After studying the lay of the country for some moments, Ned decided to at least make an attempt to reach the eagle. Removing his coat, and leaving his revolver and searchlight upon the ledge as too cumbersome to carry, he started down toward where the bird lay. He had indeed reached the snow line, for the crevices in the wall down which he clambered were filled with frost. It was a long, long journey down to the ledge below, and dangerous, too, but the boy finally succeeded in reaching the spot where the eagle lay.
It was a noble bird, something like seven feet from tip to tip, and Ned realized that he would have his hands full in conveying it to the shelf where he had very foolishly left his coat and his weapon.
“I must have been out of my head to leave the articles there!” he exclaimed, annoyed at his own reckless act. “Now,” he went on, “I’ve got to climb back up that almost perpendicular wall and get there before dark, too. If I had only brought the things with me the way to camp would be easier.”
After several attempts to climb the wall of rock, Ned was brought to the conclusion that the feat was impossible. The downward climb had been difficult, but the return was out of the question. After a further study of the situation, he passed along the ledge to a slope which seemed to him to lead to the shelf above. In ten minutes, he found to his dismay that the slope did not connect with the shelf he sought.
However, the only thing for him to do was to proceed on the way he had chosen, in the hope that some arrangement of surfaces would permit of his return to the point where he had left the articles mentioned.
At last he came to a narrow shelf of rock in front of which was a straight fall of hundreds of feet. Above him the crag rose to a height almost as great. The shelf was not more than two feet in width, and there were places where the rock had crumbled away so that the breadth was cut down to less than six inches.
Very much disgusted with his own thoughtlessness, Ned turned toward a slope to the east and tried to make his way off the dangerous elevation. As he did so, he heard a whir of wings and felt fanning pinions brush his back.
Turning he saw two huge eagles hovering in the air hardly a yard away. Their vicious eyes were fixed angrily upon him. Involuntarily the boy reached for his revolver but, of course, did not find it in its usual place. It reposed on the shelf hundreds of feet away!
“Now,” thought the boy, “I seem to be having the quiet little communion with nature I set out to attain! If these eagles actually attack me here, unarmed as I am, I’m afraid there’ll be somebody falling over the precipice in a short time.”
While these thoughts were passing through the excited mind of the boy, the eagles, after taking a long swing in the air, approached him, claws and beak threatening destruction.
It was a peculiar situation. Ned was still standing on a ledge a little more than a foot wide, entirely unarmed except for a large knife which he carried in his pocket. It seemed to him that a battle with the birds there could result in only one way.
He did not entirely abandon hope, but he knew that the chances were against him. It seemed that one powerful stroke from a wing must send him over the precipice.
He drew his knife from his pocket and opened it. He was not a moment too soon, for at that instant one of the eagles slashed at him with a beak which seemed to the boy at that time to be something like three feet in length. Threatened with the knife, the bird flew away, but his mate immediately continued the attack.
While obliged to meet only one bird at a time, Ned succeeded admirably in fighting them off, but directly they both charged at the same instant, and then Ned felt the powerful beaks tearing at his hands, at his legs and at his head. By keeping the blade of his knife flashing constantly before his face, he was able to protect himself when the eagles dashed at his eyes!
More than once he was thrown to the ledge by the fanning of great wings which seemed to the boy to be operated by sixty-horse power motors. Time after time he lay almost at the very verge of the precipice. Fighting desperately with knife and feet, however, he managed to escape the claws of the great birds.
Had either one of them succeeded in fastening those powerful weapons upon the boy, he must have been dragged from the ledge. During all this struggle the birds had been wounded time and again, but no fatal blow had been dealt, and so they fought on as if determined to avenge the death of their companion.
It seemed to Ned that the battle lasted for several hours. As a matter of fact, it was over in twenty minutes. A fortunate blow with the knife crippled one of the wings of the fiercest eagle so that he fluttered away into the canyon, unable to lift his body to the attack again. The second bird fought more warily after this, but the boy received several wounds and several blows from his fanning wings before a knife thrust in the throat sent the vicious bird tumbling into the space below.
Freed from his assailants, the boy dropped on the ledge and panted for breath. Every muscle had been strained to its utmost tension in the encounter, and, besides, the boy had been cruelly wounded by his antagonists of the air.
He lay there resting for some moments and then, rising, found it necessary to cut his shirt into ribbons in order to bind up some of the wounds which had been inflicted and from which the blood was trickling in considerable quantities.
“Talk about the great American eagle!” mused the boy. “I shall never want to see one again unless he’s on a piece of money! The noble bird of liberty is certainly a scrapper when it comes down to brass tacks, but the encounter of today shows that he is inclined to take every advantage of an opponent!”
