DUTY ABOVE ALL THINGS
"Gee! whiz! that's tough!"
Fritz gave vent to his overwrought feelings after this boyish fashion;
and his words doubtless echoed the thought that was in the mind of every
fellow in that little bunch of staring scouts.
True enough, the badly damaged balloon had taken a sudden dip downward,
as though unable to longer remain afloat, with such a scanty supply of
gas aboard; and as Seth said, it certainly looked as though it had
chosen the very worst place possible to drop--about in the heart of the
swamp.
"Now, why couldn't the old thing have dipped low enough right here for
us to grab that trailing rope?" demanded Jotham, dejectedly; for he
immediately began to feel that all manner of terrible things were in
store for the aeronaut, if, as seemed likely, he would be marooned in
the unknown morass, with no means of finding his way out, and an injured
leg in the bargain to contend with.
"Hope he didn't come down hard enough to hurt much," remarked Andy.
"Huh! if half we've heard about that place is true, little danger of
that," declared Seth. "Chances are he dropped with a splash into a bed
of muck. I only hope he don't get drowned before help comes along!"
"Help! what sort of help can reach him there?" observed Fritz, solemnly;
and then once again did those eight scouts exchange uneasy glances.
"As soon as we let them know in Beverly, why, sure they'll organize some
sort of relief expedition. I know a dozen men who'd be only too glad to
lend a helping hand to a lost aeronaut," Andy went on to say.
"Wherever do you suppose he came from, Paul?" asked Eben.
"Say, didn't you hear him say St. Louis?" demanded Seth. "Better take
some of that wax out of your ears, Eben."
"Whee! that's a pretty good ways off, seems to me," the bugler remarked,
shaking his head, as though he found the story hard to believe.
"Why, that's nothing to brag of," Seth assured him. "They have big
balloon races from St. Louis every year, nearly, and the gas-bags drift
hundreds of miles across the country. I read about several that landed
in New Jersey, and one away up in Canada won the prize. This one met
with trouble before it got many miles on its journey. And he wants us to
report that the _Great Republic_ is down; Anderson, he said his name
was, didn't he, Paul?"
"Yes, that was it," replied the scoutmaster.
Paul seemed to be looking unusually grave, and the others realized that
he must have something of more than usual importance on his mind.
"How about that, Paul," broke out Fritz, who had been watching the face
of the patrol leader, "we're about eighteen miles away from home; and
must we wait till we get there to start help out for that poor chap?"
"He might die before then," remarked Jotham seriously.
Again a strange silence seemed to brood over the whole patrol. Every
fellow no doubt was thinking the same thing just then, and yet each boy
hated to be the one to put it into words.
They had taken so much pride in the big hike that to even suggest giving
it up, and just in the supreme moment of victory, as it were, seemed
next door to sacrilege, and yet they could not get around the fact that
it seemed right up to them to try and save that forlorn aeronaut. His
life was imperiled, and scouts are always taught to make sacrifices when
they can stretch out a hand to help any one in jeopardy.
Paul heaved a great sigh.
"Fellows," he said, solemnly, "I'm going to put it up to you this time,
because I feel that the responsibility ought to be shared; and remember
majority rules whenever the scoutmaster thinks best to let the troop
decide."
"All right, Paul," muttered Seth, dejectedly.
"It's only fair that you should saddle some of the responsibility on the
rest of the bunch," admitted Jotham, hardly a bit more happy looking
than Seth; for of course every one of them knew what was coming; and
could give a pretty good guess as to the consequences.
"That's a fact," added Fritz, "so out with it, Paul. When I've got a
bitter dose to swallow I want to hurry, and get it over."
"It hurts none of you more than it does me," went on the scoutmaster,
firmly, "because I had set my heart on winning that fine trophy; and
there'll be a lot of people disappointed this afternoon when we fail to
show up, if we do."
"Sure thing," grunted Seth, "I c'n see our friend, Freddy Rossiter,
going around with that sickly grin on his face, telling everybody that
he always knew we were a lot of fakirs, and greatly overrated; and that,
like as not, even if we did show up we'd a been carried many a mile on
some hay-wagon. But go on, Paul; let's have the funeral quick, so a
feller c'n breathe free again."
"I'm going to put a motion, and every scout has a right to vote just as
he thinks best. Only before you decide, stop and think what it all
means, to that poor man as well as ourselves," Paul continued.
"Ready for the motion," mumbled Fritz, who looked as though he had lost
his very last friend, or was beginning to feel the advance symptoms of
sea sickness.
"All in favor of changing our plans, and trying to rescue the lost
balloonist right now, say yes," the scoutmaster demanded, in as firm a
tone as he could muster.
A chorus of affirmatives rang out; some of the boys were a little weak
in the reply they made, for it came with an awful wrench; but so far as
Paul could decide the response was unanimous.
He smiled then.
"I'm proud of you, fellows, yes I am," he declared heartily. "I think I
know just what each and every one of you feels, and when you give up a
thing you've been setting your minds on so long, and just when it looks
as if we had an easy walk-over, I'm sure it does you credit. Some of the
Beverly people may laugh, and make fun when we fail to turn up this
afternoon; but believe me, when we do come in, and they learn what's
happened, those for whose opinion we care will think all the more of us
for doing what we mean to."
"Hope so," sighed Seth, who could not coax any sort of a smile to his
forlorn looking face, "but because I talk this way, Paul, don't you go
and get the notion in your head that if the whole thing depended on me
I'd do anything different from what we expect to. There's such a thing
as duty that faces every scout who's worthy of the name. For that he
must expect to give up a whole lot of things he'd like to do. And you'll
find that I can stand it as well as the next feller."
