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ROY BLAKELEY’S SILVER FOX PATROL
[Illustration: HARRY SLUNG MR. RAGTIME OVER HIS SHOULDER AND WE STARTED
BACK.]
ROY BLAKELEY’S SILVER FOX PATROL
by
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
Tom Slade, Boy Scout, Tom Slade with the Colors,
Tom Slade with the Flying Corps,
Roy Blakeley, etc.
Illustrated by Howard L. Hastings
Published with the approval of
The Boy Scouts of America
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers :: New York
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1920, by
Grosset & Dunlap
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—WE MAKE A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER II—WE READ THE LETTER
CHAPTER III—WE INSPECT PEE-WEE’S POCKETS
CHAPTER IV—WE MEET IN THE DEN, AT BENNETT’S
CHAPTER V—WE BEGIN OUR INVESTIGATION
CHAPTER VI—WE GET NEW LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY
CHAPTER VII—WE PLAN OUR TRIP
CHAPTER VIII—WE PLAN OUR ITINERARY
CHAPTER IX—WE HEAR ABOUT “EATS”
CHAPTER X—WE ATTEND A BLOWOUT
CHAPTER XI—WE MEET AGAIN
CHAPTER XII—WE GET THE CAR STARTED
CHAPTER XIII—WE ARE IMPLICATED
CHAPTER XIV—WE ARE CRIMINALS
CHAPTER XV—WE MEET SHERLOCK HOLMES
CHAPTER XVI—WE ASTONISH MR. HOLMES
CHAPTER XVII—WE LET OUR YOUNG HERO DO THE TALKING
CHAPTER XVIII—WE ARE IN SUSPENSE
CHAPTER XIX—WE LEARN THE WORST
CHAPTER XX—I DESCEND THE CLIFF
CHAPTER XXI—I’M LEFT IN DARKNESS
CHAPTER XXIII—WE BEGIN OUR SEARCH
CHAPTER XXIV—WE BEHOLD A GHASTLY SIGHT
CHAPTER XXV—WE ADD ONE MORE TO OUR PARTY
CHAPTER XXVI—WE ARE PURSUED
CHAPTER XXVII—WE ARE CAUGHT
CHAPTER XXVIII—OUR CASE IS DISMISSED
CHAPTER XXIX—WE HAVE AN ELECTION
CHAPTER XXX—WE SEE OUR FRIENDS
CHAPTER XXXI—WE RECEIVE DARK TIDINGS
CHAPTER XXXII—WE HIT THE TRAIL
CHAPTER XXXIII—WE MEET A FRIEND
CHAPTER XXXIV—WE CAMP UNDER THE TREE
CHAPTER XXXV—IT COMES TO A SHOWDOWN
ROY BLAKELEY’S
SILVER FOX PATROL
CHAPTER I—WE MAKE A DISCOVERY
While I was sitting on a rock down in our field eating a banana, I had a
dandy thought, and I was going to begin this story by telling you about
it, only now I forget what it was.
Anyway, Mr. Ellsworth says it’s best to begin a story with conversation.
He says conversations are even better than bananas to begin with. But,
gee whiz, I like bananas. If I began with conversation that means I have
to begin it with Pee-wee Harris, because he always does the talking in
our troop. He can even talk and eat a banana at the same time.
He said, “Do you mean to tell me a railroad car can’t have a dark past?”
“Sure,” I told him; “maybe it went through a tunnel. Anyway, it’s got a
dark enough present with one kerosene lamp in it.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of darkness,” he said; “I mean the kind that
secrets are. You know what a dark secret is, don’t you?”
“It’s one that’s all black,” little Alfred McCord said.
“Sure,” I said; “they’re all colors. My sister’s keeping one that’s a
kind of pale lavender.”
Pee-wee said, “You’re crazy; black is the only color for secrets. Look
at that pirate in the movie play. Didn’t it say he kept the dark secret
about where the treasure was for years and years?”
