of the pole. This was
restored to its place in the forked uprights, the ropes were fastened
to the pegs along either side and the Silver Foxes bore Esther
Blakeley's memento of their own disgrace triumphantly to their
stronghold.
"Can you beat it?" said Roy, releasing himself with a sense of
refreshment from the imposition of silence.
"A scout is stealthy," remarked Westy.
In the morning Pee-wee sauntered over and paused outside the Silver
Foxes' tent, not saying a word, though.
"Well," said Roy, "what can we do for you?"
"I see you've got the card," said Pee-wee.
"Yes," said Westy, pulling on his blouse. "We're going to frame it and
send it to National Headquarters, too, for an exhibition of scout
stealth and silence."
"I suppose you think we walked in and took it," said Roy, adjusting his
belt. "We didn't. We never entered your tent. A scout is honorable."
"No," said Pee-wee, "you took the tent down and put it up wrong end to.
A scout is observant. Are we going fishing to-day?"
CHAPTER XII
"UP AGAINST IT FOR FAIR"
When the telegraph and the telephone and the speeding autos and the
bullying of the hapless village constable failed to reveal any clue to
the burglar at Five Oaks, John Temple proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole
business and say that there had never been any burglar, but that in all
probability the maid had been exploring Mary's trinkets just as Mrs.
Temple returned and that the "frightful-looking man" whom she had met
on the stairs was a myth.
It was then that the maid, groping for any straw in her extremity, said
that a boy in khaki had darted out from the pantry and across the
private rear lawn into the woods beyond while she stood at the window.
If she had stuck to the plain truth and not permitted Mr. Temple to
beat her down as to the man she actually did see on the stairs, a great
deal of suffering might have been saved. But the loss of only one
trinket, and that one of small intrinsic value, seemed to lend color to
the theory that it was the work of a boy rather than of a professional
adult burglar, and the master of Five Oaks, thinking this matter worth
inquiring into, called up the constable and laid the thing before him
in this new light.
Mr. John Temple had no particular grudge against the Boy Scouts. He was
a rational, hard-headed business man, decisive and practical and
without much imagination. His lack of imagination was, indeed, his main
trouble. He was not silly enough and he was extremely too busy to bear
any active malice toward an organization having to do with boys, and
except when the scouts were mentioned to him he never gave them a
thought one way or the other. He was not the archenemy of the movement
(as some of the boys themselves thought): he simply had no use for it.
So far as the scout idea had been explained to him by the Bridgeboro
Local Council (to whom he had granted five minutes of his time) he
thought it consisted of a sort of poetical theory and that money put
into it was simply thrown away. He believed, and he told the Council
so, that ample provision had been made for boys in the form of circuses
and movie plays and baseball games for good ones and reformatories and
prisons for bad ones, and he referred, as the successful man is so apt
to do, to his own poor boyhood and how he had attended to business and
done what was right and so on, and so on, and so on.
Nor had this king of finance cherished any particular resentment toward
the poor creature who had thrown a stone at him. John Temple was a big
man and he was not petty, but he was intensely practical, and he had no
patience with Mr. Ellsworth's notions for the making of good citizens.
He had known two generations of Slades; he had never known any of them
to amount to anything, and he believed that the proper place for a
hoodlum and a truant and an orphan was in an institution. He paid his
taxes for the support of these institutions regularly and he believed
they ought to be used for what they were intended for. He thought it
was little less than criminal that the son of Bill Slade should be
wandering over the face of the earth when he might be legally placed in
a dormitory, eating his three meals a day in a white-washed corridor.
For Mr. Ellsworth, John Temple had only contempt. He looked down upon
him as the man without imagination always looks down upon the man with
imagination. Meanwhile the new subtle spirit was working in Tom Slade
and the capitalist had neither the time nor the interest to stoop and
watch the wonderful transformation which was going on.
He was not prompted by any feeling of spite or resentment toward Tom
and the scouts when he told the constable about "young Slade." He
believed that he was acting wisely and even in Tom's best interests,
and it was in vain that his young daughter tried to pull him away from
the telephone. Mrs. Temple weepingly implored him to remember the
hospitality and the courtesy which she and Mary had just enjoyed at the
hands of the scouts, but it was of no use. If no one had mentioned Tom
he would never have thought of him, but since Mary had mentioned him he
believed it was a good time to have Mr. Ellsworth's experiment with Tom
looked into before "all the houses in the neighborhood were robbed." He
did not mean that, of course; it was simply his way of talking.
It was the second morning after the Silver Foxes' proud recovery of
Esther Blakeley's card that a loose-jointed personage from Salmon River
Village sauntered into camp, his face screwed up as if he were studying
the sun, and surveyed the camp with that frank and leisurely scrutiny
which bespeaks the "Rube." Concealed beneath his coat he wore a badge
which he had fished out of an unused cooky-jar just before starting,
and it swelled his rural pride to feel the weight of it on his
suspender.
"Wha'ose boss here?" he asked Pee-wee, who was about his customary duty
of spearing loose papers with a pointed stick.
"No boss," said Pee-wee.
"Wha'ose runnin' the shebang?"
Pee-wee pointed to Mr. Ellsworth's little tent just inside which the
scoutmaster sat on an onion-crate stool, writing.
The official personage sauntered over, watched by several boys, paused
to inspect the wireless apparatus in its little leanto. His inquisitive
manner was rather jarring. By the time he reached Mr. Ellsworth's tent
a little group had formed about him.
"Ya'ou the boss here?"
"Good-morning," said Mr. Ellsworth.
"Ya'ou the boss?"
"No; the boys are boss; anything we can do for you?"
The stranger looked about curiously. "Got permission t' camp here, I
s'pose."
"There's the owner of the property," said Mr. Ellsworth, laughingly,
indicating Roy.
"Hmmm; ye got a young feller here by th' name o' Slade?"
"That's what we have," said the scoutmaster with his usual breezy
pleasantry.
"Well, I reckon I'll hev ter see him."
"Certainly; what for?" Mr. Ellsworth asked rather more interested.
"He's got hisself into a leetle mite o' trouble," the stranger drawled;
"leastways, mebbe he has." He seemed to enjoy being mysterious.
So Tom was called. Roy came with him, and all who were in camp at the
moment clustered about the scoutmaster's tent. Mr. Ellsworth's manner
was one of perfect confidence in Tom and half-amusement at the
stranger's relish of his own authority.
"You don't wish to see him privately, I suppose?"
"Na-o--leastways not 'less he does. Seems you was trespassing araound
Five Oaks t'other day," he said to Tom in his exasperating drawl, and
with deliberate hesitation.
"Good heavens, man!" said Mr. Ellsworth, nettled. "You don't mean to
tell me this boy is charged with trespassing! Why, half a dozen of
these boys accompanied Mrs. Temple and her daughter home--they were
invited into the house." He looked at the stranger, half angry and half
amused. "Mrs. Temple and her daughter were our guests here. We might as
well say _they_ were trespassing!"
"Leastways they din't take nuthin'."
"What do you mean by that?" said the scoutmaster, sharply.
"Ye know a pin was missin' thar?"
"Yes," said Mr. Ellsworth, impatiently.
"An' one o' these youngsters was seen sneakin'--"
"Oh, no," the scoutmaster jerked out; "we don't do any sneaking here.
Be careful how you talk. You are trespassing yourself, sir, if it comes
to that."
There was never a moment in the troop's history, not even in that
unpleasant scene in John Temple's vacant lot, when the boys so admired
their scoutmaster. His absolute confidence in every member of the troop
thrilled them with an incentive which no amount of discipline could
have inspired. It was plain to see that they felt this--all save Tom,
whose face was a puzzle.
He stood there among them, his belt pulled unnecessarily tight, after
the fashion of the boy who has always worn a suspender, the trim intent
of the scout regalia hardly showing to advantage on his rather clumsy
form. His puttees were never well adjusted; the khaki jacket (when he
wore it) had a perverse way of working up in back. He presented a
marked contrast to Roy's natty appearance and to Westy whose uniform
fitted him so perfectly that he seemed to have been poured into it as a
liquid into a mould. Both boys looked every inch a scout. Yet there
was something strangely distinctive about Tom as he stood there. A
discerning person might have fancied his uncouthness as part and parcel
of a certain rugged quality which could not be expressed in precise
attire. There was something ominous in the dogged, sullen look which
his countenance wore. He seemed a sort of law unto himself, having a
certain resource in himself and seeking now neither advice nor
assistance. He was no figure for the cover of the Scout Handbook, yet
he had drawn out of it its full measure of strength; he would accept no
one's interpretation of it but his own and thus he stood among them and
yet apart--as good a scout as ever raised his hand to take the oath.
"One o' these youngsters went daown stairs and raound the haouse t' th'
pantry 'n' he was seen to go without warrant of law crost Temple's lawn
and inter his private woods." The man had his little spats of legal
phraseology, of course, and Mr. Ellsworth could almost have murdered
him for his "without warrant of law."
"Any one of you boys go 'without warrant of law'?" asked the
scoutmaster, with an air of humorous disgust.
"I did," said Tom simply.
The scoutmaster looked at him in surprise.
"What for, Tom?"
There was a moment's silence.
"I've got nothing to say," said Tom.
Doc. Carson, who was of all things observant, noticed a set appearance
about Tom's jaw and a far-away look in his eyes as if he neither knew
nor cared about any of those present.
"I s'pose if we was to search ye we wouldn't find nothin' on ye t'
shouldn't be thar?"
"I am a scout of the sec--I am a scout," said Tom, impassively. "No one
will search me."
