THE HERO
The best account of this business was given by Darby Curren, the bus
driver, or Curry, as the boys called him.
"We was jes' comin' onter the good road, we was, and I was jes' about
goin' ter give Lefty a taste o' the whip ter let 'er know ter wake up.
Them kids inside was a hollerin', '_Hit 'er up!" 'Step on 'er!' 'Give
'er the gas!_' and all sech nonsense. Well, by gorry, I never seed sech
a night since Noah sailed away in the ark, I didn't. So ye'll understand
I was'n' fer bein' surprised at nuthin' I see. Ghosts nor nuthin'.
"Well, all of a sudden Lefty begins to jump and rear step sideways and
was like to drag us all in the ditch when what do I see but that there
thing, like a ghost or somethin' it was, hangin' onter her bridle. It
was makin' some kind of a noise, I dunno what. First off I thought plum
certain it was a ghost. Then I thought it was Hasbrooks' boy, that's
what I thought, on account o' him havin' them fits and maybe bein'
buried alive. It was me that druv the hearse fer 'im only a week back.
And I says then to Corby that was sittin' with me, I says, no son o'
mine that ever had them fits would be buried in three days, not if I
knowed it. Safety first, I said, dead or livin'.
"Well, I hollered to him what he wanted there and I didn't get no answer
so I got down. And all the rest o' that howlin' pack got out, and the
two men. I guess they thought we was held up, Jesse James like. Only the
little codger stayed inside.
"Well, there he was, all tore and bloody and not enough duds left to
stop up a rat-hole. And we hed ter force his hand open, he was hangin'
onter the bridle that hard."
Well, that was about all there was to it; the rest was told by many
mouths. They forced open his grip on the horse's bridle and he collapsed
and lay unconscious on the ground. They lifted him and carried him
gently into the bus, and laid him on one of the long seats. His left
foot was shoeless and lacerated.
There were a couple of first aid scouts in the party, and they did what
they could for him, bathing his face and trying to restore some measure
of repose to his jangled nerves. They washed his torn foot with
antiseptic while one kept a cautious hold upon his fluttering pulse.
They administered a heart stimulant out of their kit, and waited. He did
not speak nor open his eyes, save momentarily at intervals, when he
stared vacantly. But the stout heart which had served him in his
superhuman effort, would not desert him now, and in a little while the
brother scout who held his wrist laid it gently down and, in a kind of
freakish impulse, made the full scout salute to the unconscious figure.
That seemed odd, too, because at camp he was not thought to be a really
A-1 scout....
The two scoutmasters of the arriving troops remained in the bus with the
first aid scouts and a queer little codger who seemed to be lame; the
others walked. Hervey Willetts had ridden on top of that bus (contrary
to orders), but he had never before lain quietly on the seat of it and
been watched by two scoutmasters. He was always being watched by
scoutmasters, but never in just this way....
So the old bus lumbered on. Soon he opened his eyes and mumbled
something.
"Yes, my boy," said one of the scoutmasters; "what is it?"
"S--sma--smashed--br--," he said incoherently.
"Yes, we'll have a doctor as soon as we reach camp," the scoutmaster
said soothingly. "Try to bear it. Don't move it and perhaps it won't
pain so."
Hervey shook his head petulantly as if it were not his foot he spoke of.
"Br--oken--the--br--look out----" And again he seemed to faint away.
The scoutmaster was puzzled.
In a few moments he spoke again, his eyes closed. But the word he spoke
was clear.
"Ahead," he whispered.
The scoutmaster was still puzzled but he opened the bus door and called,
"Gilbert, suppose you and a couple of the boys go on ahead and watch
your step." Then to the other scoutmaster he said, "I think he's a bit
delirious."
So it happened that it was Gilbert Tyson of the troop from Hillsburgh,
forty or fifty miles down the line, who shouted to Darby Curren to stop,
that the bridge had been washed away.
A funny part of the whole business was that the little duffer in the
bus, who was attached to that troop, thought that Tyson was the hero of
the occasion. He was strong on troop loyalty if on nothing else. So far
as he was concerned (and he was very much concerned) Tyson had saved the
lives of every scout in those two troops. Subsequent circumstances
favored this delusion of his. For one thing, Hervey Willetts cared
nothing at all about glory. You could not fit the mantle of heroism on
him to save your life. He never talked about the affair, he was seldom
at camp, except to sleep, and he did not know how he had managed the
last few yards of his triumphal errand. For another thing, the
Hillsburgh troop kept to themselves more or less, occupying one of the
isolated "hill cabins." As for Tom Slade, he seldom talked much. He had
seen too many stunts to lose his head over a new one, and he was a poor
sort of publicity agent for Hervey.
Thus Goliath, as the little codger came to be known, had the field all
to himself, and he turned out to be a mighty "hero maker."