Regarding his torn clothes ruefully, the boy once more glanced up at the shelf where he had very foolishly deposited his coat, his revolver and flashlight. His hat had been torn from his head during the first minute of the battle.
“It strikes me,” he considered, “that I’d better head for camp without going back after that plunder.”
Through the break in the mountainous range in which he stood he could see the red sun dropping low down into the sky. He knew that to attempt to secure his property would be to give up all hope of reaching camp before the night fell.
The next question for him to consider was as to whether he should attempt to convey the bird he had shot into camp.
“If I don’t take in the prize,” he mused with a smile showing on his face, “the boys will pretend to believe that I never had any battle with an eagle; that I received my injuries in some other way.”
He looked down at his torn clothing and at his bandaged wrists, and for a moment, realizing how tired he was, resolved to abandon the prize for the time being and make for the camp at all speed. At last, however, the boy’s indomitable courage asserted itself, and he picked up the heavy bird and started on his journey to camp.
Somehow the conformation of the land seemed to always lead him away from the direction he hoped to follow. Here a ledge he was following wound sharply around to the south, ending in a precipitous slope which obliged him to retrace his steps. There a gully in the hills threw a mountain torrent in his path. Long before he saw the light of the campfire, he was nearly ready to drop from exhaustion.
The cheerful blaze, however, brought new courage to his heart and before long he came within the circle of light. When he turned the angle of the rock, Harry and Gilroy greeted him with exclamations of dismay.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TREATY UNDER THE FLAG
“My dear sir!” exclaimed Gilroy as Ned, hatless, coatless, ragged, and well covered with blood, advanced into the firelight.
“Now, what do you think of that!” exclaimed Harry.
Ned dropped down on the ground and turned a tired face to the others.
“What do you think of a battle in the air?” he asked.
“Not up in the air, really?” asked Gilroy.
“We had battles in the air when we were running our aeroplanes,” commented Harry, “and we rather liked them!”
“This little encounter,” Ned explained, “was with a great American eagle, or eagles, rather. The eagle is a scrapper!”
As he spoke he pointed to the body of the dead bird laying just outside the illuminated circle. Gilroy hastened in that direction, but paused when a flutter of wind caused the feathers of the bird to move threateningly.
“Is it alive?” he asked.
Harry lifted the bird by the neck and drew it nearer to the flame.
“This eagle,” he said with a grin, “is about the deadest thing I ever saw. In fact,” he went on, “he is fully as dead as the eagle on a counterfeit dollar!”
“Where did you get it?” asked Gilroy.
“I fought for it,” answered Ned.
“I know what’s the matter with Ned,” Harry exclaimed. “He hasn’t had anything to eat since noon, and he’s hungry. Never try to talk to a Boy Scout when he’s hungry,” he continued, “if you do, you’ll get saucy answers.”
“I’m hungry myself!” Gilroy declared.
“Well,” Harry answered. “You can get supper any old time you want to. I’d be glad to serve as chef tonight if it wasn’t for this bum old arm. I could do a pretty good job cooking with one hand, only I’m just a little bit weak yet.”
Gilroy at once accepted the invitation and began preparations for supper, going about the work awkwardly.
“What are you going to have for supper?” he asked after a survey of the provision shelves.
“Bear stew!” laughed Harry, well knowing the fat clerk’s abhorrence of bear flesh. “We’re all going to eat bear stew. But you can have a broiled rattlesnake if you care to go and catch one.”
Gilroy threw up his hands in horror.
“Do you eat rattlesnakes, really?” he asked.
Ned and Harry joined in a laugh at sight of the clerk’s disturbed countenance. After a time Ned arose to assist in the preparation of the meal, and then, for the first time, the others took note of the absence of his coat and hat.
“Where are they?” Harry asked, pointing from breast to head.
Then Ned explained his plight and Gilroy shuddered in sympathy.
“On a narrow ledge,” he wailed, “hundreds of feet up in the air, a battle with two great birds like that! I’ve heard a great deal about the Pacific coast,” he went on, “and have long desired a trip like the present one, but I’ll tell you now that my infatuation for the west has vanished. Now I begin to understand,” he continued, “why we rarely see a very old man west of Denver.”
“What becomes of ’em?” asked Harry.
“They are eaten by bears, and scalped by Indians, and drowned in places like the Devil’s Punch Bowl, and chewed up by eagles, and slaughtered by half-breeds!” replied the clerk. “And the wonder of it all is,” he continued, “that they seem to like it!”
When the stew was simmering merrily on the coals and the coffee was bubbling not far away, Ned began bringing out the dishes and clearing away the litter of the fire.
“I suppose,” he said after a time, “that the others will be back for supper. It seems to me that they are making a long trip to the Devil’s Punch Bowl.”