It would be hard to describe the look in Mr. Ellsworth's eyes as he
watched Tom. There was confidence, there was admiration, but withal an
almost pathetic look of apprehension and suspense. He studied Tom as a
pilot fixes his gaze intently upon a rocky shore. Tom did not look at
him.
"Ye wouldn't relish bein' searched, I reckon?" the constable said with
an exasperating grin of triumph.
Then the thunderbolt fell. Calmly Tom reached down into his pocket and
brought forth the little class pin.
"I know what you want," he said. "I didn't know first off, but now I
know. You couldn't search me--I wouldn' leave--let you. I could handle
a marshal, and I'm stronger now than I was then. But you can't search
me; you can't disgrace my patrol by searchin' them--or by searchin'
me--'cause I wouldn't lea--let you. _Get away_ from me!" with such
frantic suddenness that they started. "Don't you try to take it from
me! I'm a scout of--I'm a scout--mind! Where's Roy?"
"Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice tense with emotion.
"Where's Roy?" the boy asked, ignoring him.
Roy stepped forward as he had done once before when Tom was in trouble,
and they made an odd contrast. "Here, Tom."
"You take it an' give it to Mary Temple and tell her it's tossin' it
back--kind of. She'll know what I mean. You know how to go to places
like that--but they get me scared. Tell her it's instead of the rubber
ball, and that I sent it to her."
"Oh, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice almost breaking, "is that all
you have to say--Tom?"
"I'm a scout--I'm obeyin' the law--that's all," said Tom, doggedly. He
seemed to be the only one of them all who was not affected, so sure did
he feel of himself.
"Do I have to get arrested?" said he.
"Ye-es, I reckon I'll hev to take ye 'long," said the constable,
advancing.
Tom never flinched.
Roy tried to speak but could only say, "Tom--"
Mr. Ellsworth put his palm to his forehead and held it there a moment
as if his head throbbed.
"Can I have my book?" Tom asked as the constable, taking his arm, took
a step away.
It was Pee-wee who glided, scout pace, over to the Silver Foxes' tent.
In the unusual situation it never occurred to him that he, a Raven, was
entering it uninvited. Esther Blakeley's triumphant post card hung
there but he never noticed it. He brought the well-thumbed Handbook
with T. S. on it, and it was curious to see that he gave it to Roy
instead of to Tom.
But Tom noticed his bringing it. "I'm glad you did your tracking stunt,
Pee-wee," he said, with just a little quiver in his voice.
Roy handed him the book. Then, just as they started off, Mr. Ellsworth,
gathering himself together as one coming out of a trance, accosted the
departing constable.
"This boy was placed in my charge by the court in Bridgeboro," said he,
holding the man off.
"That don't make no difference," drawled the man. "I got a right to go
anywheres for a fugitive or a suspect. A guardian writ wouldn't be no
use to ye in a criminal charge." And he smiled as if he were perfectly
willing to explain the law for the benefit of the uninitiated.
Tom, clutching his Handbook, walked along at the man's side. He seemed
utterly indifferent to what was happening.
There were no camp-fire yarns that night.
CHAPTER XIII
HE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE
Mr. Ellsworth did not respond to the call for supper that evening and
Artie, who was cookee for the week, did not go to his tent a second
time. The two patrols ate at the long board under a big elm tree; Tom's
vacant place was conspicuous, but very little was said about the
affair. It was noticeable that the Ravens made no mention of it out of
respect to the other patrol.
After supper Roy went alone to Mr. Ellsworth's tent. There was a
certain freedom of intimacy between these two, partly, no doubt,
because Roy's father was on the Local Council. The scoutmaster had no
favorites and the close relation between himself and Roy was not
generally apparent in the troop. It was simply that Roy indulged in a
certain privilege of intercourse which Mr. Ellsworth's cordial
relations at the Blakeley home seemed to encourage, and I dare say
Roy's own buoyant and charmingly aggressive nature had a good deal to
do with it. He also (though in quite another way than Tom) seemed a law
unto himself.
Arranging himself with drawn up knees upon the scoutmaster's cot, he
began without any introduction.
"Did you notice, Chief" (he often called the scoutmaster chief) "how he
kept saying, 'I am a scout'?"
"Yes, I did," said Mr. Ellsworth, wearily. "It's the one ray of hope."
"Did you notice how he said he was obeying the law?"
"Yes, he did; I had forgotten that."
"His wanting the Handbook, too," said Mr. Ellsworth, quietly, "had a
certain ring to it."
"Did you ever take a squint at that Handbook of his, Chief?"
"No," said Mr. Ellsworth, smiling wanly; "I'm not as observant as you,
Roy."
"He has simply worn it out--it's a sight."
"His mind is not complex," said Mr. Ellsworth, half-heartedly, "yet
he's a mystery."
"Everything is literal to Tom, Chief; he sees only two colors, black
and white."
There was another pause.
"Why don't you eat a little something, Chief?"
"No, not to-night, Roy. I can't. If that thing is true--if there's no
explanation, why, then my whole structure falls down; and John Temple
is right." His voice almost broke. "Tom is either no scout at all or
else----"
"Or else he's about the best scout that lives," interrupted Roy. "Will
you ever forget how he looked as he stood there? Hanged if I can! I've
seen pictures enough of scouts--waving flags and doing good turns and
holding staves and looking like trim little soldiers----"
"Like you, Roy," smiled Mr. Ellsworth.
"But I never saw anything like that! Did you notice his mouth? His----"
"I know," said Mr. Ellsworth, "he looked like a martyr."
"Whenever you see a picture of a scout," said Roy, "it always shows
what a scout can do with his hands and feet; he's tracking or
signalling or something like that. _There_ was a picture that
shows the other side of it. You never see those pictures in the books.
Cracky, but I'd like to have gotten a snap-shot of him just as he stood
there with his mouth set like the jaws of a trap, his eyes ten miles
away and his hand clutching that battered old Handbook."
"I'm glad you dropped in, Roy, it cheers me up."
"Oh, I'm a good scout," laughed Roy. "I'm not thinking about you; I'm
selfish. I'm the one that hauled Tom across, you know, and I've got
_my_ reputation to look after. That's all _I_ care about."
Mr. Ellsworth smiled.
"I'm going to dig out the truth about this between now and to-morrow
morning. I may have to trespass even, but _I_ should worry. What
are _you_ going to do?"
"Nothing to-night. In the morning I'll see Mr. Temple and also Tom, and
see if I can't get him to talk. What else _can_ I do? What are you
going to do?"
"I decline to be interviewed," Roy laughed.
"Well, don't you get into any trouble, Roy."
After the boy had gone, Mr. Ellsworth picked up his own copy of the
_Handbook for Boys_, and looked with a wistful smile at the
picturesque, natty youngster on the cover, holding the red flags. It
always reminded him of Roy.
Roy was satisfied that the only hope of learning anything was to visit
the scene of Tom's suspicious, or at least unexplained, departure from
the Temple house. About this he knew no more than what the constable
had said, but he firmly believed that whatever Tom had done and
wherever he had gone, it had been for a purpose. He did not believe
that Tom had taken the pin, but he felt certain that if he _had_
been tempted to, he (Roy) would have seen him do so. For a scout is not
only loyal, he is watchful. His confidence in Tom, no less than his
confidence in himself, made him morally certain that his friend was
innocent; and Tom's own demeanor at the time of his arrest made him
doubly certain.
A little before dark, Roy put on his Indian moccasins, took his pocket
flashlight and a good stock of matches, and started for Five Oaks.
Reaching there, he made sure the veranda was deserted (for which fact
he had to thank the chill air) and found it easy to trace Tom's
footprints around to the back of the house through the almost bare
earth of the new lawn.
In the little recess by the pantry window he felt more secure. The play
of his flashlight quickly discovered the painty smear on the windowsill
and he examined it closely, as Tom had recently done, but Roy's
mental alertness saved him time and trouble. Instead of trying to pick
out footprints across the back lawn, he hurried across it, ran along to
the end of the fence, and then back again, closely watching the upper
rail by the aid of his light. Sure enough, there was a faint smootch of
paint and by this easy discovery he had saved himself several hundred
feet of difficult tracking. Better still, his own suspicions and the
servants' original story were confirmed.
Tom might have gone around the house, but _someone else had climbed
through the pantry window_.
For a while Roy and his trusty ally, the pocket flashlight, had a
pretty rough tussle of it with the secretive floor of pine-needles in
the woods beyond the fence; but Tom's own uncertain pauses and turnings
and kneelings helped him, and he was thankful that his predecessor had
left these signs of his own movements to guide him. For he now felt
certain that Tom had passed here in the wake of someone else.
It was a long time before he found himself in the beaten path, having
covered a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile where his tracking
had been, as he later said himself, like hunting for a pin on a carpet
in the dark. He had been on his hands and knees most of the time,
shooting his light this way and that, moving the pine-needles carefully
away from some fancied indentation, with almost a watchmaker's delicacy
of touch. It was not so much tracking as it was the working out of a
puzzle, but it brought him at last into the path and then he found
something which rendered further tracking unnecessary. This was the
flask which had lain beside Tom's father.
And now Roy, with no human presence to distract him as Tom had had,
noticed something lying near the flask which Tom had not seen. This was
a little scrap of pasteboard which had evidently been the corner of a
ticket, and holding his flashlight to it he examined it carefully.
There was the termination of a sentence, "...ers' Union," and the last
letters of a name, "...ade," which had been written with ink on a
printed line.