"P'raps when they know what happened, the committee'll be willing to
give us a chance to make another try next week?" suggested Jotham.
"Good boy, Jotham, and a clever idea," cried Fritz.
Somehow the suggestion seemed to give every one a sensation of relief.
"I think myself that we'll be given another chance to show what we can
do," was what Paul remarked. "We can prove that we had the victory about
as good as clinched when this unexpected thing came along. And I know
Mr. Sargeant will be pleased to hear that we gave up our chances of
winning that trophy because a sudden serious duty confronted us."
"Then we're going to start right away to try and find the middle of
Black Water Swamps--is that the idea, Paul?" inquired Seth.
"That's what it amounts to, it looks like, to me," replied the
scoutmaster, as he stood there in the open road, looking long and
steadily at the very spot where they had seen the last of the dropping
balloon; just as though he might be fixing the locality on his mind for
future use.
"Do we all have to go, Paul, or are you going to let several of us tramp
along to Beverly?" some one asked just then.
"That depends on how you feel about it," was the answer the scoutmaster
gave. "It won't do any good for a part of the patrol to arrive on time,
because, you remember one of the rules of the game is that every member
must fulfill the conditions, and make the full hundred miles hike. Do
you want to go to town, while the rest of us are searching the swamps
for the aeronaut, Eben?"
"I should say not," hastily replied the bugler.
"How about you, Noodles?" continued Paul.
"Nixey doing; me for der swamps, undt you can put dot in your pipe undt
smoke idt," the one addressed replied, for there were times when the
scouts, being off duty, could forget that Paul was anything other than a
chum.
"Well," the patrol leader went on to say, laughingly, "I'm not going to
ask any other fellow, for I see by the looks on your faces that you'd
take it as an insult. So, the next thing to settle is where we'd better
strike into the place."
Seth came to the front again.
"Well, you see, I talked a lot with that feller that got lost in there;
and he told a heap of interesting things about the blooming old swamp,
also where he always started into the same when trapping. You see,
somehow I got a hazy idea in this silly head of mine that some time or
other I might want to get a couple of chums to go with me, and try and
see what there was in the middle of the Black Water Swamps."
"That's good, Seth," declared one of his mates, encouragingly.
"The smartest thing you ever did, barring none," added Jotham.
"It's apt to be of more or less use to us right now, and that's a fact,"
was the way Paul put it.
"I reckon," Andy remarked, looking thoughtfully at Seth, "that you could
tell right now whether we happened to be near that same place. It would
be a great piece of good luck if we could run across the entrance, and
the trail your trapper friend made, without going far away from here."
"Let's see," continued Seth, screwing his forehead up into a series of
funny wrinkles, as he usually did when trying to look serious or
thoughtful, "he told me the path he used lay right under a big sycamore
tree that must have been struck by a stray bolt of lightning, some time
or other, for all the limbs on the north side had been shaven clean
off."
"Well, I declare!" ejaculated Jotham.
"Then you've noticed such a tree, have you?" asked Paul, instantly,
recognizing the symptoms, for he had long made a study of each and every
scout in the troop, and knew their peculiarities.
"Look over yonder, will you?" demanded Jotham, pointing.
Immediately various exclamations arose.
"That's the same old blasted sycamore he told me about, sure as you're
born," declared Seth, with a wide grin of satisfaction.
"The Beaver Patrol luck right in the start; didn't I say nothing could
hold out against that?" remarked Fritz.
"Come along, Paul; let's be heading that way," suggested Jotham.
In fact, all the scouts seemed anxious to get busy. The first pang of
regret over giving up their cherished plan had by this time worn away,
and just like boys, they were now fairly wild to be doing the next best
thing. They entered heart and soul into things as they came along,
whether it happened to be a baseball match; a football scrimmage on the
gridiron; the searching for a lost trail in the woods, or answering the
call to dinner.
And so the whole eight hurried along over the back road, meaning to
branch off at the point nearest to the tall sycamore that had been
visited by a freak bolt from the thunder clouds, during some storm in
years gone by.
Paul was not joining in the chatter that kept pace with their movements.
He realized that he had a serious proposition on his hands just then.
If so experienced a man as that muskrat trapper could get lost in Black
Water Swamps and stay lost for two whole days, it behooved a party of
boys, unfamiliar with such surroundings to be very careful in all they
did.
But Paul had ever been known as a cautious fellow. He seldom acted from
impulse except when it became actually necessary, in order to meet some
sudden emergency; and then there were few who could do things more
quickly than the patrol leader.
In a case of this kind, the chances were that they must take unusual
precaution against losing their bearings; that is, they must feel that
they had a back trail to follow in case forward progress became
impossible, or inexpedient.
Paul had his theory as to the best way to accomplish such a thing; and
of course it had to do with "blazing" trees as they went along. In this
fashion all chances of making mistakes would be obviated; and if they
failed to effect the rescue of the man who had dropped in the heart of
the dismal morass at least the eight boys need not share his sad fate.
Leaving the road they now headed straight for the sycamore that stood as
a land mark, and a specimen of the freaks of lightning. No sooner had
they reached it than Paul's eyes were on the ground.
The others heard him give a pleased exclamation, and then say:
"It's all right, fellows; because here is a well beaten trail that seems
to lead straight in to the place. And now, follow me in single file!"