“He kept it so long it faded,” I told him. “Dark secrets are all right
for old sailing ships, Kid, but when it comes to railroad cars—nix.”
The three of us were sitting on the rock, looking at the old railroad
car that had just been moved down to the field for us. Mr. Temple got
that old car for us, so we could use it for a troop-room. The men had an
awful job moving it from the siding at Bridgeboro Station. They ran it
down to the river on movable tracks and brought it up on one of the
barges. Getting it off into the field was the worst part. They had to
leave it right close to the river. Jimmies, we didn’t mind that; the
nearer the better, that’s what I said.
One of the men that moved that car said it was an old timer. Anyway, it
wasn’t much good for a car any more, because the springs and the brakes
and the couplings were all rusted away, and the roof leaked, only we
fixed it with tar paper. Inside there was an old stove in the corner
with a clumsy old high pipe railing around it. The windows were awful
small and the plush seats were all old-fashioned and worn out. Up above
the windows were old-fashioned wire cage things to put baggage in. The
doors at the ends were round at the top and the little windows were that
way, too. But, anyway, that old car would make one dandy meeting-place,
that was one thing sure.
All the rest of the fellows had gone home to supper, and Skinny and
Pee-wee and I were just sitting there looking at the car and thinking
how we’d have a flag flying on it, and what color we’d paint it when we
got money enough. We were thinking about the different things we’d bring
down and put in it.
I said, “I wonder how old it is? It’s a ramshackle old pile of junk, but
that makes it all the better, for a scout meeting-place.” Because maybe
you don’t know it, but scouts don’t like things to be too civilized,
like.
“Maybe it has romance,” Pee-wee said.
He got that word out of the movie play that had the old pirate ship in
it. There was something in that play about the old ship being a monument
of romance. I had to laugh, because it seemed so funny to talk that way
about an old ramshackle railroad car.
“I mean adventures,” he said.
“Oh, sure,” I told him; “that car reminds me of an old Spanish Galleon,
it’s so different. Maybe some buccaneers used to have their den in it,
hey? When I look at that car it reminds me of King Arthur and all those
old fellows. You’ve got romances and adventures and things on the brain
since you’ve been going down to the Lyric. What’s puzzling me is how
we’re going to fix lockers in it for our stuff, and where we’re going to
hang our pictures.”
Just then little Alf piped up in that funny way he has and said, “My
mother doesn’t believe in adventures.”
“Well,” I said “she’ll never pull much of a stroke with Scout Harris
then.”
“They always end by somebody getting dead,” he said.
“Just the same,” Pee-wee shouted, “I bet that old car is fifty years
old. I bet if it could talk it would have a tale to tell——”
“A which?” I said.
“How do _we_ know where it has been?” he kept up. “Why can’t a railroad
car have a-what-do-you-call it—a romantic past, just the same as a ship
or an old house where—maybe where George Washington used to stay? How do
_we_ know?”
“Maybe it’s the very car that George Washington crossed the Delaware
in,” I said, just to jolly him along.
“How about an old Indian stage coach?” he piped up.
“Kid,” I said; “old sailing ships and wrecks and Indian stage coaches
are one thing, and wheelbarrows and bicycles and lawn mowers and sewing
machines and railroad cars are another thing. You see pictures of
shipwrecks, but you never see pictures of old railroad cars. You should
worry. Come on inside and let’s measure for the lockers and then let’s
go home; I’m tired out.”
Inside that car there was a funny kind of a smell like there always is
in railroad cars. It was kind of like dust and kind of like plush and
kind of like smoke. The floor was awful smooth and shiny, just from so
many people walking on it for years and years and years. All the
woodwork was walnut and that was a sign of the car being old. A lot of
the seats were broken and there was one place where two close together
were broken. So we had decided to take them away and build our lockers
there.
I had told the fellows in the troop that I would measure for the lockers
before I went home, so now I began doing that with the little six-inch
rule that I always carry. All of a sudden it slipped out of my hand and
fell down between the frame and the plush part of one of those seats.
