Hugh had a map of the country with him. He had never been over some sections of it, but, having made a study of topography, he believed that they were by degrees drawing nearer to the river, and would, if they kept on, strike it not far away from Raccoon Island, where Don Miller, leader of the Fox Patrol, had the boys in charge in the absence of others in authority.
When they made a brief halt in order to slake their thirst at a gurgling spring that gushed up alongside the road, Hugh put his comrades in possession of this astonishing bit of information. Naturally they were greatly pleased, especially Billy, whose merry face glowed with a sudden inspiring thought.
“Whee! talk to me about the luck of the Wolf Patrol!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t this just like the old story? Now, chances are those hobo footpads’ll go into hiding in the woods not three miles away from the island camp. What’s the answer? Why, we’ll send a signal to the boys that they’re wanted, and pretty soon one by one they’ll line up till we’ll be a baker’s dozen all told. I’m sorry for the poor wretches that took your runabout when that comes about, Gusty. You’ll get your first lesson on what it means to be a scout, when you see how we work this deal. Since Ralph Kenyon joined the troop, he’s shown up a heap of new things connected with woodcraft and the like. Even Hugh here has admitted that the boy who used to spend his winters trapping wild animals for their pelts so he could lay by a store of money to take him to the School of Mines some day, knew more’n he ever did. And there’s Arthur Cameron, Bud Morgan, Jack Durham, Spike Welling and a lot of other good fellows in camp up here, too. Hugh, I only hope she turns out like you say. Are we off again now?”
“Yes, and taking things fairly easy, too,” replied the leader as he straddled his machine, and waited for Gusty to get in position before starting. “If they expect to hide somewhere around this region, we’ll bump in on them soon enough. So, steady, everybody, from now on.”
While at the spring, he had taken out his road map and allowed all of them to see their location. The river was not many miles away, and this road crossed it by means of a bridge. Raccoon Island lay some distance above, where the stream widened and formed quite a shallow lake-like lagoon with wild borders, an ideal spot for a boys’ camp.
Billy managed to meet with some trifling trouble in making his getaway. This caused him to bring up the rear, a position he usually occupied, by the way, in most of their trips, for Billy was inclined to be sluggish in his movements, though his mind was active enough.
Motorcycles are splendid mounts to carry one swiftly along over fairly decent thoroughfares, but being more or less noisy, in spite of all efforts to stifle the explosions by means of the muffler, they can hardly be deemed just the thing to use when silence is necessary.
Hugh knew that if the men they were following had a camp near the road they would be apt to discover the approach of the boys long before he and his chums could lay any plans looking to their capture.
Accordingly, he had already decided in his own mind that whenever it looked as if the thieves were near the end of their journey, the noisy wheels would be temporarily abandoned, and the balance of the tracking necessary done afoot, where their knowledge of Indian tactics might be brought into successful play.
They could not have covered more than a mile, after leaving the cold spring at which they had refreshed themselves, when Monkey Stallings plainly heard a sound from the rear that announced the coming of some sort of trouble to the rider who brought up the tail end of the procession. Upon which, he instantly used his horn to let the leaders know that another halt must be called in order to assist Billy.
Hugh came running back, with Gusty trailing after him, quite as anxious as the rest to learn what had happened to the one bringing up the rear of the motorcycle procession.
They found Billy bending down and examining his machine with a woe-begone look on his good-natured face. He glanced up at their approach. Monkey Stallings was on the other side, and still searching for the cause of the trouble, though he did not know much more than the stout boy about the intricate construction of motors.
“What ails you now, Billy?” asked Hugh, for he did not have to be told that the individual in question was the cause of the breakdown.
“Wish I knew,” replied the other, dolefully, “that’s the trouble. You see I’ve noticed for some little time that I had to make more or less of an effort to keep my place in the line. While you fellows were gliding along as smooth as silk, my balky engine had to be coaxed and kicked to hold its own. And now, after that last little halt she’s gone back on me altogether. I keep losing ground right along, and would soon be hull down in the distance. That’s why I let out the toot for help.”
