[Illustration: ... the flier ... now came roaring ... directly above the
boys’ heads. (_Page 138_)]
THE BOY SCOUTS
AND THE ARMY AIRSHIP
By LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON
Author of
“The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol,” “The Boy Scouts on the Range,”
“The Boy Scouts’ Mountain Camp,” “The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam,” “The
Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal,” etc.
[Illustration: Series logo]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Printed in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1911,
BY
HURST & COMPANY
MADE IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Sea Scouts at Play 5
II. The Spearing of the Sturgeon 18
III. Jack Curtiss Reappears 32
IV. Paul Perkins’ Motor Scooter 43
V. The Boy Who Made the Wheels Go Round 54
VI. Two Mysterious Men 65
VII. How a Secret Passage Was Used 74
VIII. An Unexpected Encounter 84
IX. Wherein Captain Hudgins’ Bees Swarm 95
X. Mr. Stonington Hunt—Schemer 106
XI. The Army Airship 120
XII. Tubby Escapes an Orange Bomb 133
XIII. What Happened in the Woods 145
XIV. Mr. Hunt Delivers a Telegram 156
XV. A Boy Who Flew 170
XVI. “There’s Many a Slip——” 182
XVII. Fire! 193
XVIII. Jack Uses a File 208
XIX. The Great Race 221
XX. A Schooner in Trouble 232
XXI. Motor-Scooters to the Rescue 246
XXII. Jim Dugan Again 257
XXIII. A Chase in the Night 272
XXIV. A Bolt from the Blue 289
The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship
CHAPTER I.
SEA SCOUTS AT PLAY.
“Go!”
Commodore Wingate of the Hampton Yacht Club gave the word in a sharp,
tense voice. The pistol he held extended above his head cracked sharply.
The crowds massed upon the clubhouse verandas and in the vicinity broke
into hoarse cheers as the tension of waiting was relieved.
“There they go!” came the cry.
Before the puff of blue smoke from the discharged pistol had been wafted
away by a light breeze, two eighteen-foot, double-ended whaleboats shot
out from either side of the float. For ten minutes or more they had been
teetering there, like leashed greyhounds. This was while the final words
of instruction were being given. Now the suspense of the preliminaries
was over, and the “Spearing the Sturgeon” contest, between the Hawk and
Eagle Patrols of Hampton, was on.
Bow and bow the two white craft hissed over the sparkling, blue waters
of the inlet. From the clubhouse porch, from the beach, from the sand
dunes of the farther side of the Inlet, and from the row of automobiles
parked along the beach—which had come from all parts of Long Island—the
strivers were cheered.
The afternoon’s program of exciting water sports, arranged by the
Scoutmasters of the rival patrols, was now reaching its climax. The
packed yacht club and automobile crowds ashore had never seen anything
like it before. Among them was our old friend of the first volume of
this series—“The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol”—namely, Captain Job
Hudgins.
“It’s the beatingest I ever seed afloat or ashore, douse my toplights if
it ain’t,” the captain was loudly declaring to a group of cronies.
“Them Bye Scuts did wonders in the west, they tell me,” commented Si
Stebbins, the postmaster and village store-keeper. “In my day, though, a
bye had ter work an’ not go foolin’ aroun’ in er uniform like them
Scuts.”
“What air yer talkin’ about?” put in another voice. “Them Boy Scouts is
a good thing fer this town. Didn’t ther newspapers hev all erbout how
they beat out a band of cattle rustlers and Injuns in ther west, an’
most got killed doin’ it?”
“They’d hev bin a sight better ter hum minding their own bizness,”
opined Jeb Trotter, a village character, but there were few who had
watched the exciting afternoon of healthy, wholesome water sports who
agreed with him.
As the readers of the “Boy Scouts on the Range” may recollect, it was
mentioned in that book that, during Leader Rob’s absence on a friend’s
ranch in the west, another patrol—namely, the Hawk—had been formed. On
his return, as was natural, the lads of the Eagle had besieged him with
proposals to try conclusions with the Hawks. Finally, under Scoutmaster
Blake with Wingate’s supervision, a program had been arranged. It
included a game of water polo, tub races, a greased pole competition, a
race between small cat-boats, and, as a grand wind-up feature, the
exciting “Spearing the Sturgeon” game.
