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THE HICKORY RIDGE BOY SCOUTS
A SERIES OF BOOKS FOR BOYS
Which, in addition to the interesting boy scout
stories by CAPTAIN ALAN DOUGLAS, Scoutmaster, contain
articles on nature lore, native animals and a fund of
other information pertaining to out-of-door life, that
will appeal to the boy's love of the open.
I. The Campfires of the Wolf Patrol
Their first camping experience affords the scouts
splendid opportunities to use their recently acquired
knowledge in a practical way. Elmer Chenowith, a lad
from the northwest woods, astonishes everyone by his
familiarity with camp life. A clean, wholesome story
every boy should read.
II. Woodcraft; or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good
This tale presents many stirring situations in which
some of the boys are called upon to exercise all their
ingenuity and unselfishness. A story filled with
healthful excitement.
III. Pathfinder; or, The Missing Tenderfoot
Some mysteries are cleared up in a most unexpected
way, greatly to the credit of our young friends. A
variety of incidents follow fast, one after the other.
IV. Fast Nine; or, a Challenge From Fairfield
They show the same team-work here as when in camp. The
description of the final game with the team of a rival
town, and the outcome thereof, form a stirring
narrative. One of the best baseball stories of recent
years.
V. Great Hike; or, The Pride of The Khaki Troop
After weeks of preparation the scouts start out on
their greatest undertaking. Their march takes them far
from home, and the good-natured rivalry of the
different patrols furnishes many interesting and
amusing situations.
VI. Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day
Few stories "get" us more than illustrations of pluck
in the face of apparent failure. Our heroes show the
stuff they are made of and surprise their most ardent
admirers. One of the best stories Captain Douglas has
written.
* * * * *
Boy Scout Nature Lore to be Found in The Hickory Ridge
Boy Scout Series
Wild Animals of the United States--Tracking--in Number I.
Trees and Wild Flowers of the United States in Number II.
Reptiles of the United States in Number III.
Fishes of the United States in Number IV.
Insects of the United States in Number V.
Birds of the United States in Number VI.
_Cloth Binding_ _Cover Illustrations in Four Colors_
_40c. Per Volume_
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY
147 FOURTH AVENUE (near 14th St.) NEW YORK
WOODCRAFT
OR
HOW A PATROL LEADER MADE GOOD
COMPLETE ROSTER, WHEN THE PATROLS WERE FILLED, OF
THE HICKORY RIDGE TROOP OF BOY SCOUTS
MR. RODERIC GARRABRANT, SCOUT MASTER
THE WOLF PATROL
ELMER CHENOWITH, Patrol Leader, and also Assistant Scout Master
MARK CUMMINGS
TED (THEODORE) BURGOYNE
TOBY (TOBIAS) ELLSWORTH JONES
"LIL ARTHA" (ARTHUR) STANSBURY
CHATZ (CHARLES) MAXFIELD
PHIL (PHILIP) DALE
GEORGE ROBBINS
THE BEAVER PATROL
MATTY (MATTHEW) EGGLESTON, Patrol Leader
"RED" (OSCAR) HUGGINS
TY (TYRUS) COLLINS
JASPER MERRIWEATHER
TOM CROPSEY
LARRY (LAWRENCE) BILLINGS
HEN (HENRY) CONDIT
LANDY (PHILANDER) SMITH
THE EAGLE PATROL
JACK ARMITAGE, Patrol Leader
NAT (NATHAN) SCOTT
(OTHERS TO BE ENLISTED UNTIL THIS PATROL HAS
REACHED ITS LEGITIMATE NUMBER)
[Illustration: They had gone possibly another mile when Elmer came to a
halt.]