Hugh looked serious.
“It means a delay while we examine things,” he remarked, throwing off his coat as though getting ready for business.
“I’m sorry if I’ve gone and blundered again,” Billy continued sadly. “It would serve me just about right if the rest of you went on and left me to my fate.”
“Oh, rats, don’t mention it,” said Monkey indignantly. “What d’ye take us for, anyway? What’s the use of being a scout if you won’t hold out a helping hand to a comrade in distress? We’d expect you to do the same if one of our machines threw up the sponge, and sulked. Leave it to Hugh; he’ll bring you around O. K.”
That was an old story with the boys. “Leave it to Hugh” had become a sort of slogan with the members of the Wolf Patrol. Many a time had Billy, Bud Morgan, Arthur Cameron or some other member of the famous patrol, after trying in vain to solve a knotty problem, turned hopefully to the assistant scout master; and seldom had their sublime confidence in his ability to find a remedy been misplaced.
As Hugh began to use his little monkey-wrench, unfastening several nuts, and testing one thing after another, the others watched with considerable interest. Minutes crept on until it began to look as though they had lost nearly half an hour on the road. “Billy Wolf,” as he was often called by his chums, fretted terribly.
“Better leave me here while the rest of you go on,” he said for the fourth time. He had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when he heard Hugh give a little satisfied chuckle.
“Located the trouble?” asked Monkey eagerly, with a triumphant glance toward Gusty, as though to say: “There! what did I tell you; Hugh is the boss hand to see through things, isn’t he?”
“After all,” explained Hugh, “it was a mighty simple thing, but it happened that I tried about seven other possible causes for a gradual slowing up of the motor before I reached the carburetor. Why, it was only the needle valve that stuck. I’ll have it working as good as ever in a jiffy; and you’ll not be bothered again from that cause in a hurry, Billy, old fellow.”
“Oh! was that it?” remarked the relieved Billy. “I began to think the whole business must be on the bum, and that I’d have to walk and push the plagued machine along with me to the village three miles back. Huh! believe me, I’ll keep an eye on that tricky valve after this. I may make lots of mistakes, but it’s seldom I tumble into the same old hole twice. I’m on, Hugh; I see how you do it. I’m learning something new every hour of the day. Seems like there’s an everlasting lot of things I don’t grasp yet. The more I know the more I don’t know. Laugh now, Monkey, but you’re in the same boat yourself.”
Hugh made short work of his job, and presently handed the motorcycle over to its owner.
On the way back to where his own machine had been left, he was pleased to hear Gusty remark with considerable vim, as though he meant it:
“I like the way you fellows carry on, honest I do. I’ve been with a set that would have left a chap in the lurch to take care of his own wheel while they rode on and told him they’d wait at the next wayside inn, where they could get a cool drink of mineral water, and lie around resting up till he came. You scouts stand by each other. And I understand now why they elected you assistant scout master of the troop. You’re Johnny-on-the-spot for the job, all right, Hugh Hardin. Excuse me if I ask all sorts of foolish questions about the way scouts manage. I’m getting up to my ears interested in this game. I never dreamed it could be so fascinating. And the more you hear, the more you want to know.”
“That’s the secret of the rapid growth of the scout movement,” Hugh told him. “As soon as you get the average boy interested he asks questions, and once that happens, he learns things that set him agoing. After that nothing can stop him; and in a year’s time, you wouldn’t know it was the same boy, because he takes such an interest in a thousand things that are happening all around him.”
Soon they were moving on again, and from the signals that came from the rear, Hugh knew that all was well with Billy.
Perhaps two more miles had been placed behind them, when all of a sudden the pacemaker gave a short blast on his horn, and slowed up as though he had made a discovery of some sort. Immediately he and Gusty were off, he leaned his motorcycle up against a convenient tree, not waiting to make use of the stand, and leading the other through a fringe of bushes, observed:
“Is that your car, Gusty?”
The rich man’s son gave a low cry of mingled surprise and joy.
