"THEY'RE OFF!"
It would have been hard to find any busier boys in all Hampton that
morning than the four scouts who have figured so prominently in this
story. And about one o'clock of the same day the telephone was kept
employed carrying messages from house to house.
In fact, Rob had hardly left the lunch table when he heard a ring, and
upon lifting the receiver to his ear, immediately recognized the excited
voice of Andy.
"Rob, is that you? Say, it's all right, and I'm going along!"
"Oh! you didn't have to say more than one word to tell me that,"
answered the patrol leader with a laugh. "Why, the minute you opened
your mouth you gave it all away. But I'm mighty glad you convinced your
folks, Andy."
"At first father looked kind of glum, and shook his head as though he
wouldn't hear of such a thing," continued the other joyously. "But I
took your advice, and just started in to tell the whole yarn. I could
see his face keep getting lighter the further I went, till at the end he
shook me by the hand, and says he: 'Andy, I don't mean to refuse you any
reasonable thing; and while I'll worry a lot if you go down there to
that troubled country, still, it's in a good cause. And if Mrs. Hopkins,
Mr. Blake, and Mr. Crawford give their sons permission, I reckon I'll
have to do the same. I've found that scouts learn how to take care of
themselves no matter where they happen to be!' And so that's settled.
How about you?"
"Oh! there wasn't any trouble," replied Rob proudly. "Dad asked me a lot
of questions, and then said he was willing to trust me anywhere. He's
the finest dad that ever lived, barring none! Now, we're only waiting to
hear from Merritt."
"Well, you won't have to wait long, then," said a hearty voice just over
Rob's shoulder; and glancing up he saw the other chum, who had reached
the door of the room unobserved, even while the excited confab over the
wire was in progress.
"There's no need of my asking what luck you've had, Merritt, my boy,"
chuckled Rob, "because you carry the map on your face. It's all right,
do I hear you say?"
"I should say, yes," hastily replied the other with a happy grin that
told how much his boyish heart was wrapped up in this grand project.
"Why, I didn't have any trouble at all. Father simply said that while he
hardly approved of four lads like us going down into that country where
neighbor was warring with neighbor, and everything torn upside-down,
still, it would be a shame if Tubby's old uncle, whom he has met, should
lose all he had when there was a chance to save it. And so he told me
that if the other boys received permission to go, he wouldn't throw
anything in the way. You know, Rob, father has a heap of respect for the
opinion of your dad."
"Good for you, Merritt," Rob rejoined. "I've been talking with Andy, and
everything is lovely over there at his house. I'm holding the wire, and
just wait till I tell him to come over here on the jump. He'd better
pick up Tubby on the way, because we want to talk things over once more,
so as to know just what we ought to take along with us."
This was speedily arranged; and within ten minutes the other two
members of the Eagle Patrol bustled in, out of breath with the exertion
they had put forth in order to save time.
Then the tongues began to wag, and all sorts of suggestions came thick
and fast. It seemed as though everybody had been thinking up ideas, as
well as getting new ones from outsiders, mostly fellow members of the
troop to whom the subject of the great expedition was mentioned.
"My father advised that we go well armed," said Merritt; "not that we
would expect to use our guns against anybody, unless in the last pinch;
but he says there are ferocious wild beasts down in that country, and he
wouldn't feel easy to have us there with just a camp hatchet and our
staves along for defense."
"How about that, Tubby? Did you happen to ask Uncle Mark whether we'd be
likely to run across any grizzly bears or panthers or big game like
that?" inquired Andy.
"Just what I did, because you know my mother said she was worried about
my being gobbled up by a pack of hungry wolves," replied the fat scout.
"Guess they would pick you out first pop!" struck in Andy, chuckling.
"Which would show their good taste," Tubby informed him, without
hesitating a second. "But uncle admitted that we might run across wild
beasts of prey if we had to make much of a detour to avoid the Federal
troops that are combing the country back of Ciudad Juarez, on the Rio
Grande just opposite El Paso on the Texas side."
"Did he happen to say what kind of animals?" asked Rob.
"Oh! any old kind. There are wolves and coyotes on the plains, and in
the desert; jaguars among the hills; and sometimes even a bear is run
across, though not often. But my opinion is we'll have ten times as much
worry about rebels and Federal soldiers and some of the Mexican bandits
like that Castillo crowd we've read so much about in the papers the last
few months."
"I think myself that you hit the target in the bull's-eye that time,
Tubby," was Merritt's way of expressing his opinion.
"Well, it's settled then," added Rob, "that we go armed. Every fellow
will have to carry some sort of a gun; and if you don't happen to own
one, borrow it. Be sure to have some ammunition along, because we
mightn't be able to get the kind we need down there. Now, let's make
out a list of things we'll want with us. Of course we wouldn't think of
carrying a tent, because we don't mean to have a pack train along, and
we'll have to move in a hurry lots of times."
"But what if it rains like all get-out?" questioned Tubby, who did not
altogether like the idea of getting his brand new khaki suit
water-soaked the first thing.
