THE BOY SCOUT PATHFINDERS
TWELVE VOLUMES
THE BOY SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL
THE BOY SCOUTS AFLOAT
THE BOY SCOUTS IN CAMP
THE BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
THE BOY SCOUT FIREFIGHTERS
THE BOY SCOUT PATHFINDERS
THE BOY SCOUT AUTOMOBILISTS
THE BOY SCOUT AVIATORS
THE BOY SCOUTS’ CHAMPION RECRUIT
THE BOY SCOUTS’ DEFIANCE
THE BOY SCOUTS’ CHALLENGE
THE BOY SCOUTS’ VICTORY
[Illustration: They sent the message quickly, accurately.]
THE BOY SCOUT PATHFINDERS
By
GEORGE DURSTON
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Chicago AKRON, OHIO New York
Made in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1921
By
The Saalfield Publishing Co.
CHAPTER I
THE IRON BOX
Two members of any staff, even though they are only boys, cannot
disappear as though the earth had swallowed them without a suspicion
of foul play.
In the office above the chamber which had witnessed the stirring
events narrated in “The Boy Scout Firefighters,” in which both Beany
and Porky Potter had been actors, there had been great anxiety. When
General Pershing received the report, he at once sent couriers and
scouts to every station where the boys might have gone. The sentries
one and all declared that the boys had not been seen outside of the
building. This resulted in a combing out of every cranny that could
possibly hold a boy alive or dead.
The hours dragged on. There was a continual passing to and fro for
hours until at last there seemed to be absolutely nothing more to do
until morning. The tired staff threw themselves into the office
chairs, while the General, at the typewriter, commenced a letter.
Out of respect to him, there was a complete silence in the room.
On and on clicked the typewriter while the waiting men dozed or
smoked or thought of home.
“What’s that?” said one of them suddenly, listening intently.
The General stopped writing and looked at the speaker.
“What’s what?” questioned a captain, frowning.
“That tapping,” said the first speaker. “Sounds like _code_.”
“You have been asleep,” said the captain, grinning.
“I hear it,” said the General.
There was a general gathering up of forces, as the whole room tried
to place the faint, monotonous tapping.
“The call for help!” said the first speaker triumphantly. “I _knew_
I heard it. The code is my native language almost. It sounds as
though some one was calling from below the floor.”
“Send an answer, Lieutenant Reed!” ordered the General.
The young officer obeyed, while his hearers listened breathlessly.
Tap-tap went the spurred heel, dash and dot, dash and dot in many
combinations.
The reply followed swiftly. The Lieutenant, rather pale, turned to
the General. “It’s the boys!” he reported. “They are together, in a
closed chamber,--a dungeon, I take it--right below us. They are in
danger. Don’t say what. Something about spies and dynamite. Want
help instantly.”
“How?” asked the General.
“There’s a secret door in the oak panel in the hall. They gave
directions for opening it.”
“Go at once, six of you--you six nearest the door!” The officers
designated rose.
“Rush!” said Lieutenant Reed crisply. For the moment he was in
command. He alone knew how to open the panel. They hurried outside,
where Reed felt swiftly but carefully in the place described by
Porky. Twice he went over the heavy carving, pushing here and there
unavailingly. Then without a sound the secret door opened and before
any one could enter the passage that yawned in inky blackness before
them, there was a rush of running feet and the two boys, carrying
Beany’s coat between them, bolted into the hall. Porky made a motion
for silence, and listened.
There was no sound.
“Somebody chased us!” he panted. “Somebody was close behind us in
the dark!”
“Men?” asked an officer in an excited whisper.
Porky wanted to say “No, sir, _rabbits_!” but he knew that every one
felt nervous and edgy and, besides, he did not want to be
disrespectful to the officer who had spoken.
“They came in through the other door,” he said. “A door at the other
end of the passage that is on the other side of the two big rooms
down below there.”
“Let’s go down,” said one of the men, loosening his revolver.
“Please don’t try it!” begged Beany. “We could never get down
without light and then they would have the drop on us. It’s no use
now. Besides, they could go out of that outside door without the
least trouble after they had shot us all up.”
“The kid is right,” said Lieutenant Reed. “He knows how the land
lies down there. Come up to the General, boys, and make a report. He
will tell us what he wants done.”
Sliding the panel shut, the Lieutenant called a guard and, leaving
the hallway patrolled by a couple of stalwart Americans, the group
surrounding the two boys entered the office and saluted the General.
General Pershing bent his serious, keen gaze on the boys, then a
bright, sudden smile lighted the strong, handsome face that had
grown sad and still in the troubled, anxious months at the front.
“Always up to something, boys,” he said. “Well, your friend the
Colonel warned me how it would be. Now suppose you tell me all about
it.”
Beany with a sigh of relief lifted his blouse and deposited it on
the table. It struck the surface with a clank and as he pulled the
cloth away a regular flood of gold pieces covered the papers where
the General had been writing.