“I declare if it isn’t my runabout!” he exclaimed. “And to think how easily you glimpsed it ahead. But what do you expect they drew it in here for, Hugh? Has the gas given out, or was there a smash of some sort? Seems to be all right, as far’s I can see at a glance.”
“We’ll have to figure that out in a minute or so,” replied the other. “You keep on examining the car while I look around to see which way the two men went from here. That would be apt to give us a clew.”
“In what way?” demanded Gusty, while he started to look his property over, in order to learn the condition in which it had been left by the two robbers.
“Well, if they kept on along the road it would look as if they had been unable to use the runabout further,” answered the patrol leader, as he stooped and began to use his practiced eyes to advantage. “On the other hand, if they plunged right into the woods I would think they had come as far as they expected to on wheels, and finished their journey afoot.”
“What a greenhorn I am not to have understood that!” declared the other boy, thoroughly disgusted with himself for not having taken the trouble to exercise his brain more in the past, so as to be alive to such situations as this; it galled his pride to have to depend on anyone else for information.
Monkey came along and dropped out of his saddle beside them. He was just as much surprised and tickled at seeing the car as the owner had been; but he did not immediately proceed to ask questions. He knew what Hugh was doing when he saw him bending down and examining the surrounding earth.
Just as Billy hove in sight and slowed down so that he could join his chums, the patrol leader remarked that the trail of the two men ran off directly into the thick of the woods, which at this particular spot grew rather densely.
“And I can’t find the least thing the matter with my car,” Gusty observed. “There seems to be some gasoline in the tank, too. So that they could have gone a good many more miles if they’d wished. Yes, you were right, Hugh. They abandoned it for another reason. I’d even say they might know of some hiding place in this region, and right here is a short-cut to it.”
“That was a time you struck the right nail on the head, Gusty,” remarked Hugh. “I believe that’s what it will turn out to be in the end.”
“Of course we push through the woods, don’t we?” queried Monkey.
“And that means we’ll have to leave our machines hid away somewhere,” Billy added, with a ring of solicitude in his voice. “I’d like to do something so as to make it impossible for anybody to ride away on my motorcycle while I’m gone. It would be a tough joke on us to chase after those rogues while they came back on the sly and hooked two of our precious wheels.”
“We can fix that all right. Meanwhile, Gusty, you disable your runabout in some temporary way, so that it couldn’t be of any use to anybody until the missing part is supplied.”
“A great idea, as sure as you’re born! I can do it as easy as anything!” exclaimed the other boy, hastening to carry out the suggestion without even stopping to consider that only an hour or so back he would have laughed scornfully if some one had told him that before long he would be taking orders from Hugh Hardin as meekly as any private in the scout troop.
All this took but little time, and presently they were ready to advance along the forest trail. Gusty found himself quivering with eagerness to see how these boys would manage to carry out the tracking part of the business. Had it been left to him, he would have made a sorry mess of it, he admitted to himself. His pride was touched, and he began to reflect that never again would he allow himself to be placed in a position where even a boy like Billy Worth, whom he had previously looked on as rather stupid, could give him pointers. He would learn these things for himself. Perhaps he might even organize a new patrol, and be its leader, if he only busied himself, and stocked his head with useful knowledge along the line of scoutcraft.
“Here’s what they were heading for!” said Hugh softly after they had been moving along for some ten minutes. He had several times pointed out faint indications of footprints to Gusty.
“Why, it looks like an old abandoned road all grown up with grass and briars!” declared Monkey.
“Just what it is,” replied Hugh. “I’ve been expecting to run across it right along, because my map shows where it lies. You see, once ever so many years ago many wagons came along here every day, some loaded with corn or wheat or rye, and others taking flour back home to the farm.”
“Oh! I know now what you mean, Hugh,” said Billy. “There was a spot marked on your map, and I read the words ‘old mill.’ Yes, and I remember hearing tell about some such place up here in the wilderness. Thirty years ago a miller used the water power of a creek that empties into the river to grind his grist. Do you think that’s where these two thieves were heading for, Hugh?”
