THE MAIN TRAIL
But a trail is a funny thing. It is full of surprises and hard to
follow. For one thing, you can never tell just where it is going to
bring you out. There is the main trail and there are branch trails, and
it is often puzzling to determine which is the main trail and which the
branch.
Yet you must determine this somehow, for the one may lead you to food
and shelter, to triumph and honor perhaps; while the other, which may be
ever so clear and inviting, will lead you into bog and mire; so you have
to be careful.
Of one thing you may be certain: there are not often two trails to the
same place. You must pick one branch or the other. You must know where
you want to go, and then hit the right trail. You must not be fooled by
a side trail just because it happens to be broad and easy and pleasant.
There are ways of telling which is the right trail, and you must learn
those ways; otherwise you are not a good scout.
Upon the sleeve of Tom Slade's khaki jacket was seen the profile of an
Indian. It was the scouts' merit badge for pathfinding. It meant that he
knew every trail and byway for miles about Temple Camp. It meant that he
had picked his way where there was no trail, through a dense and tangled
wilderness; that he had found his way by night to a deserted hunting
shack on the summit of a lonely wooded mountain in the neighborhood of
Temple Camp and that he had later blazed a trail to that isolated spot.
Even Rossie Bent had opened his eyes at Tom's simple, unboastful
narrative of this exploit, and had followed Tom's finger on the office
map as he traced that blazed trail from the wood's edge near the camp up
through the forest and along the brook to the very summit of the
frowning height, from which the nickering lights of Temple Camp could be
seen in the distance.
"I'll bet not many people go up there," Roscoe had said.
So it was natural that when Tom looked back and thought of his career as
a scout, of his rise from squalor and vicious mischief to this level of
manliness and deserved honor, he should think of it as a trail--a good
scout trail which he had picked up and followed. Down there in the mud
of Barrel Alley it had begun, and see where it had led! To the platform
of the Bridgeboro Lyceum where he, Tom Slade, would wear his Gold Cross,
which every citizen at that patriotic Registration Day celebration might
see, and would represent the First Bridgeboro Troop, B. S. A. in the
town's welcome to the governor!
Oh, he was happy!
"It's good I didn't listen to Slats Corbett and Sweet Caporal," he
mused. "I hit the right trail, all right. I bet if----"
The door opened suddenly, and Mr. Brown from the bank entered with
another gentleman, who appeared greatly disturbed.
"Has Rossie Bent been up here to-day?" Mr. Brown asked.
"No, sir," said Tom. He felt his own voice tremble a little, and he
realized that something was wrong.
"This is Mr. Bent," said Mr. Brown, "Roscoe's father. Roscoe hasn't been
seen since last night, and his father is rather concerned about him."
"You haven't seen him--to-day?" Mr. Bent asked anxiously.
"No, sir," said Tom.
The two men looked soberly at each other, and Tom went over to the door
of the private office, which stood ajar, and quietly closed it.
"Mr. Burton is busy," he said.
"We might ask him," Mr. Brown suggested.
For the space of a few seconds Tom stood uneasily trying to muster the
courage to speak.
"It--it wouldn't be any good to let a lot of people know," he said
hesitatingly, but looking straight at Roscoe's father. "Mr. Burton only
got here a few minutes ago, and he couldn't tell anything.--If you spoke
to him, Miss Ellison would know about it too."
He spoke with great difficulty and not without a tremor in his voice,
but his meaning reached the troubled father, who nodded as if he
understood.
"It's early yet," Tom ventured; "maybe he'll think it over, kind of,
and--and----"
"Thank you, my boy," said Mr. Bent soberly.
The two men stood a moment, as if not knowing what to do next. Then they
left, and Tom remained standing just where he was. Of course, he was not
surprised, only shocked.
"I knew it all the time," he said to himself, "only I wouldn't admit
it."
He had been too generous to face the ugly fact. To him, who wished to go
to war, the very thought of slacking and cowardice seemed
preposterous--impossible.
"I was just kidding myself," he said, with his usual blunt honesty, but
with a wistful note of disappointment. "There's no use trying to kid
yourself--there ain't."
Mr. Burton came out with his usual smiling briskness and greeted Tom
pleasantly. "Congratulations, Tommy," said he. "I suppose I'll see you
among the big guns to-night. You leaving soon?"
