After all, it did not prove to be a bad case, thanks to the promptness of the rescuers. In a short time Arthur declared that he had heard what sounded like a sigh coming from Smith. Hugh himself noticed a slight muscular movement, though he did not in the slightest degree relax his labors; if anything, he increased the force with which he kept that artificial respiration going.
In ten minutes more the boy began to wriggle, and presently they were able to turn him over on his back. As he stared up at them, Bud found himself trembling like a leaf to find that after all a tragedy had been averted.
“Are you feeling better, Smith?” asked Hugh.
“W—w—where am I? W—w—what happened?” gasped the other, as the first touch of color began to creep into his white cheeks.
“You were in the river,” said Bud quickly, as though ready to shoulder all the blame. “We thought you were only fooling when you said you couldn’t swim a stroke. It was your brother that used to be a regular fish in the water. We got you mixed, you see, and thought you were just trying to pull the wool over our eyes. But I guess you’d have drowned if it hadn’t been for Hugh here. He dragged you out after you went under the third time.”
“With your help, Bud,” interposed Hugh modestly.
“I don’t deserve a bit of credit,” said the other scout moodily. “I was a fool to do what I did. Smith, I hope you can forgive me. We wanted to punish you for littering up the mayor’s lawn the way you helped to do. That was a shame, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Perhaps you were led into it by that scheming Lige Corbley. There’s some excuse for you, Smith, but none for me. I’m a scout, and I ought to have known better. Will you shake hands and forgive me for throwing you into the river?”
Whistling Smith was more or less dazed. He looked hard at Bud, as though trying to connect matters in his mind. Then he slowly raised his hand, for he was still very weak.
“I reckon it’s all right, Bud,” he said. “I was a fool myself to be led into that silly game. Perhaps I only got what I deserved. In the future, I mean to cut loose from that crowd. They’re too swift for me. This is going to be a big lesson, let me tell you. I don’t know what my mother’d have said if I was arrested and locked up. If you fellows are willing to call it an even thing, I am.”
Every one of the scouts quickly declared that they stood ready to wipe all scores off the slate. Others besides Bud felt a sensation as of remorse; and they were glad beyond words that things had come out as favorably as they had. If Whistling Smith had never been resuscitated, what misery would have been their portion through the remainder of their lives.
“It wouldn’t have happened if we’d only waited for Hugh to get here,” admitted Arthur frankly. “Chances are he’d have believed what you said and only soused you in shallow water. We took big risks in doing what we did. You’ve had a lesson, Smith, you say, but think of us scouts not knowing better!”
“Yes,” added Alec, also repentant now, “and come to think of it, I ought to be kicked for not remembering that it wasn’t Whistling Smith but his brother Bob who could swim like a duck. Slipped my mind in all the excitement. Never again for me will such a thing as this happen.”
“I think we all have good reason to be thankful it was no worse,” declared Hugh; “but get up and exercise some, Smith. We want you to warm up before you start on a run for home. Get to bed as soon as you can, and be sure to have a blanket on. The weather is so warm I don’t think you’ll be apt to suffer from your ducking.”
They rubbed him vigorously until he declared that he felt as warm as toast, after which he was started for home on the trot.
“Any use of our going back on duty again, Hugh?” asked Billy, stifling a yawn.
“I don’t think so,” was the reply. “Lige and his crowd have done all the damage they wanted to probably, and there’ll be nothing to bother us for the rest of the night. We’re all tired and two of us wet through, so we’ll strike the home trail now.”
“How about the rest of the fellows who are still on duty? Going to leave them to stand guard the whole night through?” asked Billy.
“Well, that would be a hard joke on them,” Alec declared. “Send me with any message, Hugh. You and Bud had better make a break for home, and get out of your wet clothes in a hurry.”
“All right then, Alec,” the other told him. “Take the order that they’re to give up work for to-night and get away home. And perhaps you’d better not say anything about what happened here in too big a hurry. We’ll speak of it at the next meeting. I think there’s a lesson in it for every scout. I know I feel that I’ve had one myself.”
“Huh! think of me, will you?” declared Bud with a sigh. “Even when Arthur yelled out that Smith was drowning, I was so scared that for just five seconds I couldn’t move hand or foot. That might have been long enough for him to disappear the last time. But you shot past me and into the river like a flash. You haven’t a single thing to be sorry for, Hugh. And let me tell you, for one, I’ll never stop thanking my lucky stars that you got here just when you did. I’d be feeling some different from what I am right now if you’d delayed a minute longer.”