THE HICKORY RIDGE BOY SCOUTS
[Illustration]
WOODCRAFT OR HOW A PATROL LEADER MADE GOOD
BY CAPTAIN ALAN DOUGLAS SCOUT MASTER
[Illustration]
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--TWO SCOUTS IN A STORM 17
II.--A LESSON IN WOODCRAFT 25
III.--MORE RUMBLINGS OF COMING TROUBLE 34
IV.--FIRST AID TO THE INJURED 40
V.--THE MEETING IN THE OLD WAGON SHOP 48
VI.--THE LITTLE RED BUTTON 56
VII.--A JOB FOR THE BOY SCOUTS TO DO 62
VIII.--FOLLOWING A TRAIL 72
IX.--REASONING THAT LOOKED LIKE MAGIC 80
X.--GIVING MATT TUBBS A CHANCE 90
XI.--AT MCGRAW'S LUMBER YARD 97
XII.--A REBELLION NIPPED IN THE BUD 105
XIII.--RED PLANS THE PART OF THE CRAFTY FOX 113
XIV.--TAKEN BY SURPRISE 121
XV.--ELMER THINKS IT PAYS 129
XVI.--LENDING A HELPING HAND 137
WOODCRAFT
OR
HOW A PATROL LEADER MADE GOOD
_THE HICKORY RIDGE BOY SCOUTS_
WOODCRAFT;
OR,
HOW A PATROL LEADER MADE GOOD.
CHAPTER I.
TWO SCOUTS IN A STORM.
CRASHES of thunder, sounding like the roll of heavy artillery in battle,
echoed through the forest some miles above the town of Hickory Ridge on
an August day.
Overhead, black, sullen clouds had covered the heavens, and at any
moment now the ominous stillness of the woods might give way to the
rushing sound of the wild wind, together with a downpour of rain.
Two half-grown lads, dressed in the usual khaki costume recognized as
the official uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, were standing there
in the midst of the heavy growth, casting uneasy looks around them.
It is one thing to watch the coming of a furious storm from the windows
of one's home, and quite another to be caught napping, miles away from
shelter. And the smaller of the comrades had a frightened look on his
face.
"My goodness! hear that, will you, Larry?" exclaimed this rather timid
fellow, as he instinctively caught hold of his more sturdy comrade's
sleeve, when a particularly fierce flash of lightning was succeeded by a
terrific crash. "Ain't you going to find a hollow tree somewhere, and
climb in? Why, we'll get soaked to the skin if we don't look out, I tell
you!"
"I reckon you're about right there, Jasper," replied the other, Larry
Billings by name; and he made a wry face while speaking. "But then, you
see, there are some things worse than getting wet, and being struck by
lightning happens to be one of the same. Excuse me, if you please; I'll
take my medicine the best I can, but you remember, Jasper, among a lot
of other things we learned when we joined the scouts, we were warned
never under any circumstances to get under a tree during a
thunderstorm."
"But that meant out in the open, where there might be only one tree,"
remonstrated Jasper, whose last name happened to be Merriweather. "Here
in the woods it's a heap different, I should think. Among so many big
trees you don't think now for a minute that freak lightning's going to
pick out the very one we're in, to knock it to flinders, do you, Larry?"
"I don't know, and what's more I ain't going to try to find out," went
on the stockier built lad, with resolution in his manner. "You and me
came away up here just to see how much we had learned about woodcraft,
and it wouldn't look right if we shied at one of the rules the first
chance. Besides," he went on, with a broad grin, for Larry was a
good-natured fellow ordinarily, "if the experiment proved to be a dead
failure, we wouldn't be given a chance to try it over again, you see.
Lightning don't often knock at the same door twice."
"Ugh! you make me shiver, Larry!" exclaimed the smaller lad. "But what
in the wide world can we just do to keep dry?"
"Oh! that's the least thing that bothers me," replied the other. "Being
wet ain't anything much-a-much. I've tumbled in mill races, and been
yanked out of ponds ever since I was knee high to a duck. But the worst
is yet to come, Jasper."
"Now you're just trying to scare me, Larry, and you ought to be ashamed
to do it. You know I used to be the most timid fellow ever, and that it
was only after I joined the scouts, and went on that trip up the
Sweetwater to Lake Solitude that I began to outgrow that failing. Now
it's beginning to get a grip on me again. But tell me, whatever do you
mean by saying the worst is something more than getting our new uniforms
soaked through?"
