ROB DELIVERS THE GOODS.
“What’s that splendid looking arch over there meant to represent, Rob?”
asked Andy, as he pointed to the right.
“They call it the Arch of the Setting Sun,” replied the scout leader.
“A mighty good name, considering how we’re at the jumping-off place of
the United States. Seems to me, Rob, that the Far West has always gone by
the name of the Land of the Setting Sun.”
“That’s why the arch has been built,” Rob told him. “You see, in pioneer
days the constant drift was always this way. Men who founded homes in
what was then the wilderness along the Ohio kept hearing wonderful
stories about the richness of the soil farther west, and what unlimited
fur-bearing animals were to be captured by those daring enough to take
the risk.”
“And so they kept pushing farther and farther, year in and year out. In
this way settlers finally overran the prairies, and crossed the Rockies?”
asked Andy, as he surveyed the beautiful arch that had been raised to
commemorate the dreams of the men who blazed the way of civilization
through the wilderness.
“Yes, and here along the shore of the Pacific lay the end of the dream,”
explained the scout leader. “California represented the foot of the
rainbow of promise those hardy men had seen painted in the sky. The
western sun meant a whole lot in those days; it shone over the Land of
Promise; it was the hope and ambition of almost every settler. No one
drifted East; it was always into the mysterious and beckoning West that
families emigrated.”
Around them were crowds of eager sight-seers. At times they jostled
elbows with representatives of numerous foreign nations.
“But there are not near so many foreigners visiting the Panama-Pacific
Exposition as there would have been only for the terrible European war
that’s raging across the ocean,” Rob happened to remark a little later
when the other scout called his attention to a group of dark-featured men
wearing the red fezzes of Orientals, and passing along as though viewing
the wonders of the exhibition with a lively interest.
“I suppose the building erected by California is reckoned the largest one
of all on the grounds, isn’t it, Rob? How much space does it cover, do
you know?”
“They say five acres, Andy, which you must own is a shack of some size.”
“We haven’t been in it yet,” said Andy, “but I should imagine it must
hold about everything connected with the life of the big State. Why, it
would take a whole day to get around there, and see half of the things on
exhibition.”
“Plenty of time for all that when we settle down to the business of
sight-seeing,” Rob told him. “First of all I want to get this load off my
hands,” and he moved the suitcase as he spoke; “not that it’s very heavy,
you understand, only it weighs on my mind; but what it holds means
sleepless nights for our good friend, Professor McEwen, until he gets my
wire that it has been safely delivered.”
“I declare if those two girls over there don’t make me think of Lucy
Mainwaring and Sue Clifford away back in Hampton!” exclaimed Andy
suddenly. “Oh! excuse me, Rob, I didn’t mean to give you a start by
mentioning Lucy’s name. Of course it’s only a chance resemblance, for
neither of the girls we’ve left behind us could be here at the
Exposition. But I’m a great fellow, you remember, to imagine people look
like some I’ve known.”
“Yes, and lots of times that failing has gotten you into a peck of
trouble, too, Andy,” Rob remarked, laughingly; “there was that boy in
scout uniform this very morning that you rushed up to with outstretched
hand, and calling him Sim Jeffords. I nearly took a fit to see the blank
look on your face when he drew himself up and gave you the cold stare.”
“Yes, that’s a fact, Rob, he did freeze me. Chances are to this minute
that boy thinks I was a fraud, perhaps some new sort of confidence
operator. I saw him grab at his watch-chain in a hurry. He backed away,
too, and never gave me half a chance to explain.”
“I’m expecting right along,” Rob told him, “to have you discover some of
our old enemies hovering around, and waiting for a chance to give us a
jolt on account of the grudge they bear us. There’s Jared Applegate, for
instance, the last we ever saw of him was at the time he was down in
Mexico, having been compelled to run away from home after getting himself
into a scrape by using some money that didn’t belong to him.”
Andy, instead of appearing dejected while Rob was “rubbing it into him”
after this fashion, really seemed to enter into the joke himself.
“Well,” he went on to say with a snicker, “honest to goodness a little
while ago I did see two fellows walking along who made me think of Max
Ramsay and his pal, Hodge Berry, the two meanest boys of our home town.
Gave me something of a thrill, too, and I even had a sneaking notion to
run over and shake hands with them; though back home I would cross the
street rather than meet them face to face.”
“Yes,” said Rob, “that’s always the case with people who’re away from
home. They get so tired of seeing strange faces that the sight of one
they know makes them friendly. But I suppose you’ve noticed that the
scouts seem to have quite a share in the running of things at this Big
Show?”
“For a fact I’ve seen quite a number of them about, and it strikes me
they are a busy lot in the bargain,” Andy admitted.
“I understand they have a permanent camp on the grounds,” Rob explained,
“which later on we must visit, and make acquaintances. They seem to be a
hustling lot, and a credit to the khaki they wear.”
“But what d’ye suppose they’re doing here?” asked the other.