Alec ran off to carry the scout master’s order to the rest of the troop that would relieve them from vidette duty, while the balance of the boys started for their various homes, satisfied with the outcome of the series of adventures.
“Well, things seem to be moving right along, Hugh,” Billy Worth remarked several days later, as he and the assistant scout master stood on the main street in front of the window where there was a fine display of sporting goods that always attracted the attention of every passing boy.
“Yes, it’s wonderful what a change has come over the whole town,” the other scout remarked. “It seems as though the scouts must have given everybody the fever, because it’s going on all around. Even the Italian district has been stirred, for the mayor has offered a splendid prize to the family that has the neatest dooryard on the first of the month. Such a scrubbing and raking and gathering of rubbish never was seen before. Poor old Barney Heath says he’s earned his salary three times over, and that if this thing gets to be a settled habit he must be paid by the load and not by the month under contract. He’ll soon be going to the poorhouse, he vows. But it looks glorious to me, Billy.”
“My folks say we deserve a heap of credit for taking the bull by the horns,” Billy observed, with a grin of pride on his freckled face. “But the women all think it was the way that gang carried on in the mayor’s front yard that gave him all the backbone he’s shown since. Nothing like bringing things home to a man if you want to stir him up.”
“Touch his pocket and you’ll get a response, my father says,” Hugh replied. “I wish I’d been there when he came out of his house that fine Sunday morning and discovered what a mess they’d made of his place! But somehow nobody seems to have been able to get any trace of those who did it. They made sure to leave nothing behind to tell who they were, and have been lying low ever since. I’m rather thinking they’re a bit frightened themselves at their boldness.”
“Huh! I don’t believe anything could scare that Lige Corbley,” grunted Billy; “and speaking of him, there he comes along the street right now with his little lame brother, Benjy. Say, what a queer mixture that boy is, Hugh! Watch him helping Benjy along just as carefully as you would do it yourself! I never could make out what that Lige was made of.”
“And that’s the very reason I told you once that I didn’t think he could be all bad,” said the other in a low tone, for the object of their conversation was now approaching them. “Any fellow who could act like that toward a poor little chap with a twisted leg must have a decent streak in him. And if ever Lige is going to change his ways, you mark my words it’s bound to come about through that same brotherly affection he feels for Benjy. It may never happen, and then again how do we know? Stranger things than that have come to pass.”
A crowd of boys coming along the street stopped to gape in at the window of the sporting goods store, making comments about the football and hockey paraphernalia displayed there in tempting fashion.
Several men and women were also looking in at the gorgeous window of the adjoining jewelry establishment, so that for the time being there was quite a gathering at that one spot.
Lige Corbley, leaving his crippled brother to feast his eyes with the sights in both windows, which he did not often have a chance to survey, passed into the store that displayed fishing tackle and all manner of men’s goods evidently bent on making some small purchase.
In doing this he came in contact with the two scouts, and their eyes met. Lige stared Hugh straight in the face, and what seemed to be a smile of defiance came across his dark countenance. It was as though he had heard what had happened to Whistling Smith, and had been assured that his identity was known to the scouts who had appeared on the scene while he and his pals were defying the mayor by wrecking his well-kept lawn and shrubbery.
Billy turned and looked at his chum after Lige had gone into the store.
“What do you think of that now, Hugh?” he asked. “Did you ever see a fellow throw down the gauntlet like he did? Dares us to accuse him, and wants to know how we could prove it! For three cents I’d like to ask you to take the challenge up. We could give him a heap of trouble, I reckon. And everybody believes that it was his gang that made the ruin at the mayor’s place, even if nothing’s been done about it.”
Hugh, however, shook his head in the negative.
“Things are going along too well right now, Billy, to change them,” he said. “We might be able to prove what we claimed, and then again, how do we know? All we’ve got to go on is the word of Whistling Smith, and he would have to turn informer. Better let it drop and wait to see how things turn out. Lige and his crowd builded better than they knew when they paid that visit to the mayor’s place. It was the beginning of the end.”
Billy did not seem to be wholly convinced, for he shook his head and frowned as he stood there on the outskirts of the crowd.
“Well, if you knew Lige as well as I do, Hugh, you’d understand that such a little thing as that isn’t going to faze him any. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s getting up some other prank right now and means to spring it on the town some dark night. The snake is scotched, not killed. The more you stir up a fellow like him the worse you make things.”
