The last immediately slipped down the slope of the roof and managed to squirm aboard the boat, as though not meaning to let this fine chance escape him. It was something of a task to get the big woman safely down; but Monkey Stallings volunteered to climb up with a clothes line and make some sort of a “check,” so that with the help of the strong hired man she was finally successfully taken aboard.
“Is that Miss Maria in the tree there?” Tip asked the man, after Hugh had learned that there were no others about the house needing assistance.
“Jest who it is,” was the answer of the hired man. “She got skeered ’baout the house right in the start, an’ sez it was apt to be kerried away, which a tree wouldn’t because it’s got roots. I helped her get up among the branches, but they hain’t be’n a minute sense thet she hain’t kept whoopin’ it up. And haow she’s a-goin’ to be took daown beats me.”
The launch was soon under the tree, and sure enough trouble began immediately. The little old woman was perched fairly high up, though even at that she doubtless often imagined the rising flood was touching her dangling feet. She declared she was afraid to move so as to come down. Monkey went up to assist her, but she continued to cling desperately to her limb and say she was afraid.
At Hugh’s suggestion Monkey even carried up the rope, and, passing it over a limb above her head, fastened a loop under her arms. This was to inspire her with confidence; but she kept her grip, and gave them all manner of trouble.
“I warned you what you’d run up against,” chuckled Tip. “I know the lady of old. When she sets her mind it sticks! Serve her right if we sailed away and left her up there in her old tree to camp out.”
“Well, we can’t do that,” said Hugh, frowning. “They say that if the mountain won’t come to you, it’s up to you to go to the mountain. We’re going to get her down, and that right away. And, Billy, I’m going to leave that part of the job to you. The rest hang on to the rope, and keep it taut, so she won’t fall and get hurt. We’ll remove her support, which is the only way. Here, Billy, you’re a good hand with a hatchet; climb up there and cut that limb close to the tree. Never mind what she says to you. Some people don’t know what’s good for them, and even have to be saved against their will. Now, up with you, and get busy, Billy boy.”
Billy Worth entered into the game with his customary eagerness. There had been so much of tragedy connected with their experiences thus far in the rescue of the numerous flood victims, that what promised to be a rift in the clouds appealed to him with considerable force. Billy was always ready for fun.
He saw that Hugh was following the example of a famous man, Alexander the Great, who, when offered the Gordian knot to unravel, simply cut it with his sword. Since so much remained to be done for others, they could not afford to waste time with a captious old woman who, having been hoisted to that limb, was afraid to let go of it for fear lest she should be dropped into that terrible waste of water below.
So Billy took the hatchet and began to climb the tree. Miss Maria did not at first comprehend what his intentions were, and even started scolding the boy for meaning to force her to put her faith in that slender clothes line.
When he deliberately began to hack away at the limb upon which she placed her faith, she realized the impending catastrophe, and shrilly chided him for what she called his treachery.
Billy kept grimly at work. He was making splendid progress, for it happened that the boat hatchet had a keen edge, and Billy had always prided himself on being something of a woodsman chopper.
“Hold hard below!” he called out presently, at which Miss Maria gave a shriek and changed her hold from the security of the now bending limb to the clothes line over her head.
Hugh and the others made sure to have the rope taut, for they saw that the limb was getting ready to fall of its own weight, since Billy had cut more than halfway through it.
Then came a crackling sound, more shrieks from the little old maid, and she was discovered dangling in the air, kicking furiously, and almost wild with fright.
Suppressing their desire to laugh, Hugh and his comrades immediately started to lower her by slacking up on their end of the rope. When she came within reach they guided her into the boat, although in more or less danger of having their share of knocks from her energetic kicks into space.
When she found that she had been safely landed, Miss Maria almost collapsed; but at least she appeared to be so completely out of breath that the scouts were spared another scolding harangue.
The rope recovered, they had no further reason to remain in that vicinity. When they could do so without the little old maid’s keen eye being fastened on them, Billy and Tip and Monkey would exchange grins and suggestive shrugs; but they were very careful to keep straight faces if they fancied she were watching them.
