THE FOREST HITS BACK
His whole thought now was to reach the camp and surprise the two patrols
and Red Deer. Feeling his way cautiously on and upward, for it was a
wooded hillside he was traversing, he managed to pick his way along the
winding forest path. Now he stumbled over naked roots, now some
overhanging or projecting bough impeded his progress. It was useless to
look for signs in such darkness; it was with difficulty that he kept to
the wild, thickly grown trail. Sometimes he paused, undecided as to its
direction, but always went on again, reassured by some trifling clue.
Now and then, a clear, unobstructed opening of a few yards convinced him
that he was in the path. At other times his only resource was to feel
about with hands and feet, determining as best he might the path of
least resistance and pressing through its tangled brush to find always
an opening farther on. It was difficult work. No one who had gone
before, no roadside code, could help him here.
Once or twice he thought of going back and resuming his quest with Harry
in the morning, but he had gone so far that it seemed his easiest
course, however difficult and involved, to press forward. Moreover, he
was fast falling into the odd conceit of viewing the surrounding
country, which he had nonchalantly called a haystack, in the light of a
great adversary which had thrown down a challenge to him, and he must
perforce take up the challenge, else be a coward and a “quitter.” So far
he had held his own, and what a glory it would be to march into camp
having vanquished these silent, baffling hosts of wood and hill and
darkness. “Hello, Charlie,” he would say to the Beavers’ corporal,
“hurry up there and get me a bite to eat, will you?” His whole ambition
was now to walk carelessly into their midst and squat down by the
camp-fire with some cordial, offhand remark.
From this train of thought, he was presently aroused by a sudden
vigorous strategic move on the part of his imagined foe. His staff,
which he had been bringing to the ground before him like a walking-stick
with each step, suddenly sank, touching nothing. He had the presence of
mind to drop it and throw both arms quickly behind him, which inclined
his body slightly backward and enabled him to retreat a step or two.
Shaking from head to foot, he fumbled in the little flap pocket in his
hat crown and lit a match. It flared a second, then went out. But in the
sudden glare he saw that he was standing on the brink of a yawning
chasm. Still trembling from his narrow escape, he struck another light
and saw that one of his footprints was within eighteen inches of the
precipice and that the other had actually rested on the very edge,
displacing some of the earth, which had crumbled and fallen in. Gordon
had had his first lesson in the tactics which the wilderness can use.
He lay flat with his head over the edge and looked down. Nothing but
darkness. So again he must use his faithful ally, the fire. Kindling a
fire was his great stunt. He would gather up a few dry, brittle twigs or
cones, scrape out a little punk, arrange them daintily, make a dome over
them with his hands, and presently show you a very ambitious little
blaze, as a magician will take a mysterious rabbit from a hat. “Do the
fire trick, Kid,” the boys of the troop would say to him. So now he
foraged about, accumulated the necessary materials, and presently had a
very respectable flame. But the glare about seemed only to make the
depths of the precipice darker. It had shown him, however, that the soil
displaced by his perilous step was not the only soil that had been
disturbed. Scarce two feet farther along the edge of the bank quite a
sizable piece of earth had caved in. But he could see nothing below. He
cut a straight stick about the size of an ordinary cane. This he
whittled with his jack-knife, cutting in from the end of the stick to a
depth of about eight inches, until the curly shavings formed a sort of
brush. Between these wooden bristles he wedged as much tree gum as he
could find on the adjacent trees, and lighting his torch, went
cautiously along the edge of the bank.
This soon began to slope gradually until at a distance of about fifty
feet he was able to let himself down into the bed of the chasm. It was
filled with rocks and fallen trees and dank undergrowth, and yielded the
unwholesome odor of rotting wood.
Gordon picked his way through the gully, holding his flaring torch here
and there until he was nearly under the spot where he had all but
fallen. Here were three logs, two of them lying flat upon the swampy
ground, the other leaning against the side of the precipice. He walked
along one of these to avoid the wet as much as possible and suddenly
came upon a hat, of the same general pattern as his own, lying in the
mud. He was just about to pick it up when he saw a few feet farther on a
ghastly object. A boy, his face smeared with blood and his leg in a very
unnatural position, lay stark before him.
The sight, as it showed in the glare of Gordon’s torch, quite unnerved
him, and he stood for a moment on the other log staring at the figure
lying prone and motionless in the mud. He could not bring himself to go
nearer. Presently, more to relieve his own nervous tension than for any
other purpose, he called. But the figure neither stirred nor answered.
There was something about its position that frightened Gordon, and he
could not bring himself to go close enough to look at the boy’s eyes.
Then suddenly the words of General Sir Baden-Powell, which he had read,
came jumping into his head,—plain words, plainly stated, and for that
reason stamped in the boy’s memory:
_A scout is sometimes timid about handling an insensible man or
a dead body, or of seeing blood. Well, he will never be much use
till he gets over such nonsense. The poor insensible fellow
can’t hurt him._
At this recollection the young scout conquered his hesitation, stamped
over through the mud to where the boy lay, and did the sensible thing,
as a scout should. He circled his hand lightly about the poor, limp
wrist and pressed slightly with his two middle fingers. As usual, with a
novice, he had the wrong spot, so he moved his fingers ever so little
and, sure enough, after a moment’s concentration, he became aware of the
little, steady throbbing which told him that at least the boy was alive.
He thrust his now waning torch into the mud and thought. He knew that if
either of the boy’s limbs were broken he should not be moved unless
absolutely necessary and then only with such handling as he was not in a
position to give. He knew that if anything were the matter with the
boy’s spine, any save the most careful and skillful moving might prove
instantly fatal. But he also knew that no injured person should be left
lying there in the mud.