“Wait and see, Billy; don’t be in so much of a hurry,” the other scout replied. “When I worked side by side with Lige putting out that fire in his aunt’s house, I saw him at his best. And when he shook hands with me and as much as admitted that scouts could be halfway decent, I saw something in his eyes that’s been haunting me ever since. And I say once more, lots of queer things have happened in this world and will again. One of them may be seeing that same Lige Corbley in the khaki uniform of a scout some fine day.”
At that, Billy snorted his disbelief. He lacked the faith in human nature that Hugh seemed to possess. Perhaps this came from his not being able to read beneath the surface, while his chum made it a practice to look deeper than the outward appearance of things.
Whatever Billy may have been about to remark was lost, because just at that minute there was a sudden commotion inside the jewelry establishment. Loud cries arose and through the door a man came springing as though in a great hurry to get away.
He pushed through the crowd, jostling several people as he went. At the same moment Mr. Garrison, the clerk in the store, was seen in the doorway, white of face and evidently so excited that he almost strangled.
All he could say, in a weak sort of voice, was the one word:
“Thief!”
The stranger pushed his way through those gathered in front of the window, not being at all gentle in his manner of handling any who interfered with his progress. It happened that the cripple Benjy was directly in his path, so that he came near knocking the little fellow down; and then, as though discovering how helpless the boy was, he threw his arms around him, apparently to keep him from falling.
Before any one could interfere, the thief, who must have had all his plans arranged beforehand, jumped into a buggy that was standing in front of the store, plucked the whip from its socket, and laying it on the back of the astonished animal between the shafts went whirling down the road in a cloud of dust.
Several people hurried around to police headquarters to inform the force that their services were needed and that neighboring towns should be notified of the daring robbery, that the man might be apprehended should he appear.
Others gathered about the door of the jewelry store, all tremendously interested and asking many questions as to what had happened.
The proprietor came hurrying out, for he had been in a rear room at the time of the raid. The dazed clerk was getting his senses back by degrees, though there were evidences that he did not as yet grasp the full meaning of the matter. He appeared to be laboring under the impression that there were a number implicated in the robbery, and that the man who fled had perhaps managed to pass some of his plunder to others standing near by. This was the habit with such clever rascals, he had read.
“What’s that boy got in his hand?” the clerk cried suddenly, pointing straight toward little Benjy Corbley, who was holding something and staring at it with a look of wonder on his thin face. “Why, don’t you see, sir, what I said is the truth? That’s one of the gold watches that were taken. The thief must have confederates in this crowd. If you search every one here you may find other things!”
It was a most ridiculous accusation. The man would possibly never have dreamed of making it, only that he had just experienced a terrible shock and was hardly yet in his right senses.
He jumped down from the stoop and snatched the article out of the hand of Benjy, who of course made no resistance.
“Where did you get this gold watch, you young imp?” demanded the clerk harshly, as he took hold of the cripple’s jacket and tried to frighten him with a savage look.
Benjy tried to answer but apparently his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, for he could not make any intelligent sound.
“I saw him pull it out of his pocket!” announced another boy standing near.
“Turn your pockets inside out at once,” commanded the clerk, who, it can very easily be seen, was a small-minded man, only anxious just then to turn the attention of his employer from his own lack of due caution to some other cause of blame.
Mechanically, the crippled boy started to do as he was told, but nothing developed through the process. He disclosed a top, several marbles, a broken-bladed knife, some string, a few buttons and a five cent piece, but no more precious watches or jewelry of any kind seemed forthcoming, greatly to the disappointment of the hopeful clerk.
Just then Lige Corbley, who had been the first one to run for the police, strange to say, came hurrying back, followed by the Chief himself, while a couple more officers were seen hastily buckling on their belts as they ran toward the spot.
“Hello! what’s the matter with you, Benjy?” they heard Lige say, as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd, using his elbows without any regard for other people’s ribs.
The appearance of his older brother seemed to make a change in the stunned condition of the cripple. He immediately began to cry, which caused Lige to glare around like an aroused lion, evidently searching for the guilty culprit who had hurt the smaller lad while he was away.
“Who hit you, Benjy? Just point him out to me, won’t you?” he asked, as he threw a protecting hand across the shoulders of his brother. And at that moment even the presence of the big Chief would possibly not have prevented Lige from trying to visit summary vengeance on the wretch who could stoop to strike a cripple, had Benjy but raised a hand and pointed an accusing finger.
