GILBERT'S DISCOVERY
Gilbert Tyson was a scout and he could face the worst. He soon got
control of himself and began considering what he had better do.
He could not advance one more step without danger. Yet he could not
think of going back to camp, with nothing but the report of something he
had seen from a distance. He had done nothing. Yet what could he do?
He was at a loss to know how Hervey could have advanced so far into that
treacherous mire.
He must have picked his way here and there, knee deep, waist deep, like
the reckless youngster he was, until he plunged all unaware into the
fatal spot. The very thought of it made Gilbert shudder. Had he called
for help? Gilbert wondered. How dreadful it must have been to call for
help in those minutes of sinking, and to hear nothing but some mocking
echo. What had the victim thought of, while going down--down?
Good scout that he was, Gilbert would not go back to camp without
rescuing that one remaining proof of Hervey's tragic end. At least he
would take back all that there was to take back.
He pulled out of his pocket a fishline wound on a stick. At the end of
the line where a hook was, he fastened several more hooks an inch or two
apart. The sinker was not heavy enough for his purpose so he fastened a
stone to the end of the line.
As he made these preparations, the rather grewsome thought occurred to
him of what he should do and how he would feel if Hervey's head were
visible when he pulled the cap away. It caused him to hesitate, just for
a few seconds, to make an effort to recover it. Suppose that hat were
still on the smothered victim's head....
With his first throw, the stone landed short of the mark and he dragged
back a mass of dripping marsh growth, caught by the fish-hooks. His
second attempt landed the stone a yard or so beyond the hat and the
treacherous character of the ground there was shown by the almost
instant submergence of the missile. It was with difficulty that Gilbert
dragged it out, and with every pull he feared the cord would snap. But
as he pulled, the hat came also. The line was directly across it and the
hooks caught it nicely. There was no vestige of any solid object where
the cap had been. Gilbert wondered how deep the log had sunk, and the
suit-case and--the other....
He shook the clinging mud and marsh growth from the hat and looked at
it. He had seen Hervey only twice; once lying unconscious in the bus,
and once that very day, when the young wanderer had started off to visit
his friend, the farmer. But this cap very vividly and very pathetically
suggested its owner. The holes in it were of every shape and size. The
buttons besought the beholder to vote for suffrage, to buy liberty
bonds, to join the Red Cross, to eat at Jim's Lunch Room, to use only
Tyler's fresh cocoanut bars, to give a thought to Ireland. There was a
Camp-fire Girls' badge, a Harding pin, a Cox pin, a Debs pin ... Hervey
had been non-partisan with a vengeance.
With this cap, the one touching memento of the winner of the Gold Cross,
Gilbert started sorrowfully back to camp. The dreadful manner of
Hervey's death agitated him and weakened his nerve as the discovery of a
body would not have done. There was no provision in the handbook for
this kind of a discovery; no face to cover gently with his scout scarf,
no arms to lay in seemly posture. One who _had been_, was _not_. His
death and burial were one. Gilbert could not fit this horrible thought
to his mind. It was out of all human experience. He could not rid
himself of the ghastly thought of how far down those--those
_things_--had gone.
Slowly he retraced his steps along the trail--thinking. He had read of
hats being found floating in lakes, indubitable evidence of drowning,
and he had known the owners of these hats to show up at the ends of the
stories. But _this_....
He thought of the alighting of that bird upon the sinking end of the
log. How free and independent that bird! How easy its escape. How
impossible the escape of any mortal. To carelessly pause upon a log that
was going down in quicksand and then to fly away. There was blitheness
in the face of danger for you!
Gilbert took his way along the trail, sick at heart. How could he tell
Tom Slade of this frightful thing? It was his first day at camp and it
would cast a shadow on his whole vacation. Soon he espied a light
shining in the distance. That was a camp, no doubt. By leaving the trail
and following the light, he could shorten his journey. He was not so
sure that he wanted to shorten his journey, but he was ashamed of this
hesitancy to face things, so he abandoned the trail and took the light
for his guide.
Soon there appeared another light near the first one, and then he knew
that he was saving distance and heading straight for camp. He had
supposed that the trail went pretty straight from the vicinity of camp
to that dismal pond in the woods. But you can never see the whole of a
trail at once and it must have formed a somewhat rambling course.
Anyway there were the lights of camp off to the west of the path, and
Gilbert Tyson hurried thither.