IN HOC SIGNO VINCES
It was now late in the afternoon, and the drizzling rain had stopped;
but the sky remained dull, and a chill wind was blowing. The sun, which
might have guided him, had not shown itself all day. He tried vainly to
find it by holding his knife blade vertically on his thumb and twirling
it round in hopes that it might reveal a faint shadow. He might have
secured an outlook from the top of the hemlock, but his leg was
scratched and sore and one sneaker torn almost apart. He realized now
how exhausted he was. For a moment a panic fear seized him; then he
remembered what Red Deer had once told him, in case he should be lost in
the woods, “Don’t get rattled—keep your shirt on.”
“But I can’t even do that,” said Gordon.
He sat down on a bowlder. “If I ever hear Harry call this a peak again,
I’ll—” Suddenly a thought came to him. The wind had not shifted; it was
still in the east. He stood facing it, holding his left arm
outstretched, sideways. “That ought to be the north,” said he. Looking
where his hand pointed, he noticed a small hole in a tree trunk near
him. A worm seemed to be hanging out of it, but as he approached it gave
a sudden whisk and disappeared. It was no worm, but a mouse’s tail, and
he recollected with great elation (for he seldom forgot anything) that a
field-mouse almost always dwells on the south side of a tree. So, with
the wind and the mouse-hole agreeing as to the compass points, Gordon
started north.
He believed that camp was a mile and a half or two miles distant, and he
sorely regretted now that he had not blazed the way for his return. But
he went straight ahead, as he thought, pushing through the underbrush
until he found himself in comparatively open land. There was no outlook
here, and he was too stiff to climb a tree. Nevertheless he fancied that
one or two objects were familiar, and was convinced that he was heading
directly for camp.
Wet, shivering, sore, and tired, he plodded on. When he believed he was
within call, he shouted, but there was no answer. He would give another
shout a little farther on. Presently he came to a thicket, and in a few
moments stood, limp and weary, staring about him in amazement, in the
very spot of his fight with the lynx. There was the hemlock. There was
the pool.
Very much discouraged, he sat down to rest, kicked off his battered
sneaker, which was of no further use, and took a long “think.” He knew
that he had done what people lost in the woods are almost sure to
do—walked in a large circle.
“That’s a funny thing when you come to think of it,” he said; “we must
be built lopsided.”
As he tugged his rebellious stocking into place, another idea came to
him. Well he recollected one evening when Red Deer (in his civilized
role of Dr. Brent) had sat on the porch talking with Mr. Lord. He,
Gordon, had sat in the background catching and retaining everything like
a sponge. He remembered Dr. Brent’s telling his father an interesting
theory to account for this tendency of people to walk in a circle. The
theory was that the heart, beating on the left side, throws extra
strength and activity into the left leg, so that one unconsciously edges
to the right. “Now,” thought Gordon, “if I just limp a little more on my
sore leg, that ought to straighten things out.”
So, when he had rested, he started north again, resolving to keep this
mischievous inclination of the heart in mind and counteract it by
limping uniformly with his left leg. That his limping very nicely
balanced the extra strength was demonstrated (to his own complete
satisfaction, at least) when an hour later, shoeless and shirtless, but
with a radiant smile, he limped into camp just as Harry was beginning to
think of going in search of him.
“Harry, I don’t _have_ to limp as bad as this, but I’ve made a wonderful
discovery.”
“Where’s your shirt?”
“Wait till you hear—I’ve had a great adventure! You know we’re all
lopsided, Harry, on account of our hearts; we’re not built true, and
I’ve thought of a way—”
“All right, come in here and get dressed. Lucky you’ve got another shirt
and a pair of sneakers. What have you been into now, you little son of
trouble?”
“Shall I begin at the beginning, Harry?”
“Certainly! Let’s hear it all!”
So Gordon recounted his adventure with his wonderful discovery as a
climax, and Harry listened with a dry smile. “Guess it was a lynx, all
right,” he said.
