A GOOD TURN AND A SALUTE
That evening Gordon was doomed to disappointment. From the moment that
he learned they might go, his active mind had been busy considering what
articles they must take, and most of those he thought necessary were
ruthlessly vetoed by his friend. He found that the first delight of the
novice in camping and exploring was heartlessly taken from him—the
delight of making preparations. There was, in fact, scarce any
preparation at all. They spent the evening in Harry’s room, which had
much the appearance of a frontier trading-post, so crowded was it with
camping paraphernalia and forest mementos.
From these Harry collected a few things, some from the walls, some from
bureau drawers, some from a large chest. There was fishing tackle, a
practical jewel-set compass, a jack-knife which he carefully selected
from several others, a small belt ax, a flat metal trap, several snares,
a pair of mooseskin moccasins, a water-tight match box, the necessary
toilet articles, a small file, a small aluminum frying pan, a saucepan,
a tin cup, a small aluminum coffee pot into which he put two knives, two
forks, and two spoons, for Harry’s duffel bag, containing his personal
equipment for the trip, had gone on with the troop.
“Now, let me see,” he said, standing beside the bed and contemplating
the things he had chosen, “you take this paper and write down what I
name—or wait a minute, while I think of it.” He disappeared, and
presently returned with a spool of strong thread and two needles stuck
into it. This he dropped into the tin cup, then dropped the tin cup into
the coffee pot.
“Now write down what I tell you—these are all things we’ve got to get
in the morning.
“Two tin plates.
“Bacon.
“Rice—do you like rice? Saccharine tablets. Raisins. Salt and pepper.
Egg powder. Got all that down?”
“Yes.”
“All right, the rest will come to me in my sleep. Now let’s see what
you’ve got in that fancy bag.” He turned the contents of Gordon’s duffel
bag out on the bed. “What in the world is this?”
“That’s a suction pad, Harry.”
“What’s it for?”
“Keep you from falling off cliffs.”
“We’ll cut out the suction pad. Here, eat these apples and get them out
of the way. Now, what’s this?”
So he went through the pile of things, approving some, discarding
others, yielding here, insistent there, until, as he said, he had
reduced Gordon’s freight to a common denominator.
The next morning they started, with a minimum amount of duffel for one
week’s supply, the load divided between them. There were crackers of the
iron-clad pilot variety; there was rice, which Harry said he could do
lots of things with; there were chocolate, cheese, figs, cereal, besides
the things Harry had enumerated the night before. Besides these, there
was “fly dope,” one or two household medicines, an antiseptic solution,
blankets, two empty cushion bags, and a good-sized piece of balloon silk
(weighing next to nothing) for shelter.
Harry wore long khaki trousers laced down from the knee, and moccasins
of heavy mooseskin. From the belt up, however, he was rather a sailor
than a scout, for he had never been able to bring himself to abandon the
blue flannel shirt with its flap front and double row of pearl buttons.
He positively declined to wear any kind of coat. His belt was a thin
book-strap, and from this hung a small belt ax. Of course, he carried
his rifle.
Gordon was a scout from head to foot. He would not have missed one
detail of the full regalia. He carried his part of the burden in his
duffel bag slung over his staff, on which he also ostentatiously hung
the trap and snares and to which was bound the fishing rod and tackle.
“You want to do what I did, Harry,” said he on their way to the station.
“Rip the lining out of your hat and pull it on good and tight—the felt
catches your hair and it can’t blow off.”
“Or pull off either when you’re crawling through brush. It’s a good
idea.”
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon. “Look here.” He held his scout hat
forward, displaying inside the crown a little flap pocket filled with
matches. “See, you can splash through all the water you want, but
they’ll never get wet there, and you’ve got them right handy where you
want them to light in a breeze.”
“Good for you,” said Harry.
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon.
But just then the train whistled and both boys sprinted down the hill.
The ride to the city was not long, one or two trifling purchases at a
sporting goods store where Harry seemed to be well known took but a few
minutes, and before ten o’clock they were seated comfortably in the
Montreal Express, gliding up the east shore of the Hudson, just as the
Oakwood troop, minus these two boys, had gone the day before.