Hugh had mapped out a plan of campaign when starting up the valley. It was his intention to cover the inundated territory fully, so that when they turned back to town they could feel they had not left any one at the mercy of the flood who should have been looked after.
So he kept changing his course in what might be called a zigzag way, now steering toward the left shore, and again heading in the direction of the opposite one. Billy called it “tacking,” for their advance up the valley was by a series of eccentric movements.
Shortly after having rescued Miss Maria in a manner which she would never recall without more or less resentment, the scouts discovered another waving signal that meant trouble. In this instance it was a farmer who was known to be well to do, and who had quite a family, among the rest a couple of boys of twelve and fourteen.
They had lingered too long at home, from some cause or other, and were in somewhat of a panic lest the night come on to find them facing dreadful hours of darkness and despair.
Hugh was surprised at the lack of smartness shown by those two lusty lads. He was sure that if they had belonged to the scouts they would at least have found some way of constructing a safety device in the shape of a raft by means of which the entire family might have been ferried across the water to the high land.
The coming of the launch was the signal for more or less cheering on the part of these two boys. They had let their stock loose some time before, so that it had probably found safety in the distant hills, swimming the flood.
As they had done on other occasions, Hugh and his comrades bustled about, and not only got the farmer and his family aboard but managed to also save a few bundles of wearing apparel that the good housewife insisted on taking along.
“The farmer seems to keep watching us as if he had something on his mind,” was what Hugh whispered to Tip Lange about the time they were ready to once more make a start, intending to land all their passengers the next time they drew in to the shore.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he has,” replied the Lawrence scout, “and I think I can give a pretty close guess what it is.”
“Suppose you tell me, then?” suggested the patrol leader.
“Why, you see, when we started this scout racket here, his two boys, Tad and Ben Jasper, were mighty wild to join the troop, but their dad put his foot down flat against any such ‘foolishness,’ as he called it. He seemed to have the idea in his head, like a lot of other people do who will not take the trouble to read the Boy Scout Manual, and learn what the movement represents, that it was intended just to make soldiers of all American boys as they do over in Europe. And no one could ever get him to listen to reason, though my father and others tried to show him.”
“I kind of suspected it might be that way,” said Hugh, with a smile. “That would account for the helplessness of his boys when they found themselves up against a situation like this. Scouts would have had that family ashore hours ago. They have never learned to think for themselves. I hope it’s going to prove a grand lesson for Mr. Jasper; and let me make a prediction, Tip, which is that inside of two weeks you’ll be enrolling the names of Tad and Ben Jasper on your roster.”
Sure enough, when they were approaching the land, Mr. Jasper, looking as though he had something on his mind that would give him no peace until he had it out, opened the conversation by remarking:
“Is this the sort of thing you scouts learn to do, Tipton Lange? Because, if it teaches boys to be self-reliant and brave and obliging, I’m going to look deeper into the scheme. I realize now that there’s something lacking about my lads. They should have been able to do something to get us out of this scrape. And if being Boy Scouts will build them up so they can take the bit in their teeth and go ahead when a necessity comes along, why, I want to know all about it.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, sir,” declared Tip, flushing with pleasure, while Tad and Ben pushed nearer, their faces displaying an eagerness they could not disguise. “And my father will be pleased to have you call on him to hear what he has to say about the scout movement.”
“Tell him about the bridge affair, Tip!” suggested Billy, although Hugh made a movement with his hand, and frowned as though he did not like the idea of being forced to hear himself praised.
Tip, however, was only too willing. The time did not allow of any elaborate yarn spinning, but in a brief recital he explained to Mr. Jasper the difference between sheer recklessness and true bravery as exhibited by the actions of Tug Wilson and Hugh Hardin.
Mr. Jasper insisted on shaking the patrol leader’s hand after Tip had finished.
“If that is what it does for boys,” he said heartily, “then my sons shall join a troop at the first opportunity. I don’t want them to grow up with the idea of being soldiers and fighting just for the love of war; but like every father I do hope they will always be brave and self-reliant. Yes, I shall certainly look into this thing. It has been a lesson to me.”