It meant nothing to him except as the slightest thing means something
to a scout, but he began searching diligently for more of the torn
fragments of this card. The breeze had been there before him and he had
crept on hands and knees many feet in every direction before his search
was rewarded by enough of these scattered scraps to enlighten him. But
the light which they shed was like a searchlight!
Using his membership card for a background and some pine gum to stick
the fragments to it, he succeeded in restoring enough of the card to
learn that it was a membership card of the Bricklayers' Union belonging
to one William Slade.
Then, all of a sudden, he caught the whole truth and understood what
had happened.
CHAPTER XIV
ROY TO THE RESCUE
It was late when Roy reached camp and he spoke to no one. Early in the
morning he repaired to Five Oaks to "beard the lion in his den" and
have a personal interview with Mr. John Temple.
There was nothing about Mr. Temple or his house which awed Roy in the
least. He had been reared in a home of wealth and that atmosphere which
poor Tom could not overcome his fear of did not trouble Roy at all. He
was as much at ease in the presence of his elders as it is possible for
a boy to be without disrespect, but he was now to be put to the test.
He found Mr. Temple enjoying an after-breakfast smoke on the wide
veranda at Five Oaks, a bag of golf sticks beside him.
"Good morning, Mr. Temple," said Roy.
If one had to encounter Mr. John Temple at all, this was undoubtedly
the best time and place to do it.
"Good morning, sir," said he, brusquely but not unpleasantly.
"I guess maybe you know me, Mr. Temple; I'm Mr. Blakeley's boy."
Mr. Temple nodded. Roy leaned against the rubble-stone coping of the
veranda.
"Mr. Temple," said he, "I came to see you about something. At first I
was going to ask Mr. Ellsworth to do it, then I decided I would do it
myself."
Mr. Temple worked his cigar over to the corner of his mouth, looking at
Roy curiously and not without a touch of amusement. What he saw was a
trim, sun-browned boy wrestling with a charming little touch of
diffidence, trying to decide how to proceed in this matter which was so
important to him and so trifling to John Temple, but exhibiting withal
the inherent self-possession which bespeaks good breeding. He was half
sitting on the coping and half leaning against it, his browned,
muscular arms pressing it on either side.
Perhaps it was the incongruity of the encounter, or perhaps his recent
breakfast and his good cigar, but he said not unpleasantly, "Lift
yourself up there and sit down if you want to. What can I do for you?"
Roy lifted himself up on the coping and swung his legs from it and felt
at home.
"It's about Tom Slade, Mr. Temple. I know you don't like him and
haven't much use for any of us scouts, and I was afraid if Mr.
Ellsworth came to see you there might be an argument or something like
that, but there couldn't be one with me because I'm only a kid and I
don't know how to argue. But there's another reason too; I stood for
Tom--brought him into the troop--and he's my friend and whatever is
done for him _I_ want to do it. I'll tell you what he did--you
know, he's changed an awful lot since you knew him. I don't say a
fellow would always change so much but _he's_ changed an awful
lot. You'd hardly believe what I'm going to tell you if you didn't know
about his changing. It was his own father, Mr. Temple, that took Mary's
pin--it wasn't Tom. I'm dead sure of it, and I'll tell you how I know.
[Illustration: "SOMETIMES A FELLOW is AFRAID OF A GIRL."]
"I think he went out of the room where the rest of us were that day
because he was afraid he might see you--ashamed, you know--kind of. I'd
have felt the same way if I had thrown stones at you. Well, he went
around the house--I don't know just why he did that--but anyway, he
found tracks there and he found a paint smudge on the window-ledge
where the burglar climbed out. There's another smudge on the fence
where the burglar got over. Tom tracked him and found it was his own
father and he got the pin from him, but I suppose maybe he was afraid
to come and give it to Mary. You know, sometimes a fellow is afraid of
a girl--"
John Temple smiled slightly.
"And he was afraid of you, too, I suppose, and that's where he fell
down, keeping the pin in his pocket. I know it was his father because-here.
I'll show you, Mr. Temple. Here's his membership card in a union
with his name on it, and this is what I think. He stopped in the woods
and tore this up so there wouldn't be anything on him to show his name
and that was just when Tom found him. Tom wouldn't tell about it
because it's one of our laws that a scout must be loyal. So I want to
give this pin to Mary and then I want Tom to go back with me because
it's our troop birthday pretty soon--we've been going two years and--"
"Come around and show me your smudge and your tracks," said Mr. Temple.
"If what you say is true you can go down in the car with me and I'll
withdraw the complaint and do what I can to have the matter expedited.
You might let me have the pin."
"Couldn't I give it to Mary?"
"Yes, if she's about."
It was there in the spacious veranda that Roy handed Mary the pin and
told her exactly what Tom had asked him to say.
The chauffeur who saw Mr. Temple step into the touring car followed by
Roy, carrying the golf sticks, was a little puzzled. He was still more
puzzled to hear his master making inquiries about tracking. After they
had gone a few hundred yards he was ordered to stop and then he saw Roy
run back to the house and return with two more golf sticks which his
master had forgotten.
If John Temple had had the least recollection of that scene in his own
vacant lot in Bridgeboro, he might have recalled the prophetic words of
Mr. Ellsworth, "_by our fruits shall you know us, Mr. Temple_."
Doubtless, he had forgotten that incident. The tracking business,
however, interested him; he was by no means convinced, but he was
sufficiently persuaded to say the word which would free Tom. Roy's
assumption of full responsibility in regard to the golf sticks amused
him, and Roy's general behaviour pleased him more than he allowed Roy
to know.
He had no particular interest in the scouts, but away down in the heart
of John Temple was a wish for something which he could not procure with
his check-book, and that was a son. A son like Roy would not be half
bad. He rather liked the way the boy had sat on the coping and swung
his legs.
CHAPTER XV
LEMONADE AND OLIVES
It fell out that on one of those fair August days there came out from
Bridgeboro a picnic party of people who were forced to take their
nature by the day, and following in the wake of these, as the peanutman
follows the circus, there came that trusty rear-guard of all such
festive migrations,--Slats Corbett, the "Two aces" (Jim and Jakie
Mattenburg), two of the three O'Connor boys (the other one had mumps),
and, yea, even Sweet Caporal himself.
The petrified mud of Bridgeboro was upon their clothes, the dust of it
was in the corners of their unwashed eyes. They wore no badges but if
they had these should have shown a leaden goat superimposed upon a
tomato can, with a tobacco-label ribbon, so suggestive were they of
street corners and vacant lots and ash heaps.
It was a singular freak of fate that the destiny of the carefullynurtured
Connover Bennett should have been involved with this gallant
crew.
The picnic was conducted according to the time-honored formula of such
festivities. There were lemonade and cold coffee in milk bottles; there
were sandwiches in shoe boxes; there were hard-boiled eggs with
accompanying salt in little twists of brown paper; there were olives
and hat-pins to extract them with, and there were camel's hair shawls
to "spread on the damp ground."
The rear-guard did not participate in the sumptuous feast. "A life on
the ocean wave" was what they sought, and their investigations of the
wooded neighborhood had not gone very far when they made discovery of
an object which of all things is dear to the heart of a city boy, and
that was a boat.
It was pulled up along the river bank near the picnic grounds, and as a
matter of fact, belonged to the scouts. It was used by them in crossing
the river to make a short-cut to and from Salmon River Village, instead
of following the shore to a point opposite the town where there was a
bridge.
"Findings is keepings" is the first law of the hoodlum code, and though
the O'Connor boys hung back (partly because they had no right to the
boat and more because they were afraid of the water), Sweet Caporal,
who balked at nothing save a policeman, led the rest of his intrepid
band to the boat and presently they were flopping clumsily about in
midstream, much to the amusement of the O'Connor boys and several of
the picnickers who clustered at the shore.
There are few sights more ridiculous than the ignorant handling of a
boat. Sweet Caporal wielded an oar, Slats Corbett wrestled with another
one, Jakie Mattenburg gallantly manned the helm, invariably pulling the
tiller-lines the wrong way, while Jim Mattenburg, with a broken and
detached thwart, did his best to counteract every effort of his
companions. Amid these conflicting activities the boat made no progress
and the ineffectual splashing and the contradictory orders which were
shouted by the several members of the gallant crew were greeted with
derisive hoots from the shore.
Several times an oar slipped its lock and went splashing into the
water; once Sweet Caporal himself was capsized by the catching of the
unwieldy oar in its lock and tumbled ingloriously backward into the
bottom of the boat.
"Pull on the left one!" shouted Jim.
"Nah, pull on de odder one!" cried Slats.
"Both pull together," sagely suggested someone on the shore, but that
was quite impossible.
"Hold de rudder in de middle', yer gump!" shouted Sweet Caporal.
"If yer want de boat to go to de right, pull on de left rope," shouted
Jim.
"No, de right one," corrected Sweet Caporal.
So Jakie Mattenburg took a chance with the right rope and whatever good
effect that might have had was immediately counteracted by his brother
who paddled frantically on the left side with his broken thwart until
he lost it in the water.
This loss might have helped matters some if Jakie had not unshipped the
rudder altogether, and hauled it aboard like a rebellious fish, by the
long tiller-lines.
"Both sit on de same seat," commanded Sweet Caporal, and Slats and
Slats Corbett took his place alongside him, while the boat rocked
perilously.
"Now, both pull together!" called one of the laughing watchers.
So they pulled together with such a frantic stroke that one of the oarlocks
was lifted from its socket and dropped into the water. The sudden
dislodgment of the oar precipitated Slats against one of the Mattenburg
boys who thereupon announced that he would man the oar instead. While
he was taking his place Sweet Caporal continued to pull frantically,
the oar sliding back in its lock and the boat going around in a circle.
