THE VALUE OF A GOOD REPUTATION
When Bud presently arrived at the appointed rendezvous neither of his
comrades were in sight. He was nervously walking up and down when a few
minutes later Blake put in an appearance.
Blake looked particularly woe-begone. Evidently all his efforts to pick
up a promising clue to the solution of the great mystery had failed
miserably. Seeing Bud’s nervous stride, he eyed him hungrily.
“Something ails you, Bud, I’m sure it does from the way you act!” he
exclaimed, fresh hope struggling to gain a new grip on his heart.
“Please tell me if you’ve found out anything at all, because I haven’t
had the least bit of luck.”
“Well, I’ve nosed around like a regular bloodhound on the scent,”
observed Bud, with perhaps a little pardonable pride, “and I reckon now
I’ve got some _important_ news for Hugh when he shows up here.”
“Oh! have you found Felix?” burst from Blake, excitedly.
“Er, hardly as strong as that,” admitted the other, “but I’ve run across
a man who saw Luther Gregory looking from the second-story window of a
house not two miles from the border of this camp, and only this
afternoon, in the bargain; which you’ll have to own up is some evidence
that he knows what’s happened to your cousin.”
Blake proceeded forthwith to pump the hand of his wideawake chum as
though in this fashion alone could he show his sincere appreciation of
the wonderful news Bud had brought in.
“There comes Hugh right now,” added Bud, with the smile of conscious
superiority spread across his face, “and there’ll be something doing
soon, believe me.”
The scout master approached. He did not look particularly happy himself,
for, to tell the truth, Hugh had failed to succeed in finding any
conclusive evidence that promised to take them to where the absent Felix
might be found. When he saw how his two comrades were beckoning to
hasten his steps, and discovered their triumphant manner, Hugh lost no
time in joining them.
“Glad to see that you’ve had more success this time than fell to my
lot,” was his salutation as he came up; “now string it off, and tell me
what’s happened to make you both look so oh-be-joyful.”
Bud waited for no second invitation. It did not happen every day that he
was given such a splendid chance to shine in the limelight, and he would
not have been a genuine boy had he failed to take advantage of the
golden opportunity. So, in as terse terms as he could possibly summon to
the front, he told the story of how, after a myriad of efforts, he had
finally run across what seemed to be a most promising clue.
Hugh listened and made little comment until the story had been ended.
Then he gripped the other’s hand.
“Bud, old man, I’m beginning to think that the luck of this deal is
running strongly in your direction!” he exclaimed, heartily. “If that
master schemer of a Luther Gregory is close by, the man he hired must
know where to find him; and it stands to reason that if he succeeded in
bundling Felix out of camp, even if no one is able to tell how it could
be done, why the first thing he’d do would be to take him to that
house.”
“Oh! and then all we’ve got to do,” broke in the delighted Blake, who
was hardly able to keep from dancing on his tiptoes, such was his
increasing happiness, “is to get a detail of the guardsmen, and go there
to arrest the whole bunch.”
“Of course that’s our move,” admitted Hugh, “though we mustn’t be too
fast about carrying it out. The whole night is before us, you know. They
won’t hurt Felix, if our theory is correct. All they want to do is to
keep him out of our reach for twenty-four hours.”
“But we ought to see Captain Barclay again, hadn’t we, Hugh?” questioned
Bud.
“That would be our wisest move,” agreed the patrol leader, “because
we’ll need some help to round up those rascals; and it can only be
gotten through an order signed by our friend, the artillery captain.”
“No sleep for me tonight, I wager,” said Blake; but somehow he seemed to
glory in the fact rather than put on a doleful expression. Action meant
a fresh possibility for a successful ending of his search.
Hugh looked around him. The camp of the guardsmen still presented a
wonderfully fascinating picture in his eyes, even though some of the
tired militiamen had sought their tents in order to try and get a little
sleep, having had their rest broken more or less since leaving their
widely separated homes.
“There’s the captain heading this way now!” exclaimed Bud, with sudden
zeal. “P’r’aps we had better tackle him while we have the chance, Hugh.
He’s got a heap of camp duties to look after, and, according to military
rules, they’d have to take precedence above any private business.”
“Come on, then, and we’ll start the ball rolling,” the scout master
agreed.
When Captain Barclay saw his trio of boy friends from Oakvale heading
toward him, he smiled amiably, and nodded his head.
“Any good news, boys?” he immediately asked, showing that he still
remembered about their mission; “heard of Felix Gregory anywhere, and
was he visiting in some other part of the camp?”
“No, sir, nothing can be learned about him from any of the men,” replied
Hugh, and then immediately adding: “Our chum here, Bud Morgan, happened
to learn something that we believe may offer a strong clue.”
“Tell me about it, then,” the officer commanded. “I’m very interested in
the result of your noble mission; and this strange disappearance of an
enlisted man from camp is bothering some of us. I haven’t mentioned it
to any one higher up, but was just thinking of seeing the general about
it. Things like that reflect upon the management of a military camp,
where it is expected that discipline governs every movement, so that it
would appear to be impossible for a single individual to drop out. Now
proceed, please.”
