AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
As soon as we got the leopard into Mr. Hasbrook's barn, we made a hay bed
in one of the stalls and laid him there. I felt awful sorry for him now
that I knew about his history. And I wished that he had never come near me,
but got away into the mountains. Harry Donnelle held the lantern into the
stall and he looked so helpless lying there, with his feet tied together
and grass and dirt all over him and the fly paper on his face, that I kind
of blamed myself. Anyway, I was glad that his people liked him and missed
him.
Maybe he'd be glad to get back, hey?
Harry said, "Good night, Marshal Foch, and good luck to you. Just have a
little patience."
He was awfully nice, Harry was. That was just the way he talked.
Before we went into the house he said, "Suppose three or four of you kids
go back and bring our stuff here and we'll camp right here on the spot
till we get through with this business." So the Warner twins and Will
Dawson went back by the road and the rest of us went in the house with
Harry and Mr. Hasbrook.
When we got in the parlor, Harry looked over the paper and found a big ad.
This is how it read:
COSTELLO'S MAMMOTH SHOW!
THREE DAYS IN KINGSTON.
BEASTS OF THE JUNGLE.
WORLD'S CONGRESS OF FREAKS.
DARING ACROBATS.
JIB JAB, THE WORLD'S MYSTERY.
SEE HIM!
IS HE HUMAN?
GRAND STREET PARADE TO-MORROW.
AT THREE P. M. SEE THE ELEPHANTS.
FREE! FREE! FREE!
TWO PERFORMANCES DAILY.
COME!
GRANDEST COMBINATION OF WONDERS
EVER GATHERED UNDER CANVAS.
SUPERB SPECTACLE
GORGEOUS! STUPEFYING!
ASTOUNDING!
Harry Donnelle said, "I rather like Mr. Costello already; he's so modest.
I bet he's one of those quiet, retiring little _'after you, please'_ men
that blushes when you speak to him. We'll just drop him a line and one of
you kids can hike it over to Saugerties and catch an early train down to
Kingston and hand it to him."
I said, "I'll go."
But he said, "No, you've had adventures enough and if they ever get you in
a circus they'll keep you there in the _congress of freaks_." So it was
decided that Dorry Benton would go.
While we were waiting for the fellows to come back with our stuff, Harry
wrote the letter and this is what he said. It's copied word for word out
of our hike record:
Mr. Rinaldo Costello, Proprietor,
Costello's Mammoth Show.
Kingston, N. Y.
Dear Sir:
This is to inform you that your leopard, Marshall Foch, has
been captured by a boy scout and is alive and well, save that
he is suffering from nervous shock and requires to have his
face washed.
You may call in your armed posse. You are greatly mistaken in
supposing that leopards may not be captured alive. It requires
only the proper apparatus.
The bearer of this letter will give you any further information
which you may require, and we shall be glad to see you here, as
soon as it may be convenient for you to call.
Respectfully,
HARRY C. DONNELLE,
In charge of Boy Scouts en route.
Silver Fox Patrol, Bridgeboro,
New Jersey. Stopping on farm
of Mr. Silas Hasbrook, Bently
Centre, N. Y.
After a little while the fellows came back with our stuff and we put up
our tent between a couple of trees in Mr. Hasbrook's orchard. He said we
could camp in the house if we wanted, but how can anybody camp in a house,
I'd like to know? You might as well talk about going swimming in a bath
tub. No siree, the orchard for us. Mr. Hasbrook said we could eat all the
apples we wanted to, but we didn't eat many. I ate five-that isn't very
many.
We gathered some sticks and started a campfire and I made coffee and
flapjacks and scrambled eggs with egg powder. Mr. Hasbrook's daughter
brought us out some pie and _um, um,_ wasn't it good! Oh boy, it was nice
sprawling around there. But anyway, we turned in early--one o'clock in the
morning is early. You couldn't turn in much earlier or it would be the
night before. I guess we wouldn't have turned in then, except that Dorry
had to roll out at about six, so as to catch the train down to Kingston.
Harry Donnelle said, "I suppose Mr. Rinaldo Costello will send a mammoth,
astounding, bewildering, astonishing, amazing, stupefying, extraordinary,
remarkable, dazzling, baffling, cavalcade after Marshal Foch, as soon as
he gets our staggering, unbelievable, incredible letter."
We were all of us just sprawling around the fire and Harry was sitting on
a little three legged milking stool and kind of guying Costello's mammoth
show, in that funny way he had, and saying that Mr. Costello would
probably say I was a matchless, intrepid, dauntless, fearless hero and
adventurer, when all of a sudden that word adventurer put a thought into
my head.
I said, "When it comes to being a dauntless, fearless adventurer, I guess
nobody has anything on you, that's one thing sure."
"Oh, I've had a few games of basketball," he said.
"I bet you've been to lots of places," I told him.
He said, "Well, I've attended one or two pink teas and strawberry
festivals. Once I was usher at a concert in an Old Ladies' Home. The
wildest time I ever had was umpiring a game of checkers."
"You didn't win that Distinguished Service Cross umpiring a game of
checkers," Westy said.
"No, I won that playing hide and seek with Fritzie in No Man's Land," he
said. "Chuck a little more wood on the fire, Roy."
I said, "There's one thing you never told me about, and you promised to
tell it, too. It's an adventure, but it's a kind of a mystery, too."
"Well," he said, "adventures aren't so much, but I'll have to make an extra
charge for mysteries. The high cost of mysteries is something terrible. I
don't know what the mystery may be, but if you'll go in the house and get
my cigarette case out of the pocket of my coat that's hanging in the
sitting room, I'll let you have any mystery I happen to have in stock at
the wholesale price."
Oh bibbie, didn't I scoot in after that cigarette case. He was always
smoking cigarettes, that fellow. He told us never to do it, but he was
always doing it himself. He said he was too old to reform.
When I came back I said. "It's about that money of yours-that two hundred
dollars that we found in the locker of the house-boat. It made a lot of
trouble in Temple Camp, that's one sure thing. Don't you remember how you
said that you'd tell me all a'bout how you got it, some day?"
He said, "Oh that; that wasn't an adventure; that was just an episode."
"I know what episodes are all right," I told him; "didn't my father have a
couple of them. If there's a narrow escape, that's a sign it's not an
episode; it's an adventure. You can have episodes any day.
"Well, there wasn't a very narrow escape to that one, anyhow," he said,
laughing all the while; "it was about six feet wide, I guess. But here
goes, if you want it. Gather closer around the fire, because this
adventure is mighty wet."
"That's a sure sign it's an adventure," I told him, "because how can an
episode get wet?"
"I guess you're right," he said; "it might get a little damp, but not
really wet. Anyway, do you think you can keep still for about ten minutes?"