Honors were even up to the moment that the two boats dashed away from
the float. The laurels of the afternoon would go to the victorious crew.
No wonder a cheer went up as the double-enders skimmed over the
sparkling water toward a dark object, about six feet in length, near
which a canoe, containing the referee, Bartley Holmes, hovered.
The dark object was “the sturgeon.” It was formed of soft wood, and had
two realistic eyes painted on the thicker part of its body. It really
did look something like a sturgeon, as it lay bobbing about on the
water. At the bow of each boat stood a lithe young figure in bathing
togs. Each held poised above his head a keen, pointed harpoon. The eyes
of both of the spearsmen were riveted, as their crews urged their boats
forward, upon the sturgeon’s dark outline.
In the stern of each boat, from which fluttered flags bearing their
patrol figures in proper colorings, was poised a steersman, holding a
single oar. In the Eagles’ boat the helmsman was Merritt Crawford. In
the Hawks’ craft the position was held by a lad named Dale Harding.
Skillfully each coxswain directed his flying craft to a point of vantage
from which their spearsman could hurl his harpoon to the most effective
purpose.
The young harpooners stood tense and rigid as pieces of statuary, every
sinew and muscle in their bodies ready for the first “strike.” The
Eagles’ harpooner, Rob Blake, the leader of that patrol, was perhaps a
little smaller in girth and height than Freeman Hunt, the harpooner and
leader of the Hawks, but what Rob lacked in “beef,” he made up in
sinuous activity. The fall sun glinted on his tough, brown flesh, as if
it had been bronze. “Hard as nails” you would have said if you could
have looked him over.
As the green and black “Eagle” standard, and the pink “Hawk” flag began
to close in from their different points of the compass, a sharp cry went
up from the onlookers.
“K-r-ee-ee-ee-ee!” shrilled the patrol cry of the Eagles from veranda,
dune and beach.
Then a breathless hush fell as they waited for the first strike. The
referee, in his dark-green canoe, dodged about as actively as a water
bug, watching every move closely.
The crews were made up as follows:
EAGLES. HAWKS.
Spearsman, Rob Blake. Spearsman, Freeman Hunt.
Helmsman, Merritt Crawford. Helmsman, Dale Harding.
Oars: Oars:
Stroke, Tubby Hopkins. Stroke, Lem Lonsdale.
No. 1, Ernest Thompson. No. 1, Fred Ingalls.
No. 2, Hiram Nelson. No. 2, Grover Bell.
No. 3, Paul Perkins. No. 3, Phil Speed.
A deep-throated roar went up from the shore as Rob Blake’s harpoon
glinted in the sunlight and sank quivering into the soft wood of the
sturgeon. Instantly Merritt Crawford swung on his oar, bringing the bow
of the boat round. But as he did so, there came another flash, and
Freeman Hunt’s harpoon sank deep into the quarry, not six inches from
Rob’s spear.
“Pull, you Eagles!” came a wild shout from shoreward.
“Now then, Hawks!” roared back the rival contingent.
Both crews were backing water for all they were worth, each seeking to
draw the other’s harpoon out of the “sturgeon.” The harpoons were not
barbed, which might have made them dangerous, and a determined pull
would be likely to dislodge one.
“Give them rope!” shouted Merritt from the stern of the Eagles’ boat,
and Rob, as the Hawks started to pull away, paid out his harpoon line
rapidly. This maneuver rested his men while it saved his spear from
being damaged. The Hawks, on the other hand, were straining their backs
with feverish energy. They fairly dripped as they bent to their oars.
“Now then, come ahead easy!” ordered Rob, and the Eagles’ boat began to
creep up.
But still the two harpoons stood upright in the “flesh” of the wooden
game. Bartley Holmes came scudding up in his canoe.
“Carefully now, boys! Carefully!” he urged, watching things narrowly.
“They’re trying to work up into their base!” shouted Merritt suddenly,
as the boats neared the shore.