“Butter fingers!” Pee-wee said; “I’ll get it for you.”
I said, “I guess your fingers are smaller than mine, even if you have a
bigger tongue than I have.”
“My fingers are smaller than his,” little Alf said; “I’ll get it for
you.”
Gee whiz, his fingers were little enough, and skinny enough, that was
sure, because the poor little codger lived down in the slums and I guess
he never had much to eat or much fun either, until he got in with us.
That’s one thing we’re strong on—eats. Especially desserts.
But our young hero (that’s Pee-wee), brushed us both aside with one
hand, while he was digging down between the wood and the plush with the
other.
“Got a hairpin?” he shouted.
“What do you think I am? A Camp-fire Girl?” I asked him. “Here, will a
lead pencil do?”
He began poking around in there with the lead pencil and pretty soon he
managed to lift up the corner of my little steel rule and drew it out
with his fingers.
“Bully for you,” I told him.
“There’s something else down in there,” he said. “Wait till I get it. It
feels like a paper.”
I said, “Don’t bother; probably it’s a time table.”
“Maybe it’s somebody’s commutation ticket,” he said.
Because that old car had been used as a way station up at Brewster’s
Centre until the railroad built a regular station, and I guess he
thought that maybe some one might have dropped a ticket down in that
crevice in the seat.
With the lead pencil Pee-wee kept pushing around down there between the
plush and the wood and waving us away with the other hand, because I was
after my pencil.
“Come on, Kid,” I said; “It’s getting late. You should worry.”
Just then a little corner of yellow paper came up with the pencil and
slipped down again.
“Now you see,” he said; “I almost had it.”
“What good would an old last month’s commutation ticket be now?” I asked
him.
“Shut up,” he said, all the while waving us back and wriggling the
pencil up sideways in the crack; “I’ve got it, I’ve——”
“Foiled again!” I said, just as the paper slipped down. “Blackbeard, the
pirate chief, refuses to give up the paper telling where the treasure is
concealed. Sir Harris gnashes his teeth in rage!” That was just the way
it was in the photo-play.
All the while, Pee-wee was very carefully moving the pencil so as to
lift the paper, and each time the paper slipped down again. And all the
while he kept waving us back. At last he got hold of the corner of it
with his fingers and hauled it out.
“_Ha, ha_!” I said, rolling my voice kind of-_you_ know. “Sir Harris
wrenches the tell-tale paper from——”
“_It’s dated before you were born!_” Pee-wee fairly shouted. “It’s a
letter! Now you see! You said it was a time table. Look what it says in
it—look!”
Gee whiz, he couldn’t have half read it when he handed it to me. There
wasn’t any envelope, only an old sheet of paper, all yellow, and it had
been folded so long that it almost fell apart where it was creased. It
was filled with writing in lead pencil and it was so old and dirty that
I could hardly read what it said. I guess Pee-wee would have stumbled
through it himself, except that one thing that his eye happened to hit
first of all, knocked him out.
“Now you see!” he said, all out of breath, he was so excited; “now you
see! Look there!”
He pointed the pencil to one part of the letter where it said, _bags of
gold_.
“And look _there_, too,” he panted out, all the while pointing with the
pencil, “‘_dropped in his tracks with a mortal wound_.’ So _now_; you
think you’re so smart, with your wheelbarrows and sewing machines! You
don’t—you don’t find bags of gold in time tables and commutation
tickets—do you? You make me tired! This is a—a—deep laid plot, that’s
what it is. You know what mortal wounds are, I hope!”
“All right, Kid,” I said; “you win. Only don’t stab me a mortal wound
with the lead pencil, and give me a chance to read it.”
“If—if—if bags of gold aren’t romance,” he shouted; “then, what is? Tell
me that.”
Honest, that kid would find some kind of plots and adventures in a
vacuum cleaner.