The clerk faced Lige just then. He still held the gold watch in his hand and was in a humor to accuse any one of being an accomplice who dared put in a good word for Benjy.
“Here’s what he had in his pocket, if you want to know,” he snarled, as he dangled the glittering object before Lige’s eyes. “That thief handed it to him as he made off, to keep for him. It’s an old trick, and might have been successful if I hadn’t happened to know all about it. Your brother, small as he is, must be an accomplice in this robbery. And who knows but what you’re in the game, too, Lige Corbley? Your reputation isn’t any too good in this town, let me tell you!”
Lige could hardly believe his ears when the clerk of the jewelry establishment made this astonishing charge, eager to cover up his own carelessness at the time the robbery was committed and to shift the blame.
He stood there and stared, first at the flushed face of the man and then at the tear-stained countenance of Benjy. The crowd jostled and pushed to see and hear, but for a wonder it remained voiceless. Perhaps surprise held the spectators spellbound; or it might be they recognized the fact that Lige Corbley as a rule could fight his own battles.
The boy finally found his tongue, and turning toward his younger brother he exclaimed almost tenderly:
“What does he mean by saying that, Benjy? How could you have that watch in your pocket, when I just left you here a few minutes ago? It can’t be so. He’s lying, to get us into trouble. It must be a set-up job! Tell me, did you ever see that watch before he held it up right now?”
Benjy seemed to have regained his power of speech, also, for he immediately replied to this question by saying:
“I felt somethin’ heavy in my jacket pocket, Lige,—this one it was,—and when I put my hand in, I pulled that watch out. But I don’t know however it came there, cross my heart if I do, Lige!”
The older boy whirled on the clerk, his eyes snapping with anger.
“There, do you hear what Benjy says, Mr. Garrison? He found your old watch in a pocket of his jacket, but if you say he knew anything about its being stolen or had anything to do with the thief, why, it isn’t so and you’re telling what’s a bare-faced lie. Benjy wouldn’t take a pin that wasn’t his own!”
He again threw a protecting arm across the shoulder of the smaller lad, who looked up at him with a smile of confidence on his thin face that told of hope renewed. Many times had Lige stood between the weak little chap and trouble; and in the eyes of Benjy he was a tower of strength. With Lige at hand, the cripple could banish fear and feel sure of protection.
The clerk, however, was not yet ready to give up. For some reason or other he seemed anxious to keep attention riveted in another quarter, so as to delay the investigation as long as possible. Perhaps he found his own conscience accusing him of lack of discretion in giving a stranger a chance to seize upon the most valuable contents of the establishment.
“Whether the boy is guilty as a confederate or not,” he said, grimly, with compressed lips and a baleful gleam in his pale eyes, “the stolen goods having been found in his possession makes him a partner in the crime, after the act. Until this thing can be looked into more closely he ought to be held, and I call on the police to take him in charge on suspicion!”
He beckoned to the big Chief as he said this. Lige turned white, and then a red spot glowed in either cheek. There were low murmurs of protest from a part of the crowd, as though this high-handed proceeding on the part of the indiscreet clerk struck them as going much too far. But not a hand was raised to bar the officer of the law from doing what was demanded of him.
“Do you mean that you’re going to lock my brother up at police headquarters just because that runaway thief chose to drop a watch in his pocket as he was getting out of the crowd?” demanded Lige, staring angrily at the clerk.
“That’s what ought to be done,” persisted the other stubbornly, looking defiantly around at those gathered there. “If he’s able to prove his innocence, no harm will be done.”
“No harm!” echoed Lige. “Mebbe you’d like to have your boy arrested for somethin’ he never done and locked up for hours in the cooler, while they were chasin’ after the real thief? How do you think you’d feel to have everybody pointin’ at him and saying he’d been accused of stealing and the police had arrested him on suspicion? It’s a shame, that’s what. Why, Benjy never stole a cent in all his life! Have me taken up if you want to. I’ve done heaps of tough things, and everybody knows it. But don’t you dare put it on my brother, or——”
Lige was growing more and more furious. There is no telling what sort of dire threat he might have made toward Mr. Garrison, only that just then he felt some one pluck him by the sleeve and heard Hugh Hardin saying:
“Hold on, Lige. Don’t finish that sentence, will you? There’s no need of having Benjy arrested. It’s an outrage, and every one here will stand back of me when I say that, no matter what Mr. Garrison thinks. He’s excited now, and hardly knows what he’s doing. Besides, I want the Chief to understand that I saw just how that watch got in Benjy’s pocket!”