“Working into their base” meant that the opposing crew would try to land
the “fish” at their starting point. In such case, the first heat would
go to them, even if the Eagles’ spear was sticking in the sturgeon at
the time.
“Back water!” cried Rob suddenly.
The lad, crouching over the water, had been watching every move of his
opponents anxiously. He detected signs of weakening in the crew of the
Hawks, and gave the signal to reverse the motion of his boat as the
Hawks slacked up ever so little.
The line zanged up out of the water, dripping and taut, as Rob’s crew
obeyed the sharp order.
As it did so, there was a cry of dismay from the Hawk supporters, when
they beheld Freeman Hunt’s spear, which had not sunk as deep as Rob’s,
jerked out of the “fish.” Hunt gritted his teeth angrily. He was not a
boy who relished defeat at any game, and the yells of the Eagle
adherents enraged him.
“Get after them, you dubs!” he bellowed, as the Eagle boat darted off,
towing the captured sturgeon behind them.
It was Hunt’s object to overtake them and spear the “fish” again. In
this case a fresh struggle, in which he might prove victorious, would
ensue.
Everybody was now on the tiptoe of excitement. It was a race for the
Eagles’ base. With Rob’s muscular young crew bending to their oars with
the regularity of machine-driven mechanism, the boat bearing the green
and black standard fairly hissed through the water. Behind her there
towed clumsily the black form of the captured sturgeon.
“More steam! More steam!” shouted Hunt, dancing up and down in the bow
of the craft, as the Hawk Patrol boys gave way with all their power. But
pull as they would, they were no match for the Eagles, who had rested
while they were needlessly exerting their strength.
“Eagles!”
“K-r-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee!”
“Go on, Hawks!”
“Don’t give up!”
“Pull, boys! PULL!”
The yells came now in one continuous roar, but they did not affect the
result of the first heat at all.
Bang!
The starter’s pistol cracked once more as the Eagles’ whaler, with the
sturgeon in tow, shot across the line. But as she did so, Freeman Hunt
made a desperate effort, and by some fluke—for the distance between the
boats must have been twenty feet,—succeeded in landing his spear in the
sturgeon’s tail.
“Back water! Back water!” Dale Harding began yelling, working his
steering oar about.
“Too late,” laughed back Rob good-naturedly. “Try again next heat.”
“What do you mean?” shouted Hunt angrily. “My harpoon is in.”
“Yes, but we had crossed the line as you cast it,” yelled back Merritt.
An immediate appeal to Commodore Wingate followed, the referee being
hopelessly outdistanced in that wild dash for the float.
“Silence!” he shouted above the confusion of excited boyish voices.
Instantly there was a hush, only broken by some excited supporter of the
Hawks having it out with an equally heated adherent of the Eagles.
“My decision is that the Eagles win the first heat,” announced Mr.
Wingate. “The sturgeon was across the base line before the Hawks
harpooned it.”
Instantly Bedlam broke loose.
“He’s right.”
“He isn’t.”
“I saw it myself.”
“Well, you ought to have your eyes seen to.”
These, and a hundred other argumentative remarks, filled the air, but,
of course, like most such outbursts, they had no effect on the referee’s
decision. There was a glowering, angry look on Freeman Hunt’s face,
though, as the two boats changed bases for the next heat.
“We’ll get you this trip,” he grated, as the Eagle’s boat scraped past
his craft.
“Say, Hunt, you’re an awful bad loser,” piped up the corpulent Tubby,
winking at the others.
“Oh, I am, am I, you tub of lard. Just you wait. We’ll show you. You may
have got that heat by a technical decision, but we’ll beat you fair and
square this time.”
“Well, we’re both here to try just that,” Rob reminded the angry boy, as
the boats bumped and passed.
“The second of the three heats is now on!” bellowed the announcer
through his megaphone.
“Are you ready?” demanded Mr. Wingate, as the occupants of both boats
anxiously awaited the signal.
“All right here,” announced Freeman Hunt, on whose face an angry light
still showed.
“Go ahead, sir,” cried Rob.
The pistol cracked, and the two boats darted forth once more, now on the
second lap of their intense struggle for supremacy.