DICK CRAWFORD GIVES WARNING
It was an ideal summer day, and Dick Crawford, going through the
woods toward the logging camp, could not help thinking what a lucky
fellow he was.
“It’s worth a million,” he thought, “just to be a Boy Scout, and to
be alive on a day like this.”
Dick was no poet, but if he had been, he could have written an ode
to the wonderful, mystic forest. The narrow path he traversed was
closely hemmed in by giant trees, covered with moss and, at times, he
could see the glistening of a waxy bunch of mistletoe high up on some
old oak.
Finally his mind came around to all the exciting events of the last
few days, and he became sober.
When would the miscreants be brought to book? It did not seem
possible that they could long remain at large, but then the North
Woods are very extensive, and offer thousands of hiding places to
experienced woodsmen like the discharged lumberjacks.
At this thought his heart sank, but Dick was not one to worry much
about things he could not help, nor to cross a bridge until he came
to it.
So he dismissed all forebodings from his mind and set up a shrill
whistle that caused the forest to echo and the squirrels to sit up in
front of the entrances to their homes and chatter angrily.
He looked upward toward the sun, which he could at times glimpse
through the thick foliage, and, judging from its position that it
must be growing late, hurried his footsteps. He was soon in sight of
the camp, but could see no sign of life about it. As he drew nearer
the rough log houses, he shouted, “Hello, there! Hello! Hello!”
“Hello, yourself!” responded a voice from the cook’s house, and a
moment later the tangled red head belonging to the owner of the voice
was stuck out of the doorway.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Dick?” he continued in a more friendly voice,
as he recognized the Assistant Scout-Master. “Well, what can I do you
for?”
Dick smiled at this characteristic question, and replied, “Why, I
wanted to see the foreman, Mr. Flannigan. Where is he, do you know?”
“Search me!” replied Harry, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
“But say, wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “He did say something about
it, too. I remember now. He has gone about fifty miles up north to
look over a piece of uncut timber land there, and I remember he said
he would be back before the last of this month. But what did you want
him for, anyway?” inquisitively.
Dick thought a minute, and then decided to tell Harry all about the
happenings of the last few days. He knew that Harry was friendly to
the Scouts, and would help them all he could in bringing the outlaws
to justice.
Another thing that he did not know, but which was an important factor
in the chase later on, was that Harry disliked the outlaws heartily.
They had often plagued him, and made his hard life even harder, and
he had often wanted to get even with them. So it is possible that
Dick could not have taken a wiser course than that which he now
decided to pursue.
Accordingly he proceeded to detail the happenings of the last few
days to the attentive cookee, who could not help interrupting him at
times with expressions of surprise and indignation.
“Well, what do you know about that?” he asked at the conclusion of
Dick’s recital. “Ain’t them two about the most underhanded crooks
goin’? I only hope I can do somethin’ to help put them in jail,” and
here the expression of his eyes boded no good to the outlaws.
Dick perceived that he had gained an ally worth having, and was
pleased accordingly.
“I know that the others will be as pleased as I am to know that you
are going to help all you can,” Dick replied cordially to the other’s
outburst. “Now, Harry, you know from what I have told you that both
Lavine and O’Brien will go to any lengths to get even with Flannigan,
and also with us, whom they now suspect to be their enemies.
“We have reason to believe that they will do all they can to waylay
the foreman, steal the money that he will have on his person, and
either kill or seriously injure him.
“Now, what we want you to do is to notify us at our camp if the
foreman is not back before the last day of the month. Will you do
that?”
“Will I?” said Harry, his eyes sparkling as he thought of the trust
that was being placed in him. “Well, I should smile! Just give me a
chance, that is all I ask. You can count on me, Dick, as much as you
can on yourself.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” responded Dick, heartily. “We’ll
consider that settled, then. And another thing, Harry, why on earth
don’t you join the Boy Scouts? You’d have no end of fun, and we’d all
be glad to have you.”
“Dick, all you fellers are bricks fur askin’ me, but how can I?
There ain’t anything I want as much as to be a Scout, but I have no
chance to do what you fellers do. I got to work here from the first
streak of daylight, and quit when my work’s done, which is about ten
o’clock every night of the week. I am what you call a ‘kin and can’t’
worker; I work as soon as I can see and quit when it is so dark I
can’t see.”
Here the boy tried to laugh, but the laugh sounded strained somehow.
It is very possible that he felt more like crying than laughing, but
he would not have had Dick know it for anything.
Dick, however, knew boy nature pretty well, and he guessed from
Harry’s tone just about how he actually felt. So he joined in the
latter’s laugh, and then said, “Now you see here, Harry, old top, if
you really want to be a Boy Scout, there’s nothing on earth can stop
you, and we’re going to help you all we know how. I was speaking to
Mr. Durland about you the other day or, rather, he was speaking to
me, and he said that he knew of a place that is open in Mr. Scott’s
saw-mill that he was sure he could get for you. That would give you
more money than you are making now, I guess, and you’ll have a whole
lot more time to yourself. What do you say; would you like to have
that job?”
Harry’s eyes had filled in spite of himself while Dick was talking,
and now he said in a queer, husky voice, “Say, Dick, would a duck
swim? All I can say is that you Scouts and your Scout-Master are
about the squarest, whitest bunch that I ever run up against! I’ll
beat it right along with you when you go back, and this job can go
to the dickens for all I care!”