“Mr. Jasper,” said Billy, unable to keep from getting a few “licks” in while he had the chance, “if you were in Lawrence at this very minute you would find more than a dozen scouts in khaki working like beavers with boats and rafts, the last made by themselves, saving stranded people, and trying to salvage some of their possessions before the flood took their houses, for where the current is swift it carries buildings away.”
“If that is true, son,” said the wealthy old farmer, “then the future of the Boy Scout movement in Lawrence is assured, depend on that. I’ve been heading the opposition, but now that my eyes have been opened I’ll be just as hard a worker in its favor, you can depend on that.”
“Hurrah!” cried Billy, waving his hat, as did also Monkey Stallings and Tip, but Hugh was too busy making a landing just then to take his eyes off the shore, or his hands off the wheel.
So they put their human freight, together with Carlo, the big dog, ashore, although the latter did not seem to want to leave his new friends. The Jasper boys wore broad smiles, and no one would ever have suspected that for the time being they were castaways and fugitives from their destroyed home. The fact of the matter was that they had begun to look upon all this privation as a means to an end. Boys always do have a weakness for any Crusoe sort of business; and what they had heard their father say concerning his change of views had filled their hearts with a new joy that could not be crushed just because they were temporary exiles.
“Two more turns across ought to finish our patrol duty,” said Hugh, as the boat again started out upon the wide stretch of dismal waters.
“Then we might get back to town in time to be of some more use there before the night settles down,” proposed Billy.
“That light rain has stopped, for one thing,” remarked Monkey Stallings, trying to discover some loophole of encouragement.
“We’ll hope it doesn’t start in again,” said Billy quickly. “The weather sharps were away off their base when they said another storm was headed in our direction. Well, I wondered what that was coming this way, but now I can see it’s some sort of big animal swimming.”
“A cow it seems like to me,” ventured Tip Lange. “Yet it’s got a big head and gilt balls on its horns. Must be that prize bull Mr. Jasper owns.”
“I think you’ve hit it that time,” Monkey told him. “I reckon the beast may have been trying to stand on some knoll that was higher than the surrounding land, and finally had to swim for it. Look at him making straight for the boat, will you? I’ve heard that when frightened domestic animals will turn to human company for help, and it seems like that is so. Hey! what ails the engine, Hugh?” for the launch had suddenly ceased to keep moving ahead.
“I’ve got to fix something, and there’s no getting around it,” replied the patrol leader. “We can’t risk the danger of an explosion. Five or ten minutes ought to be enough time.”
“But that bull looks like he meant to come aboard here!” ejaculated Monkey, as the swimming beast drew near, with his head breaking through the surface of the water, part of his broad back showing, and his long tail streaming in the rear after the manner of a rudder.
“Get the hook!” shouted Billy, suiting the action to the word by snatching up the push pole, with which he stood on guard. “Here, you, keep off! We’re not in the beef-packing line just now. Head for the shore, and put in your best licks. Why didn’t you keep company with the rest of your herd, instead of loafing out here? No, you don’t, old boy! We couldn’t think of letting you get your hoofs over our rail; you’d sink us in a hurry. Shout at him, everybody, and shoo him off before he upsets the launch!”
“There he goes, and a good riddance!” announced Tip Lange, as after having been prodded and shouted at vigorously, the swimming animal doubtless came to the conclusion that he was not wanted, and began to make a straight line for the shore.
“He manages to get along all right for one of his heft, I take it,” asserted Billy reflectively. “Which goes to show that because a fellow is stout it’s no reason he should be reckoned clumsy, nor yet slow.”
This doubtless was a matter of more or less satisfaction to Billy, because he had often been “joshed” by his chums on account of his increasing waistline.
They crossed over and back without discovering another case of “help wanted.”
“Looks as if we had cleaned things up pretty tidily around here,” observed Tip Lange, with a touch of pride in his manner, “unless we choose to start in moving families’ belongings from their flooded houses. And as that would be too big an undertaking for us to go into, I guess we don’t care to make a beginning.”