After supper Harry displayed an elaborate drawing of a model aeroplane
which he had made on the inside cover of his book. Ever since he had
left Mr. Danforth’s hospitable roof, his thoughts had run somewhat on
Penfield and his model. The result of his studying the diagram was that
he had written Penfield a letter on the fly leaves of the book and
stuffed it in his pocket to mail as soon as he should strike a
post-office. It read:
Dear Pen:—
Be sure to soak your clockwork in kerosene oil. If you can’t hit
on any whalebone, get an old umbrella and use the ribs. The silk
will make good covering, too. Drop a glass bead on your
propeller axle—it will do for ball bearing. Put some vaseline
on it. Be sure to have your covering hang a little over the back
of the planes to hold the air a second, and I think the cover of
a fountain pen would do better than a gas tip to hold your
sticks together—it’s lighter. Hairpins are handy, too. Maybe
you’ve got one of those bamboo porch screens that pull up and
down. The strips would be great if you’re making a curved plane.
If your sisters have any old hats with flowers on them, you’ll
find good thin wire inside the stems. Peel the green stuff off.
The wire would be just the thing for binding your frame corners,
too. Don’t get discouraged. We’ve got them beaten already. Only
don’t be too reckless with your glue, and have plenty of oil on
your cog chain. And don’t have your propeller go too fast—it
only cuts a hole in the air. If you could get hold of one of
those little hoops ladies embroider on, you could cut it in half
and you’d have good rudder frames. If you need strong spring
wire, the sides of a pair of spectacles would be just the thing.
You might find some good stuff in a willow chair. Be sure not to
have any flat surfaces against the air.
We’ll try to see you before we go home. We’re up on Bulwagga
Mountain now—still hunting. Hope to get a clue this afternoon
or night.
Your friend, Harry Arnold.
P. S—If you can’t get hold of a lady’s hat, maybe Miss Crosby,
over at Buck Mansion, can fix you up. Tell her I deduced that
she has a few. Gordon had a fight with a lynx—how’s that? Lost
his shirt and gained an adventure.
The night continued cloudy, and the boys had no alternative but to turn
in again with neither information nor clue. And this was especially
unfortunate since the moon was rising later each evening and soon all
hope of night searching would have to be abandoned.
“Kid,” said Harry, “I don’t think they’d have gone north of this—I
can’t get that woods down there out of my mind. But we could never
follow the stream down, old boy, not with your leg as it is. It means
more climbing than walking. It looks to me as if the stream would be a
series of waterfalls. Then I wouldn’t dare go far from it without a
compass.”
“Harry, now don’t spoil it all, whatever you do. I won’t vote for
sending up a signal—there’s no use asking me. We’re going to find
_them_. And everything is going fine. Gracious, I was scared when I lost
that compass, but now I know it’s the regular thing to do, Harry. Now,
there was a fellow they called the Black Ranger, and he did the same
thing, and it said that without food or compass and limping from his
wound, he pressed on with dauntless courage. And we’ve even got the
limp, Harry—if it don’t go and get well before we find them. We ought
not to find them, Harry, till we are well-nigh exhausted.”
“How’s that?”
“We ought to drag ourselves, weary but triumphant, into camp.”
“Hmmm,” said Harry.
He lay awake long, thinking. They might kindle a large signal fire on
the mountain, but that, if it were seen, would lessen the triumph of
finding the camp. It would be, in a way, calling for assistance, and he
did not like the idea any more than Gordon did.
The morning dawned dull and cloudy; it bade fair to be a repetition of
the previous day. Gordon slept long, and when he awoke he found the
shelter empty save for himself. While he was pulling on his things,
Harry came in, his mood wholly out of keeping with the weather.
“Hello there, Kiddo! Here are some minnows for breakfast.”
“Hello! I guess we won’t see any sign of campfire to-night. Doesn’t this
weather beat all!”
“Don’t grumble about the weather now. This is just the day to do my
sewing. I’ve got to patch up your stocking and fix you up generally, so
that if you should meet any maidens you’ll be in shape to recount your
adventures.”