“Looks like it,” nodded the patrol leader, pointing down. “You can see that as soon as they struck this sunken road they didn’t even halt, but started right along it, heading that way. We’ll do the same, and after this please speak in low whispers if you have to say anything. I don’t believe that mill can be more than half a mile away if it’s that.”
They moved on, all of them half bent over as they sought to keep track of the footprints of the two men. It was quite thrilling, Gusty admitted to himself every little while. He was enjoying it very much. If Boy Scouts practiced this sort of stunt very often he did not wonder that so many fellows had joined the organization; and the resolution he had taken continued to grip him more and more the deeper he pried into the matter.
“I think I hear water splashing ahead there, Hugh!” whispered Monkey, who had a very keen pair of ears.
“Yes, we must be getting close to the dam where the water falls,” the patrol leader told him. “Pretty soon we’ll know whether we’ve cornered the rats or not. Steady now, and keep under cover the best you can. Remember, not a sound, fellows!”
“There it is!”
Billy gripped the arm of the patrol leader when he said this in a faint tone. Indeed, all of them must have glimpsed the old mill at about the same time, for the trees had thinned out somewhat ahead; and that gurgle of dripping water drew their eyes toward the spot where the forlorn structure stood.
Having been neglected for many years, it was now only a tumble-down wreck. The big wheel was covered with green moss over which tiny streams of water trickled to drop with a splash into the pool beneath.
In the eyes of Billy, it had a haunted look. He admitted to himself that he would not much fancy paying a visit to the old mill after darkness had set in. Of course, he did not believe in ghosts, for what boy will admit that weakness? But even the presence of owls and bats, and perhaps a prowling mink from the stream, would be apt to make a fellow’s flesh creep if he found himself left alone in such a place.
“Think they’re there, Hugh?” Monkey Stallings murmured in the other’s ear.
“Somebody is, for a fact,” came the ready response, “because if you look sharp you can see a little smoke curling up from the chimney.”
Gusty had not thought to glance at that part of the mill before. Now he saw that this was so. Evidently there must be some sort of a fire within. And as the mill was said to have been deserted by its owner years back, the chances seemed to be that this blaze had been made by the tramps.
“Wait here for me while I take a scout and find out if it’s so,” Hugh told his companions, “and be sure to keep down, because one of them might step out suddenly and discover you. That would put the fat in the fire, and spoil all our fine plans. I depend on you, Billy, and Monkey.”
“Count me in too, Hugh,” urged Gusty, perhaps considerably to his own surprise, for it was a new role for him to play “second fiddle” to anybody.
So Hugh crawled away. He went on his hands and knees, and avoiding the open road, chose rather to creep along where the wild growing bushes would shelter him from being observed. So cleverly did he advance, Gusty noticed, that even should one of the tramps be watching, there was little chance that he might discover anything amiss. Plainly these scouts had learned their little lesson and knew how to play the game, he told himself, as he saw Hugh sliding across a more exposed spot on his stomach, hitching himself along almost as a snake might have done.
Hugh was gone for some little time, and then he reappeared, returning over the same course he had taken before. Billy immediately read success upon the other’s face.
“Then they are there, is that it, Hugh?” he queried when he could place his lips close to the other’s ear.
“Yes, I managed to get a look-in. Both men are lying down, and I think they must have been cooking something to eat from the smell I got. One is smoking a pipe, and the other dozing, every now and then taking a nip from a black bottle that is passed between them. I saw the short one examining a wicked looking gun. I guess he’s just the kind of a bad man to use it before he’d think of giving up to a pack of Boy Scouts. We’ve got to go slow if we hope to win out here.”
“Well, what’s the program, Hugh?” asked Gusty eagerly.
“I’ve figured it out this way,” came the answer. “I’ll leave the rest of you here on guard while I make my way to the river, and find the island where some of the scouts are in camp under charge of Don Miller. All you have to do is to lie low and never do the least thing to let them know they’re watched.”
“But what if they take a notion to skip out?” suggested Monkey Stallings.