“Which way now, Hugh?” asked Billy. “Can we head back to town? I’m wondering how the other fellows are coming along with their share of the work, and whether we could help them out in any way.”
“Yes; I’m going to make for the outlet of the valley,” the pilot told him. “We could run up in the rear of the town, but it’s better to go back as we came.”
“And a good thing we can get out of this mess before night sets in,” Monkey remarked over his shoulder, for he was sprawled like a big toad in the bow, so that he might keep a lookout for any snags in their course, Hugh having delegated him for that duty.
There was very little movement to the water in the flooded valley, except as the wind happened to blow, and just then it was almost calm. So the launch went cheerily on its way, as though with every rat-tat-tat explosion it rejoiced over the fact of having been instrumental in saving so many persons from all sorts of suffering, both mental and physical.
Tip Lange seemed to be feeling especially fine. This was doubtless caused by the fact that things were working for the revival of the scout movement in Lawrence. He had been hearing some pretty handsome compliments of late from the mayor, and then Mr. Jasper, once the most disliked man in all Lawrence among scout circles on account of his well-known animosity toward the movement.
How wonderfully had the atmosphere been cleared, and all because of the magnificent opportunity that had come along whereby the wearers of the much-abused khaki were given a chance to show what they were good for!
“Talk about blessings in disguise,” Tip had to say, as he sat near Hugh and watched the other tinkering with the working motor, trying to improve its action by slight changes, “this flood may mean a whole lot of trouble to lots of folks, but it’s going to be the making of Lawrence Troop, believe me.”
“Well, your worst enemy now is a booster,” replied Hugh, smiling to see how the great change in the conditions was affecting Tip, who seemed to be smiling most all the time now. “It’s easy to see that you’re going to have smooth sailing here. Put your shoulder to the wheel, Tip, and never again allow yourself to give up to despair. Try and believe the sun is shining back of the clouds, and that it’s always darkest just before dawn.”
“Dawn has come for us, I reckon, Hugh, and we owe the most of it to——”
“There, I don’t want to listen to any talk like that, Tip. At least keep it until I’m back home in Oakvale. Then if you fellows here think I can give you any good advice, or help you to build up your troop, write me.”
“You’ll hear from us, never fear,” said the other significantly, as though even then he had some vague idea in his mind as to the way in which he and his brother scouts of Lawrence Troop ought to suitably thank these two strangers for all they had done toward starting the ball rolling again.
“We’re close to the river, Hugh!” sang out Monkey Stallings, “and, gee whiz! how it does seem to be booming along out there! Some current, that, let me tell you. Do you think we could work up against it if we had to, Hugh?”
“Oh, I reckon we could,” the pilot replied carelessly, “though it’d be slow work, and if the engine took a notion to give out we’d have to get our anchor overboard in a hurry to hold fast. But so far as we know there’s no need of our trying such a risky thing as that.”
“Why, look there, boys, isn’t that a house floating along, and bobbing up and down like a cork? Now she turns one way and then another. Some poor family has lost their home up above. It’s too bad, and I only hope they all managed to get safe to the hills before the cabin went. Oh! what’s that clinging to the roof? Seems to me it moved then! Yes, as sure as anything it’s alive!”
As the scout in the bow made this loud outcry, the others all strained their eyes to see. Even Hugh diverted his attention from the steering gear and the working motor to look.
“It’s a boy!” declared Tip Lange, almost immediately.
“And the poor fellow looks like he would soon be tumbled into the river when that cabin takes a notion to turn all the way over!” added Billy.
“Oh! what can we do?” cried Monkey, his voice filled with pity. “Hugh, would you dare chase after that floating house and try to rescue the poor chap?”
Hugh had to think quickly when the question was put up to him in that way. Naturally his first impulse would be to say “go,” because he felt keenly for the desperate situation of that boy who dared not leave his floating refuge. It might be because he could not swim, and that raging torrent was enough to give the best swimmer reason for holding back. Still, Hugh had also to remember that it would be risking four lives for one if he decided to make the try.
