AN IMPORTANT PAPER
“With the exception of the Declaration of Independence,” said Mr. Wilde,
“this is the most valuable paper in the world.”
He handed it to Westy and the three boys, reading it together, saw that
it was a permit issued by the director of the National Park Service at
Washington to Mr. Alexander Creston, President of the Educational Film
Company of New York to “dispatch employees of said Educational Film
Company into such remote sections of the Yellowstone National Park as
should be designated by the local park authorities for the purpose of
securing photographs of the wild life, the use of traps and firearms
being strictly prohibited. This permit expires——” And so forth and so
forth. It concluded with the signature of the director of the National
Park Service.
“Gee williger!” said Westy.
“Talking about stalking!” said Ed.
“No wonder you laugh at us,” said Warde.
“Did you ever try stalking officials in Washington?” Mr. Wilde asked.
“We never stalked anything but robins and—and turtles and things like
that,” said Warde with a note of self-disgust in his voice.
“Never hit the red tape trail, hey? Well I guess turtles are pretty near
as slow as Washington officials. I’ve been just exactly three weeks in
Washington stalking this permit. Pretty good specimen, hey? That’s more
valuable than any grizzly, that is.” He gazed at it with a look of
whimsical affection and tucked it safely away in his wallet.
“It makes us feel kind of silly,” said Westy, “to think of the kind of
things you’re going to do. I guess it’s no wonder you make fun of us.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mr. Wilde not unkindly and with some
approach to seriousness in his voice and manner, “you scout kids are all
right. You get lots of fresh air and exercise and they’re the best
things for you. You go stalking June-bugs and caterpillars and it keeps
you out of mischief. It’s just the difference between the amateur and
the professional. Now you kids go in for these things as a pastime and
that’s all right. You’re having the time of your lives. I’m for the boy
scouts first, last and always. Stalking, tracking, etc., you make games
out of all those things, and they’re bully good games too. You’re a
pretty wide-awake bunch. But you’ll never do these things in a serious
way because you don’t _have to_. Get me?”
“We don’t get a chance,” said Westy.
“Now you take a kid born out in the wilds—like this kid I’ve got waiting
for me—Stove Polish or whatever his name is; he’s an Indian.”
“Who?” said Westy.
“What?” said Warde.
“_Stove Polish?_” gasped Ed.
“Shining Sun his name is,” said Mr. Wilde. “Sounds like some kind of
stove polish so I call him Stove Polish——”
“Where is he?” Westy asked, all excitement.
“He’s waiting out at the Mammoth Hotel at Hot Springs with Mr. Creston;
you’ll see him. He’s going up in the mountains with Clip and me. Now
that kid is what you’d call a scout, the little rascal. He had to be a
scout or starve. He didn’t read his little book and raise up his hand
and say he was going to be a scout. He just got to be a scout because he
had to.
“When you’re in the Rocky Mountains a couple of hundred miles from the
nearest town and the nearest town consists of one house, why, it’s a
case of you or the Rocky Mountains—which wins. See? If you stay lost you
starve. If you don’t know the signs you’re out of luck. If you don’t
know what herbs to eat you don’t get any dinner. If you can’t tell where
to look for a cave by the looks of the land, why then, you stay out in
the rain and snow. See? If you haven’t got a gun the only way you can
catch a bird is to fool him. So he knows how to fool them. You fellows
are scouts because you want to have a lot of fun. But Stove Polish is a
scout because he wants to live; he has to be one, or he did have to up
to a year or two ago. He knows how to run without making a sound because
if he made a sound it would be all up with him.”
“You said it,” enthused Warde.
“Why, a couple of years or more ago,” continued Mr. Wilde, “when that
little rascal escaped from the Cheyenne reservation right back here a
few miles, he got into the mountains and nobody heard a word from him
for a year and a half—never even sent a post card saying he was having a
nice time or anything. Beaver Pete found him up in the mountains and
brought him down to Yellowstone and Mr. Creston snapped him up like a
used Cadillac. Well now, that kid is a full-blooded Cheyenne Indian;
he’s a grandson of old Stick-in-the-mud who was in the Custer scrap.
You’ve heard of that old geezer, haven’t you?
“Well, sir, that kid could call like a hawk and bring the hawk near
enough so he could drop it with a stone—_absolutely_. Beaver Pete told
me that when he found that kid in the trapping season he was wearing a
bearskin from a bear he had caught and killed without so much as a
bean-shooter. Nature couldn’t freeze him or starve him. He could find
water by instinct same as an animal does. You see, boys, what you _have_
to do you can do. There is no such thing as scouting in the midst of
civilization or in neighbor Smith’s woods. Scouts are scouts because
they _have_ to be scouts; it isn’t an outdoor sport. A scout is a fellow
who has fought _because he had to fight_ with nature and has won out.
Scouts are silent people as a rule, I’ve met some of them. They’re
taciturn and silent. The boy scouts are the noisiest bunch I ever met in
my life.”
The door at the end of the car opened and the voice of a trainman put an
end to Mr. Wilde’s talk.
“Emigrant. The next stop is Emigrant.”