“Then you must be ready to leave a message for us in a forked stick right here, while you try and follow after them. If that happens, make as broad a trail as you can, because it will save the rest of us heaps of hard work following. And above all things don’t let them capture you, because from their looks I rather think it would go hard if you fell into their hands. They’re a tough looking lot all told.”
“I should say they were all of that, Hugh,” admitted Gusty, who had reason to know.
Before he left them, Hugh again examined his pocket map of the country. It was fashioned only as a sort of road guide for tourists, but anyone could judge from the formation of things about how far it was between the old mill and the river at the place where a bridge spanned the stream. And not a great way above this particular spot, the island lay upon which the scouts were in camp.
Five minutes later, and Hugh replaced the map in his pocket.
“Got your bearings all right, have you?” asked Billy, with more or less solicitude, for everything depended on the leader finding the camp of their comrades.
“I reckon it’ll be all right,” Hugh assured him. “You see I expect to go back first of all to where we left our motorcycles. Once in the saddle I can soon find my way to that bridge across the river. The island is only half a mile or so above, where the river widens; and I hope to find some sort of trail along the bank where I can push my machine.”
“Will you come back the same way?” asked Monkey.
“I don’t know about that,” Hugh replied. “The boys must have been tramping around more or less since they’ve been up the river, and perhaps they may know of some short-cut over the hills to the mill. But I’m off. Don’t expect us until late in the afternoon.”
“Gee! I hope you get here before night sets in,” muttered Billy with a quick glance toward the weird looking mill as seen through the scattered undergrowth.
Hugh did not have the least difficulty in following the back trail. All he had to do was to keep to the road until he came to a couple of white birches which he had noticed hung out in a queer way just about the place where the trail had formed a junction with the overgrown mill road. After that he kept his eyes mostly on the ground, where he could readily pick up the various footprints left by all those who had passed along.
When he finally arrived at the place where the motorcycles had been hidden, he hastened to get his own machine in hand. Once he started along the back road, he made quick time of it. There was small danger that he would lose his bearings, as Billy might have done under similar conditions, for Hugh made sure of things as he went along.
In due time he reached the bridge that spanned the river, which was quite narrow at this point. Looking up the stream, Hugh found that it made a quick turn some little distance away. He could also see that it was beginning to widen at this point.
“I guess it can’t be very far to Raccoon Island,” he told himself. Having jumped from the saddle, he started to push his machine toward the left side of the road.
As he had hoped might be the case, he found indications there to tell him that some sort of a trail ran along the river bank heading upstream. Doubtless, parties going fishing may have made it; and all sorts of people had used it in coming or going. Cows even followed the beaten track, for Hugh quickly discovered traces of their presence.
“Not half as bad as I expected,” he told himself as he pushed on, though it was anything but fun to urge that heavy machine over roots and uneven ground.
Hugh generally looked at the bright side of things. He kept his spirits up when the clouds grew dark and forbidding by telling himself that it might easily be a great deal worse. That is the way with scouts; they are taught always to look for the silver lining of the cloud and never to despair.
Twice the boy had to make a short halt in order to wipe his streaming brow with his red bandana handkerchief, and rest for a minute or so. But he always started on again with a grim determination to get there.
The third time he stopped it was to listen eagerly. Then he chuckled.
“I ought to know that voice among a hundred,” he remarked. “No one can sing quite as well as Blake Merton. I must be pretty close to the island camp right now. One more push will do the business, I expect. There’s a fellow I know who won’t be sorry, either.”
As he continued to urge the weighty motorcycle onward, Hugh presently saw something moving ahead of him. It was very like a white flag, only in its center it had a blood red square. He certainly ought to know a signal flag, since he had learned to wigwag equal to the best in the troop, and there were several experts among the scouts at that, particularly Bud Morgan, who had once worked with a surveying party, Arthur Cameron, Blake Merton, Walter Osborne, Sam Winter and Cooper Fennimore.
Two boys clad in the familiar khaki of the scouts were standing on a little elevation that was hardly more than a mound. They seemed to be in communication with some one who must be over on the island. No doubt they were indulging in a little talk, partly for the fun of the thing, and to improve their knowledge of the Myers code at the same time.
