THE FULL SALUTE
Pee-wee had a lot of scratches on him--he looked as if he had crawled
through a nutmeg grater. He was kind of lame too. But he was all right.
He said it was a mortal peril he was in.
“It wasn’t so terribly mortal,” he said, “because I didn’t get killed,
but I almost did so it was kind of mortal.”
“After this when you go out with me I’m going to have you on a leash,” I
told him.
When we got down in the chasm things were not so good. That boy had held
on up there as long as he could--just till Pee-wee was safe--then he had
gone crashing down and lucky for him they caught him in the coat. He was
lying on the coat when Pee-wee and I got there, and he smiled at us. He
wasn’t hurt bad but I guess he had a good shock. His face was bloody and
his hands were cut--I guess from clutching that piece of rock. He was
moving his head from one side to the other.
I pulled the kid aside and I spoke good and serious to him. Don’t you
think I can’t be serious when I want to. I said, “You listen here Mister
Scout Harris. That fellow saved your life. Dub and Sandy and those other
two fellows were holding that coat for _you_. If they hadn’t been
holding it for _you_, that fellow would be lying there dead--on account
of you. I don’t care what he is, movie actor or anything else, you go
over and tell him you’ve got to hand it to him for what he did. You tell
him he’s _one_--_real_--_honest to goodness_--hero! Come on now.”
“Sure I will,” the kid piped up. “Do you think I don’t know heroes when
I see them? I know more about them than you do. Didn’t I say how I’m
going to show Dub how he can be one--didn’t I?”
“Sure, all right, come on,” I said.
They were all standing around that fellow--he was sitting up kind of
feeling around his shoulder. Dub was wiping the blood off his face and
we could see then it was only a bad scratch he had.
Pee-wee marched up very brave and honorable like and he said, “No matter
who you are, I got to admit you’re a hero and you saved my life and you
might even have got killed doing it and you can bet I’m glad you didn’t.
And anyway, besides, I take back what I said to you, gee whiz, that’s
only fair. If you were a Scout you’d get the Gold Medal, that’s one
thing sure.”
The fellow just looked at him and he said, “I am a Scout. Who says I’m
not? I never said I was anything else. I’m a Scout from Temple Camp just
like you are.”
Pee-wee nearly went down for the second time. One of those men came with
some iodine and he kneeled down and wiped the boy’s cheek and he put his
arm around him and said, “Yes siree, he’s the greatest Roman of them
all. Do you want to know his name? It’s Bobby Easton--hey Bobby? He’s a
Scout--yep. All wool and thirty-six inches wide. They don’t make ’em
like him every day. Do you want to shake hands with him?”
“That ain’t the way you do,” Pee-wee shouted. “You give the full scout
salute--that shows how much you all don’t know about scouting.” So then
he gave him the full salute, standing up there like a little tin
soldier. I said, “Look, he’s posing for animal crackers.”
The man said, “Yes, I think the movie people went away late last night
and we got here this morning and moved in. We’re surveyors working for
Uncle Sam and we’re going to make a map of all this region. We were
doing old Overlook Mountain last week and they told us up there that if
we wanted a wide-awake helper to help out in the local field as a stake
boy, we could probably get one at Temple Camp. Well, they picked a
winner for us, that’s all I can say. Hanged if I wouldn’t like to take
him up to Alaska with us next summer. What do you say, Mac?”
“I could swing it for him,” one of the others said.
All of a sudden I spoke up. I said, “As long as one of them was saved
and then the other one was saved, will you please excuse me while I drop
dead? I could even drop as dead as Bunko Bravado is. And please send
word to my fond parents that I died laughing. _The fixer has fixed it._
Scout Bobby Easton, he gets the Gold Medal for saving life by risking
his own, and he gets a hundred dollars besides--that’s a private
award--and that proves that if Dub sticks to Pee-wee he can stay at
Temple Camp as long as he wants--_not_--and get a hundred dollars, only
watch him get it!
His middle name is Hunter’s Stew,
He mixes it.
In mixing he can sure outdo,
All other Scouts he ever knew,
And when a thing goes all askew,
He fixes it.
“Good night,” I said, “please let me die in peace. And don’t let Scout
Harris come to my funeral because he’ll spoil it all.”
As soon as I dropped down dead, Sandy he dropped down dead too--I could
see him with my dying gaze. Dub just stood where he was. He couldn’t die
because he was petrified. Everybody started laughing. They even woke me
up out of my peaceful death, laughing so hard. I said, “There’s only one
thing I have against scouting and that is that there isn’t any fixer’s
badge.”
We were all laughing, and all the while Sandy was telling Bobby Easton
and those three government surveyors about how Pee-wee was going to fix
it for Dub so he’d get the life-saving medal and enough money to stay at
camp. Oh boy, didn’t they laugh!
Bobby Easton said, “Then I don’t take it.”
I said, “That’s where you’re positively absolutely wrong the first time,
Bunko Daraway Reckless Bravado, because you have to take it whether you
want it or not--you’re a hero. You can’t help being one any more than
Pee-wee can help being a fixer and doing such good turns to his Scout
comrades--accent on the good turns. Do you think it worries us not to
get a medal? Didn’t we _not_ find a will? And didn’t we _not_ find some
bandits? If we got what we were after when Pee-wee was along we’d all
drop dead from shock and so Dub Smedley couldn’t stay anyway, so what do
we care? Do you think that was the first time young Harris leaped before
he looked?”
“You’re the Scouts that started out camping on a three days’ leave,
aren’t you?” Bobby Easton asked me. “I was going to come and ask you if
I could go but a Scout told me not to because you fellows were crazy.
Now that I know you I think I’d like to stick to you.”
“Why not?” Dub said. “I’ll be starting home next week.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I told him. “Maybe we’ll be able to fix it yet--we
should worry.”