“What’ll be our next move, Harry?”
“Our next move will be to explore that woods down there. That’s the
likeliest place for camp that they could strike in this vicinity, it
seems to me. It’s between the two forts, it’s flat woodland, and it’s
got a stream running through it—this stream that begins up here. So I
think we’d better get right down there and not waste any more time up
here.”
“But when we get down on the mountain side, Harry, we won’t be able to
see where we’re going.”
“We’re going down just the way we came up,” said Harry, “and strike into
the Port Henry Road. I think we’ll hit a road that goes around the
northern end of this old mountain and skirts the shore, and we’ll follow
that along till we strike the stream in level country. If they’re down
there at all, they’re near the stream—you can be sure of that; and
we’ll follow along the stream to the lake. I shouldn’t be in the least
surprised if we found them.”
“But if we don’t?”
“Then we’ll go on to Port Henry, and I’ll buy a regular spyglass there
if they have such a thing—and on to Bald Knob.—And if the collar
button’s under the bed, we’ll find it, or break our necks in the
attempt!”
“Or drop in our tracks is better, Harry.”
“Well, we’ll do that, then. So now for minnows and coffee and—do you
want bacon?”
“Surely.”
“Bacon it is, and then the sewing circle. Dump that spool of thread out
of the coffee pot, will you? Kid, you’re a horrible sight! You look as
if you’d been through a sawmill.”
By ten o’clock they were picking their way down the western slope toward
the Port Henry road. It is probably the easiest descent from the
southern peak, but it was difficult for all that. Noontime found them
again in open country, trudging along the road toward the little village
of Port Henry, which is on the lake shore about three miles north of the
mountain. Instinctively, each took a side of the road, watching it
closely as they went along. Now and then Harry would pause to examine a
trampled spot near the roadside. Every suspicious stone was carefully
scrutinized, then kicked aside for any secret it might be hiding.
Usually their inspection was only casual, and they discovered nothing
which justified them in pausing. Footprints were out of the question
considering the length of time which had elapsed and the rain which had
fallen. Every time Harry paused, Gordon looked expectantly over and
asked, “What did you strike?” and Harry would answer, “Nothing.”
They had almost reached the crossroad when Harry stopped to examine a
little hole in the ground, no larger in circumference than a broom
stick. He stuck a twig into the hole, finding that it was about six
inches deep.
“Locust hole?” asked Gordon, going over.
“Don’t think so,” Harry answered, pulling the grass carefully away from
it. “It’s octagon-shaped, isn’t it? Let’s have a match.” He held the
match down. “Humph, seems to go to a point, doesn’t it?”
They stood looking at each other.
“Morrel has an octagon-shaped staff, hasn’t he, Kid!”
Gordon’s face was an ample substitute for the recreant sun.
“We’ve found them! We’ve found them, Harry!” he shouted.
“Let’s sit down and think,” said Harry, quietly. “Kid, that crossroad
ahead there would take us round under the mountain, under the precipice,
and so into the woods below.”
“Harry, we’re on their trail!”
“You don’t call a hole in the ground a trail, do you? This is nothing
but a poor, weak, sickly little apology for a clue. So don’t go up in
the air. In the first place, has Morrel an octagon staff, or hasn’t he?”
“He has, Harry.”
“All right, now you’re talking. Evidently they stopped and talked here.
That stick must have been stuck down pretty well into the ground to
leave a hole that would stay there after the rain we’ve had in the last
couple of days. But if they knew they wanted to get into that woods, why
didn’t they come up the shore? What were they doing away in here west of
the mountain? Let’s take a look at that road for a little way.”
They could see by the map that the crossroad skirted the northern slope
of the mountain and ran along the bay shore, under the precipitous east
wall, and thence into the woods. But surely if the Oakwood troop had
come up from Ticonderoga knowing their destination, they would have
taken another and easier way to reach it.
