Into the Hawkeye Spoke Trail he sped, hatless, abandoned. And they
followed, not because they trusted him, but because he seemed possessed.
At least they would see the fun of an anti-climax. Over the edge of Pine
Hill he sped and across the Sloatsburg road and past Breakneck Pond and
into the valley. He had picked his way at night before, the unruly
little rascal, and he knew his ground now. No one asked him where he was
going, but the moon beyond the signal hill smiled upon him and guided
him.
On he sped, stumbling, pausing in doubt, then plunging forward again
with maniacal desperation. He had been denied the pathfinder’s badge,
this boy. It was quite all right and according to the handbook. Only
they took credit afterward for his fine spirit. But it was not the Bear
Mountain camps that stirred the soul within him as he ran headlong
through the night. What bore him on in this perfect frenzy was a spirit
from another camp, the personality of Tom Slade of Temple Camp which had
knocked him flat and set him on his feet again. He knew what he knew.
And he sped on....
And so it happened that a couple of score of Scouts swarmed into the
wild, narrow valley and felt the heat which filled the place and saw the
fast-approaching flames. They faced the infantry of the blaze and the
rushing cavalry of the wind. And then indeed was fulfilled Brent
Gaylong’s rueful prediction, _They shall not pass._
And they did not pass.
The Scouts found Brent in the upper end of the valley pulling up brush
and throwing water across the path of the advancing flames. But the fire
would have given its horrible, soulless, crackling laugh at his poor
efforts. It was like a sharpshooter attacking an army.
“The--the brook is--over there,” Brent panted.
“Use your hats, Scouts,” their camp manager said. “Some of you pull up
brush.”
Hatful after hatful of water was thrown upon the ground across the
narrow, precipitous way. Working was hard, for the heat was terrific.
Stones were rolled into the path of the flames. Brush was pulled up with
a rapidity that set Brent’s poor striving at naught. And the land for a
width of ten feet or more was soaked.
“Keep busy, we’ll make it,” the camp manager panted.
From the cabin a couple of Scouts came running with the barrel which was
Tom’s and Brent’s dining table. As they approached the scene of action
they were as clear as figures seen by day. The cabin stood in an area of
red light, and the old elm near Conner’s well stood out with strange
clearness in the surrounding brightness. That end of the valley where
the little gulch was seemed like an inferno, bathed, as it was, in vivid
red.
But between that spot and the consuming flames the Scouts had drawn
their dead-line. Here the careering flames hissed and paused. Here they
tried to get across and failed. And they sent volleys of sparks across
the dead-line, and these were stamped out by ready feet, and the little
patches of fire which they started here and there were drowned out with
water from the barrel. And so the fight in the big gulch was fought and
won, and the flames diminished and died, hissing as they abandoned their
triumphal march.
Against the half-filled barrel leaned Spiffy Henshaw, panting and
resting. And as sure as you live he had a big black smear upon his
freckled countenance. They were still too busy to bother with him, and
it was Tom Slade who first approached him.
“You’re all right, Spiff,” he said sociably. “You got my message?”
“I wouldn’t have got it if I hadn’t been breaking a crazy rule,” Spiffy
announced, with a look of challenge at his camp manager.
Seeing Tom there the camp manager approached, and presently Spiffy was
the center of a throng. He lifted himself and sat upon a bit of wood
that lay across the barrel.
“Defiance on a monument,” said Brent. “Do you know,” he said, “I think
somehow a barrel is the ideal pedestal for him. When they make a statue
of Spiffy some day I hope they’ll have him on a barrel. So you read the
sky even if you don’t read your book, hey, Spiff, old boy?”
“This is Spiff,” said Tom, his arm about his protégé.
“Oh, yes, we know him,” said the camp manager. “His acts are better than
his reasoning.”
“Actions speak louder than reasoning,” said Brent.
“He certainly did a stunt to-night,” said the tall boy who knew the
Morse code so well.
But Tom did not condescend to discuss the triumph of his little hero.
Instead, he took out his handkerchief and wiped the smear off Spiffy’s
cheek. “The honorable wounds of service,” he said. Then he patted him on
the shoulder and let his hand rest there.
“Spiff,” said he, “you’re the best little Scout that ever got himself in
dutch. And you’re wrong as usual. You say if you hadn’t broken a rule
you wouldn’t have seen the message. If you hadn’t gone back to camp as I
told you to do, you wouldn’t have all these Scouts standing around and
staring at you now--as if they really thought you were a hero.”
“Can I stay with you?” Spiff asked.
“No, you can_not_. You’ve got them started now. Haven’t they just given
you help without you asking for it? And now they’ll fall all over
themselves to help you. There’s no chance for advancement, kid, at our
cabin. A kid like you wants a wider field, big opportunities. We’re just
a couple of campers here. This gulch is no place for a _hero_. What you
want is a _world_ to conquer--not a cabin. How about that--am I right?”
Tom laughed at the camp manager.
And the camp manager winked at Tom. I don’t know what he meant by it.
But I do know that Spiffy Henshaw didn’t go home till school opened, and
when he did he took the stalking badge and the pathfinder’s badge with
him. I only hope his teachers in school understood him as well as Tom
Slade did. But perhaps that would be too much to expect....