"Put dat rudder on," commanded Sweet Caporal.
"Can't find no place it fits inter," said Jakie, reaching under the
water at the stern.
"Well, paddle wid it, den," said Slats.
So Jakie, grasping the rudder by its neck, proceeded to paddle with it
off one side until the cross-bar broke and the lines got into a
hopeless tangle with his arms.
"What did I tell yer?" shouted Slats.
"Now-one-two-three," encouraged someone on shore.
Sweet Caporal, holding his oar about two feet from its end so as to
lose all its leverage, pulled furiously, the blade only catching the
water occasionally, Jim Mattenburg, with no oar-lock at all, improvised
one hand into a lock and hauled frantically with the other one, while
Jakie Mattenburg bailed the boat, which was now pretty loggy with its
weight of water.
"Talk about your Yale Crew!" called one of the watchers.
"The new marine merry-go-round!" shouted another.
"Now-one-two--"
The sharp crack of a rifle was heard from the woods on the opposite
shore from the picnickers; one of the Mattenburg boys was conscious of
a quick, short whizzing sound, and then Charlie, the youngest of the
O'Connor boys, who was standing close to the shore, slapped his right
hand quickly to his left arm, looked about bewildered, then turned
suddenly pale and staggered into the arms of one of the picnic party.
"Look--look," he said, releasing his hand and affrightedly pointing to
a little trickle of blood on his arm. "I'm--I'm shot--look--"
CHAPTER XVI
CONNOVER BREAKS LOOSE
Advancing stealthily, our young hero raised his rifle and leveled it at
the chief of the howling Zulus, who clustered threateningly on the
farther shore. The young girl whom they had kidnapped lay bound hand
and foot, and Dan Dreadnought clenched his teeth with anger as he heard
her cries for help. The poisoned spears of the infuriated Zulus were
flying all about him, but they did not cower the brave lad. He was
resolved at any cost to rescue that girl.
"I am a Boy Scout," he called, "and I can handle a hundred savages if
need be." Then, uttering the cry of the Eureka Patrol, he dashed into
the dugout which lay drawn up on the shore, and using the butt end of
his rifle for a paddle, he guided his unsteady boat across the raging
torrent amid a fusillade of spears and arrows with which the frantic
Zulus vainly sought to stay his approach.
"I am Lieutenant of the Eureka Patrol!" called Dan. "Untie those
fetters, or every one of you shall die!"
His trusty companion, Ralph Redgore, tried to hold him back, but all in
vain.
Connover Bennett laid down the copy of _The Eureka Patrol in South
Africa_, by Captain Dauntless, U. S. A., and dragging himself from
the hammock, entered the house. He was breathing hard as if he had been
running.
The bungalow was deserted save for the maid in the kitchen, and
Connover was monarch of all he surveyed.
Quietly, he crept upstairs and into the "den." In the corner among his
father's fishing-rods and golf sticks stood a rifle. It was forbidden
to Connover, but unfortunately _The Eureka Patrol in South Africa_
dealt not with scout honor and made no mention of the Seventh Law,
which stipulates that a "scout shall be obedient." Nor had Captain
Dauntless thought it worth while to mention Law One, which says that a
"scout's honor is to be trusted."
Connover glanced up and down the road from the bay-window to see if by
any chance his mother might have forgotten something and was coming
back. Reassured in this particular, he took up the rifle and, standing
before the large pier-glass, he adopted a heroic attitude of aiming.
Then he looked from the window down into the woods through which he
could see little glints of the river.
It was not glints of Salmon River that he saw, but the "Deadly Morass
River" of South Africa; the woods were not quiet, fragrant pine woods
where the First Bridgeboro Troop of real scouts was encamped, but the
deadly morass itself; and he was not Connover Bennett, but _Dan
Dreadnought_, and this was the trusty rifle with which he would--
He looked again from the bay-window to make sure that his mother was
not in sight. Then the creaking of a door startled him and he laid the
rifle down. It was queer how every little sound startled him. He
unfastened his negligee shirt at the neck and, standing before the
pier-glass, arranged it as much like the frontispiece pictures of
_Dan Dreadnought_ as possible. There was a curious fluttering
feeling in his chest all the while which annoyed him. It did not seem
to jibe at all with the heroic program.
Yes, this was the rifle with which he would...
He tiptoed to the stairs and listened, "Molly, is that you?" he called.
"Yes, Master Connover."
"All right, I just wanted to know."
He went back into the room and opening the drawer of the desk, took out
a box of cartridges, extracted several and put them in his pocket. When
he replaced the box he forgot which end of the drawer he had taken it
from and was in a quandary where to place it. He took up the rifle
again, then laid it down and the thud of its butt on the floor startled
him. What a lot of noise it seemed to make!
It was oily and his hands were oily from it and left an oily stain on
the felt covering of the desk. He placed the inkstand over it, and all
the while he felt very strange and nervous; trembling almost as he
planned his exploit.
Then he took the rifle and got behind the revolving-chair, and rested
the weapon on it. It was not a very realistic jungle, but...
He saw the Zulus just as plain as day; and he saw himself, or rather,
_Dan Dreadnought_, in that big pier-glass.
He knew the gun was not loaded and he pulled the trigger, which
clicked.
The click seemed louder than he thought it would and he listened in
suspense. No sound.
Yes, this was the rifle with which he would... Casting one more
cautious look from the window, he shouldered the weapon and hurried
quietly down the stairs.
"What time did my mother say she'd be back?" he called.
"Not till dinnertime, Master Connover." He crossed the road, and headed
through the woods toward the river. Once in the woods, the spirit of
freedom took possession of him and he indulged in the luxury of
shooting the gun at nothing at all.
"'I am a scout,'" he said, "'and can handle a hundred savages!'"
Whereas, in plain fact, he couldn't have been much farther from being a
scout.
Arrested by a flutter in one of the trees, he leveled his gun again and
by the luck of a random shot, brought down a robin. The sight of its
quivering body and loose-hanging neck as it lay at his feet almost
frightened him for he had never killed a red-blooded creature before,
and he felt now a sense of heavy guilt. He was afraid to pick the robin
up and when he finally did so and saw how wilted and drooping the thing
was and how aimlessly the head swung he was seized with a little panic
of fear and dropped it suddenly.
But it was absolutely necessary that he should carry out his program of
encountering the Zulu's. As long as he was not really going to kill
anyone it was all right. He was at least going to have the thrill of
that experience. Now that he had killed the robin, he found that in
actual practice he preferred a sort of modified Dan Dreadnought to the
real one; and he could piece out with his imagination the more
harrowing features of Captain Dauntless's book.
So he pictured a dugout drawn up on the shore of the river which he was
approaching; and he pictured a group of howling Zulus on the farther
shore. He heard ikes and the splashing of water, and it fitted well
with his heroic scheme to imagine these sounds were made by the howling
Zulus, though in reality he knew, or thought he knew, that they came
from farther up the river near the scouts' camp.
He was within a few yards of the river now and pushing through the
thick growth which bordered it.
His imagination was working like machinery, and had all the features
and details of his daring act, pat.
"'I am a boy scout,'" he repeated, "'and can handle----'"
He raised his rifle and, aiming with dramatic gesture at nothing in
particular, pulled the trigger, then dashed forward in a perfect frenzy
of adventurous delight to the shore.
On the other side of the river the O'Connor boy was leaning back in the
arms of one of a group of people, the boys in the boat were mending
their efforts to get to shore; someone said, "There he is!" and then
all eyes were upon him and Connover Bennett dropped the gun, reeled
against a tree and stood staring as he realized that he was nearer to
being the real _Dan Dreadnought_ than he had dreamed.
A cold sweat broke out upon his brow, his first impulse was to run with
all his might and main; but he could not stir.
CHAPTER XVII
THE REAL THING
It happened that same afternoon that Tom and Roy went up to Salmon
River Village to purchase some provisions for camp. The two boys were
on their way back from the village and were discussing an interesting
discovery which they had made while there. This was a wireless
apparatus which the storekeeper had shown them with great pride for he
was one of that numerous class of wireless amateurs whose arials may
be seen stretching from tree-tops to house-tops these days, and since
it was his pleasure to sit into the wee hours of the morning with his
head receivers on, eavesdropping on the whole world, the two scouts had
agreed to exchange messages with him.
"Every man you meet seems to take some interest in the scouts," said
Tom, in allusion to the cordial storekeeper.
"Sure, even Mr. Temple's got a light case of it."
"_Not much_!" said Tom.
"Oh, yes he has; he's got what Doc Carson calls a passive case. Doesn't
it beat all how Doc gets onto this medical talk? Did you hear that one
he sprang the other night about a 'superficial abrasion'? Cracky, it
nearly knocked me over!"
"And 'septic,' too," said Tom.
"Yes, 'septic's' his star word now. Mr. Temple's case is likely to
become acute any time," Roy added as he jogged along, jumping from one
subject to another according to his fashion. "You know you can have a
thing and not know it. Then something happens, you get a bad cold, for
instance, and that brings the whole thing out. That's the way it is
with Mr. Temple--he's just beginning to get the bug; he doesn't know it
yet. You ought to have heard him buzz me about tracking.
"Then he wanted to know how I knew one golf stick was hickory and
another one maple. 'Scout,' said I. Oh, I've got _him_ started-wait
till he picks up a little momentum and you'll see things fly."
