SCOUT GRIT
"Tell us how it happened, Billy!" said the patrol leader, when the
clamor of excited voices partly died away, giving him a chance to make
himself heard.
"Yes, what did they do to you, Billy?" demanded Josh, noticing that the
other did not seem to be limping, or showing any other signs of having
met with rough treatment at the hands of the camp raiders.
"Why, it was this way," Billy hastened to explain. "You see I was down
by the water cleaning all those fish at the time. Guess I must have
been pretty much a whole hour at the job. And I'd just about finished
when I thought I heard somebody give a sneeze, which made me get up off
my knees and look around."
"And did you see the tramps in camp cleaning things out then?" asked
Felix.
"Well, no, not exactly," replied Billy; "the most I thought I saw was
something moving in the bushes on the other side of the camp; and yes,
it was just like a laugh too that I caught."
"What did you do?" asked Josh.
"I wondered if those wild dogs had come back," said the guardian of the
camp, "and the first thing I thought to do was to put the pan of fish
I'd cleaned up in the crotch of a tree. Then I went to the camp, and
oh! my stars I but it was in an _awful_ mess, with things flung around,
and most of our eatables taken, as well as the frying-pan and
coffee-pot!"
"Oh! that's sure the limit!" groaned Josh. "We'll never be able to keep
on our hike with nothing to eat or drink, and not a pan to cook stuff
in, even if we bought it from the farmers. It spells the end, fellows!"
"Yes," echoed George, always seeing the worst side of things, "we'll
have to go back to town like dogs with their tails between their legs,
and have all the other fellows make fun of us."
"Hold on there, fellows, don't show the white feather so easily," said
Tom, who was looking very determined.
"Do you mean there's any chance for us to keep going, after our things
have been taken in this way?" demanded George.
"Well, we can talk that over to-night, and then see what Mr.
Witherspoon has to say about it when he joins us in the morning," Tom
told him. "As for me, I'd be willing to go on half rations rather than
own up beat. How do we know but that this raid on our stuff was made
just to force us to give up our hike?"
"Why, how could that be?" asked Billy Button, wonderingly.
"And why would hoboes want that to happen?" added George.
"When Billy says they were tramps he's only jumping to conclusions,"
Tom explained, "he doesn't know a thing about it, because he owns up he
failed to get even a single look at the thieves. I've got my own
opinion about this thing."
"Meaning you believe you know who the fellows were?" questioned Carl.
"Stop and think--who would like nothing better than to put us in a
hole? Don't we happen to know that Tony Pollock and his crowd are
around here on Big Bear Mountain somewhere? Didn't they rob that hen
roost of Mr. Perkins?"
"Tom, I really believe you're right!" exclaimed Josh, beginning to look
at the matter from the standpoint taken by the patrol leader.
"We can soon settle that part of it!" declared Rob Shaeffer.
"By hunting for their tracks, and finding out how many thieves there
were," Tom went on to say. "Come on Billy, and show me just where you
saw the bushes moving when that laugh struck you."
He called upon the others to keep back so that they might not spoil any
tracks to be found at that particular spot. A very little search showed
the boys what they so eagerly sought.
"Here are tracks enough, and all heading away from the camp," said the
patrol leader presently, "let's see how we can classify them, for every
footprint will be different from the others."
"Here's one that is square across the toe," announced Josh, instantly.
"And say, seems to me I remember Asa Green always wears shoes like
that. Now Wedge McGuffey has got broad shoulders and spindle legs, and
he wears a pointed shoe like the one that made these tracks."
"Here's another that's got a patch across the toe," said Felix.
"Couldn't mistake that shoe, no matter where you saw it. A fellow could
be hung on such circumstantial evidence as that."
"And here's a fourth that's different from any of the rest," continued
Tom, as he pointed downward, "so it looks as if there were just four in
the bunch, which you may remember corresponds with the number in Tony
Pollock's crowd, now that Dock Phillips has thrown his lot in with
them."
Some of the scouts expressed their indignation loudly as they
investigated the results of the daring raid. It would not have been
pleasant for Tony and his cronies had they been brought face to face
with the angry scouts about that time.
Tom Chesney soon had reason to admit that he had met with a personal
loss that bothered him exceedingly.
"They've even taken my little diary in which I've been keeping an
accurate account of our entire trip," he announced; "though what good
that could do them I'm at a loss to understand."
"Oh! they just believed it would make you feel bad," explained Carl;
"and that would tickle Tony, he's such a mean sort of fellow. Perhaps
he expects to read it out to the others while they sit by their fire,
and then throw it away. I hope you can write it all over again, Tom."