It was Gordon’s custom always to get his good turn done early in the
day. He was not going to be caught at sundown with this duty staring him
in the face. Not that he confined himself to one good turn per day, for,
indeed, he acted on the approved theory that one good turn deserves
another. But the first good turn was a religious duty; it was essential
to his good standing, and when he undertook to become a scout he
understood this to be a regular daily obligation. He did not ask for any
credit or indulgence. He never let his good turn go over to be made up
the following day by two good turns. He rose in the morning, washed,
dressed, breakfasted, did his school work, then looked about for an
opportunity to do his good turn.
So now he looked up and down the railroad carriage to see if any one
were in need of his kindly ministrations. After a minute, he rose and
walked up the aisle, where he stood on the outskirts of a little group
consisting of the train newsboy, the brakeman, an elderly lady, and two
little girls, evidently her grandchildren. The brakeman was trying to
open the window for the elderly lady. But the window would not open. The
brakeman, giving up the attempt, went up the aisle and out of the car,
and an elderly gentleman offered his services with the same result. The
lady was beginning to feel the embarrassment of being such a center of
interest. As Harry craned his head around he saw Gordon standing
modestly apart from the others, hat in hand.
Presently, the latter came back to his seat and got his staff.
“Did you think of a way?” asked Harry, laughing.
“Can’t tell yet,” said Gordon, as he went back up the aisle.
The car door opened and a sonorous voice called, “Poughkeepsie!”
Gordon stepped in between the seats, placing the end of his staff under
the brass lift at the bottom of the sash. As the train slackened speed,
he pressed gently on his lever. Suddenly the movement of the train
became more abrupt, the cars shunted, there came the slight convulsive
movement he had been waiting for, the staff was pressed quickly down
just at the right second, the window creaked and rose.
In a moment more he was seated by his friend, volubly explaining the
trick.
“If she doesn’t come when the train stops, try again when it starts and
often that’ll fetch her. Only you’ve got to be careful to press just
exactly at the right second—the physical moment, I think they call it.”
“That’s it,” said Arnold, and turned his face toward the window,
laughing.
After they had left Albany there occurred another incident which, though
trifling at the time, was destined to be long remembered. They were
sitting comfortably back in their seats discussing their plan of
campaign, when a boy of about sixteen came through the car. He was
dressed in ordinary summer outing fashion save that he wore a scout hat,
and as he passed the two boys he raised his right hand to his forehead
and made the full salute to Harry. He was one of a long line of people
carrying bundles, suitcases, and so forth, who were passing through the
aisle, and it would have caused a slight interruption to the others had
he paused. Probably for this reason he went straight on through the car
and disappeared through the doorway.
“He’s a scout, all right,” said Gordon.
“Yes,” answered Harry, “but this is what puzzles me—how did he know I
am entitled to the full salute?”
“From the badge on your hat, of course!”
“Only my hat’s upside down on my knees. Guess again.”
“Well,” said Gordon, “he knew you were a first-class man by your
seamanship badge.”
“But how did he know I was patrol leader?”
“Your flag?”
“No—that’s gone on with the troop.”
The only conclusion they could reach was that the strange boy was a
wonder. Every now and then they reverted to it, and one or the other
would suggest going back through the train to hunt him up and ask him
how he knew that Harry Arnold was patrol leader. But they invariably
settled back satisfied with the observation that the boy was a “winner”
until finally Gordon shouted:
“He saw the badge wasn’t on your sleeve, Harry, so he knew it must be on
your hat—there you are!”
“No,” said Harry, “he wouldn’t expect to see it on this flannel
shirt—he’d know it belonged on the khaki jacket.”
“Well, he’s a Sherlock Holmes, all right,” concluded Gordon, and there
the matter rested for the time being.
At four o’clock in the afternoon the train pulled into the old village
of Ticonderoga, which is at the head of Lake George and on the
crescent-shaped stream which connects it with Lake Champlain. The boys
realized now that it would have been better for them to arrive in the
morning, but that would have involved an all-night journey in the train.
There was the inevitable cluster of summer boarders waiting at the
station, and the two boys created quite a little ruffle of interest and
curiosity as they stepped off the train. They made their way through the
group and up to the post-office, where Harry said he wanted to “buzz”
the postmaster for any knowledge he might have of the whereabouts of the
Oakwood troop. Gordon stood by in fear and trembling lest the official
might drop some hint which would simplify their quest and spoil the
whole fun of their expedition.