Undoubtedly, the responsibility which had suddenly been thrust upon him,
the need of careful judgment, were out of proportion to Gordon’s
experience and years, and being of a light-headed, sanguine, and buoyant
temperament, the “First Aid” training and ambulance badge had not been
especially a part of his ambition. His scoutish triumphs, until now, had
all been more or less amusing and humorous, but here was a grave duty
resting on his young shoulders. And he met it, as a scout usually does,
willingly.
First he crowded all the odds and ends of wood and rock that he could
find under the edge of the precipice, where the ground was higher and
drier. Then, tugging with all his might and main, he managed to get the
three logs over to this pile and rested their ends against it, so that
they lay parallel with each other at a slight incline. Then he pressed
down into the ground four sticks, one at the head and one at the foot of
each outer log, thus effectually preventing their spreading. The lower
end, or foot, of this inclined rack rested in the mud just above the
prostrate boy’s head. Across this lower end and under the logs, he laid
a stout stick whose ends rested just beside the stakes he had driven in
the ground. Now he hurried along the gully and up the bank to the spot
where he had left his bag. This he took and also such green boughs as he
could procure hastily in the dark, and collected some more gum. When he
returned it was necessary for him to re-whittle his torch and re-fill it
with this substance.
Arranging the boughs upon the rack and making as smooth a bed as he
could in his great hurry, he spread his blanket over all. Then he
kindled a fire up under the precipice where the ground was dry. All of
his fuel had to be brought from above, and he carted down several loads
in his bag, having emptied it of its contents. After he had succeeded,
by much skillful persuasion, in inducing the little blaze to brace up
and try to amount to something in the world, he drove two sticks into
the ground, one on either side of the fire, and from one to the other of
these he strung a piece of snare wire. On the other side of the gully,
water was trickling down a rock, but how to entice it into his pail was
a question. He noticed on the ground, near the unconscious boy, a little
pamphlet. Without any very clear idea of its possible utility he picked
it up. On the cover were printed the words:
THE BOY SCOUTS’ SCHEME
What It Is What It Is Not
He knew the pamphlet well. Tearing the cover page off, he took his pail
and going over to the miniature waterfall he held the page, slanting
ways, tight against the rock with the other edge leading into his pail.
In a few moments the pail was half filled with fairly clean water. This
he hung from the snare wire above the flame.
By the exercise of all his strength and with the greatest care, he
succeeded in pulling the prostrate form up the inclined rack, cutting
and pulling off the boy’s outer clothing as fast as it reached the foot
of the rack so that the blanket might be kept dry. It was a delicate and
difficult task, but he did it. When the limp, unconscious figure was on
the rack, Gordon lifted one side of the foot by means of the cross bar
underneath, laying the edge of this cross bar on a rock which he had
placed for the purpose. He did the same with the other side. Thus he had
succeeded in placing his charge on a couch well above the mud, dry and
comparatively comfortable. He took off his own khaki coat and laid it
over the boy. When his water had heated, he washed the boy’s face
carefully with his handkerchief.
As the mud and blood disappeared, a white face with closed eyes was
revealed. Gordon started, then stared intently. It was the very boy who
had passed through the aisle in the railroad train and given Harry
Arnold the full salute. There was an ugly wound on one side of his
forehead. This, however, had ceased to bleed, and Gordon bathed it
carefully and bandaged it with his handkerchief.
Here his resource failed him. He knew of nothing more that he could do
for the poor fellow’s comfort. It was quite too dark for smoke signals,
and the woods were too dense for an effectual message by fire. It
occurred to him to open the little scout bulletin, thinking that
possibly something might be written in it, some name, or troop or patrol
name, which might suggest some course better than merely waiting. He
held it close to the fire and ran it over. It was Bulletin No. 5,
containing among other things the required tests for tenderfoot,
first-class, and second-class scouts. These were listed numerically, and
as Gordon was very familiar with all of them they did not interest him
particularly. Having done all the second-class tests, he did not even
glance at these, but he did bestow a fond and covetous eye upon the
first-class list. The first test, beginning, “Swim fifty yards,” was
checked off. The second, requiring the sum of fifty cents in the savings
bank, was also checked.
“He’s to the good on the financial side,” commented Gordon. The third
requirement (the signal test) was also checked. Not so the fourth.
“4. Go on foot or row a boat alone to a point seven miles away
and return, or if conveyed by any vehicle or animal, go to a
distance of fifteen miles and back; and write a short report on
it. It is preferable that he should take two days over it.”
“Go on foot, alone, to a point seven miles away and return,” said
Gordon, thoughtfully. “Ticonderoga must be about five miles from here.
But the fellow came up on the train. If he’s trying to make his test—.
Well, anyway, if he came from the village and was headed for a point
seven miles from the village, his camp must be only a mile or two
farther on.”
Inspired by the thought, he added more fuel to his fire and printed
across the back of the pamphlet, with a charred stick, the words, _Gone
for help_.
He stuck the pamphlet on a twig and placed it so that the boy, if he
opened his eyes, must see it in the light of the fire. Then, hurrying
along the gully, carrying nothing but his staff, he sought for a place
low enough or sloping enough for him to mount the farther side of the
hollow. Finally, clambering up through tangled brush, he reached the
brow and went cautiously along the edge to a point almost above where
his fire still burned and where the prostrate figure lay, stark and
white and motionless. He lighted a match to make sure that the path
recommenced here, and in its short glare he noticed something which made
him start.
It was a new, clearly defined footprint, pointing in the same direction
that he himself was about to take.