“We’ll save him if we can,” he said finally, after looking everything in the face. “If the current is too swift to let us get back again to-night, why what’s to hinder our tying up to the bank and waiting? There’ll be another day coming.”
“Yes, and scouts ought to know how to rustle for grub at some house they’d find ashore,” added Billy, who, it may be remembered, was especially fond of hearing the dinner bell ring, or catching some other camp summons that told of a waiting meal.
“Full speed ahead!” sang out Monkey, evidently entering into the spirit of the occasion with his customary zeal.
The floating cabin had a pretty good start of them, Hugh knew, but once the launch had reached the river, and turned down, they must speedily overcome this lead. He had no fears about not being able to overtake the runaway cabin, though when they presently started with the speeding current their progress was so swift that it almost made one dizzy to watch the shore line, so rapidly did it seem to glide past.
“We’re catching up hand over fist!” announced Monkey enthusiastically, from his post in the bow; but he no longer held this alone, since both Tip and Billy were crowded in alongside.
“And he’s still hanging on!” announced the Lawrence scout. “Good for him, whoever the little chap is. I like his grit!”
“Huh! I kind of guess he can’t do much else but hang on with all his might,” commented Billy. “There, didn’t you see him wave his hand at us then?”
“He’s discovered us, all right,” observed Monkey, “and like as not it gives him a new lot of strength to know we’re heading after him, poor kid.”
“Don’t forget to watch out for snags,” warned Hugh, “because going at this rate, if we ever banged into a log, it would be all up with the launch. And perhaps we’d be glad to climb up on that cabin roof with the boy.”
“Whew! I hope we don’t come to that yet a while, Hugh!” said Monkey. “I’m keeping a bright lookout for any floaters all the time. It isn’t near as bad as if we were breasting the current, you know. Then they’d hit us a savage smash, while now we’re all going the same way, only we’re beating everything else out of sight.”
Billy, seeing the imperiled boy once more waving his hand, took it upon himself to give him a return salute with his campaign hat. At the same time he let out a vigorous shout in hopes of cheering the poor castaway.
Already they had gone a mile or so below the flooded town, but they were rapidly overhauling the floating cabin.
“We’ll get him, don’t you fear,” Billy was saying, half to himself, as though he may have been doubtful up to then. “That cabin is going to behave, and not act like a bucking broncho to toss him off, even if it does lurch and bog something scandalous. Give him a cheer, boys, to hearten him more. Now, altogether!”
So they ran down alongside the cabin. They had discovered some time back that their conclusion about its being a half-grown boy who was clinging to the roof of the floating house was correct. He looked peaked and white, indeed, though it could be seen that he was beginning to pluck up new courage as he saw them drawing ever nearer.
“How’ll we get him aboard without running too much risk, Hugh?” asked Billy.
“First get your rope ready,” the pilot told him. “Have a loop in the end just as you did for Miss Maria. Then when I pull alongside throw it up to him. Once he gets that loop under his arms, and we can be sure of drawing him aboard even if he happened to make a slip and fall overboard.”
“I like the scheme, Hugh,” was the only comment Billy made as he hurriedly took up the accommodating clothes line, at the end of which he found the same running noose that had played such a prominent part in the saving of the little old maid who had persisted in clinging to her perch in the tree.
“Guess I can fling it all right, even if the room isn’t all I’d like,” Billy remarked as he arranged the coils the way he had seen some Western cowboys do many a time in a Wild West show. “Please back off, Tip, and get on my other side. And, Monkey, hold the push pole out of the way when you hold off from the cabin. All ready here, Hugh. Bring her closer, will you?”
Hugh was calculating the distance. He wanted to succeed in their present undertaking because that boy’s life was just as valuable as any other they had saved during the momentous day. At the same time Hugh did not wish to make any blunder apt to cost them dear.
Billy saw his chance, and giving the necessary toss sent the coils of rope across the roof of the teetering cabin.
“Get hold of that rope, and slip the loop under your arms!” he called out as loud as he could, for the water was making a lot of noise as it swirled about the cabin and the launch, forming fierce eddies and little whirlpools.