“I know why they’re staying away such a long time,” Harry cut in, with a grin. “They’re up on top of the mountain waving the stone flag on the cliff. That’s a cheerful job, too.”
“My dear sir!” almost gasped Gilroy. “My information is to the effect that the flag on the cliff is really carved out of stone!”
“It certainly is carved out of stone,” Ned answered. “In any other event it would have come to an ignoble end long ago.”
“Who carved it there?” asked Harry.
“I have no information on the subject,” Ned replied, “except what common sense gives me. The mine under the mountain was undoubtedly discovered and worked by the Hoola Indians who first inhabited this country. Later on, the Franciscans came here and established their mission. Still later, the Spaniards came and claimed to own the country.
“It is my opinion,” he went on, “that the flag was carved there to stand as a lasting monument to Spain two or three hundred years ago. Probably the Hoola Indians, whose titles to the lands were recognized by the Spanish and Mexican governments, chose that form of a monument to indicate the location of the mine.”
“And so,” Harry exclaimed, “that stone flag has waved above millions in gold for hundreds of years, and no one knew the significance of it—no one except the Hoola Indians.”
“That’s the way it seems to me!” Ned answered.
Just as the coffee and the stew were ready for consumption, Jimmie came dashing into the camp, closely followed by the others, with Mr. Bosworth, unfamiliar with mountain work, puffing along in the rear.
“Mother of Moses!” cried Jimmie. “I smelled that stew away up on the snow line!”
“And I got a whiff of the coffee from the edge of the Devil’s Punch Bowl,” laughed Jack.
Then Jimmie caught sight of Ned’s disheveled appearance and began a critical examination of the tears in his garments and his wounds.
“You look,” the boy laughed, “like you’d been in a rough house at Coney Island. Where did you get it?”
Mr. Bosworth now came up, and, with all present, the story of the battle in the air was again told.
“And you left your gun and your searchlight and your coat up in the blue sky, did you?” demanded Jimmie.
“I certainly did,” replied Ned. “But you step over to the barrier and see what I brought back to represent them.”
Jimmie did as requested and soon came back into the firelight, dragging the dead eagle.
“That’s some bird!” he chuckled. “Say, Ned,” he went on in a moment. “I know where you can get all kinds of money for that. The Sioux Indians will give a dollar apiece for the feathers for their hair.”
“This bird goes to the Eagle Patrol, New York,” Ned declared.
“Good for you!” shouted Jimmie. “We’ll hang it up in the club room and give you a seat of honor directly under it.”
“I beg your pardon,” Gilroy interrupted, “but if it’s all the same to you, Mr. Bosworth, and to you boys, I’d like to partake of a little refreshment. This mountain air certainly does bring about an appetite!”
“I knew that something was giving me an appetite,” grinned Jimmie, “but I didn’t know what it was!”
“Cripes!” Jack laughed. “Jimmie had just the same kind of an appetite on the Amazon!”
“And Jimmie’s got just the same kind of an appetite now, too!” replied the boy, ladling out a great dish of stew. “I’m going to devour just three portions like this!” he insisted.
“Now, boys,” Mr. Bosworth said after supper was well under way, “I feel obliged to start for New York tomorrow, taking Gilroy with me.”
“Don’t you do it!” cried Jimmie. “We won’t have any fun if Gilroy goes away!”
“And my advice to you,” the lawyer went on, “is to come along with me.”
“Oh, Dad!” cried Jack. “Just because you got your business all in shape you want to drag us off to New York.”
“I’m only giving advice,” Mr. Bosworth replied, with a smile. “You boys can do just as you please.”
“Glory be!” shouted Jack.
“Have you really completed your business here?” asked Ned in a moment.
“Yes,” was the reply.
“Satisfactorily?” asked Ned.
“Entirely so! You see,” the lawyer went on, “my theory is always to work along the lines of least resistance. I understand, of course, that we could establish our claim to these lands through the courts. I understand, too, that the Hoola Indians who claim title could be electrocuted for the murder of Toombs. That would clear the atmosphere of many complications.”
“But it wouldn’t be right!” Jimmie shouted.
“No, it wouldn’t be right,” Mr. Bosworth admitted. “The Indians really have some rights here which should be respected, and Toombs received only his just deserts. He never had any standing, even in Wall street. He has betrayed every confidence for years, and there is not a soul on earth who will mourn his death.”
“That’s the way I sized him up!” Ned said.
“And so, taking all things into consideration,” Mr. Bosworth went on, “I have decided to give the Indians a fair price for their land—more than enough to keep them in luxury the remainder of their lives—and to employ them to direct the taking out of the gold.”
“Is there a lot of it?” asked Jack.