"Too bad!" declared Josh, "when you went to such trouble to jot
everything down just as it happened, thinking you might take that prize
offered for the best true account of a hike by scouts."
"I'll make sure to write this latest adventure out while it's fresh in
my mind," remarked Tom, bent on making the best of a bad bargain.
"Well," observed Felix, "all I hope is that we decide not to give up
the ship for such a little thing as being without provisions. It'll
make us hustle some to lay in a supply; but, after all, the experience
is going to be a great thing for us."
"And if it comes to a vote," added Horace, showing unexpected stamina
in this emergency; "count on my voice being raised against giving up.
Why, I'm just getting interested in this game, and I find it pretty
exciting."
"Just what I say!" echoed Josh.
"And I!" came from every one of the others, without even the exception
of poor Billy, who seemed to feel that he might be mostly to blame
because the raid on the camp had been conducted while he was in charge.
Tom smiled on hearing so unanimous an expression of opinion. He knew
that even such an apparent catastrophe as had befallen them was not
going to cause these gallant fellows to "take water."
"How long ago was it that the raid took place, Billy?" asked Josh, as
though a sudden idea had struck him.
"Oh! I should say about an hour or more," replied the other, after
thinking it over. "I suppose they watched the camp for a while to make
sure I was the only one around. Then when they saw me so busy down
there by the pond they just started to root. They may have been poking
around half an hour, for all I know; I was keeping my eyes on my work
and thinking of poor Walter."
"Tom, would it pay us to follow them right now?" demanded Josh, while
his eyes sparkled with the spirit of retaliation, as though he could
picture them pouncing on the spoilers of the camp, and making them pay
dearly for their frolic.
The patrol leader, however, shook his head in the negative, much to the
disappointment of the impetuous Josh.
"In the first place they were apt to hurry off," said Tom. "Then they
might even try to blind their trail, though I don't believe any of them
know much of the Indian way of doing that. But the sun will soon set,
and it grows dark early along the northeast side of Big Bear Mountain
you know."
"Yes," added George, always ready with an objection, "and some of us
feel a little tired after all we've gone through with to-day."
"We'd better leave that until Mr. Witherspoon joins us in the morning,"
concluded Tom. "Of course that wouldn't prevent a couple of scouts
following the trail a bit while breakfast was cooking, and saving us
that much trouble later on."
"The next thing for us to see about is how under the sun will we cook
all these delicious bass Billy's got ready?" remarked Felix.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you they missed one frying-pan," remarked Billy,
exultantly; "it chanced to be hanging from a nail I drove in a tree,
and they couldn't have seen it. By making relays we can do our cooking
in that."
"Besides, we're two shy of our original number," added Horace.
"What would we have done without any skillet at all, Tom?" asked Billy.
"Oh! there are ways of doing it by heating a flat stone, and cooking
the fish on that," replied Tom. "Then some old hunters who won't bother
to carry a frying-pan into the woods with them manage by toasting the
meat or fish at the end of a long sliver of wood. Given the fish and a
hot fire, the fellow who couldn't invent some way of cooking would
deserve to go hungry."
"That's right," agreed Josh. "And everybody notice that it's going to
take more than a little thing like this to stall the scouts who are up
to their business."
Indeed, there did seem to be an unusual spirit of animation among the
boys that evening. Every fellow was anxious to assist in getting supper
ready, so that after all it began to look at one time like a case of
"too many cooks spoiling the broth."
When the first batch of fish had been browned they were kept hot on a
clean stone close to the fire while the other lot was cooked. As their
supply of coffee had gone together with numerous other things, the boys
had to drink cold water for supper. Loud were the lamentations over
this.
"The smell of coffee, bacon, or fried onions is what always makes it
seem like camping out," declared Josh, sadly; "and now we haven't got a
single one of those lovely things left. Our breakfast is going to be a
pretty limited one; and as for other meals to-morrow, where they are
going to come from is a question I'd like somebody to settle."
"Listen," said Tom. "I'm going to get you up at daylight, Josh."
"Me? What for? Do we have to start in fishing that early, or else go
hungry?"
"I want you to go along with me, that's all, Josh."
"Along--where to, may I ask?" continued the other scout, wonderingly.
"Back to where we took Walter," replied Tom; "I think when that
gentleman hears what's happened to us, after we tell Mr. Witherspoon,
he might be willing to sell us some supplies, such as coffee and bacon,
and even loan us an extra frying-pan, as well as some sort of tin to
boil coffee in."
So, after all, the boys who gathered around the camp fire that evening,
after such an eventful day, did not seem to be cast down one-half as
much as undoubtedly the four young rascals who had played this mean
trick upon them expected would be the case.