"Y-yes, sir, in a few minutes."
"Miss Ellison and I are so unpatriotic that we're going to work till the
parade begins this afternoon."
"I don't suppose he'll even _notice_ us to-morrow," teased the girl,
"he'll be so proud."
Tom smiled uncomfortably and wandered over to the window where, but a
few minutes before, he had looked out with such pride and happiness. He
did not feel very happy now.
Close by him was a table on which were strewn photographs of Temple Camp
and the adjacent lake, a few birch bark ornaments, carved canes, and
other specimens of handiwork which scouts had made there. There was also
a large portfolio with plans of the cabins and pavilion and rough charts
and diagrams of the locality.
Tom had shown this portfolio to many callers--scoutmasters and parents
of scouts--who had come to make inquiries about the woodland community.
He had shown it to Roscoe Bent only the day before and, as we know, he
had been greatly pleased at the lively interest which that worldly young
gentleman had shown.
He opened the portfolio idly now, and as he did so his gaze fell upon
the map which showed the wooded hill and the position of the lonesome
shack upon its summit. He called to mind with what pride he had traced
his own blazed path up through the forest and how Roscoe had followed
him, plying him with questions.
Then, suddenly, like a bolt out of the sky, there flashed into Tom's
mind a suspicion which, but for his generous, unsuspecting nature, he
might have had before. Was _that_ why Roscoe Bent had been so interested
in the little hunting shack on the mountain? Was _that_ why he had asked
if any one ever went up there; why he had inquired if there were fish to
be caught in the brook and game to be hunted in the neighborhood? Was
that why he had been so particular about the blazed path, and whether
there was a fireplace in or near the shack? Had he been thinking of it
as a safe refuge, a place of concealment for a person who had shirked
his duty?
"He could never live there," said Tom; "he could never even _get_
there."
As the certainty grew in his mind, he was a little chagrined at his own
credibility, but he was more ashamed for Roscoe.
"I might have known," he said, "that he wasn't really interested in
camping.... He's a fool to think he can do that."
To Tom, who longed to go to war and who was deterred only by his promise
to Mr. Ellsworth, the extremity that Roscoe had evidently gone to in the
effort to escape service seemed unbelievable. But that was his game, and
Tom saw the whole thing now as plain as day. It made him almost sick to
think of it. While he, Tom, would be handing badges to the throng of
proud and lucky young men just fresh from registering, while he sat upon
the platform and listened to the music and the speeches in their honor,
Roscoe Bent would be tracing his lonely way up that distant mountain
with the insane notion of camping there. He would try to cheat the
government and disgrace his family.
"I don't see how he could do that--I don't," said Tom. "I wonder what
his father would say if he knew.--I wonder what Miss Ellison would say.
I wonder what his mother would think."
He looked down again into Barrel Alley, and fixed his eyes upon the
tenement where he and his poor mother and his wretched father had lived.
But he was not thinking of his mother now--he was thinking of Roscoe
Bent's mother and of his troubled father, going from place to place and
searching in vain for his fugitive son.
"If I told him," thought Tom, "it would queer Roscoe. It wouldn't do for
anybody to know.... I just got to go and bring him back.... Maybe they'd
let him register to-morrow. He could say--he could say anything he
wanted to about why he was away on the fifth of June. If he comes back
they'll let him register, but if he doesn't they'll find him; they'll
put his name in newspapers and lists and they'll find him. I just got to
go and bring him back. And I got to go without telling anybody anything,
too."
For a few moments longer he stood gazing out of the window down into
that muddy alley where the good scout trail to honor and achievement had
begun for him. For a few moments he thought of where it had brought him
and of the joy and fulfillment which awaited him this very night. He
wondered what people would say if he were not there. Well, in any event,
they would not call him a slacker or a coward. He felt that there was no
danger of being misjudged if he did his highest duty.
"It's kind of like a branch trail I got to follow," he said, his voice
breaking a little. "I said it was a good trail, but now I see there's a
branch trail that goes off, kind of, and I got to follow that...."
But, of course, it wasn't a branch trail at all--it was the main trail,
the true scout trail, which, forgetting all else, he was resolved to
follow.