A faint cheer broke from the triple circle of spectators. It could be plainly seen that all their sympathies lay with the white-faced little cripple. In Lige they had small confidence, but Benjy Corbley had long been an object of more or less consideration, for it was understood that his chances of ever living to grow up to manhood were comparatively zero.
The clerk turned on Hugh. His manner changed more or less, because he realized that he had a different customer to handle in the young assistant scout master. Lige Corbley and Hugh Hardin were quite opposite in reputation. The one was as much respected as the other was looked upon with suspicion. Lige had been the cause of considerable excitement in the town, and was even then considered as responsible for the outrage at the mayor’s place of residence.
“How could you see what was done, Hugh Hardin?” Mr. Garrison asked a little weakly, for he began to feel the ground slipping out from under his feet.
“In this way,” returned Hugh promptly, with a quick look full of confidence toward Lige and Benjy. “I saw the man come leaping out of the store and push his way through the crowd. Nobody had the sense to lay a hand on him, but perhaps that was because all of us were so surprised that we didn’t understand what it was about until you came to the door and called ‘Thief!’ Benjy happened to be right in his way and the man ran full tilt against him; then, as if he chanced to see it was a little, almost helpless cripple, he threw out both hands to keep the boy from being knocked over. He was holding a lot of watches in one hand and a bag in the other; and I saw with my own eyes one of the watches drop into Benjy’s pocket,—that is, I saw it fall out of the thief’s hand, and it must have lodged there.
“So you see, Chief, Benjy didn’t know anything about it until, as he says, he felt something heavy in his pocket, and when he pulled that gold watch out he just stood and stared at it till Mr. Garrison saw him. And of course you wouldn’t want to arrest a boy who was helping to recover the lost goods, would you, sir?”
A general laugh went up at that. The baffled clerk saw that it would be only foolishness for him to persist in his charge after this manful defense of Benjy.
“Oh, if that’s the case and you saw all that happened, Hugh, of course I withdraw my charge. But as you said, I’m so flustrated by this terrible event that I hardly know what I’m doing. So let it drop, Chief, and please get started after the thief. He is in a buggy, and surely you ought to overtake him with your swift auto. If the neighboring towns are notified, he would be apprehended should he try to pass through any of them. It is a serious business with my employer, because the best goods in the store were taken.”
Lige gave the clerk a long, savage look, as though the incident had made such an indelible impression on his mind that it must haunt him for many a day.
Some of those present followed the Chief as he hurried back to police headquarters. Others remained to listen to what was said by the clerk in answer to the numerous sharp questions put by the shocked owner of the establishment, who was engaged in shaking his head and walking nervously up and down, now and then wringing his hands and declaring that he would be ruined unless the thief were apprehended and the goods reclaimed.
Hugh and Billy were about to walk away when Lige strode sullenly up to them. He looked straight into the eyes of the scout leader, and there was an expression on his dark face that probably no one had ever seen there before. Hugh understood. He realized that his simple little defense of Benjy had done more to reach the depths of this wild boy’s heart than anything that could possibly have happened. Had it been a favor done toward himself, Lige would doubtless have striven to pay it back and then wiped the remembrance of the whole occurrence from the tablets of his mind. But he had received such a cruel shock at hearing his little brother accused of being a thief and threatened with arrest, that the act of Hugh in clearing him assumed a magnitude in his opinion far beyond its real value.
“I want to say what I think of you for doing what you did, Hugh Hardin,” he declared resolutely, his jaws set as though in grim determination. “It was white of you, that’s right, and I’ll never forget it.”
“Oh! that’s all right, Lige,” answered Hugh pleasantly, as he thrust out his hand toward the other impulsively. “It was a shame that Mr. Garrison said what he did, and of course we all knew the charge was silly; but he’s so rattled he hardly knew what he was doing. I’m glad I happened to see that man grab hold of your brother and the watch slip out of his fingers. I think Billy, here, must have noticed it all, too, but things happened so fast that his breath was taken away, just as mine was for a minute or so. Better forget all about it, Lige. No harm has been done, you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Hugh,” replied the other boy with a sigh, as he eagerly accepted the offered hand, “but it makes me ashamed to think of all I’ve done to break up that scout troop of yours, and here you keep Benjy from being arrested just as if I’d been one of your best friends. I don’t understand it, I tell you! Why should you so much as lift a finger to help a feller that has been so ugly all along, and pestered you and your crowd as I’ve done? Tell me that, Hugh!”
