SOMETHING “REAL”
And so these three parlor scouts, winners of the Rotary Club award,
reached the rear platform of the last car and gazed upon the landscape
as it receded before their eyes. The whimsical Mr. Wilde had put them in
bad sorts and the great, vast, stupendous west seemed to confirm all
that their chance acquaintance had said.
How hopeless the lot of the lost wanderer here, how useless the good
scout handbook, how futile all the pleasantly primitive devices to find
one’s way home—when home is just around the corner. They were just boys
playing at scouting, nice boys, boy scouts. Well, at all events, it had
won them this trip to the Yellowstone where there would be much to
see....
There was certainly not much to see at Emigrant. If there had ever been
an Emigrant there it must have emigrated away, or been blown away as Mr.
Wilde had said of other western stopping places.
Certainly there was no sign of life there. Yet evidently the place was
useful to the railroad for the train stopped there, a visitation of life
and energy in a scene of desolation.
Not a living soul was there to welcome them. Even the companionable
noise of the train had ceased or died down to a slow pulsating sound of
the locomotive. It seemed an impatient sound as if the steel brute were
anxious to be on its way again. How lonesome, even forbidding the
landscape looked from the cozy, little refuge where they viewed it. Only
this little platform between them and the vast unknown.
Westy was a sensible, thoughtful boy and the bigness of the country
impressed him. It affected his mood. What Mr. Wilde had said would
probably not have been taken too seriously if Westy had been in the
east. It was not Mr. Wilde alone, but the whole environment as well,
which made all that Westy was and had accomplished paltry by comparison.
It all seemed to belittle his scouting and make it infantile and
ridiculous. Everything seemed to impart piquancy to Mr. Wilde’s home
truths. Here indeed was the land where men had fought with untamed
Nature and won out.
It seemed to Westy that he had been swimming with a life preserver. He
sat down on the car platform and rested his chin on his hands and gazed
about. It was not a propitious mood for a boy to be in who was about to
be shown the wonders of the Yellowstone National Park. He almost wished
that he had not met that disturbing person, Mr. Wilde. He could not get
Shining Sun out of his mind. To do anything on a _little_ scale seemed
contemptible to Westy. Was scouting after all a toy?
His two companions caught his mood though they were not as
impressionable as he. They sat down on the platform beside him and the
three made a rather disconsolate trio, considering that they were within
a score or so of miles of their hearts’ desire.
“I remind myself of Pee-wee, tracking a hop-toad,” mused Westy.
Ed Carlisle took him up, “Just because Mr. Wilde says this and that——”
“Suppose he had gone to Scout Headquarters in New York for a scout to
help them in the mountains,” said Westy. “Would he have found one? When
it comes to dead serious business——”
“Look what Roosevelt said about scouts,” said Warde. “He said they were
a lot of help and that scouting was a great thing, that’s what he said.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Wilde that?” Ed asked.
“Because I didn’t think of it,” said Warde.
“Just because I get the Astronomy badge that doesn’t prove I’m an
astronomer,” said Ed.
“Nobody says a scout’s a doctor because he has the first aid badge,”
encouraged Warde.
Westy only looked straight ahead of him, his abstracted gaze fixed upon
the wild, lonesome mountains. A great bird was soaring over them and he
watched it till it became a mere speck. And meanwhile, the locomotive
steamed at steady intervals like an impatient beast. Then, suddenly, its
voice changed, there was strain and effort in its steaming.
“Guess we’re going to go,” said Warde. “Now for the little old
Yellowstone, hey, Westy? Wake up, come out of that, you old grouch.
Don’t you know a scout is supposed to smile and look pleasant? We should
worry about Mr. Madison C. Wilde.”
“If we never did anything _real_ and _big_ it’s because there weren’t
any of those things to do,” said Warde. “Didn’t he say what you _have_
to do, you do? That’s just what he said.”
Westy did not answer, only arose in a rather disgruntled way and stepped
off the platform. He strolled forward alone along the outside of the
car, kicking a stone as he went and watching it intently. When he raised
his eyes he had almost reached the other end of the car. The car stood
on a siding quite alone; the train was rushing away among the mountains.
Westy Martin was at last face to face with something real and big. He
and his companions were quite alone in the Rocky Mountains. The Boy
Scouts of America and the heedless, cruel, monster Nature had come to an
issue at last.
How this issue was decided and what happened to Westy and his comrades
before they reached their destination are told in the companion story
which continues their adventures under the title of _Westy Martin in the
Yellowstone_.