"Why, you see, Jasper, we're lost, that's what!" remarked Larry,
although the fact did not seem to frighten him very much, for he was
chuckling while speaking as though it looked like a big joke to him.
But with poor Jasper the case was entirely different.
"Well, that beats the Dutch!" he cried with genuine disgust. "The two of
us felt so dead sure we knew it all, that nothing would do for us but to
come away up here five miles or so from home, just to show everybody
that we could take care of ourselves. And now you deliberately tell me
we've gone and got lost, like the poor little babes in the woods, and
with a terrible storm going to pounce down on us right away."
"Oh! brace up, Jasper!" exclaimed Larry, seeing the lower lip of his
comrade quivering, and his face showing signs of becoming pallid. "This
may be the making of us as scouts, you see. No fellow's worth beans
until he's proved that he can take the rough jolts as well as the smooth
things of life. Just put your teeth together, and say you're going to
grin and bear it, no matter what comes."
"Ain't I trying to, Larry," pleaded the smaller chap, "but it seems like
my teeth keep on rattling all the while. I'm shivering, and yet it can't
be with the cold. I wish I had some of Elmer Chenowith's nerve just
now."
"Shucks! I reckon now that you can have your share of nerve, Jasper,"
declared Larry, impatiently, "if only you make up your mind to _take_
it. Didn't Mr. Garrabrant, our fine scout-master, tell us only the other
night that was so? Just shut your teeth hard, and say over and over
again that you ain't goin' to let anything feaze you. You'll be
surprised at the feeling it gives you."
"I wonder now, did Elmer really mean to keep tabs on what we were
doing?" remarked Jasper, after another tremendous peal of thunder had
seemed to almost split the heavens open. "You know, we thought he looked
at us kind of funny when he asked us what we meant to do this morning,
hiking out of Hickory Ridge, with our sticks in our hands and some grub
in our haversacks."
"Oh! I don't think Elmer would bother following all this way," replied
Larry, though at the same time he might have been seen to cast an
anxious, eager glance around, as though indulging in a faint hope
himself that something of the sort had happened.
"Well, he's the best fellow ever, you know, Larry," the smaller boy went
on, "and he's sure taken a heap of interest in my trying to make a man
of myself. He even took the trouble to come and see me twice, and go
over a lot of things with me that he said a true scout ought to know."
"Sure Elmer is worth his weight in gold," Larry affirmed. "And now's the
time to show him his faith in you wasn't wasted, Jasper. Buck up, and
just make up your mind neither of us happens to be made of salt, so a
little juice ain't going to hurt us. As for that lightning, well,
perhaps we might find some hole to climb in, because it wouldn't hunt us
out underground."
"Oh! if we only could!" gasped Jasper, as another flash came that fairly
dazzled both boys; to be succeeded by a sudden report that sounded as
though something had exploded near by.
"Listen! what's that?" demanded the smaller boy, again clutching his
comrade by the sleeve.
"Reckon she's hiking along right fast now," answered Larry, grimly.
"Come, let's walk over this way. Who knows but we might run on some sort
of shelter. And when we're up against such a snag, I tell you flat that
beggars ain't goin' to be choosers if the chance comes our way."
"That must be rain we hear away off there," suggested Jasper,
shuddering.
"Rain and wind together; and sounds to me like it might turn out to be
something of a howler. Hope the trees don't go dropping around us. We
might have some trouble dodging 'em if they came too fast."
Jasper shot a quick look at his companion's face, as if to see whether
Larry could mean what he said. Then he bit his lower lip until it
actually bled. But for the time being not another expression of dismay
did he utter. Fear of ridicule had conquered over the genuine article.
They hurried forward, both of them eagerly looking for some hollow log,
or overturned tree, that might give some promise of shelter against the
deluge that would soon be upon them.
"You keep tabs on the right, and I'll cover the left!" remarked Larry,
but he had to raise his voice to almost a shout now, because of the
increasing roaring sound that was sweeping down upon their rear.