“It seems,” Mr. Bosworth replied, “that the eight Indians now living mined the gold secretly until a few years ago, when, believing that they had enough for all their future needs, they turned the waters of the pool into the mine. At this time they had large stores of the precious metal in an interior chamber, where one of their number was always kept on guard.”
“I think I had a peep into that chamber!” Jack exclaimed.
“So far as I can understand, the treasure chamber is the one you boys saw,” Mr. Bosworth went on, “and you were lucky to get out alive, too,” he added. “Only the arrival of Ned and Jimmie protected you.”
“That’s more than Toombs did—get out alive!” Jimmie suggested.
“When, at some time in the near future, the water is turned back into the other channel,” Mr. Bosworth said, “the body of Toombs will be taken out and given reverent and decent burial. That is all that can be done for him now. His companions in New York will never know his fate.”
The boys sat by the campfire late that night, discussing plans and occasionally referring some disputed point to Mr. Bosworth.
“Why, lads,” laughed the lawyer, “I’ve given you my best advice, and that is that you take your vacation in some less dangerous locality. However, if you won’t follow my line of thought, my next best advice is for you to remain in this camp and breathe mountain air, and hunt squirrels, and deer, and bear, for a month and then return to New York.”
“Think of a person remaining here when he might go back to the big city!” exclaimed Gilroy. “Why,” he continued, “the half-breeds are likely to break out again at any moment.”
“The half-breeds deserted when Huga was killed,” Norman replied. “They were brought here on day wages, and will never show up again.”
“And what are we going to do with Norman?” asked Jack, his attention called to the boy by the remark.
“Bring him back to New York with you,” replied Mr. Bosworth, “and I will take pleasure in looking after his future, also that of his sister.”
“Bully for you, Dad!” Jack exclaimed.
“I’ll get him a job on Dad’s paper as a reporter,” Frank promised.
“That’s just the thing!” exclaimed Norman.
The party passed a restful night, and early in the morning Mr. Bosworth and Gilroy set out for the return trip. As they had made no arrangements for guides or teams, the boys accompanied them until, from far up on the mountainside, they saw the roofs of a little town from which telegrams asking for horses might be sent.
As the two descended the slope, the boys waved their handkerchiefs in farewell and promised to show up in New York within a month.
“And we’ll do it, too!” Ned declared as they set their faces toward their camp.
“We’ll be in New York if we ain’t having too much fun here!” Jimmie laughed.
During the following month the boys enjoyed their vacation to the fullest. They slept out on the range, hunted and fished in the cold mountain rivers, and had, as Jimmie always expressed it, the time of their lives. They were back in New York on time ready for the next adventure which might come in their way.
The presentation of the eagle to the Eagle Patrol was the sensation of the year among the Boy Scouts of New York. To this day, it occupies the place of honor in the club room, having been mounted by one of the most famous taxidermists of the city.
Mr. Bosworth fulfilled his promise to look after the future of Norman and his sister, and they were soon placed at work, much to their liking with prospects of happy lives before them.
Months afterward, when the employes of the corporation represented by Mr. Bosworth, gathered near the old Spanish Mission and the Devil’s Punch Bowl to remove the treasure of gold from the mine, there was some talk among them of the strange hieroglyphics carved high up on the smooth surface of the rocks.
“I don’t know what it all means,” the superintendent of the company said, “but while I was in New York, talking with Mr. Bosworth, I often heard that peculiar formation referred to. Now,” he added thoughtfully, “what was it they called it. Ah! I know,” he added, his eyes brightening. “They called it THE FLAG ON THE CLIFF.”
The End
THE VICTORY BOY SCOUTS
BY
CAPTAIN ALAN DOUGLAS
SCOUTMASTER
Stories from the pen of a writer who possesses a thorough knowledge of his subject. In addition to the stories there is an addenda in which useful boy scout nature lore is given, all illustrated. There are the following twelve titles in the series:
- 1. The Campfires of the Wolf Patrol.
- 2. Woodcraft; or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good.
- 3. Pathfinder; or, the Missing Tenderfoot.
- 4. Great Hike; or, the Pride of Khaki Troop.
- 5. Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day.
- 6. Under Canvas; or, the Search for the Carteret Ghost.
- 7. Storm-bound: or, a Vacation Among the Snow-Drifts.
- 8. Afloat; or, Adventures on Watery Trails.
- 9. Tenderfoot Squad; or, Camping at Raccoon Lodge.
- 10. Boy Scout Electricians; or, the Hidden Dynamo.
- 11. Boy Scouts in Open Plains; or, the Round-up not Ordered.
- 12. Boy Scouts in an Airplane; or, the Warning from the Sky.
12mo. Lintex. Postpaid, Price each 50c
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
701-733 S. Dearborn Street :: CHICAGO
Transcriber’s Notes
- Silently corrected a few typos.
- Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
- In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.