THE RED FOX PATROL
When I woke up I was safe and sound, but I had thrown off the flags and
I was stiff and cold. Now I could see all about me--see the rocks and
the grass and the ashes of the fire; so morning had come. That was good.
After I had yawned and stretched and straightened out, I gave a little
dance to start my circulation. Then I built the fire from the coals that
were left, and cooked the rest of the grouse, and had breakfast, chewing
well so as to get all the nourishment that I could. I climbed on a rock,
in the sun, like a ground-hog, to eat, and to look about at the same
time. And I saw smoke!
The smoke was lifting above the timber away off, below. This was a fine
morning; a Sunday morning, peaceful and calm, and the smoke rose in a
little curl, as if it were from a camp or a chimney. I took that as a
good omen. Down I sprang, to my own fire; and heaped on damp stuff and
dirt, and using my coat made the private smoke signal of the Elk Patrol:
one puff, three puffs, and one puff. (Note 44.) But the other smoke
didn't answer.
Then I thought of making the signal meaning "I am lost. Help"; but I
said to myself: "No, you don't. You're not calling for help, yet. You'd
be a weak kind of a Scout, to sit down and call for help. There's a sign
for you. Maybe that smoke is the beaver man. Sic him." And trampling out
my own fire, and stuffing the flags into my shirt and tying my jacket
around me, lining that other fire by a dead pine at the foot of the
hill, away I went.
When I got to the dead pine I drew another bee-line ahead as far as I
could see, with a stump as the end, and followed that. But this was an
awful rough, thick country. First I got into a mess of fallen timber,
where the dead trunks were criss-crossed like jackstraws; and they were
smooth and hard and slippery, and I had to climb over and crawl under
and straddle and slide, and turn back several times, and I lost my
bee-line. But I set my direction again by the sun on my face. Next I ran
into a stretch of those small black-jacks, so thick I could scarcely
squeeze between. And when I came out I was hot and tired, I tell you!
Now I was hungry, too, and thirsty; and I found that fire meant a whole
lot to me. If it didn't mean the man with the message, it meant food and
somebody to talk to, perhaps. The fallen timber and the black-jack
thicket had interfered with me so that I wasn't sure, any more, that I
was heading straight for the fire. Down into a deep gulch I must plunge,
and up I toiled, on the other side. It was about time that I climbed a
tree, or did something else, to locate that fire. When next I reached a
ridgy spot I chose a good pine and shinned it. From the top nothing was
visible except the same old sea of timber with island rocks spotting it
here and there, and with Pilot Peak and the snowy range in the wrong
quarter again.
Of course, by this time the breakfast smoke would have quit. That made
me desperate. I shinned down so fast that a branch broke and I partly
fell the rest of the way along the trunk, and tore my shirt and scraped
a big patch of skin from my chest. This hurt. When I landed in a heap I
wanted to bawl. But instead, I struck off along the ridge, keeping high
so that if there was smoke I would see it, yet.
The ridge ended in another gulch. I had begun to hate gulches. A
fellow's legs grow numb when he hasn't had much to eat. But into the
gulch I must go, and so down I plunged again. And when almost at the
bottom I _smelled_ smoke! I stopped short, and sniffed. It was wood
smoke--camp smoke. I must be near that camp-fire. And away off I could
hear water running. That was toward my left, so probably the smoke was
on my left, for a camp would be near water. It is hard to get direction
just by smell, but I turned and scouted along the side of the gulch,
halfway up, sniffing and looking.
The brush was bad. It was as thick as hay and full of stickers, but I
worked my way through. If the camp was the camp of the beaver man with
the message, I must reconnoiter and scheme; if it was the camp of
somebody else, I would go down; and if I didn't know whose camp it was,
I must wait and find out.
The brush held me and tripped me and tore my trousers and shirt, and was
wet and hot at the same time. Keeping high, I worked along listening and
sniffing and spying--_feeling_ for that camp, if it was a camp. Pretty
soon I heard voices. That was encouraging--unless the beaver man had
company. The brush thinned, and the gulch opened, and I was at the mouth
of it, with the water sounding louder. On my stomach I looked out and
down--and there was the place of the camp, at the mouth of the gulch,
where the pines and spruces met a creek, and two boys were just leaving
it. They had packs on their backs, and they were dressed in khaki and
were neat and trim.
Down I went, sliding and leaping, head first or feet first, I didn't
care which, as long as I got there in time. The boys heard and turned
and stared, wondering. With my hands and face scratched, and my chest
skinned and my shirt and trousers torn, bearing my bow and my broken
arrow, like a wild boy I burst out upon them. Then suddenly I saw on the
sleeves of their khaki shirts the Scout badge. My throat was too dry and
my breath was too short for me to say a word, but I stopped and made the
Scout sign. They answered it; and they must have thought that I was
worse than I really was, because they came running.
"The Elk Patrol, Colorado," I wheezed.
"The Red Fox Patrol, New Jersey," they replied. "What's the matter?"
"I'm glad to meet you," I said, silly after the run I had made on an
empty stomach; and we laughed and shook hands hard.
They were bound to hold me up or examine me for wounds or help me in
some way, but I sat down of my own accord, to get my breath.