“Hold on a bit,” exclaimed Dick, smiling at the boy’s impulsiveness.
“You can do us a whole lot more good by sticking right here than you
could by being with us just now. We need you here to tell us in case
Flannigan doesn’t get back on time.”
“Gee, I’d clean forgotten all about that,” said Harry, ruefully. “But
you’re dead right, and no mistake! I’d be willing to stay here the
next ten years if it would help to catch them guys. They’re pretty
slick articles, though, don’t fool yourself about that,” he added.
“Oh, I realize that we will have our work cut out for us,” responded
Dick, seriously, “but I think we can get them finally, just the same.”
“You bet your sweet life we can!” responded Harry, enthusiastically.
He had great confidence in his new friends and felt that if anybody
could, they would be the ones to break up the plot. But he was better
acquainted with the rascals than any of the Scouts, and knew that
they were resourceful and desperate men.
He was immensely proud of the trust placed in him by Dick and the
others, and resolved then and there to show himself worthy of it.
He had always had a hard time of it, and had never known what it
meant to have a father or a mother. He had earned his own living as
long as he could remember and that in a great city meant constant
and hard work. Then he had drifted north in search of better paying
work, and had finally landed the job of cookee to the lumber camp.
There was more money in this than he had ever made, although it was
little enough, in all conscience, but the work was terribly hard and
exacting.
He was supposed to be the first one up in the camp every morning, and
on him devolved the responsibility of arousing the sleeping men and
getting a good share of the breakfast. Then, after each meal, there
was the immense pile of dishes to wash--a task which he hated with
all his heart. His work was ended only after everyone else was asleep
and he had rounded out the last of his duties by setting the huge pot
of beans in the pit dug for it, there to simmer all night.
And it was not only the wearing work and long hours that worried him
and made him wish more than once that he had never been born. He
lacked the comradeship of other boys of his own age. He had always
been too busy earning a living in the city to mingle much with
others, and now, since coming to the lumber camp, there had not been
another boy within many miles of him until the advent of the Scouts.
So is it any wonder that at the thought of easier and more
congenial work and more especially at the prospect of having that
companionship that his very soul craved, his heart went out in
gratitude to those responsible for the change in his fortunes?
He felt that no sacrifice would have been too great to make for them,
and would willingly have risked his life if he thought their welfare
demanded such a sacrifice.
So now when Dick held out his hand, and said, “Well, so long,
old man, until I see you again!” his heart was running over with
gratitude.
“So long!” responded Harry, shaking the proffered hand fervently.
“You can count on me to the last gasp.”
“I’m sure of it, Harry,” and so with a last word of farewell, Dick
started on his homeward journey.
He was very well satisfied with the result of his mission, and was
convinced that he had gained a recruit worth having. In addition to
this he had formed a real liking for the cookee, and was glad for his
sake that things were to be better for him in the future.
He felt, as many others have done, the force of the fact that there
is always a greater and nobler pleasure in giving happiness to anyone
else than there is in securing it for oneself.
He swung along at a good gait, his mind busy with these thoughts, and
was somewhat startled when, at a short turn in the path, he almost
ran into Bob Hart.
“Gee, you gave me a scare!” he exclaimed, after they had exchanged
salutes. “What on earth are you doing here, Bob?”
“Why, it’s this way,” explained Bob. “You know that we overheard what
the outlaws said, and after you had gone, Mr. Durland thought that
we had better patrol this path so that in case either of them tried
to stop you from going to or coming from the logging camp, we could
wig-wag signals back to our camp, and so let them know there what was
going on. That is the solution of the reason we are here.”
“I wish we could solve the mystery of why those fellows aren’t in
jail just as easily,” remarked Dick.
“So do I!” returned Bob, soberly. “We seem to be as far as ever from
catching them, don’t we?”
“Here, here, young fellow! That kind of talk won’t do at all,”
laughed Dick. “This isn’t a case of where we _want_ to catch them.
It’s a case of where we’ve simply _got_ to. That’s the only way to
look at it.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Dick,” said Bob, his confidence
somewhat restored. “What did Harry say? Is he going to join?”
“Surest thing you know!” responded Dick, cheerfully. “That boy is
going to help us more than a little, too. He knows a good deal about
the surrounding country, and he knows the habits of these rascals.
He can figure out better than we can, perhaps, just what they would
be likely to do under given conditions.”
As they had been holding this conversation, the boys had been walking
rapidly along, and now they came up to one boy after another, all
posted as relays for wig-wagging.
Before very long they reached the camp itself, and soon Dick was
making his report to Scout-Master Durland.
“So you see, sir,” he concluded, “Harry will be a help to us, and
we can help him, so it is a sort of mutual benefit arrangement all
around.”
“Which is just what the Boy Scouts are for,” said Mr. Durland,
smiling.
After a pause, he continued thoughtfully, “Well, Dick, I guess we
have done all we can for the present, and now all we can do is to
keep a sharp lookout and see how events shape themselves. Do you
think of anything else?”
“No, sir, I can’t say I do. Not before Flannigan gets back, anyway,”
answered Dick respectfully, and so matters were left, and the Scouts
settled down to a short spell of “having a good time, doing nothing
in particular,” as Ben Hoover expressed it.