It _had_ gotten around to the postmaster by a somewhat circuitous route
that a party of boys and one man had arrived in town the day before and
were not known to be staying at any of the houses, so they must have
gone somewhere. They couldn’t have stayed in town very long. “If they
had, we’d a knowed it,” said the postmaster.
They inquired in the telegraph station as to whether a party of boys had
sent a message to Oakwood, N. J., the day before. None had. But the
telegraph operator’s sister had called in the doctor that morning, who
had told her that the livery stable man had gone into the hardware store
to buy a bit and had heard the hardware man say two “rigged-up fellers”
had bought a steel trap the night before. So, despite Gordon’s protest,
Harry interviewed the hardware man. The incident of the trap was true,
but that was all they could learn, and they sought no further
information.
It lacked still an hour or two of sunset when they left the village and
found themselves on the open road which stretched northward. It
traversed a tract of fairly level country about two miles to the west of
the lake, and about the same distance to the west of the road rose the
mountains. Now and then they could catch a glimpse of the water whose
winding course they were following, and always to their left were the
hills, rolling one over another far to the westward and fading in color
as they receded, till they merged into the horizon. Here and there, amid
that multitudinous confusion, there arose some lofty peak touched with
the first crimson rays of sunset. Doubtless, there were pleasant
villages nestling here and there, and cheerful homes, but these the boys
could not see—only the innumerable hills, silent, wild, lonesome. It
seemed that they might reach to the farthest ends of the earth. To
Gordon the country did not look at all like the map, and it was hard to
believe that the print and paper really represented anything or could be
used to any purpose.
“Well, here we are in the haystack,” said Harry, cheerily. “Now for the
needle—I don’t see it anywhere, do you?”
“Harry,” Gordon answered, “I think we’ve got a job on our hands. Look at
those hills. They don’t look much as they do on the map—all
crisscrossed up with roads and villages and things.”
“Especially, _things_,” said Harry. “You see, Kid, we’re between the
foothills and the lake. That ridge bends toward the lake and touches the
shore about five miles ahead—savvy? We’re cutting right up through the
middle of a great big wedge, as you might say, and Dibble Mountain is
the point. We’re headed right for it.”
“The point isn’t sharp enough to cut you,” commented Gordon.
“And when we get to Dibble Mountain, we’ll run upstairs and see what we
can see.”
The sun was rapidly sinking, and as they followed the unfrequented road,
the gathering shadows, the increasing chilliness of the air, the absence
of any of the cheerful and familiar signs of human life, were not
without their quieting effect on Gordon’s buoyant spirit. He had heard
Dr. Brent say that this country was not the Adirondacks proper, that it
was not, in fact, a very wild country. But now, as he looked about him
at the far-reaching hills with their dense patches of woods, growing
somber and more forbidding in the twilight, it seemed to him that no
country could possibly be wilder and more impenetrable. Hills, hills,
nothing but hills; some rearing their rugged summits high above the rest
as if they cherished a kind of lofty scorn at being put on a map and
traced with a lead pencil. For the moment, his faith in human resource
and the facilities and possibilities of woods-wisdom was shaken in the
face of this great, enveloping, silent adversary. He even doubted
whether Black Wolf[1] himself (let alone Red Deer) could put up much of
a fight against such odds.
Presently the road entered a patch of woodland where frogs croaked
despondently in a little marshy pond and crickets kept up their
incessant night songs. Then their way brought them into open country
again. Silently they tramped on. On their right the road skirted a
ravine which descended abruptly and whose bottom was lost in a black,
tangled thicket. And beyond, in the direction of the great lake,
extended woods till the twilight and the distance merged the tree-tops
into one vast dark coverlet. They paused a moment, peering over the
broken log fence into the depths. Somewhere in the stillness was the
sound of falling water. High above them in the dusk sped a great bird,
hastening toward the mountains.
“It’s a pretty big haystack, hey, Kid?” said Harry, cheerily.
“It certainly is,” answered Gordon.
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[1] Ernest Thompson Seton.