OUT FOR A RECORD.
“Talk to me about luck, I’m having the greatest string of successes you
ever heard of!” the enthusiastic photographer laughingly declared, as he
saw the others staring hard at him.
“Well, of all the nerve I ever struck, Arthur,” said Billy solemnly,
“you certainly take the cake! Why, you’ve got the artistic fever so bad
that I believe if a big bear was chasing after us all, you’d want to
stop and ask him to look pleasant while you snapped him off. There’s
getting to be no limit to your——”
“Just hold on there, Billy,” broke in Hugh. “I think this time Arthur
deserves the thanks of the whole Wolf patrol for his
stick-at-it-tiveness, as Walter Osborne always calls stubbornness. Think
of what a heap of satisfaction it’s going to be to all of us, when we
look over some of these thrillers he’s snatched with that snapshot box
of his! Leave Arthur alone. While we’re all making history, he’s going
to be the one to keep it fresh in our hearts and eyes. We’re proud of
him.”
“And I’m wondering, if these pictures turn out anything like the
originals,” remarked Bud, “what Don Miller of the Foxes will say. You
know he’s been going in strong of late along the same lines as our chum
here; and they do say he shows more or less talent about taking queer
things. But my stars! he never could even dream of such re-_mark_able
stunts as have been crowding in on us of late, commencing with that
storm yesterday!”
“Well, Blake Merton has done some good work for the Hawks, too, they
tell me,” Arthur admitted, for he was a modest boy and always willing to
give a friend credit when it was due. “I know that he’s been staying
nights up on his uncle’s farm, just to be able to use a flashlight on
the animals in that swamp. I own up that the idea of the thing came to
me through him. Blake is all wool and a yard wide; nothing small about
him. He said, ‘No matter who wins out, let’s get the greatest lot of
queer pictures together that ever were.’”
“And I reckon we will,” declared Billy positively, “as long as you’re
able to toddle around with us Wolves, Arthur.”
“I’m wondering what next we’ll run across,” remarked Bud reflectively,
as they watched Hugh assisting the wounded aeronaut to gather his
scattered traps together. “According to my mind it only needs a runaway
horse, with a lovely child to be rescued, or a mad dog scare in town,
with our Hugh getting in the limelight as the hero who stands in the
breach and knocks the beast on the head with a baseball bat, to complete
the whole schedule.”
“Oh! that would be too old-fashioned these days,” said Arthur, as he
patted his beloved camera in its leather case, which he had slung by a
strap over his shoulder. “To be up-to-date a rescue would have to be
where, mounted on a motorcycle, you pursue a runaway car, and jump into
it just before it reaches the crossing at the railroad, where a limited
express is coming tearing along. I saw one like that at the movies the
other night, and it glued me to my seat with both hands holding on to
the rests at the sides, until it was over. I don’t believe I could even
breathe for excitement.”
“Or else you’d have to chase an unmanageable aeroplane mounted on
another sky flier and in some way bring it to a stop, just like the
mounted police hold up runaway riding horses in Central Park,” Billy
added, for he could be depended on to match one story with another every
time.
“But here comes Hugh with the professor,” said Bud just then. “I reckon
he has picked up all he wants to tote away with him. However do you
think we’ll get to town with him, boys? He must feel pretty weak after
what he went through, and his arm must pain him, too. We may have to
make a litter and carry him.”
“Well, for one thing, let me tell you he’s got a heap of grit,” said
Billy softly, for he did not want the others to hear what he was saying
as they came up. “You bet every man that goes up in the clouds has got
to be full to the brim of nerve. If we let him rest every little while,
you’ll see that he’ll make the riffle, all correct. I’ve sized him up
already.”
Hugh and the aeronaut now came up.
“I want to shake hands with each one of you boys,” the gentleman began
promptly, “and tell you how much I feel indebted to you all for what
you’ve done for me this day. Only for your gallant work, the chances are
ten to one I would have lost my life in this hazardous pleasure sailing
of mine.”
He went from one to the other, and from the vigorous way he squeezed
each hand that was extended to him frankly, it seemed that he must still
have considerable stored-up energy left in him.
“Oh! that wasn’t so much, Professor,” Billy said in return. “We’re
scouts, you see, and it is one of the rules of the organization never to
refuse to put out a helping hand to any one in trouble. I guess it is
getting to be a disease with some of us, because we’re on the lookout
most of the time for a chance to do something that’ll satisfy a sort of
craving to be useful. So if you feel that thanks are due, sir, the whole
troop ought to share ’em.”
“The whole troop wasn’t on hand this time to climb trees and lower a
poor chap who had a broken arm and would have fallen sixty feet if he
worked loose from that crotch,” the gentleman remarked with kindling
eyes, as though this modesty on the part of the khaki-clad boys aroused
his admiration more than ever. “And if no one had happened to see me
meet with my accident, I’m afraid I’d have remained in that treetop
until the end came.”
“When you feel like walking, sir,” Hugh told him, “we’ll set out for
town. I know of a fine spring of cold water only half a mile away, and
you’ll be refreshed after you get a good drink of that.”