Hugh told the story, giving Bud due honors for having made the wonderful
discovery that Luther Gregory was hovering near by, evidently bent on
sharing some of the foul work with the man whom his money had hired.
Captain Barclay asked several sharp questions. It could be seen that he
was intensely interested. Bud made haste to enlighten him on the points
that did not appear to be quite clear in his mind.
“Just as you say, Hugh,” he finally remarked, decisively, “things begin
to look promising. The chances are ten to one that if Felix has been
coaxed or smuggled out of the camp here, he was taken to that lonely
house on the road. I believe I can remember noticing the place as we
passed from the station this afternoon, where I went to look after some
additional baggage that had been shipped by rail from the home town.”
“You’ll help us, won’t you, Captain?”
“I certainly will, to the full extent of my power,” came the hearty
response, “though before anything can really be done in the matter I
must have a talk with my commanding officer at Headquarters. Fortunately
there seems to be nothing of moment to demand my attention. So, if you
will once more wait for me here, I’ll see the general again. He was
interested in you before, after I had told him some things I knew, and
how Oakvale held the scouts in such high esteem.”
“Oh! I hope he agrees to let you help us surround that house, and see if
Felix is held a prisoner there,” remarked Blake.
“I don’t have the slightest doubt about the ultimate outcome,” said the
officer, “so far as the general’s co-operation goes. Whether we find
your cousin there or not is another thing; but I believe the chances are
fairly good. Look for me inside of half an hour, boys.”
With that he hastened away, turning his back upon his comfortable tent
with its inviting camp cot, which must have appealed strongly to a tired
soldier.
“Half an hour he said, didn’t he?” sighed Blake. “Gee whiz! that’s a
whole thirty long minutes. It’ll seem like a week to me, I guess. But
what’s the use looking a gift horse in the mouth. I ought to be thanking
my lucky stars that there’s such a bully chance ahead. I’m going to quit
grumbling.”
“What do you expect he meant by saying the general was interested in us
as scouts, Hugh?” asked Bud.
“Oh! just what he explained by telling us he’d mentioned some of the
things we Oakvale scouts had hung up to our credit,” the patrol leader
answered. “I suppose there are few troops in the East that can point
with pride to a record like ours. We’ve been a whole lot lucky to have
such chances to do things come along.”
“At a time like this,” Bud continued, a look of satisfaction covering
his face, “it certainly does make a fellow feel good to know he hasn’t
any reason to be ashamed of his past record.”
“There, I saw a soldier stop the captain and salute, after which he
handed him something,” Blake burst out with, excitedly. “Now Captain
Barclay is pointing straight toward us, boys; and see, he’s handed the
thing back again. Looks to me as if he had ordered him to deliver the
same to us. I wonder what under the sun it can be?”
“We’ll soon know,” advised Bud, “because here comes the soldier; and by
the same token it’s Burch Shafter, Hugh, whom you got to join the
battery after convincing his mother it was a duty he owed his
country.”[3]
They watched the man in uniform approach them with growing interest. It
struck the scouts as having some sort of connection with their mission
in the mobilization camp. Perhaps the young fellow was bringing them
fresh news—Blake even began to speculate upon the most improbable
things, to the extent of wondering whether this might not be some
audacious communication from Luther Gregory telling him that his quest
would be fruitless, and that he might just as well return to Oakvale,
since he could not find Felix within the given time.
Then the artilleryman arrived. Young Shafter recognized them all, and he
looked particularly at Hugh with a gleam of affection in his eyes,
because the scout master had been mainly instrumental in getting his
mother’s consent to his enlistment. Nevertheless, he made a stiff
military salute upon first arriving, and then dropped his hand at his
side “at attention.”
“Huh! that doesn’t go among old friends, Burch,” chuckled Bud. “Nobody’s
watching you now, so you c’n drop your camp manners, and be sociable.”
With that he clutched the other’s hand and shook it. The “rookie”
laughed, and from that moment became companionable. Hugh and Blake in
turn greeted him; for up to then they had not chanced to run across
young Shafter, as he had been in another part of the camp, possibly sent
on official business.
“Something was found in Felix Gregory’s tent, and they dispatched me
with it to the captain,” he went on to explain. “When he looked it over
he said Blake here ought to take charge of the same, and so I’m turning
it over to him.”
When Blake glanced at the object that was placed in his hand he gave a
cry of astonishment.
“Look here, Hugh, Bud!” he commenced to say, deeply moved, “it’s a
letter written by Felix, and sealed; and, would you believe it, the same
is directed to Uncle Reuben. Oh! I wonder now did Felix repent of his
own accord of those ugly things he said in his hasty temper, and write
to apologize? Wouldn’t that be a great thing, though, and a bully ending
of the whole silly affair?”