"You'll never land _him_," said Tom.
"I landed you, didn't I?"
"Sure."
"I bet I land him before the Chief lands Mrs. Bennett."
They walked along a little while in silence. "What-what-did Mary say?"
Tom asked. He had asked the question half a dozen times before, but it
pleased him to imagine that he had forgotten the answer. Roy
understood.
"She wanted to know why you didn't bring the pin yourself."
"What'd you tell her?"
"Oh, I told her you were too busy to bother."
"No--honest--"
"I told her you had no time for girls. She said it was just lovely. I
don't know whether she meant you or the pin. She said the tracking was
miraculous."
"She don't know who--"
"No, her father's not going to tell her. I've got him cinched. I
wouldn't be surprised if I was cashier in his bank in another six
months-but don't mention it at camp fire, will you?"
Tom laughed. "What did she say?" he repeated.
"I told you's teen-eleven times."
"Well, I forget."
"You ought to have gone yourself, anyway," said Roy, "then you'd have
heard what she said."
He pretended not to have any sympathy with Tom in this matter.
"What was that other thing she said?"
"What's that shouting?" said Roy.
"What was that other thing she said?"
"What other thing?"
"You know."
"I guess that picnic bunch is flopping around on the river from the
sound."
Silence for a few minutes.
"What was that other thing she said?"
"Oh, yes," said Roy, "let's see--I forget."
"Go on--stop your fooling! What was it?"
"Do you _have_ to know?"
"What was it?"
"She said she was going to recip--Oh, listen!"
"Re-what?"
"Reciprocate."
"What's that?"
"Pay you back."
"I wouldn't take a cent. I wouldn't take anything from her," said Tom.
"I'm a sco--"
"Now don't spring that! You better wait and see what she offers you
first."
"Would you take anything for a service?"
"Depends on what it was," said Roy cautiously.
"_I_ wouldn't take anything for a service."
"No?"
"I wouldn't take anything from her."
But he did just the same.
They had left the road and were jogging scout-pace along the beaten
path through the woods which led down to the river. As they neared it,
a confusion of sounds and voices greeted their ears and when they
presently emerged upon the shore they found a scene of pandemonium.
In mid-stream was their own boat, two-thirds full of water, and
clinging to it were Tom's erstwhile Bridgeboro friends and a frantic,
shrieking creature whose streaming hair was plastered over his face and
who was in a perfect panic of fright as every moment the gunwale of the
loggy boat gave with his weight and lowered his head into the water.
On the farther shore one little group called futilely to the hapless
crew, bidding them cling to the gunwale and hold still; sensible enough
advice, except that no advice is of any use to a person in peril of
drowning. The bedraggled creature in particular would have prevented
any such orderly and rational conduct by his terror-stricken clutchings
and cries of "Save me!" as if he were the only one in trouble. Another
little group on the opposite shore was gathered about a figure which
Tom and Roy could not see.
"Have you got a rope over there?" called Roy, kicking off his sneakers.
"No, we haven't--"
"Got a shawl or a blanket?"
"Yes--what good--"
"Get it quick!"
"They always have camels'-hair shawls," he said hastily to Tom. Then
raising his voice, "Someone drowned over there?"
"No, shot."
"Killed?"
"No."
"Shin up that tree and see if you can get camp with your whistle," he
ordered to Tom, throwing off his shirt the while. "Whistle 'Help' by
Morse--if they don't answer, try semaphore with your shirt; if that
don't get them you'll have to hoof it. Get Doc, whatever you do. Shut
up, will you?"' he shouted to the frantic boy who was making all the
noise. "Keep your mouth shut and you'll be all right!"
All this took but a few seconds and presently the shrieking boy in the
water grasped frantically at Roy.
That was all he knew. Something struck him, and when he recovered from
his daze he was lying on shore with several persons about him.
The new _Dan Dreadnought_ was a pitiable figure. The boy whom he
had shot sat near him, ashen white, his arm bleeding despite all
efforts to stay the flow of blood, and he himself, his voice husky from
his futile shrieking, the red mark of Roy's prompt but necessary blow
standing out in bold relief on his white face, lay, half dead with
fright and shock, and watched those about him as though in a trance. It
was a sad and inglorious end to his adventurous career!
It took Roy but a few minutes to tear a couple of shawls and a blanket
into strips and tying these together he took an end in his mouth and
swam out for the boat. Tying it to the painter-ring, he called to the
people on shore to pull easily and, himself guiding and holding up the
loggy, half-submerged boat, as best he could, it was finally hauled out
of deep water and its hapless crew helped ashore.
Just as Roy helped that redoubtable leader, Sweet Caporal, to scramble
up the abrupt shore, a welcome shout came from a tree top across the
river.
"They're coming!"
Roy did not know whether it had been done by Morse whistling or by
semaphore. Tom had done it, that was enough, and while he scrambled
down from the tree and swam across the river Roy rearranged the
clumsily made tourniquet which the picnickers had placed about the arm
of the wounded boy, and tightened it with the leverage of a stick which
successfully stayed the flow of blood.
"Some wrinkle, hey?" he said, smiling down into the white face of the
boy. "You could lift the earth by leverage if you only had some floor
for your lever; ever hear that?"
No, the O'Connor boy had never heard that, but he looked up into the
cheery, brown eyes of Roy, whom he knew slightly, and smiled himself.
The real scout and the burlesque scout who lay near by presented a
striking contrast. All the mock heroics of the _Eureka Patrol_ of
Captain Dauntless seemed cheap enough now, even to the frightened
Connover as he languidly watched this quiet exhibition of efficiency.
Never had he admired _Dan Dreadnought_ as he now admired Roy
Blakeley, this cheerful, clean-cut fellow who knew what to do and just
how to do it; and the gang, with all their bravado gone, watched him
too, feeling strange after the first bath they had had in many a day.
"Do you know what I'm going to do with you?" said Roy, as he leaned
over the O'Connor boy and bathed his face. "I'm going to give you to
Mr. Ellsworth for a birthday present; our troop's two years old next
week."
It was not many minutes before the welcome sound of voices was heard in
the wood and presently a half-dozen scouts appeared with a canvas
stretcher. Mr. Ellsworth was with them and by his side was Doc Carson,
or "Highbrow Doc," with his neat little first-aid case. Doc was one of
the ancient and honorable Ravens who were not unconscious of their
dignity, and he had had the first-aid bee from the start.
It took him but a moment to determine that no fatalities were going to
result from the affair, and that all Connover needed was a little
reassuring that he would not be sent to jail.
While he was putting an antiseptic dressing on the O'Connor boy's arm
(the bullet had gone in and out again through the fleshy part), Roy and
Tom heard for the first time the circumstances of the whole affair, as
they were related to Mr. Ellsworth.
It seemed that upon the appearance of Connover with his gun he had been
forbidden to go away and had obeyed, probably because he was too
frightened and helpless to have any will of his own. His pitiable lack
of command throughout the whole affair was not the least significant
thing in his day's work, and showed how far he was from the real scout
trail.
The occupants of the boat, spurred by the emergency, had managed to get
the frightened Connover aboard and it was in their clumsy progress
across the river that one of the gunwales of the already loggy boat had
gone under, shipping more water than the craft could carry besides its
living occupants.
The O'Connor boy needed only prompt and efficient treatment and the
only peril he was in was that of blood-poisoning. Doc dressed his wound
antiseptically and though he was not unable to walk, they bore him to
camp on the stretcher, for his loss of blood had weakened him and the
shock had unnerved him.
Just as they started Connover broke down completely, clinging pitifully
to Mr. Ellsworth and refusing to go home. His fear of arrest on the one
hand and his fear of his parents on the other, made him go to pieces
entirely now that the first excitement was over. His behaviour formed a
ludicrous anti-climax for all the _Dan Dreadnought_ bombast and
bravado, and if it was not borne in upon him then how harmful the books
were, he at least began to see how ridiculous they were. Indeed, the
redoubtable _Dan_ had begun to lose prestige with Connover the
moment he had shot that robin.
At the sight of this childish display, Mr. Ellsworth shook his head
ruefully and said to Roy, "We got away with it in Tom's case, but I'm
afraid Connie's a pretty big contract. What do you think?"
"He'll come across," said Roy. "He didn't hurt Charlie O'Connor so very
much, but I'll bet he's killed _Dan Dreadnought_ all right."
"Well, Connie," said the scoutmaster, in a half-indulgent tone that was
not altogether complimentary, "you'd better come along with us to
camp."
"Will you--will you--see my mother?"
"Ye-es--guess so."
"He--he won't die--will he?"
"After forty or fifty years he might," said the scoutmaster. "Here,
walk along with me, and tell me how you came to shoot that rifle."
CHAPTER XVIII
MRS. BENNETT COMES ACROSS
Connover told him the whole story. In his extremity he felt drawn to
Mr. Ellsworth though he showed it in a more effeminate way than Tom had
shown it, and the readiness with which he made the scoutmaster a refuge
rather jarred upon Mr. Ellsworth. Tom, at least, had never gone to
pieces like this.
But the scout movement draws its recruits from every direction, and Mr.
Ellsworth was the ideal scoutmaster.
"Well, then you think you wouldn't like to kill Zulus, after all, hey?"
"N-no, sir."
"Too bad we had to sacrifice an innocent robin to find that out, wasn't
it?"
"Yes, sir."
The maid at the Bennett bungalow had one good scout quality; she was
observant and the fleeting glimpse which she had of Master Connover
departing with the rifle was promptly communicated to Mrs. Bennett upon
her return.