"Oh! don't bother about such a little thing as that," Merritt told him,
with a snort of scorn. "What sort of scouts would we be if we couldn't
fix up some sort of shelter against rain? And even if we didn't, none of
us are made of salt, are we? Anyway, I don't believe it rains much down
there around Chihuahua, because a heap of the territory is only desert;
and it wouldn't be that if it had showers, you understand."
By degrees they settled upon what they should take along. Tubby was for
loading himself down with such a raft of stuff,--all of which might come
in very handy, but could never be carried without breaking the back of
his horse,--that Rob finally made out a slip for him, and insisted that
he should not pack up more than those essential things contained on the
paper.
"I'm going to take my fountain pen along, anyhow," grumbled Tubby, as
though determined to carry some article that was not on the list. "And I
bet, Rob, you'll be wanting to borrow it at every city where we stop for
ten minutes, to address post cards to somebody in Hampton, like you did
the time we went to Panama."
Of course that sly allusion caused a laugh on the part of Merritt and
Andy, while Rob turned a bit red in the face.
"Oh! have your fun if you want to, fellows," the patrol leader said, as
though he were proof against their prodding. "I acknowledge that I did
send a few cards to Lucy Mainwaring that time; yes, and I calculate to
do the same again. Just think up some nice girl, each of you, and invest
a few dimes that way yourself. It's lots of fun looking them over
afterward, when she's got them so neatly pasted in her post card album."
"Well," Merritt proposed, "now that we know what's what, hadn't we
better scatter and get busy? There's an awful lot to be done between now
and night, looking over our clothes, having this fixed, or that button
sewed on. Suppose we get together after supper and report progress. How
would my house do?"
"I'll be on deck, never fear," Tubby announced promptly.
"Look for me about half-past seven, Merritt," Andy told him.
"Sorry, fellows," Rob put in, with a shrug of his shoulders and a
whimsical smile on his face; "I'll have to plead a previous engagement."
"Oh! sure you do," jeered Andy; "and it'd be a shame to ask you to break
it for such a little thing as this. But the rest of us'll be around,
Merritt. No need of worrying about Rob, anyhow, because we know he'll
have everything in ship-shape style long before our train leaves."
After that the meeting was dissolved, and three of the lads hurried away
to start packing their duffel according to arrangements, getting it in
as small a compass as possible.
They were frequently interrupted by other boy friends, calling to find
out if this startling rumor had any truth back of it. The visitors asked
unlimited questions, while they loudly bewailed their hard luck in not
getting a chance to accompany the four fortunate ones.
Sim Jeffords and Hiram Nelson, indeed, went so far as to threaten
jokingly to start a rival expedition, and clean out all the rebels and
Regulars in the Mexican State of Chihuahua. While Fred Mainwaring,
Lucy's brother, who was at home at this time, boldly declared he had
half a mind to buy a ticket through to El Paso and wait for the four
scouts there, in hopes of thus forcing them to take him on.
In the town it became a subject of common talk, and all sorts of ideas
were passed around concerning this new and most extraordinary scheme of
the scouts. Some people who were not in love with the organization, like
old Hiram Applegate, the farmer who had caused the boys so much trouble
in a previous story, openly scoffed at the idea of half-grown lads
undertaking such a risky mission. He said their parents must be crazy to
allow it; but when casual mention was made of his own wild son, Jared,
who had gone rapidly to the bad, and had not been heard from since his
misdeeds at Panama came near getting him into trouble with the United
States Government, Hiram suddenly remembered he had an engagement
elsewhere.
Even the old-time enemies of the Eagles, Max Ramsay, Hodge Berry, and a
few of the members of the rival Hawk Patrol, investigated the exciting
news, and tried to prove to their own satisfaction that the people of
Hampton were prejudiced in favor of Rob Blake and his crowd, because all
sorts of splendid things seemed to be continually coming their way. They
were wilfully blind to the fact that the boys of the Eagle Patrol had
surely deserved all the good fortune that had been showered upon them
thus far. This was because they had set their standard high, and tried
to conform to the rules that govern the scout movement.
That was a long night to four boys at least in Hampton. At noon on the
following day a great crowd gathered at the station to see them leave
for New York, where they expected to take the night train for the Far
Southwest. Rob and his three chums felt their hearts beat a lively
tattoo as they saw the faces of home folks and patrol comrades among
those present.
As the train pulled out of the station amidst loud shouts and good
wishes, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, the boys could distinguish
one sound that thrilled them to the core, and made them remember the
vows they had taken always to be true scouts.
This was the shrill "k-r-e-e-e" of the Eagles, given in concert by the
other members of the patrol to which all of the travelers belonged; and
the last thing they saw as they leaned from the windows was the swarm of
campaign hats that went flying up into the air.
Then, as the scene was blotted out in the cloud of fine sand raised by
the train, the four boys, thus boldly starting on a long and hazardous
journey in quest of Uncle Mark's last remnant of his fortune, sank back
in their seats and just looked at each other, too overcome to say a
single word. Behind lay home and all the dear ones; while beyond was the
land of revolution and turmoil--Mexico!