They were First-class Scouts of the Red Fox Patrol of New Jersey, and
were traveling through this way on foot, from Denver, to meet the rest
of their party further on at the railroad, to do Salt Lake and then the
Yellowstone. They had had a late breakfast and a good clean-up, because
this was Sunday; and now they were starting on, for a walk while it was
cool, before they lay by again and waited till Monday morning. I had
reached them just in time; I think I'd have had tough work trailing
them. They looked as if they could travel some.
Their clothes were the regulation Scouts uniform. One of them had a
splendid little twenty-two rifle, and the other had a camera. The name
of the boy with the rifle was Edward Van Sant; the name of the Scout
with the camera was Horace Ward. They seemed fine fellows--as Scouts
usually are.
I don't know how they knew that I was hungry or faint, for I didn't say
that I was. But the first thing I did know Van Sant had unstrapped his
pack, and Ward had taken a little pan and had brought water from the
creek. Then a little alcohol stove appeared, and while we talked the
water was boiling, in a jiffy. Ward dropped into the water a cube, and
stirred--and there was a mess of soup, all ready!
They made me drink it, although I kept telling them I was all right. It
tasted mighty good. They got out some first-aid dope, and washed my
skinned chest with a carbolic smelling wash and shook some surgical
powder over it, and put a bandage around, in great shape. Then they
washed my scratches and even sewed the worst of the tears in my clothes.
(Note 45.)
By this time they knew my story.
"Was he a dark-complexioned man, with a small face and no whiskers or
mustache?"
"He was dark, but he had a mustache and fresh whiskers," I answered.
"On a bay horse?"
"On a bay, with a blazed forehead. Why?"
"A man rode by here, last evening, along the trail across the creek. He
was dark-complexioned, he wore a black hat, and he rode a bay with a
mark on its shoulders like this--" and Ward drew in the dirt a K+.
"That's a K Cross," I exclaimed. And I thought it was right smart of
them to notice even the brand. "He's the man, sure. He's shaved off his
mustache and whiskers, but he's riding the same horse." And I jumped up.
I felt strong and ready again. "Which way did he go?"
Scout Van Sant pointed up the creek. "There's a trail on the other
side," he said. "You'll find fresh hoof marks in it."
"Bueno," I said; and I extended my hand to shake with them, for I must
light right out. "I'm much obliged for everything, but I've got to catch
him. If you meet any of my crowd please tell 'em you saw me and I'm
O. K.; and if you're ever in Elk country don't fail to look us up. The
lodge door is always open."
"Hold on," laughed Scout Ward. "You can't shoo us this way, unless
you'd rather travel alone. What's the matter with our going, too?"
"Sure," said Scout Van Sant.
"But your trail lies down creek, you said."
"Not now. As long as you're in trouble your trail is our trail."
Wasn't that fine! But--
"You'll miss your connections with the rest of your party," I objected.
"What if we do? We're on the Scout trail, now, for business,--and
pleasure can wait. You couldn't handle that man alone--could you?"
Well, I was going to try. But they wouldn't listen. And they wouldn't
let me carry anything. They slung their packs on their backs, we crossed
the creek on some stones, and taking the trail on the other side we
followed fast and steady, the horse's hoof-prints pointing up the creek.
One shoe had a bent nail-head.
The Red Fox Scouts stepped along without asking any odds, although I was
traveling light. They walked like Indians. Scout Van Sant took the lead,
Scout Ward came next, and I closed the rear. Pretty soon Scout Van Sant
dropped back, behind me, and let Ward have the lead. I surmised he did
this to watch how I was getting on; but I had that soup in me, and my
second wind, and I didn't ask any odds, either.
The hoof-prints were plain, and the trail was first rate; sometimes in
the timber and sometimes in little open patches, but always close to the
foaming creek.
After we had traveled for about two hours, or had gone seven miles, we
stopped and rested fifteen minutes and had a dish of soup. The creek
branched, and one part entered a narrow, high valley, lined with much
timber. The other part, which was the main part, continued more in the
open.
The hoofs with the bent nail-head quit, here; and as they didn't turn
off to the left, into the open country, they must have crossed to take
the gulch branch. An old bridge had been washed out, but the water was
shallow, and Scout Van Sant was over in about three jumps. After a
minute of searching he beckoned, and we skipped over, too. A small trail
followed the branch up the gulch, and the hoof-prints showed in it.
Now we all smelled smoke again. It seemed to me that I had been smelling
it ever since that first time, but you know how a smell sometimes sticks
in the nose. Still, we all were smelling it, now, and we kept our eyes
and ears open for other sign of a camp.
The water made a big noise as it dashed down; the gulch turned and
twisted, and was timbered and rocky; it grew narrower; and as we
advanced with Scout caution, looking ahead each time as far as we could,
on rounding an angle suddenly we came out into a sunny little park,
with flowers and grass and aspens and bowlders, the stream dancing
through at one edge, and an old dug-out beside the stream.
It was an abandoned prospect claim, because on the hill-slope were some
old prospect holes and a dump. By the looks, nobody had been working
these holes for a year or two; but from the chimney of the dug-out a
thin smoke was floating. We instantly sat down, motionless, to
reconnoiter.