THE PIONEER SCOUT
But it was not Vic Norris who was hurt; it was Skinny. He would not,
he could not, tell them the truth. He must live in the shadow of
their cruel thoughts. Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster of the troop,
arrived in camp on Friday for the week end, and tried to smooth over
the difficulty. But Skinny would not tell him why he had made his
astonishing offer to the departed Helmer Clarkson. Nor would he say
why he would not wear his scout suit. He was as stubborn as a little
mule in those matters. Mr. Ellsworth told the Elks that they would
just have to take Skinny as they found him, that there was no
explaining him. He reminded them that at all events they had the
canoe, and the white pennant.
So they took Skinny as they found him, and they found him different.
He seemed worried and preoccupied, and took little interest in the
patrol. They never asked him to wear his scout suit and he continued
to be, what he had always been in camp, an odd little figure in a
faded blouse. Those in the Bridgeboro troop who were most discerning
noticed how he seemed always in fear. But when they made fun of him,
as they were wont to do at camp-fire, he smiled bashfully in the same
old way and was delightfully ill at ease.
He occasionally went out in the prize canoe with scouts of his patrol
and sat wedged into one end like a funny little figurehead. You
would never have dreamed that he was the boy who had won that trim
craft which skimmed so lightly in the water. But he seemed to
appreciate being taken out in it. Perhaps after all it was not
Skinny who had won the canoe. It was the frenzied and despairing
soul of Skinny which had done that. Anyway, they often took him out
in it and he sat very still and upright as he was told to do.
The Elks soon lost the white pennant; a scout in a Vermont troop
walked away with it one night during Vic Norris' watch, so Vic had
two black eyes in a way of speaking. Bert McAlpin tried to get it
back and was caught red-handed. Then Connie himself tried and got a
good laugh from the Vermonters. Skinny was not particularly
interested in these attempts; he was too much worried about Danny to
concern himself with patrol exploits. He saw Danny every day and
occasionally spoke with him, but they were not much together. The
terrible thing that Danny was doing made Skinny afraid of him; he
stood in awe of such daring and effrontery.
As for Danny, he was not in the least troubled. On the very day of
his arrival he hiked to Catskill, keeping off the highway, and sent a
telegram collect, in the name of Temple Camp, advising the father of
Danville Bently that his son would be expected on August Second.
Having come safely through the formality of enrollment, no
embarrassing questions were asked him and indeed he had no further
intercourse with the management. Temple Camp is a big place and he
was soon absorbed in its life. Nobody cared where he lived or
anything else about him; they were all too busy with scouting.
And he was busy with scouting too. He might have taken his second
class tests, he might even have qualified for the first class, but he
cautiously refrained from any step which might bring him face to face
with trustees and councilors. Since he did not seek the first class
ranking he could not try for merit badges. He became, in short, one
of those nondescript scouts who are to be found in every summer camp,
boys who have taken the scout oath and put on scout suits and let it
go at that. He was too large to be thought of as a tenderfoot;
moreover his prowess and skill lifted him out of that class. He was
good at everything, but he did not fit his exploits into the scout
program.
He bunked in Pioneer Row with that miscellaneous company whose
members had come to Temple Camp without troop or patrol. Many of
them were instances of the one lucky boy in some homekeeping scout
unit. Some of them were active and clever, but they were deprived of
the advantages of group spirit. A boy scout is better off with his
patrol in a vacant lot than alone at the best of scout camps. The
big sleeping quarters of Pioneer Row had more the atmosphere of a
boarding school dormitory than of a scout camp. In a sense they did
form one big troop--too big.
After the first few days of his life in this rather inglorious
department of the spreading community, Danny lost all fear of being
found out at camp. The whole thing had been so easy! And Temple
Camp was so embracing and friendly! He was an adaptable boy and he
felt quite at home. He still feared the grim authorities of the
reform school, for he knew that he had been committed to that hated
institution by the State and that the long arm of the law was
reaching out for him. But as the days passed and nothing happened,
his fear subsided. He was so cozy and remote that discovery from
either quarter seemed an altogether unlikely sequel of his good
fortune. And August Second was so far away!
Once or twice he feared that Skinny might inadvertently, or in a
spasm of outraged conscience, say something. But nothing happened
and whatever fears he had were lulled to sleep. Yet there was one
person there whom he should have feared and that was himself. But he
not only did not fear himself; he did not fear anybody. The only
trouble was that he would have to sneak away before August Second.
Well, he thought, the authorities would have ceased their search for
him by that time, and he would go away on a ship.
All the boys in Pioneer Dormitory liked Danny. He was more
sophisticated than most of them and they stood somewhat in awe of
him. He seemed to know a good deal about the world and they
respected him for it. His rather nonchalant attitude toward scouting
had something engaging in it; but there was one serious boy who was
not too ready to fall under his spell.
This was Holman Sharpe, a pioneer scout from a farm in New Hampshire.
He was not summering away from his troop; he had no troop. Nor was
he, as so many of those boys were, the single remaining member of a
disintegrated troop. He was a registered pioneer. In the lonely
section where he lived there were no boys to form a troop. So he had
sent to National Headquarters for blanks and had been enrolled as a
pioneer scout, which was a very different thing from the unattached
scouts of Pioneer Row.