With their inspection of the crossroad, the weak, sickly little clue
grew to robust proportions.
“Here’s where Mac got hungry, Kid,” Harry commented, kicking a piece of
silver paper. “Let’s see, now, if we can make anything out of all this.”
He looked smilingly round.
Meanwhile, Gordon’s observant eye had discovered something which
gladdened his heart,—a true, out-and-out scout sign. A little way down
the crossroad, along the right-hand side, a small square was scratched
with stone on a rock, with an arrow pointing from one of its sides. It
did not take Gordon long to take three paces from this stone in the
direction of the arrow.
“Let’s have your ax, Harry.”
In a minute more, both boys were sitting by the roadside poring over a
few words written on a piece of paper, which puzzled them more than they
helped, however. It simply said, in what appeared to be a hasty scrawl:
“If any of you come back this way, follow blazing.”
“_If any of them come back this way_,” repeated Harry. “What in the
dickens have they done—separated?” In a moment the answer came to him.
“Kid,” he said, “I may be all wrong, but I have an idea that some of
them went on into Port Henry to hire boats. That’s why they were up as
far as this. Probably they couldn’t find half a dozen canoes and dories
farther down. Here’s where they separated. Some went on, and the rest
stayed here—you can see they loafed around here—look at the chocolate
wrapper. Mac can’t sit down a minute without eating—he’ll weigh a ton
if he keeps on. Maybe the fellows that went on expected to make
arrangements for boats and perhaps come down the lake in them. Anyway,
the boys that waited here probably thought that some of them might come
back along this road expecting to find them, so when they decided to go
on they left this. I can’t make it out—they’ve been here, that’s sure,
and they’ve blazed a way off this road down a ways. Come on!”
They started down the road, watching carefully for any signs. Gordon was
almost too excited to speak.
“Oh, Harry, won’t it be great when we find them! What’ll we say?”
They came to a blazed tree and turned into the woods. Other trees were
blazed at intervals of a few yards, leading deeper and deeper into the
forest. They were now shut off from any outlook and did not know in what
direction they were traveling; but they followed the blazing, and before
long the lake showed in silvery patches through the trees.
“Harry,” said Gordon, stopping, “let’s decide how we’ll act. I say,
let’s just walk in as if nothing had happened and sit down. When they
ask us questions we’ll just answer kind of careless, and stretch
ourselves, you know, as if we didn’t want to be bothered. I’ve been
thinking, Harry, and I believe that’ll be better than dragging ourselves
into camp, hungry and exhausted, but with dauntless courage. You see,
the trouble is, Harry, there’s really enough food left in our packs for
several days more. By rights we ought not to find them till about three
days after our—what is it they call food, Harry?”
“Grub?” suggested Harry.
“No—means of something or other—”
“Means of sustenance?”
“That’s it, Harry,—till our means of sustenance is exhausted. Then
again, Harry, I don’t really look so very bad—I mean I don’t look bad
_enough_.”
“You look very dressy, Kid.”
“Now, keep quiet about that, Harry. I mean I don’t look as if the bleak
wind had penetrated to my very—”
“You look as if you needed a pair of stockings,” said Harry. “We’ll have
to get some in Port Henry. You’ve got an extra pair, but you ought to
have two good pairs in case we should happen to go—”
“Ha! What did I tell you? Didn’t I say you’d be going there again? And
now you want to use me for a scapegrace!”
“A what?”
“Well, you know what it is when you want to do a thing and lay the whole
blame on somebody else.”
“Oh, that’s a scapegoat.”
They had walked on and now reached a spot where they stopped short. It
was within a few yards of the shore. Before them was a large charred
spot, covered with ashes. A rough pole rested horizontally between two
saplings. A stream flowed into the lake near by. The ground was
trampled, and they could plainly see stake holes. Clearly, there had
been a camp here.
Both boys stood silent, contemplating the deserted spot.
“Well, what—do—you—think—of—that!” said Gordon.