The boy was not so badly frightened now. He could do what he was told, they saw with considerable relief. Had it been otherwise one of the rescuing party, perhaps the agile Monkey Stallings, would have been compelled to clamber up to the roof and have accomplished the dangerous work in that way.
“Now, pull the noose tight!” continued Billy, when he saw the boy had followed out his command. “Make your way toward this end of the roof, and be ready to jump when I say so. Don’t be afraid of falling in; we’ve got the rope tight, and can yank you out of the river as quick as a flash if you should miss. Steady now, and it’s going to be as easy as falling off a log.”
In this fashion, then, did Billy coax the boy to crawl along the reeling roof of the cabin until he had reached the edge. Then, when the right second came, and the building was inclined toward them, he suddenly called out:
“Jump, boy, jump!”
The lad had faith enough to believe what Billy so confidently told him. He sprang without hesitation, struck the edge of the launch, and then several eager hands seized upon him before he could fall back into the water.
And as Hugh backed away from the tumbling cabin he joined his chums in letting out a loud shout that relieved their pent-up feelings as nothing else could have done.
It was just as Hugh had expected.
The launch was turned so that her head pointed upstream again, but out there, in the middle of the river, the current proved to be so strong that, although the motor worked madly, they gained very little headway. Even when Hugh crept in closer to the shore, where they might have a better chance to proceed, he realized that it was hopeless trying to get back to town under several hours.
As the night was now ready to close in upon them, the danger of meeting with an accident warned the careful pilot against attempting anything like this.
“Keep on the lookout for a good tying-up place, boys,” he told them. “If you see a tree close to the water, and what looks like a little cove below it, that’s the spot we want to stop at.”
“And let’s hope,” added Billy, sighing, “that there’ll be a hospitable farmer, or some sort of kind-hearted man with a house up on the hillside where we can beg a bite to eat.”
“There are all sorts of pots and pans and kitchen things aboard,” Monkey told them, “if only we can lay hold of anything to cook.”
“Leave that to me,” remarked Billy loftily, determination written on his face.
The landing was effected without any particular trouble, and with the cable they tied the launch up to the friendly tree, as well as made the boat fast astern.
Billy hardly waited for this to be done before he was off. Evidently he had discovered that they were close to the river road, at this point well elevated. Tip had told him that people lived here and there all along this thoroughfare, although very likely they could not get anywhere now, with the water so high, for in places the road must be covered ten feet or more with the flood.
The night began to creep around them, but there was no rain, for which all of them thought they had reason to be thankful.
Upon questioning the boy who had been taken off the floating cabin, Hugh learned just how it happened that he came there. He had been away from home when his folks must have fled because of the rising water. Coming back later he had not known what to do, but remained cowering in the home until the rising water caused him to take to the roof. And later on, when the current started the cabin downstream, there he was helpless, because he did not know the first thing about swimming.
“You’d have known that at any rate if you’d been a scout,” Hugh told him, always ready to plant the seed broadcast, “though that mightn’t have helped you much. It was lucky you stuck to the cabin. We’ll see that you get back with your folks all right, Tommy, never fear. I’m only wondering what your mother will be thinking when she misses you.”
“There comes Billy!” cried Monkey Stallings, excitedly. “Say, he looks as if he might be just loaded down with stuff. Chances are he found a deserted house, and made a raid on the pantry.”
“That’s where you’ve got another guess coming,” said Billy Worth, as he started to relieve himself of his numerous packages. “By the greatest good luck in the wide world I hit on the house of a gentleman named Judge Coffin. Seems that he’s been one of your best backers, Tip, here in Lawrence. When he heard what the scouts had been doing he told me the house was mine, and that I could have anything I wanted. Fact is, he loaded me down with good things; and he’s coming over here to eat dinner with us in an hour!”
Tip threw up his hat and crowed as though he might be an exultant barnyard rooster that had just whipped his worst enemy.
“Oh! what luck!” he exclaimed. “Everything seems to be coming my way. I think you Oakvale fellows must have brought it along with you. ‘It never rains but it pours,’ and I don’t care if I haven’t any umbrella either. Let’s get busy and give the judge the best camp supper he ever heard about.”