At the appalling picture of her son trudging across the road into the
woods with a fire-arm over his shoulder, the good lady all but
collapsed. Her first thought was, of course, that he would shoot
himself, which seemed likely enough, and her fear for his safety
entirely obliterated her amazement at his shameless disobedience. It
was the day of Mrs. Bennett's Waterloo.
Out she went, and even in her haste and excitement she picked up the
_Dan Dreadnought_ volume which sprawled on the veranda, and tossed
it into the swinging seat, then hurried across the road and into the
woods. The worst thing she had against Captain Dauntless was that he
littered her tidy porch.
She followed the same beaten path to the river which Connover had
followed and when she reached the bank a few belated stragglers of the
picnic party were gathering up their belongings on the opposite side.
One of them came over for her in the boat and told her briefly of what
had happened.
"Is he alive or dead?" she demanded, hysterically. "Tell me the worst!"
Her inquiry was for Connover, of course, and upon being told that his
only trouble was a case of utter fright, she said, "Oh, my poor boy!"
She followed the trail to Camp Ellsworth, hurrying along the beaten
path which the scouts had made, until glimpses of their homelike little
settlement were visible through the trees.
As she approached it she noticed, even in her anxiety, wide bands of
bright red high up on the tree-trunks at intervals. She learned later
that these were to indicate the path as well as might be, for a
distance on either side of it so that no arrow or missile of any sort
should be shot across it. It was one of several precautions to guard
against the breaking of this inviolable rule. The path was sacred
territory.
Mrs. Bennett was now within the outskirts of the camp and could smell
the savory odor of cooking. She passed the tree where the Silver Foxes
had spiked a piece of birch-bark with S. F. chalked upon it to indicate
that the boys of that patrol were watching the industrious activities
of a certain squirrel which patronized that particular tree. Another
trunk bore a similar card with R. on it, showing that the Ravens were
spying on the private affairs of an oriole which nested above. Little
that oriole knew that seven photographs of him were pasted in the Troop
Book.
At camp a Red Cross flag had been raised above Mr. Ellsworth's own tent
and except for the quiet comings and going of the scoutmaster himself
and Doc Carson, all was quiet here. Mrs. Bennett had expected to find
the camp a scene of commotion.
"_Good_ evening, Mrs. Bennett," said the scoutmaster, in a tone of
pleasant surprise. The spider was in his web at last, but he concealed
his feeling of elation. "You are just in time to grace the festive
board. We're going to have corn wiggles; did you ever eat a corn
wiggle, Mrs. Bennett?"
"Where is my boy?" she demanded.
"Sit down, won't you? He's over there learning how to tell a mushroom
from a toadstool--something every boy ought to know."
"And this other boy?" she added, glancing inside the tent.
"Fine-doing fine. One of our boys hiked it to town for a doctor, and I
thought you were he when the sentinel told me someone was coming."
"You saw me coming?"
[Illustration: MRS. BENNETT "COMES ACROSS"]
"No, we heard you long before we saw you. I wish now that Connover's
sense of hearing were a little more acute. Then he'd have been able to
distinguish the locality of a human voice. But there's no use crying
over spilled milk."
Mrs. Bennett listened breathlessly while he repeated the story of the
afternoon's occurrences. While he was talking a scout approached,
removed his hat, saluted Mr. Ellsworth, and handed him a paper. It was
a memorandum of the temperature of the river water, an amateur forecast
of the weather for the next day, and a "stunt" proposition for O. K.
The scoutmaster asked one or two questions and dismissed the messenger.
Mrs. Bennett was a little surprised to notice that the questions seemed
to bear with practical sense and foresight upon the physical welfare of
the boys.
"Do you give your approval to everything?" she asked.
"No--not always," he laughed.
"And what then? You can't _watch_ them _all_."
"Oh, dear, no; I just give my veto and forget it."
"You take the temperature of the river?"
"Yes, and test it for impurities twice a week. Doc attends to that.
Come inside, Mrs. Bennett."
She greeted the reclining O'Connor boy and smoothed his forehead
tenderly.
"Have his parents been notified?"
"No, I'm going to town myself this evening," said Mr. Ellsworth. "I'll
tell them. My idea is to have him remain with us."
"And who will care for him while you are gone?"
Mr. Ellsworth laughed. "Oh, Doc will be glad to get rid of me," said
he. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"You bathed it with carbolic, did you?"
"No, Doc tells me carbolic is a little out of date. How about that,
Doc?"
Doc assented and there was something so eloquently suggestive of
efficiency about Doc that, although Mrs. Bennett sniffed audibly, she
did not venture to ask what antiseptic had been used. She had supposed
that antiseptics of all kinds would be quite unheard of in a camp of
boys, and here out in the woods she was being told by a quiet,
respectful young fellow in a khaki suit that her favorite antiseptic
was "out of date."
She received the blow with fortitude.
At a little distance from the tent several boys were engaged in the
preparation of supper and the setting of the long board under the
trees. Others were busy with various forms of house-keeping, or rather
camp-keeping, and her domestic instinct prompted her to cast an
occasional shrewd look at the systematic and apparently routine work
which was going on. What she could not help noticing was the general
aspect of orderliness which the camp displayed. Not a paper box nor a
tin can was to be seen. She had always associated camping with a sort
of rough-and-tumble life and with carelessness in everything pertaining
to one's physical welfare. Cleanliness was, to her notion, quite
incompatible with life in tents and cooking out of doors.
Her casual discovery of the practice of testing the river water at
stated intervals was in the nature of a knock-out blow. She felt a
little bewildered as she watched the comings and goings of the troop
members. She did not altogether like the realization that the water
which had never been tested for her own son's bathing was regularly
tested for this "Wild West crew."
"What is that?" she asked.
"That's our bulletin-board. Let me show you about the camp, Mrs.
Bennett. You see, you are not our only visitor; we have a delegation
from Barrel Alley, as well."
A little way from the roaring fire, whence emanated a most savory odor,
the gallant representatives of Bridgeboro's East End were watching the
preparations for supper. They had proved faithless to the excursionists
and Mr. Ellsworth had invited them to dine at camp, supplementing the
invitation with an offer to pay their way home by train, they having
come gratuitously on a "freight." Mr. Ellsworth looked far into the
future, but just at that moment Mrs. Bennett was his game.
"Here, you see, is one of the patrol tents and over here is the other.
We're hoping for still a third. Here's our wireless apparatus. The boys
have just discovered that Mr. Berry, the storekeeper over in the
village, has an outfit, so they're in high hopes of having a little
chat with him. Here, you see, are the drain ditches, so that the camp
is free from dampness and stagnant water. We'll be lowering the colors
presently. Dorry, my boy, bring the Troop Book over so Mrs. Bennett can
see it--and the Troop Album also. Ah, here's Connie now."
From among the group about the fire Connover came guiltily forward.
Mrs. Bennett put her arm about him although she said nothing and seemed
not altogether pleased. The recollection of his disobedience was now
beginning to supplant her fear and anxiety. A little group of scouts,
all on the alert for service, and anxious to advertise the details and
features of their camp life, accompanied the trio about.
"What are those?" Mrs. Bennett asked.
"Spears," said Roy.
"Do you throw them at animals?"
"No, indeed," laughed another boy. "We spear papers with them, like
this." He speared a fallen leaf to show her.
"Camp is cleared every morning," said Mr. Ellsworth, "and here is our
first aid outfit--our special pride," he added as they re-entered his
own little tent. "We have better facilities for the care of an injured
person than are to be had in the village."
"What were those signs I saw on the trees as I came?"
"Just stalking notes; we study and photograph the wild life."
There was a moment's pause. "It is certainly nice to encourage a
feeling of friendship for the forest life," she conceded.
"It is not so much a feeling of friendship as of kinship, Mrs.
Bennett."
She turned about and looked sharply at one of the scouts who stood near
by. "You are not the Slade boy?" she said.
"Yes-mam."
"I hardly knew you."
Mrs. Bennett's housewifely instincts would not permit her to give any
sign of surrender until she had proof of the cooking. But away down in
her mother's heart was an uncomfortable feeling which she could not
overcome; a feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction with her own
son. She had too much pride to show it, but Connover felt in some vague
way that she was not well pleased. She was a mother of high ideals and
she was not undiscerning. Aside from her son's disobedience, which had
been a shock to her, what an inglorious afternoon had been his! It
seemed that every one about her had done something worthy that
afternoon except her own son. There lay his victim, the O'Connor boy,
bearing his suffering in silence. She noticed that the boys seemed
somehow to make allowance for Connover, and it touched her pride.
While the last few touches for this special meal were preparing, she
and Mr. Ellsworth wandered a little way out of camp. He spoke kindly,
almost indulgently, she thought, but as one who knew his business and
was qualified to speak. He had stormed Mrs. Bennett's fortress too many
times to mince matters now.
"I don't know that you're really to blame, Mrs. Bennett--except
indirectly."
"I--to blame?"
"I blame _Dan Dreadnought_."
"I _never_ approved of Captain Dauntless' books," she said. "It
was a compromise."
"Look up there, Mrs. Bennett--see that nest? Would you believe it, the
boys got a photograph of the young birds in that nest and the old bird
never knew it."
They walked along, he swinging a stick whick he had broken from a tree.
"There is no such man as Captain Dauntless, you know. Captains in the
army have other work to do than to write stories for boys. Captain
Dauntless is a myth."
"It is so hard to know what boys should read," she sighed.