“Kid,” said Harry, after a minute, “this is where we saw the smoke from
Dibble Mountain—just about where I thought. We didn’t see it from
Bulwagga that first night because it wasn’t here.”
“Correct; be seated, Master Arnold.”
“What do you say, Kid?”
“I have only one thing to say, Harry. We have been handed a large and
juicy lemon.”
“Let’s go down and look around the shore.”
The shore was sloping in one place—an ideal spot for hauling up canoes;
but no sign was there, not the slightest ruffle in the sand, to indicate
that any boats had been there.
“Maybe they went back the way they came, Harry.”
Harry paid no heed to this remark, but walked about the shore, stooping
now and then, examining it closely. He walked along the stream to its
nearest point to the deserted camp, but found nothing. Gordon sat on a
large rock by the shore, watching him.
“Harry, you look like an Uncle Tom’s Cabin bloodhound.”
Harry, meanwhile, had taken a stick and prodded it into the water under
the rock. “Pretty deep, eh?” he said. Then he felt of the rock by
Gordon’s side. His finger rested on what appeared to be a wet spot, but
it was perfectly dry. He leaned down and smelled of it. “Take a whiff of
that, Kid.”
Gordon smelled it. “You can’t prove anything by me, Harry.”
Harry vaulted on to the rock and sat by Gordon’s side. “You’d better
read up what your old college chum, General Baden-Powell, has to say
about smelling clues, my son,—that’s a grease spot.”
“Maybe somebody laid a frankfurter there,” suggested Gordon.
“More likely it was an oily rag out of a motor-boat. Now, kindly keep
your seats, ladies and gentlemen; the show is not over.”
But Gordon, heedless, had taken a flying leap, and was sniffing the spot
with inquisitive enthusiasm.
“I smell it! I smell it!” said he. “Oh, Harry, I smell it! It’s
gasoline! Eureka! Excelsior! or whatever they call it!”
“I think not,” said Harry, quietly. “It was a wipe rag. Probably the
engine went on strike—as it naturally would if Walden monkeyed with it.
I never thought Walden’s bungling would be any use, but I believe he’s
done us a good turn here. Let this be a lesson to you, my son, never to
smoke cigarettes.”
“Harry,” said Gordon, dramatically, “I never shall. But kindly tell me
what that’s got to do with a motor-boat—or with Walden, either—he
doesn’t smoke.”
“No, nor any other scout. And you show me a fellow that smells an oil
stain in the open air after two days of rain, and I’ll deduce for you
whether he smokes cigarettes or not. You can take that little sermon
from your patrol leader, and if you don’t believe me, ask Red Deer.”
“If I ever see him again, Professor Arnold.”
“You’ll see him again, all right,” said Harry, examining the grease
spot. “Do you understand Latin?”
“I can tell if there’s any quinine in a prescription, Harry.”
“Well, listen to this: _In hoc signo vinces._”
“Harry, _don’t_ tell me they’re in hock!”
“No, some one came down here in a motor-boat, got the rest, and went
chugging back again.”
“You’re a _perfect ghoul!_,” cried Gordon, mimicking Miss Crosby.
“You’ve picked up a loose chug—you _know_ you have! It’s just
_wonderful_!”
“Do you want to know what _In hoc signo vinces_ means, you little
monkey?”
“I shall never be happy till I find out.”
“Well, then,” said Harry, pointing to the grease spot, “it means, “By
this sign thou wilt conquer.”
“But I don’t see how you know they went off in the motor-boat, Harry.
Even supposing there was a motor-boat here, there’s nothing to show the
fellows went off in her. It might have been just somebody that stopped
here to visit the camp.”
“Well,” said Harry, “they didn’t go back the way they came, that’s sure.
They’d never have left that note under the rock if they’d gone right
back past it. There’s no other road leading away from here, and I don’t
believe they’d have struck right across country. I’m pretty sure they
wouldn’t follow the railroad track either, so there’s nothing left but
the motor-boat. We shall now count the railroad ties from here to Port
Henry.”