“Let me sit here about ten minutes, Hugh,” said the gentleman, and his
mention of the young leader’s name showed that he had already asked
questions and learned who they all were; “then I think I’ll be equal to
the task of starting. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you who I am, and what I was
aiming to do with my balloon when I met with a crowning disaster. I also
want to hear all about your patrol, and why you came up here on this
particular day, when it was fated you should be of such vital assistance
to me.”
This suited the boys, for they had a natural curiosity to learn
something about the ambitions of a daring aeronaut. Accordingly, they
found as comfortable seats as they could, after fixing for Mr. Perkins,
as he gave his name, a seat of hemlock browse that was hastily pulled
from a neighboring tree.
“In the first place,” said the gentleman, “I’m not a professional
aeronaut. That is, I never have made a flight for money, because I have
not felt the necessity. But my fancy for such things has been gradually
growing into a craze, and possibly my name is among a few who have
worked hard to advance the sport of balloon ascents. I’ve taken part in
numerous long distance races, and held the record for several years.
Yes, they call me Professor, though I hardly deserve the title.”
“I should say you do, if any one could, sir,” observed Hugh, admiringly.
“On this present unfortunate occasion, I have been quietly trying to
pass entirely across the continent, from the shore of the Pacific to the
Atlantic, by a series of dashes. I’d hardly like to tell you how many
failures I made of it, and what a series of thrilling, hair-breadth
escapes I had, before I was finally able to cross over the Sierra Nevada
and the Rocky Mountains; but I finally managed to do it, and the rest of
my journey was like a tame picnic until now, just when I expected to
make the coast and was wrecked near port.”
“That was a shame!” burst out Billy impulsively.
“Oh! not at all,” laughed the gentleman, partly to hide the pain he
suffered as he chanced to move his broken arm a little too abruptly. “We
men who pit ourselves against the forces of Nature, learn to take the
good with the bad and call it all a day’s work. I’ve really accomplished
what I set out to perform, because only for a change of wind I’d have
dropped down on the coast before this hour. You’ll not hear me complain.
And now tell me something about yourselves and your Wolf patrol. If the
other four members are anything like the ones I’ve come to know, it must
be what a friend of mine would call a hummer.”
The boys were already quite won by the genial aeronaut, who, suffering
as he was, could show such a deep interest in their affairs.
In the chatter that followed, he learned a great deal about what had
happened to the members of the troop since the first patrol was
organized. And of course, among other things, he was told of the
wonderful prize pennant and the adventures of the preceding day, when
Hugh’s thoughtfulness had in all probability saved their lives.
The aeronaut was plainly aroused by the vivid description given of their
feelings at discovering that hollow oak lying there, shattered by the
bolt of lightning.
“I have not appreciated what a helpful thing this scout movement could
be until now,” he exclaimed. “If it continues to spread as fast as it
seems to be doing now, I can see where the coming American young man
will be many times over better fitted and equipped for the battle of
life than those that are in the field to-day, fighting for a living. But
it is too bad if my coming causes you boys to go back to town without
trying out those cliff-climbing stunts that Hugh had in mind. If you set
me on the trail, I’ve no doubt I could follow it, somehow, till I got to
the road; and then some farmer would give me a lift.”
This raised an immediate storm of protest, which made evident that the
boys did not believe in doing things halfway.
“We couldn’t think of it, Mr. Perkins,” said Hugh resolutely. “You’ve
been badly hurt, and we would never forgive ourselves if anything
happened to you. Make up your mind that we’re going to see you safely
into the doctor’s office, where that arm can have the right kind of
attention.”
“Permit me to say, however, my dear boy, that from the way it feels and
from the appearance of the splint and the neat bandage you’ve put around
it, it would have been hard for any surgeon to improve on the work under
such crude conditions as those up here in the woods.”
“So say we all of us, Mr. Perkins!” burst out Billy. “We think our
assistant scout master is about right when it comes to first aid to the
injured. If you could have seen how he brought one of the boys to, when
we all believed he was surely a goner, after being under water so long,
you’d understand our feelings. I guess we were ready to stop the
artificial pumping to induce respiration, but Hugh ordered us to keep on
and on. He would not give up hope. And the boy is alive and kicking, as
big as ever to-day. They sent Hugh a medal from Scout Headquarters down
in little old New York.”
“He ought to be proud of that medal,” said the gentleman, with
considerable feeling. “And you can depend on it that every one of you
will be wearing a similar one before long. I happen to know several of
the head men who are deeply interested in this scout movement, and I
shall see them personally. You have aroused my interest, and I’m feeling
inclined to give up the dangerous sport of ballooning for something that
will benefit my fellow men more, and this Boy Scout movement strikes me
as just what would fill the bill.”
“That makes us feel happier than ever, sir,” said Hugh. “If we have made
a new friend for the movement by what we happened to do to-day we
shouldn’t ask any better reward.”
“Just leave that to me, Hugh, that is my affair,” said the gentleman, as
he made a movement with his well arm to signify that he desired
assistance in gaining his feet. “Now I’m feeling rested, and perhaps we
had better be making a start. We can do our talking as we move along.
I’m hankering after a drink from that cold spring you were telling me
about, too.”