"It's getting night in the woods!" cried Jasper, as the gloom increased.
"Rats!" scoffed his comrade, derisively. "You know it ain't more'n two
o'clock. After it's all over the bully old sun will be shining again,
all right."
"Oh! do you really think so, Larry?" asked the other, grasping at the
slightest gleam of hope, just as a drowning person might at a floating
straw.
"Well, it'll be shining, all right," asserted Larry, positively, "and I
reckon we'll be on deck to see it, too. Hi! what's this here, Jasper?"
"Have you struck a place for us to crawl in, Larry? Oh! I hope so, I'm
sure! Why, it's a hollow log, and with a hole plenty big enough to let a
fellow creep inside!"
"That's right," called the other, cheerfully. "And now suppose you get
down on your knees, and push in, feet first. Then if you should get
stuck, you could crawl out again, see?"
"But looky here, Larry," cried Jasper suddenly and suspiciously. "It's
such an awfully short log, I don't believe both of us can ever get in
it."
"No more we can, Jasper, and all the more reason for you to crawl in
right away now," and Larry began to urge his comrade to flatten himself
out on the ground, with both feet in touch with the hollow log.
"But how about you, Larry?" expostulated Jasper.
"Shucks! didn't I tell you I wasn't made of sugar or salt? Rain won't
ever hurt Larry Billings. Get a move on you now, and squeeze in. That
wet old rain is mighty near here now. I thought I felt a drop right
then. Crawl, you slow tortoise! Here, let me give you a shove along."
Jasper turned a white face upward.
"You ain't going to run away, and leave me here, are you, Larry?" he
asked.
"What! me?" shouted the other, indignantly. "What d'ye take me for,
Jasper? A true scout would never act that way to a chum. Not much. I'm
just goin' to snuggle down alongside the log here, and wait till the
storm blows itself out. Get a good grip on yourself now, and nothing
ain't goin' to hurt you. Give you my word on it, Jasper," and he again
started to energetically push the smaller lad into the gaping hole that
had offered such an asylum in time of need.
"And the lightning won't strike this log, either, will it?" the boy who
was accepting the wooden jacket asked.
"Never in the world. That's what Mr. Garrabrant told us--hunt out a
hollow log if you can, but never a tree that's standing upright. Nor a
barn either, for that matter. In you go, Jasper; why, man alive, you're
going to be as snug as a bug in a rug, don't you know."
"But Larry, won't you please knock on the side every little while,"
asked the timid one, eagerly. "It'll be so comforting to me to just know
you're still there, even if I can't see you."
"Course I will, and right hearty, too," jollied Larry, who realized now
that the boy was pretty badly rattled by the terrific roar of the storm,
as well as by the strange gloom that had fallen on the great woods, and
in thus trying to comfort his weaker companion Larry quite forgot any
natural fear he might have himself otherwise experienced.
"I guess I'm fixed all right now," came in half muffled tones from
inside the log, and then suddenly Jasper gave a shrill cry. "Oh! there's
something biting at my feet! Larry, pull me out, quick! There's a bear
or a wildcat in here, and it'll chew my feet up! Hurry, hurry! get me
out!"
So there seemed nothing for it but that Larry should catch hold, and
help the panic-stricken one out of the hollow log again. When this had
been done, they just stood there in the gathering gloom and looked at
each other.
"Reckon you'll just have to take your ducking the same as me, then,"
grumbled Larry, with the resigned air of a martyr who had done his best
for a friend, and could not be blamed for whatever happened.
"Then I will, Larry," said Jasper, trying to be brave, though still
shuddering. "Let's both run over there, and see if we can find shelter
behind the roots of that fallen tree! Oh! wait, wait, I surely saw
something moving there! Yes, look Larry, there it is again! Why, it's a
man--no, a boy! that's what it is!"
"Sure it is," laughed Larry, with the greatest relief possible in his
voice; "and no other than Elmer Chenowith, our scout leader. He _did_
follow us all the way up here, and it's a mighty good thing for us that
happened. It's all right now, Jasper. He'll know what to do!"