During the evening recreation hour, when everybody was on deck, Tom,
Chippie, and Dick had a quiet talk below, sitting on Tom’s locker. Each
one of the three felt the urgent need of their getting together and
talking over, with the utmost frankness, everything that had happened
since the morning of the baseball game at Hull; but now that they were
sitting alone face to face, there did not seem so very much to say
after all, because of their talk on the way back from Salem and Dick’s
manly confession before all the boys.
“I’m glad you came out with it all, this morning, Dick,” said Tom. “It
must have hurt to have all the fellows know about it, and there was
nothing to force you to tell except your honor.”
“Yes,” chimed in Chippie, “you might have covered it up and taken the
commendation, and no one would have been any the wiser!”
“Yep,” retorted Dick, with a grim look, “but how do you think I would
have felt? Don’t you suppose that dirty trick I played at Hull would
have gnawed inside of me? I don’t suppose you fellows know how much it
hurts--when you have a right to know better. If it hadn’t been for our
talk on the way back from Salem, and the cat, and all that they brought
up to me about honor and the scout law, maybe I might have forgotten
the Hull business--for the time, anyway; but I’m mighty glad I didn’t.
Say, boys,” said he, with a sudden gleam of animation, “it’s like when
you’ve eaten something that goes against you; you can’t get right till
you’ve thrown it up!”
“To-morrow is Sunday,” said Tom, “and we expect to drop anchor in
Northbridge to-night. All hands are going ashore to church in the
morning, and there’s liberty in the afternoon. What do you fellows say
to a meeting of the Club on Duck Island?”
“A-1!” answered Dick.
“Bet your life!” exclaimed Chippie, “I’d like to hear that story over
again about ‘After you, pilot’, and the fellow that went down the
manhole. I say, Tom, I think we ought to write that out and keep it
in a secret and safe place in the shack. I’m thinking we may like to
remind ourselves of that story once in a while. You see this time it
was Dick that made a break, and I guess it was because he forgot all
about his oath in the excitement of the game. But maybe next time it
would be you or me, Tom, that would be tempted in some such way. We
might as well be prepared for the worst, and then the enemy can never
catch us asleep.”
“You’re a good one, Chip,” cried Dick, and gave his comrade a thump on
the back. “That makes me feel that we’re working together, and that
the Club is a real live thing. Before you said that, I had a sneaking
feeling that nobody could be as bad as I was, and that makes a fellow
feel kind of washed out and discouraged.”
“Now it’s time to go on deck, for the fellows will be coming down
to prayers in a few minutes,” said Tom. “We’ll write that story out
carefully with ink in the shack to-morrow afternoon”; and, as they
approached the companionway, Chippie gave Dick a shove up ahead of them
and whispered in his ear: “After you, pilot!”
There were only a few minutes to wait on deck before prayers, and Dick
felt relieved and refreshed, first, because the load of unacknowledged
guilt had rolled off him and had seemed to sink to the bottom of the
sea; and secondly, because he felt the respect and sympathy of his
brothers-in-arms. Dick Number 1 was in the saddle, and ready for action.
They came to anchor at Northbridge at about nine o’clock that
evening, and the next morning all hands landed and went to church.
The Northbridge boys then joined their families for dinner, while the
others returned on board and landed again in the afternoon to take
a hike through the surrounding country. Tom, Dick, and Chippie met,
according to their agreement, at the shack on Duck Island at four
o’clock.
“You call the meeting to order, Tom,” said Chippie, “that’s your
business; and, as Dick’s brother was the one who told us the story,
I vote Dick had better tell it to us the best he knows how, only
slowly--and I’ll write it down, and you can tell us when you think
we’re off the track.”
“Chip’s a pretty good manager, eh, Dick?” said Tom. “Here he orders
me to call the meeting to order and then goes on and tries to run it
himself! What do you think of that, sonny?”
“All right, Tom, it’s your show,” said Chippie, “only for goodness’
sake, begin.”
“This meeting will now come to order,” said Tom solemnly. “Does
everybody agree to what Chippie has said? If so, get your pen and paper
ready, Chip, and you, Dick, begin the story.”
There was a pause, and then Dick asked: “What was the name of the ship?”
“_Tecumseh_,” said Tom.
“Write that down, Chip,” said Dick, “the name of the ship was
_Tecumseh_”; and then he went on with the facts of the story, helped
along by suggestions from Tom and Chippie. It took them quite a long
time to get through, but finally they came to the last sentence: “And
so Captain Craven gave up his life to do his duty as a good scout,
and to keep his oath and law; and so, to remind them of his brave and
courteous act, the officers of the Navy have the custom of saying,
‘After you, pilot’ when one of them steps back to make way for another;
and also, because we want to be reminded of his brave and courteous act
and faithfulness to his oath and law, we--the members of the Triangle
Club of Duck Island--have written out this story to read once in a
while, and have taken ‘After you, Pilot’ as our motto.”
“I move,” cried Chippie, “that we adopt this as the charter of the
Club.”
“What’s a charter?” asked Dick.
“It means what the Club’s about,” said Chippie quickly.
“Well, if that’s so,” answered Dick, “I think there ought to be
something else in the Charter.”
“What’s that?” asked the others eagerly.
“Why, what we said in the beginning, when we first read the story, that
each one of us pledges himself to do his best, first, to keep the law
himself as well as he can, and then to help the others to do the same
thing; and--not only that--but each one will tell any other, when he
sees him sliding off, the way you talked to me coming back from Salem.”
Dick’s motion was unanimously agreed to, and then all three stood up
and took hold of hands to confirm their pledge, thus also forming
the triangle which was the symbol of the Club. They then all three
solemnly signed the document, affixing their scout signs:
[Illustration: Thomas Sheffield
Chipman R. Smith
Richard Gray]