“We can do that, too, Tip,” intimated Monkey. “This fellow Billy Worth has all the French chefs beat to a frazzle when he gets to slinging the pots and pans around. You’ll think so after you get a whiff of his cooking.”
“That’s a whole lot taffy, and don’t you take any stock in it, Tip,” protested the said Billy. “Course I like to cook some, and, if I do say it myself, I know how to do a few plain things fairly decent. But we’ll all lend a hand. Here, Monkey, you start the ball rolling by peeling these potatoes, while I look after the fire aboard the boat, for everything is soaked out here.”
The owner of the launch must have delighted to take little excursions on his boat, for he had everything on board that would be needed for getting up a meal, even to a three-burner blue-flame kerosene stove that worked splendidly, Billy soon discovered.
In spite of all they had gone through, the boys entered into the duty of getting up that supper with the greatest of vim. And when later on an elderly gentleman, whom Tip introduced to them as Judge Coffin, made his appearance, he found the meal ready to be served.
He was a man whose heart had always remained fresh, and who loved boys, although his twin sons had been cruelly taken from him years before through an accident, simply because no one with them had known the first thing about reviving a person who had been in the water until he seemed to be drowned.
Judge Coffin firmly believed that had the comrades of his boys been posted as all scouts of to-day are on these important methods of resuscitation, one or both of his precious twins might have been spared to him. And that was the secret of his belief in the scout movement as a means of saving life.
There on board the launch, and while enjoying such a supper as he had not sat down to for many years, no doubt—primitive though the table and the tin dishes may have been—he listened while the scouts modestly told what a great day they had had.
And, reading between the lines, that astute lawyer could easily understand how the coming of Hugh Hardin to Lawrence just when the breaking down of the railroad embankment brought about his enforced stay there had been the main cause for all this service on the part of the local scouts.
How his eyes shone as he looked fondly at the boy who had dashed upon the imperiled bridge and saved the reckless bully, Tug Wilson, as Tip persisted in telling the story, despite Hugh’s remonstrance and embarrassed manner. No doubt Judge Coffin was saying, deep down in his heart, that had his boys only lived he could not wish anything grander for either of them than that they might take pattern after this brave yet modest scout from Oakvale.
Long he lingered—indeed, it seemed hard work for the worthy gentleman to tear himself away from the company of those four gallant boys.
“Have no fear, Tipton,” he said, as he shook the hand of each after bidding them “good-night” for the third time, “there are bright days ahead for you and your comrades of Lawrence Troop. When such a scout hater as Neighbor Jasper has had the scales lifted from his eyes, all opposition is bound to cease. A reaction is going to set in, and you’ll have more recruits applying for admission to your ranks than you can well take care of.”
All of the scouts voted the judge one of the finest men they had ever met. He seemed to have a faculty for entering into the inmost recesses of a boy’s heart, and finding lodgment there.
“How are we going to manage for to-night?” asked Tip Lange, some time after the judge had taken his departure, and they began to feel more or less sleepy.
It turned out that the Lawrence scout had had very little experience in camping. He and his comrades of the local troop had met with so many backsets in their efforts to build up an enduring organization that their outings had been few and unhappy.
Hugh had been thinking this over himself, and now expressed his views.
“I suppose we might manage to sleep aboard the launch, though it would be a tight squeeze for us all. Two might do it comfortably, and the others camp ashore.”
“What’s to hinder all of us spending the night here on the bank?” asked Tip; “I know I’d enjoy it a whole lot better than being cooped up on the old launch.”
“My sentiments exactly,” declared Billy; “and to tell you the truth I’m getting so sleepy right now I hardly care where I drop down, so long as I’m let alone.”
“How about you, Monkey?” demanded Hugh.
“Oh, all I need is a tree with a decent limb to the same! You know I’m something like a bat or a ’possum, and I c’n hang head-down from a branch without any bother. Count me in any game you’ve got on the calendar.”
“That’s settled, then,” asserted Hugh.