“Part of the story, sir,” said Beany. And then talking together, or
taking turns, as the spirit moved them, the boys pieced out the
account of their adventures. The part that Beany kept harking back
to was the presence of the prisoners in the big room. He described
carefully and accurately the appearance of the young soldier and
told as well as he could about the limp, unconscious girl who had
been carried out into the dark garden. Beany shuddered as he spoke.
“I am sure the girl was dead, sir. She laid there for hours, I
guess, and she never moved at all, never batted an eyelash. And she
was white.... I never saw anybody so white. It was as though all her
blood had been drained out of her.”
“Was she wounded?” asked the General.
“She must have been, sir,” answered Beany. “I saw blood, just a
little of it running down her wrist under her sleeve. She had nice
clothes on, and I had a hunch all the time that I ought to know who
she was; but I couldn’t tell. Wish we knew what they did with them.
When it comes light, General, I can show you just where the door is.
I am sure I know where it opens.”
“It is light now,” said the General, pointing to the window. Every
one looked. Sure enough, the whole sky was a mass of pale gold and
pink and greenish blue, as lovely and soft and joyous as though the
distant rumble of the big guns was not shaking the casement as they
spoke. It was light; morning had come.
The General ordered coffee and rolls and insisted on both boys
eating something. They were tired and heavy eyed but excited at the
thought of unraveling perhaps a little more of the mystery of the
past night.
When at last the General dismissed them with a few terse orders,
they sped ahead of their escort through the silent garden, fearless
and curious and unconscious of the careful marksmen who followed,
protecting each foot of their advance.
Beany had spoken the truth. With the sureness of a young hound he
took his way through a wilderness of stones and bricks and beams and
plaster through the tangled, torn old garden, and round to a spot
marked by what seemed to be a clump of dense bushes like low growing
lilacs. Approaching this, Beany parted the branches and peered in.
Then he drew back with a cry of horror.
“Look!” he whispered.
It was indeed the ambush set over the outside entrance to the
dungeons. Down in the depths of the hole that yawned under the
encircling bushes something was tumbled in a pitiful, distorted
heap. Eagerly a half dozen men leaped down and with careful hands
straightened out the two forms lying in the bloody ooze. One after
the other they were lifted to the surface.
The man was quite dead but the girl still lived, though breathing
feebly.
Placing her on an improvised stretcher, a couple of the men hurried
away with her to the hospital while a couple more knelt beside the
dead boy and searched carefully through his torn and blood-stained
clothing for papers, letters--anything that could be used as clues to
his identity. There was not a scrap left to guide them. The young
officer’s pockets had been turned inside out. Even the hems in his
tunic and breeches had been slit and the soles had been torn from
his shoes. If there had been papers of any sort secreted about him,
they were gone--carried away by the ruthless hands that had slain
him.
Leaving a guard beside the body, the others leaped boldly into the
shallow pit and lifted the heavy bar which held the massive
nail-studded oaken door. It opened inward, and Beany led the way
through the passage into the chamber where he had sat bound, gagged
and waiting for the relentless hands of the clock to reach the
moment of his doom. He showed the device, and then, lighting the
stubs of candles, they went into the inner room. The dungeons were
dark as midnight, even in the clear morning light.
A careful search was made of the rooms. They stamped on the floors,
rapped on the walls with pistol butts, ripped up the silken covers
and the thick mattresses, but found nothing. The men finally stopped
their search, and gathered in a group around the massive table.
Beany, sitting on the edge of the table, jounced up and down and
thought that he had never seen a piece of furniture quite so solid.
He took out a penknife and tried to whittle the edge but the keen
blade scarcely made an impression on the ironwood seasoned for ages.
Porky, watching his brother, listened to the conversation.
“Somewhere down here there is a hiding place for papers or money, or
perhaps both,” said one of the officers, a keen-faced, thoughtful
man, studying the room as he could see it in the flickering light of
the two candles which, now burned down to the merest stubs, afforded
a dim, uncertain light.
“We have given it a pretty thorough combing over,” said another
officer, frowning.
“I can’t help it,” stubbornly answered the other. “It is in just
such places as this where valuable secrets are often hidden.”
“What about the dynamite?” demanded some one else. “It does not seem
as though they would hide anything of any value to themselves in a
spot that they were willing to blow up.”
“A bomb that size would not have wrecked this room. Did you notice
the thickness of the walls?”
The talk went on while Beany whittled and pried away industriously
at the table edge. He found a crack in the wood and pried his knife
blade into that. The blade entered in a tantalizing manner, slipped
smoothly along, then struck metal. Beany pushed. Porky, who was
watching, came closer and peered down the crack. Beany pushed
harder, pushed as hard as he could, and suddenly felt himself flung
off the table as the big top flew up and hurled him aside.
Powerful springs had opened the two heavy slabs of oak that formed
the table. Two pieces now stood open like a pair of doors and within
lay a long, flat box which completely filled the space. The box was
of iron, heavily barred and padlocked. Four soldiers pried it from
its place and, escorted by the whole party, it was carried to
General Pershing, still working at his desk.
Once more the boys had unearthed a mystery.