Hugh stood still and gave the slogan of the Wolf patrol:
“How-oo-ooo!”
This weird, long-drawn-out cry startled the pair with the flags. When they craned their necks and looked around, Hugh waved his hand.
“Hello! Sam and Cooper, how d’ye do?” he called out, starting toward them.
“Why! it’s Hugh!” cried one of the scouts as though rather taken aback by the sudden discovery. They had hardly been expecting that the assistant scout master would get up to Raccoon Island while they were in camp there.
“And say, look what he’s got along with him, will you?” exclaimed the second boy astonished. “A splendid motorcycle as sure as you live! No wonder he had to stay home and wait for it to come along. Chances are that Billy Worth and Monkey Stallings have got the same kind of bully mount. Are they back of you, Hugh? What news do you bring to camp?”
“Plenty of things doing, boys,” returned the patrol leader. “But you’ll have to hold your horses until I can see all the rest of the boys. Time’s too valuable for me to tell the story more than once.”
“Whew! do you hear that, Sam?” cried Cooper Fennimore excitedly. “Hugh as much as says there’s something going to happen to give us all a little whirl. Seemed to feel it in my bones this very morning when I turned out, that this day wouldn’t go by as quietly as the others did. Tom Sherwood said it must be going to rain, and that was what affected me; and Jack Dunham asked me how many helps I’d taken of that stew last night, because it was a case of indigestion I had developed; but you see after all it was what you might call a premonition of trouble. Coming events cast their shadows before, they say; and now I know it.”
“How do you get back and forth between the island and the shore?” demanded the newcomer impatiently, because Cooper Fennimore was known to be a great talker, and apt to waste considerable precious time.
“Why,” said Sam Winter, “we’ve got a cute little punt that they call a dinghy, which belongs to the big motorboat. You can push it with a pole in the shallow water, or use a paddle if it gets too deep for that. Here it is drawn up on the bank. It will just carry three of us, Hugh.”
“Then let’s be moving across as quick as we can,” remarked Hugh, “because the afternoon is wearing away, and there’s a lot to be done before sunset, if we expect to capture the two hoboes who held Gusty Merrivale up on the road and robbed him of the money he was taking to pay the men working in his father’s granite quarry.”
“Whee! listen to that, Sam!” gasped Cooper Fennimore, and then he hastened to push the flat-bottomed little tender into the water and take his place, ready to use the pole while Sam handled the paddle.
As they approached the island, there were evidences of considerable excitement ashore and a number of boys clad in the familiar khaki lined up to give their leader the customary scout salute. This, of course, pleased Hugh very much, for he was human enough to feel a thrill of pride in the affection his comrades seemed to entertain for him.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Scout Master!” called Bud Morgan as the dinghy drew in to the shore, and all the boys crowded down so as to be ready to shake hands with Hugh. “How’d you come up here, I’d like to know?”
“Oh! he’s got the dandiest looking twin-cylinder motorcycle you ever laid eyes on!” burst out Cooper Fennimore.
“But there’s something more than that he’s got to tell us,” added Sam as he threw his paddle ashore, and made ready to follow it personally. “He said there was no time to string the yarn more’n once, so we would have to wait till all the bunch had gathered around. Get ready to quiver, everybody, because there’s a thrill coming for you!”
Of course these words aroused the curiosity of the scouts. Even as they shook hands with Hugh, they were beginning to watch his face as though under the impression that they might be able to read his secret there.
“I ought to start right in the beginning, boys,” began the newcomer, “and tell you how we three, Billy Worth, Monkey Stallings and myself, planned to give you a surprise by running up here on our new motorcycles, which came the day after you left on the motorboat. That was why we said we couldn’t go along, but might be up in time to share the homeward voyage. Well, we had a great time practicing, because Billy was bound to get into all sorts of trouble. But we managed to get off to-day. Somebody bring me a drink, please, I’m as dry as a bone.”