This boy went in for scouting with both hands and feet and the
easy-going Danny was greatly amused by him. He was one of those boys
who take themselves very seriously. Such boys are found in schools
and colleges, wrestling with their studies to the exclusion of
everything else, forgetting life in the interest of learning.
Scouting is not a good field in which to do this. There is nothing
about scouting to study; it is just a form of life. But this boy
conceived it as a sort of curriculum and the Handbook as a sort of
text book. He was certainly born to be a student. It is not so
certain that he was born to be a scout.
To this serious New England boy, Temple Camp was a sort of
university, the merit badges all representing study courses. He was
out for promotion; he did not care so much about fun. His Handbook
was all marked up with memorandums of his progress and notes of his
plans. He was a canny boy and did not forget about the future. He
even took into consideration the time when he would be too old for
scouting and had his plans all made for joining the _Veteran Scout
Association_. In an envelope he had three dollars laid away with
which to buy the veteran pin several years hence.
Everything in the Handbook was law and gospel to him and he had set
about the strenuous labor of squeezing it dry. He would get his
money's worth at Temple Camp by doing every single thing that was
even casually suggested in the scouting program. He had never had
any give and take with other boys and he could not conceive of
scouting being carried lightly and airily, as Roy Blakeley of the
Silver Foxes, carried it. He went in for scouting with a vengeance.
What Danny did, he did easily, and he was highly entertained by the
way Holman would come in carrying his Handbook and some maps and
papers, and sit down on his cot, which was next to Danny's, to go
over them and enter notes in his field book.
"Busy with your homework?" Danny would quiz.
"I've just hiked fourteen miles," Holman answered him one day. "I'm
going to write it up to-night, and there's test four all finished on
the first class badge. If you took all the miles you've used up
flopping around in the woods to-day, I bet they'd run over fourteen
and you'd have a seven mile double to lay up on your first class
tests. I mixed some dough and cooked my dinner, too, while I was
off, so I'm claiming the cooking badge on that. I don't know whether
I'll get it or not."
"Did you ever study algebra!" Danny queried.
"Well, it's not exactly a part of scouting," said Holman.
Danny, sitting on Holman's cot with his knees drawn up, pulled his
hat down over his forehead, which gave him a sophisticated, even a
tough, look. "But I had the fun of flopping around in the woods,"
said he. "You hike so fast you never see anything."
"Make hay while the sun shines," said Holman in his businesslike way.
"Why, you were telling me about following those marks and you came
plunk on a rattlesnake; he's a pretty big one, I guess."
"He was; he isn't any more," said Danny.
"You've got to look out how you kill those fellows. But what I was
going to say was, you could use that stuff on the stalking test if
you wanted to. Did you have any witnesses?"
"Only the rattlesnake and he's dead," said Danny.
"I'm only telling you how you waste your chances," said Holman. "You
can do things, all right, only you don't think. I heard a scout over
at the Kit Carson tents say you jumped over Outlet Brook."
"Yere?"
"I've got it planned out so I can use one stunt on two tests."
"Wholesale only, huh! What's that red book?" Danny asked, kicking it.
"That? That's the English Handbook. I'll wager you that's the only
one in camp. I guess you never even read the American one, do you?"
"Oh, I gave it the once over; there's some pretty good dope in it.
Ever think you'd like to make a stab for the Gold Cross?"
"Life saving with imminent risk?" (Holman quoted accurately).
"That's something pretty high up; that's out of the ordinary."
"I was thinking I'd grab it--just for a stunt," said Danny.
Holman shook his head, "That's one of the big things--that's the very
biggest," said he. He knew all about it.
"That's the one for me," said Danny.
"I sort of don't like the way you refer to it,"
"That's the snappiest one in the book," said Danny.
"Talking about books," said Holman, "you ought to look over this
English Handbook; it's by General Baden-Powell. There's a section in
it about deduction; deducing facts from clues and signs. Why you can
even look at a scout's shoes and tell where he has been if you know
how."
"I don't care where's he's been," said Danny.
"It's an interesting phase of scouting just the same."
"Phase, huh? That's just detective stuff. You don't want to be one
of those guys, do you?"
"Oh, that's part of scouting--mental effort."
"Yere?"
"Now, for instance, I've noticed something. I even made a note of
it."
"I bet you did."
"I don't believe there's a scout in this camp ever noticed that
tattoo mark on your arm."
Danny started.
"Surprises you, eh!" Holman laughed. He did not often laugh. "Yes
sir," he said in a way of small triumph, "I noticed it when you
rolled up your sleeve; the time you reached down in the water after
the compass that little big-eyed youngster is always losing. You
rolled it away up--remember! I noticed. I said, 'That boy has known
a sailor.' Now am I right?"
"Right--the first time."
"I wondered why the letters were D. M. since I knew your name was
Danville Bently. But I hit on it. Now tell me if I'm right."
"Sure, you're always right."
"They name ships the _Molly B_ and all like that. If a ship is
called after a woman named Molly B. Smith, they just call it the
_Molly B_. I'll wager that M is your middle initial--Danville M. as
you might say."
"_Geeee_, that's wonderful!" said Danny. "That's _simp_-ly
wonderful! I bet you're going to keep it to yourself too."
"Oh, trust me for that," said Holman Sharpe.
Their talk was interrupted by the little tenderfoot office boy from
Administration Shack who called from the open doorway at the end of
the long row of cots.
"Danville Bently, you're wanted in the office," said he.