“There are some blankets and robes in the lockers of the boat, you know,” suggested Billy, as he scrambled to his feet to stretch himself before starting aboard the launch again.
When a thorough search had been made it was found that there were plenty of covers for the entire quartet.
“Couldn’t be better if we’d planned for this little camping trip,” remarked Monkey, as he began to look around for a good place in which to make up his bed, such as it was going to be.
“The song of the flooded river will be a regular lullaby,” suggested Hugh.
“It may be to you fellows,” observed Tip; “but I own up that I’m not used to going to sleep in the open, and it’s likely to keep me awake. If I do manage to drop off, the chances are I’ll dream of poor people hanging to the roofs of houses that are floating down the river and falling to pieces.”
“You can stand it for one night, though, Tip,” Billy told him.
“Besides, it’s going to be an experience for you worth having,” Monkey told him. “When you meet your chums again you can crow over them.”
“That’s right,” admitted Tip, as he watched closely to see how the others fixed their blankets, so that he could imitate them.
“One good thing,” remarked Billy, after another tremendous yawn, “this isn’t like being up in the wild woods where a bear or a panther might take a notion to drop in on us.”
Hugh knew that Billy was saying this to get an opinion from some of the others. Perhaps he was feeling a trifle uneasy over sleeping there in the open.
“I don’t think there’s any danger of our camp being invaded by an animal more dangerous than a wandering cow that might have got lost in all the excitement,” Hugh assured him.
Billy seemed to be satisfied with that convincing statement, for presently he crawled under his blanket.
“Good-night, fellows!” he said in a thick voice as if already half asleep.
Tip looked as though he really envied Billy his indifference. Just as he had said it would very likely prove a difficult task for the new camper to lose himself in slumber.
Hugh waited until all the others had apparently settled down. There was the fire to look after, for with so much dampness in the air he did not think it advisable to let it go out entirely.
That was where his long experience in camping would prove valuable, for Hugh knew just how to arrange the fire so that it would burn for hours at a stretch without needing replenishing.
Finally he, too, crawled under his coverings and settled down as best he could to get some sleep, of which they were all in such need.
They had had a pretty lively day of it considering, and it was little wonder Hugh felt more or less tired.
The noisy flood might continue to boom and gurgle as it rushed along near by, but that would not keep the patrol leader from slumber. Many times in the past he had experienced worse conditions and refused to be kept awake.
The last thing he remembered noticing was the crackling fire sending its red tongues upward as it seized upon the fresh fuel.
Hugh awoke with a start, and no wonder. Someone was calling aloud, and the burden of his cries were of a nature to cause alarm:
“Hugh! oh! Hugh, wake up! There’s something raiding our camp! It tried to carry me off!”
That was Billy whooping it up, as Hugh discovered when he rolled out of his blanket.
Monkey Stallings was already on his feet, being a wonderfully agile chap. He had looked around in his quick fashion, and not discovering any terrible tiger or other beast of prey in sight, naturally turned on the disturber of his peace.
“You’ve gone and got the nightmare, that’s what’s the matter, Billy Worth!” he told the other. “It’s a nice state of affairs when a fellow can’t get his sleep out. I knew you’d pay for eating so much supper. You just dreamed it all. I’d like to see what’d try to carry you off!”
Billy, however, was firmly convinced that it had not been a dream but a positive reality.
“Guess I ought to know,” he declared; “didn’t I feel it lifting me up, and growling like everything in the bargain? First I was scared so I seemed to be turned into ice. Then I let out that first whoop.”
“Oh, then it ran away, did it?” sneered the unbelieving Monkey.
“Just what it did,” asserted Billy.
“Did you see it, Billy?” asked Hugh, determined to sift this midnight alarm to the bottom while about it.
“Why, Hugh,” Billy went on to say, “I had a little trouble getting my cover away from my face, for I’d snuggled down in the same to keep my head warm. But as sure as I’m standing here, Hugh, I saw the bushes moving over there, like some terrible animal had gone that way. Let’s throw some stones and scare him off!”
“No need of that,” said Hugh, with a chuckle, as he picked up a club and then started directly toward the quarter pointed out by Billy.