Quickly his want was supplied, and then Hugh went on with his brief story. As it is already familiar to the reader, there is no need of repeating it here. Hugh wasted as little time as he could in bringing out the facts. From the way in which those boys hung on his every word, with eyes full of eagerness and wonder, it could be seen that he was making a decided sensation.
In a few minutes he had reached the conclusion by merely mentioning the fact of his coming to the island camp for help. Looking around him, he saw that there were just eleven boys present not counting himself. He also noticed that Arthur Cameron seemed to limp more or less whenever he had occasion to move, as though he might have sprained his ankle in some way; and that was an unfortunate thing for Arthur, since it marked him as one of those who would have to remain behind in order to watch the camp while the others were away on duty.
“Call for volunteers to go back with you, and clean up those hoboes at the old mill, Hugh!” suggested Don Miller, who had been having his hands full keeping the boys in order during the absence of both Lieutenant Denmead and Hugh, and was only too well pleased at having some one come to relieve him.
“All who want to go, raise their right hand!” called out Walter Osborne, leader of the Hawk patrol.
It seemed to be unanimous, for there were just eleven hands elevated. Hugh smiled and seemed pleased, though he knew that at least two among the scouts would be compelled to endure heart burnings through disappointment.
“Listen to me,” he remarked quietly and seriously, so that the boys knew he meant every word that was said, “Several will have to stay in camp. Arthur, with that lame ankle, you would hardly be fit to take an over-hill hike, so make up your mind that this time you’re not to be in the swim. And Ned Twyford will keep you company.”
He selected the last named scout because he knew that Ned had been sick before coming on this trip, and was not overly stout at best. If there was apt to be a battle of any sort with those tramps, then only the strongest boys should be allowed to take part in it, Hugh concluded.
Ned bit his lips as though in protest; but he knew better than to give vent openly to his disappointment. A scout learns to obey without questioning when it is a superior who gives the order; and in this way he shows that he has some of the elements of a true soldier in him though fighting is foreign to his training, and it must be resorted to only when all other means fail.
“How will we go, Hugh?” asked Bud Morgan, who had stepped over to one of the tents and reappeared, bearing a baseball bat in his hands.
His example started the others to skirmishing around in search of clubs. One of the boys strapped on his camp hatchet; another secured the belt that held his hunting knife. Still more found various-sized sticks to their liking. One and all looked grim and determined, as though they realized that this expedition was not in the nature of a picnic, but a serious undertaking, indeed.
“I was hoping that some of you might know a short-cut over the hill in the direction of that abandoned grist mill?” Hugh observed, looking straight at Don Miller.
The smile that immediately broke out on the face of the Fox leader told him that he was about to receive reassuring news.
“We do know a way over,” Don hastened to say. “Fact is some of us had heard about that old mill, and knew about where it lay. So just the day before yesterday, Arthur coaxed me to go with him. He said he wanted to snap off a few photographs of the ruin, which was worth while seeing, somebody had told him. Well, we made a cut across, and found the mill all right, but the clouds had come up so black that he never took a single picture. Arthur was feeling pretty bad about it, and made me promise to go with him again before we broke camp. Then, on the way back, he wrenched his foot, and I had to half carry him the last mile.”
“You saw no sign of anyone around the place when you were there, I suppose,” Hugh remarked.
“Well, there were footprints enough,” Don replied, “and we reckoned that parties sometimes wandered up that way to try the fishing in the pond above the mill or in the runway. But we didn’t meet anybody, if that’s what you mean, Hugh.”
“And Don, couldn’t you manage to carry my camera along, so if the sun shines you might find a chance to snap off those three views I showed you?” pleaded Arthur, as he held up the little black box.
Don gave a quick look toward the scout master.
“No harm carrying the camera,” the latter told him. “If you get some decent views, we’d all like to have copies later on to remind us of the adventure. Better be getting ashore as fast as you can, boys. Every minute is going to count, you know. Ned, if you feel like it, act as ferryman, won’t you? Three passengers might crowd aboard if you’re careful how you sit.”