"It is not as hard as it used to be. Remind me to give you a paper
before you go. You see, if Connie had been a scout,--well now, let's
begin at the beginning. If he had been a scout he wouldn't have read
those books in the first place; they're really not books at all,
they're infernal machines. Then if he had been a scout, of course, he
wouldn't have disobeyed you; he wouldn't have sneaked off----"
Mrs. Bennett set her lips rather tight at that word, but she did not
contest the point.
"If he had been a scout he wouldn't have killed a robin--but if he
_had_ killed a robin, it would have been by skill and not by a
silly, dangerous random shot--and he wouldn't have been afraid of the
presence of death or the sight of blood. If he had been a scout he
could have determined unerringly the locality of sounds and human
voices, and Charlie O'Connor wouldn't----"
Mrs. Bennett winced.
"If he had been a scout he would have known how to swim; there isn't a
member of my troop that can't swim. And if he had been a scout he
wouldn't have been afraid to go home. Connie has the best home in the
world, Mrs. Bennett----"
"I have done everything for Connover----"
"But you see, he was afraid to go to it--and so he came here with us."
The cheerful call of the bugle told that supper was ready. Through the
trees they could see the scouts assembling until each stood at his
place at the long board under trees whose foliage had begun to dim in
the fading light.
"It's a pretty sight," she said, pausing and raising her lorgnette to
her eyes. "What are they all standing for?"
"Till you have taken your seat."
Smilingly she started toward them with all the cultured affability of a
true guest. She knew how to do this thing, and she was quite at home
now. Mr. Ellsworth knew that her manner covered a sense of humiliation,
but she carried it off well and so together they came out of the woods
into the clearing.
"I was saying that he came here and--and we want him to stay here. Will
you let him join us, Mrs. Bennett?"
"Would he have two blankets over him at night?" she asked after a
moment's dismayed pause.
The question was not a surrender; it was a flag of truce, meaning that
she would discuss terms.
The surrender came after supper.
CHAPTER XIX
FIRST AID BY WIRELESS
IT never rains but it pours, and the conversion of Mrs. Bennett to
scouting was shortly followed by the greatest catch of the season.
Charlie O'Connor came into the troop on the same wave which brought
Connover, and East End contingent, though it did not surrender as yet,
retired to the sweltering and almost deserted Bridgeboro, and tried to
kindle a fire in Temple's lot after the Camp Ellsworth fashion. The
effort was not very successful.
The next day Jakie Mattenburg, on the strength of talk he had overheard
in camp, tried his hand, or rather, his foot, at stalking, and was
surprised to find that it was rather more interesting to watch the
movements of a sparrow than to throw stones at it.
It could hardly be said that this band of seasoned hoodlums made much
immediate progress toward scouting, but they remembered their rescue
from the river at Roy's hands, and they accorded him thereafter a
grudging measure of consideration which, in the fullness of time,
blossomed into genuine friendship. They were, in fact, the future Elk
Patrol in its chrysalis form; but their career as scouts is part of
another story.
A few days after the events of the preceding chapter the troop's
birthday was celebrated in camp and Connover and Charlie O'Connor
submitted themselves to Roy, who tied a pink ribbon about the right arm
of each. From Connover's ribbon depended a card reading,
_Chief
With Many Happy Returns from
The Silver Foxes_
while Charlie O'Connor was presented as the gift of the Ravens.
The presentations were made at supper and the two tenderfeet were led
(with rather sheepish faces) to Mr. Ellsworth at the head of the table
and tendered to him in true birthday fashion amid much laughter.
Roy made a characteristic speech. "These two valuable gifts are
presented to our beloved scoutmaster with twelve profit-sharing
coupons. When you get one hundred of these coupons take them to
Temple's lot in Bridgeboro and receive a new scout.
"Honorable Charles O'Connor has always had brothers enough, but now he
has a few hundred thousand more, so he ought to be satisfied. This
priceless gift" (grabbing Connover by his pink ribbon) "was very
difficult to procure; it is _what you have always wanted_. If it
doesn't fit you can exchange it. Honorable Bennover Connett is the only
survivor, ladies and gentlemen--the _only survivor_ of the extinct
Eureka Patrol! The Eureka Patrol was a part of the only original Cock
and Bull Troop of Nowhere-in-Particular. The records of this troop,
known as the _Dan Dreadnought Series_, are donated to Camp
Ellsworth for fuel in case the kindling wood runs short. Full and
implicit directions go with each gift."
It was a gala occasion in camp and the troop sat late about the roaring
fire that night.
They were just raking up the last embers preparatory to turning in when
they were startled by the sound of running footsteps, and out of the
darkness emerged a dark-cloaked figure with streaming hair and glints
of white under the heavy garment which she wore.
"I--lost the path," she gasped, "and--and then I saw your--light--and-oh,
Mr. Ellsworth--the house--was robbed and James--is shot and-there's
another man shot--and it was all planned for they've cut the
wires--and we have to get help--a doctor----"
It was Mary Temple who gasped this shocking news and then all but
collapsed from fear and haste and excitement. An automobile coat had
been donned over her nightdress. For a few moments she was utterly
unable to give a coherent account of what had happened at Five Oaks.
The few minutes during which she had been lost in the woods, together
with the appalling events at home, had quite unnerved her and she clung
to Mr. Ellsworth, looking affrightedly about her as if she were being
pursued.
He did not wait to get at the details. Something had happened and
medical aid was needed. That was apparent.
"Did they send you?" he asked.
"No--I just came--I know scouts can do anything."
"Yes," he said concurrently.
"Of course, we can't get a real doctor, but--"
"We can try," said a voice.
She looked up startled, and in the last dying glow of the fire she saw
the stolid face of Tom Slade. It was the first time she had seen him
since her mother's mishap and their visit at camp, though she knew from
Roy of his tracking feat and recovery of her pin. She knew too of his
night in the lock-up, but no knowledge of his father's connection with
the affair had come to her.
"I meant--I was coming to thank you--Tom; truly, I was----"
But Tom had turned away and presently she saw an agile figure spring
after him.
"Are you going to try for it, Tom?" said Roy. "It's after one o'clock."
"He sometimes stays there till two--he told me--he'll be there."
"How do you know?"
"Because I want him to be." "Mary thinks you snubbed her, Tom; why
didn't you speak to her?"
"I wish I had her ball to toss back," said Tom.
It was odd that he should think of that now.
In the lean-to Roy lit the lantern and presently the whole troop was
divided into two groups; one was getting ready the stretcher and
helping Doc Carson, and the other stood about the lean-to watching Tom,
who sat on the rickety grocery box before the wireless apparatus. Roy
stood anxiously at his shoulder; the others waited, speaking to each
other in an undertone occasionally, but never to Tom. By common consent
they seemed to leave this thing for him to do, and there was about him
a certain detachment from the others which suggested slightly his
manner that day when he had been arrested.
Boys came and went, Mr. Ellsworth and others departed hastily with Doc,
the little group in the lean-to watched and waited while Tom,
apparently unconscious of all about him, sat there adjusting his spark
gap. Occasionally he spoke in an undertone to Roy, but seemed oblivious
of all else.
"R. V., isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes," said Roy.
"Better look and make sure."
Roy consulted a note book. "R. V. is right," said he.
Tom laid his hand upon the key and adjusted his head receivers. Then up
into the darkness and out into the vast trackless sky went the call for
R. V.
It was then the boys noticed the cloaked figure of the girl standing in
the background watching. "I thought you went with Doc and Mr.
Ellsworth," someone said.
"He said I might stay," she answered timidly.
Tom glanced around and saw her, but showed no interest. Roy sat on the
edge of the instrument table, anxiously waiting.
"They can't cut this kind of wires," he said cheerily to Mary as if to
make up for Tom's silence.
Eagerly she watched Tom. She seemed fascinated with his absorption and
with every slight move of his hand.
"Nothing doing?" said Roy with a note of discouragement.
Tom made no answer, only adjusted the sending instrument to a different
wave-length.
"Too late, Tommy boy," Roy said.
Tom paid no attention, only in dogged silence adjusted the sending
instrument to another wavelength and readjusted the tuning-coil.
[Illustration: AFTER SENDING THE WIRELESS MESSAGE, TOM FINDS HIMSELF A
HERO.]
Mary watched him anxiously. She too seemed all by herself--a strange,
wide-eyed figure, standing apart with the great auto cloak about her,
silently watching and not daring to ask a question.
"Who did you say was hurt?" Tom asked at length, without turning.
"A burglar and James--our chauffeur, you know--they were both shot."
"Have you got him?" asked Roy excitedly.
"Nope."
He adjusted the tuning coil again and waited patiently.
"Too late, Tom."
No answer. Then suddenly Tom's hand flew to the sending key, and as the
letters of the Morse Code clicked away into the night a slight smile
crept over his face. There was no member of the troop who could use the
Morse alphabet with such rapidity as Tom, and he often thought (but
seldom spoke) of that first message he and Roy had flashed together
from the little tower on Blakeley's Hill.
"Up?" asked Roy.
"Sure he's up; wait till I get his O. K."
Back through the night and down to this boy at the rough table and to
the tense little group of watchers came the "O. K." which assured them
that the message was understood.
Tom rose and Mary Temple impulsively made a step toward him, then
paused half-embarrassed.
She actually stood a little in awe of Tom Slade, of Barrel Alley, who
had cheated her and stolen her ball. And Tom Slade, Scout, who was sure
of himself and afraid of nothing, was very much in awe of this young
girl. And Roy Blakeley, his chum, understood and took the timid,
admiring girl into his own charge and so the little party made its way
out of the dark woods and across the bridge to Five Oaks.