“Oh! there are dozens of things Boy Scouts can find to do at a monster
Fair like this,” said the patrol leader. “I think some of them are acting
as guides to parties of women and children. Others run messages for the
department heads, because there must be a tremendous lot of that sort of
thing that has to be done here. I saw one batch of scouts carrying a man
on a litter, and from that I concluded they must have a scout emergency
hospital somewhere on the grounds, where those who have been taken
suddenly sick or become exhausted from the heat in the machinery
buildings could receive first aid to the injured.”
Andy’s face took on a look of pride. He even tenderly stroked the sleeve
of his khaki coat and touched the badge on his lapel as though he
considered it a great honor to be wearing that insignia of his rank in
the troop to which he belonged.
That is one of the finest things about scout membership; it stimulates
boys to aspire to emulate those who are striving to help others, or
alleviate suffering in some way.
“We ought to be nearing that building you spoke about, Rob,” Andy
remarked, after more time had elapsed. “Seems to me we’ve covered miles
since we saw Hiram streaking off for the aviation field and the Hall of
Inventions.”
“I think that is it on our left; but to make sure I’ll ask this scout
hurrying along as though the whole show would have to close its doors
unless he managed to do the important errand he’s sent on.”
“I’ll hang back while you do,” suggested Andy jokingly. “Seems like they
think I’m a sort of suspicious looking person, though nobody ever told me
so in Hampton.”
The messenger condescended to slacken his speed sufficiently to catch the
question which Rob asked. After saluting, as became a fellow scout, he
nodded his head in the affirmative, being apparently too winded to say
even a single word.
Accordingly the two boys entered the building and threading their way
among a multitude of exhibits, with a sprinkling of people examining the
same, most of them rather sober-looking in appearance, they managed to
find where the offices of the director were located.
“We wish to see Professor Marsh, who is in charge of this building,” was
what Rob said to an active little man wearing large glasses, and with all
the earmarks of a scientist.
“That happens to be my name, son; what can I do for you?” replied the
other, as he bent a pair of exceedingly penetrating eyes upon the scouts.
“We have come to you,” Rob explained, “from Professor Andrew McEwen, of
Edinburgh University, who met with an accident while visiting an old
friend near our home, on Long Island, New York State, and while not
seriously injured could not finish his journey across the continent.”
The little man immediately showed signs of tremendous excitement. He
glued his eyes on the suitcase Rob was carrying.
“Yes, yes, glad to hear that he is not seriously injured. Professor
McEwen is one of the most famous of his class, and the world could ill
afford to lose him at this interesting stage of events. But he was to
bring with him a collection too precious to trust to ordinary channels. I
sincerely trust that it was not harmed when he met with his accident?”
“Oh! no, sir,” exclaimed Rob, hastily, “not in the least, since he did
not have it with him at the time. But he grieved to think it might be
delayed in reaching you, and so he intrusted it to the keeping of myself
and my comrade here, as we happened to be of some assistance to him at
the time.”
The scientist seemed to be actually dumfounded. He stared from Rob to
Andy, and then looked hard at the suitcase.
“Can it be possible that Professor McEwen intrusted those priceless
papyrus relics to the care of two mere boys? I am astounded, and likewise
worried. Oh! I hope you have taken great care with them. Give me the bag,
and let me see for myself. It would be a shock indeed if anything had
happened to destroy the labor of years, and caused such a dreadful loss
to science.”
He almost snatched the suitcase from Rob’s hand and vanished like a
streak through a door that led to another room, leaving the two boys
exchanging amused glances.
“Whew! I’m sorry for you if anything _has_ gone wrong with those rolls,
Rob,” said Andy, making a wry face. “We’re apt to go out of this building
faster than we came in, I’m afraid.”
“No danger,” Rob told him; “they were prepared to resist ordinary shocks
in transit, and we’ve handled them as carefully as Professor McEwen
himself could have done. But he did look actually frightened, for a
fact.”
“Isn’t it queer what a pile these learned scientists think of things that
other people wouldn’t give five cents for?” remarked Andy.
“Oh! well,” said Rob, “that’s because we’re in the dark concerning their
real value. Look in through the half-open door and you can see several
men like Professor Marsh undoing those same rolls with trembling hands.”
“Yes, and notice the awed look on their faces, will you, Rob? The
director is shaking hands all around now, and beaming on his colleagues,
so I guess he’s found things O. K. and hunky dory. Here he comes out to
tell us so.”
The look of deep anxiety on Professor Marsh’s face had vanished, and
there was a trace of a pleased smile there when he again confronted the
two scouts.
“The letter inclosed from Professor McEwen speaks in the highest terms of
you young gentlemen,” he said, effusively, as he stretched out both
hands. “He writes that you were instruments in the hands of Providence of
saving his life; and for that let me remark that you deserve the
heartfelt thanks of all who are interested in the work that distinguished
gentleman is doing for science. I am proud to shake you by the hand. To
think that you have come three thousand miles bearing those priceless
rolls, and delivered them to us here without the slightest damage. And
this very night I shall write to Professor McEwen to that effect.”
“We are instructed to wire him in your name with your permission,
professor, that you have received them intact,” ventured Rob.
“I will sign any message you choose to send him, son,” declared the happy
director of the building devoted to the interests of science.
“And now, sir,” said Rob, “would you mind returning my suitcase?”