Mary Temple felt very much as Tom had felt the day after his own first
essay at signalling. She knew it was a wireless apparatus he had used
(she would have asked questions of him if she had dared), and she
supposed that he was calling a doctor. She had experienced a thrill of
admiration at the quiet, stolid exhibition of skill, and his apparent
aloofness had only deepened her admiration into awe. But as Tom himself
had felt so long ago, she wanted to see the tangible result of this
work which was such a mystery to her.
Tom hurried stolidly along with Pee-wee and Charlie O'Connor, with that
clumsy gait which he had never entirely overcome, and which, ever so
faintly, suggested the old shuffle. Whether there was any foreboding in
his mind none of his companions knew for he was never talkative, but
in the light of what soon happened, it occurred to them afterward that
he had known all along what was before him, that he knew what he should
see at Five Oaks, and that, like the good scout, he was
_prepared_.
On the way Roy gleaned from Mary more of what had taken place. It
appeared that Mr. Temple, hearing sounds in the rooms below, had rung
for the gardener who, with the chauffeur, had come from the garage and
entered a back door, letting themselves in by means of the chauffeur's
key. They were just passing through the foyer when three masked men
rushed out of the breakfast room. One got away carrying some loot, not,
however, before he had shot and seriously wounded James, the chauffeur,
who had dropped in the hall with a bullet in his thigh.
Neither of Mr. Temple's men recalled what became of the second man more
than that he disappeared, they thought, empty-handed. The third had
made for an open window and was just climbing out when the gardener
shot him and he fell to the ground outside, where he still lay when the
scouts arrived.
The gardener insisted that the man had drawn a revolver, but no
revolver could be found about him.
It was then discovered that the burglary was a well-planned affair, for
the telephone wires had been severed, and it was upon discovery of this
fact that Mary had hurried to Camp Ellsworth.
Doc Carson was busy with James, who had been lifted to a couch in the
hall, when Mary saw the tangible result of Tom's message in the form of
two dazzling acetylene headlights coming under the _porte
cochère_, and the doctor stepping briskly into the house.
"Oh, Tom," she exclaimed, with as much delight as the occasion would
permit, and with gratitude in every note of her voice. "He came, just
as you----Oh, where is he?" she broke off suddenly, as she noticed
that Tom was not there.
It was then and not until then that a quick thought flashed upon Roy
and he hurried out and around the house.
There, under the bay-window, lay a motionless form. Tom was bending
over it and Roy could hear his quick, short breaths as he tried to
control his emotion.
"Is he dead, Tom?" Roy asked softly.
"It's--it's my father."
"Yes, I know. Is he dead?"
"Get the doctor--I'm glad it was me sent the message for him."
It was another culmination of another triumph.
"I'm glad too, Tom."
"They'll have to see him--they'll have to know now. You tell the
doctor. I got to be loyal. Tell Mr.--Mr. Ellsworth he's got to remember
what he said, that there wasn't no First Bridgeboro Troop when he was a
boy--you heard him say that."
"He _will_ remember it, Tom."
"Get the doctor--quick!"
Tom bent lower over the motionless form of his father as if he were
asking a question.
CHAPTER XX
TOM TOSSES IT BACK
When they brought the doctor around they found him still in that
position and had to lift him gently away. The announcement that the
wound was not fatal did not seem to move his stolidness in the least.
"I want to see Mr. Temple," he said doggedly.
"What is it, Tom?" said Mr. Ellsworth putting his arm over the boy's
shoulder.
"I want to see him before he has him arrested--then if the wires are
cut I'll send a wireless for the constable--only I want to see Mr.
Temple first. I'm not afraid of him now."
"He couldn't be arrested to-night, Tom, he--"
"I want to see Mr. Temple--_you_ tell him," he added, turning
suddenly upon Mary, almost with an air of command. "I did something for
_you_--once."
The girl was sobbing and seemed to hesitate as if not knowing whether
to say something to Tom or to do his bidding. "Yes, I'll get him," she
said.
It was not the scout fashion to order a young girl upon an errand, and
it was certainly not the scout fashion, nor anyone else's fashion to
summon John Temple thus peremptorily. But Tom was a sort of law unto
himself and even Mr. Ellsworth did not interfere.
The master of Five Oaks came around the house with his daughter
clinging to him. And Tom Slade, who had knocked his hat off, stood up
and faced him. It was not always easy to get Tom's meaning; he often
used pronouns instead of names and his dogged, stolid temperament
showed in his phraseology.
"He told me when I joined the troop that I had to be loyal, and that's
the reason I'm doing it and not because I believe in being a burglar."
The naïveness of this announcement might have seemed ludicrous if Tom's
voice had not trembled with earnestness. "And he said there wasn't no
scouts when he was a boy--that's my father there. And that's what
_you_ got to remember too. I tracked him before and I got the pin
and gave him my five dollars that I'd saved."
Someone tittered: John Temple frowned and shook his head impatiently
and there was no more tittering.
"I guess you know about that, and that I didn't bring it to her 'cause
I was scared, and I couldn't help him coming here to-night. Only you
got to remember there wasn't any troop when he was a boy--you got to
remember that. I'd 'a' been a burglar myself, that's sure, only for
him" (indicating Mr. Ellsworth) "and the troop--and Roy. And he's
sick--that's most what's the matter with him and I'd like to have him
brought to our camp and have Doc take care of him till he gets well
enough so's Mr. Ellsworth can talk to him, 'cause Mr. Ellsworth, he
never fails--he's never failed once. But if you won't do that--if you
won't leave him--let him--go like that--then you got to remember that
there wasn't any troop when he was a boy-'cause I'm rememberin'
it--and------"
"He _will_ remember it," said Mary, weeping. "Oh, he does remember
it, Tom, he does."
Mr. Temple drew her to him. "Go on, my boy," he said. "I'm listening."
"If you want me to send a wireless for the constable, I'll do it,
'cause I got to do a service--only you got to remember--that's only
fair. And I got something else to say while I'm not scared of you-'tain't
because I got any reason to be scared of you either--but I'm
sorry I threw that stone at you. That was what started _him_ for
the bad--when he went away and left me--but it started me for the good
anyhow--so that's something."
For a moment no one spoke. Mr. Ellsworth would not spoil the effect of
Tom's words by uttering so much as a single word himself. It was John
Temple who broke the silence, quieting his daughter who seemed about to
break forth again.
"I will do more than remember," said he. "Come here, my boy. There will
be no charge made against your father, so there will be no need of a
service unless it is a service of my own. It has been borne in upon me
lately that your good scoutmaster is a wonder-worker, and what you have
just said strengthens that growing conviction. I have been thinking,
too, how I might further the movement so well represented by him, and
the story of your experience with your father has quite decided me. For
every one of those five precious dollars that you were sensible enough
to save and noble enough to give away, there shall be given a thousand
to the cause whose precepts and principles you represent.
"Let this poor man be taken to your camp in the woods if you like, and
let your doctor take care of him, and see that he does his duty. I will
visit your camp myself to-morrow if I may."
Mr. Ellsworth assured him that he might, and as for Doc, a half dozen
chimed forth that he was the only ever, etc., etc.
Tom said nothing. He had never been much of a scout missionary, and the
unexpected and altogether amazing conversion of John Temple quite
overwhelmed him. He did not realize that he himself had done it, in his
own stolid, crude way.
But would his hope be borne out? Would the Wizard Ellsworth indeed "get
away with it," and make a new man of poor, wretched Bill Slade? I
should hesitate to affirm it; but I wouldn't dare to deny it--not
before the boys. So let us rest in the hope born of Tom's own words
that Mr. Ellsworth had never yet failed. Let us believe that the woods
and the camp-fire yarns and the company of these boys may be a helping
hand to the broken wretch who had no First Bridgeboro Troop to look to
when he was a boy.
As they bore the stretcher over the bridge toward the woods beyond, Tom
heard the sound of footfalls a little distance behind them, and paused.
It proved to be Mary Temple.
"Tom, is that you?" she said.
"Yes-it is."
"I want to thank you, Tom. I was coming to your camp to-morrow, but I
couldn't wait. I-want to thank you, Tom."
"What for?"
"Oh, for everything. You don't realize the things you do and that's the
best part of it." "I didn't do noth--anything."
"You got me back my pin. Oh, Tom, you don't suppose five thousand
dollars is all my father will give--he'll give ten times that!"
Tom said nothing, and for a moment they stood there near the bridge,
hearing the river rippling below.
Then, impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him. "There," she
said, "that's how much I thank you! And I'm coming to your camp again.
I'm coming with my father," she said, as she turned and ran toward
home.
Still Tom said nothing. He could not handle a situation like this at
all.
A little way down the road she turned and waved her hand, and he
realized that if he were going to make any acknowledgment it would have
to be done now. So he mastered his embarrassment as best he could,
raised his hand awkwardly to his lips and threw a kiss to Mary Temple!
He had scarcely turned and started after the little cavalcade when he
stumbled into Roy.
"I was just coming to see where you were."
"Well, you took it, didn't you?" Roy added, as they walked along together.
"Took what?"
"Something for a service."
"I--I couldn't help myself," said Tom.
For answer Roy gave him a shove and laughed outright. "So your Uncle
Dudley was right and you broke the scout law after all--ya-a-ah-a!"
They walked a little way in silence.
"Well, anyway," Roy said, "you can say you tossed it back, can't you?"
"'Twasn't her ball."
"It was much better than a ball."
"How do you know what I took and what I tossed back?"
"A scout is observant," said Roy.
THE END
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