“Why, Lige,” the assistant scout master replied, his kindly smile holding the attention of the other boy, “I suppose it must be because we are scouts, and we believe in doing the right thing, even when it’s an enemy that’s in trouble. If you had ever looked up the habits of scouts, you wouldn’t have to ask me that question. It’s given me more pleasure to be able to lend you a helping hand than ever you could get out of it, and that’s a fact, Lige.”
Lige shook his head, but his eyes did not fall before that steady look.
“I never knew that was what scouts believed in,” he said slowly, as an eager, wistful glow came into his eyes. “I always thought they were only a bunch of sissies that liked being dressed up in khaki suits and parading around in a silly way. Then there was that time you helped put out the fire up at my aunt’s; I seemed to begin to get my eyes opened then, and I’ve been doing a heap of thinking ever since. Hugh, do you think that you’d care to tell me a lot more about this scout racket if I came around to your house some time you set? Honest, I’d like to hear what it stands for.”
“Can you drop around at my house to-night, Lige?” asked Hugh as quick as a flash, remembering his maxim of “striking while the iron is hot.”
“Sure I can, if you say the word. Only set the time,” Lige answered, looking as though his mind were made up.
“Say eight o’clock then; and, Lige, I’ll have nobody there,” the scout leader went on.
“You can look for me. Benjy, shake hands with Hugh. He was a mighty good friend to us to-day, let me tell you, kid.”
As the Corbleys went away, Lige with that brotherly arm over Benjy’s shoulder, Hugh turned and looked at Billy.
“It came a heap sooner than you thought it would, didn’t it, Hugh?” demanded the stout scout, with a grin and a knowing nod. “And I guess that settles the activities of Lige Corbley as the worst boy in town.”
Strange as it may seem, Hugh and Billy were given a chance to take part in the chase of the man in the buggy, who had made such a clean sweep of the jewelry establishment.
They were walking home when the big police automobile hove in sight. Several policemen were aboard and the car was moving at a pace that accorded with their haste.
The two scouts stepped aside to let it pass, meaning to give the men a rousing cheer, when the chief said something to the chauffeur, and suddenly the machine stopped alongside the chums.
“Hop in, Hugh, if you care to go along with us,” the police head called out. “Yes, there’s room enough for you to squeeze in, too, Billy, though you take more than your share of space. I thought that, since your information proved valuable to us, it was only right you boys went along. You’ll enjoy seeing how we get our man.”
“How about it, Hugh? Let’s go,” urged Billy eagerly.
“Pile in!” said Hugh without ceremony; and in another second they had found places among the officers who occupied the tonneau of the car.
Aside from the exciting purpose of the trip, the boys knew that they would enjoy speeding along over the country roads in the fast machine. That would be something of a picnic in itself.
Perhaps the Chief was only showing his gratitude by offering the boys this chance for a run, but he may have looked further. Doubtless he remembered that these scouts had proven themselves well able to follow a trail on an earlier occasion, and he may have foreseen a similar emergency. The fugitive thief might abandon the buggy and take to the depths of the woods afoot, on finding himself hotly pursued, and in that case the boys’ services would be most welcome.
That was exactly what happened. The buggy was found, abandoned, and the occupants of the big car, leaving one man to guard it, proceeded to follow the thief’s trail.
From that time on, it would have been difficult to coax either one of the two boys to turn back, so intensely interested did they become in everything that pertained to this actual application of their tracking game. Hugh quickly realized that the police knew next to nothing about following a woods’ trail. Had they been alone, they would surely have been all at sea at the point where the wily rascal had taken to running the length of fallen tree-trunks, jumping off at the ends into thickets of brush, or on flat rocks where there would be no trail left to betray his course.
But all this was what Billy called “just pie” for boys who had been drilled in the secrets of scout-craft. When they ventured to suggest to the officers how easy it was to “blind” the trail by this sort of clever tactics the Chief ordered them to lead off, promising to follow closely with his men.
It was a proud day for Hugh and Billy when the police head thus showed his confidence in their ability. They felt that they were being amply rewarded for all the time spent in the past in gaining this knowledge of woodcraft.
Through the woods they led the party, every now and then stopping to make sure they were on the right track. In the end they came to an isolated house that was said to belong to a queer old farmer, who never had anything to do with his neighbors. A couple of savage dogs greeted their arrival, which the police would have shot in their tracks, only that the old man came on the scene, and chased the ugly brutes away.
When he heard what his visitors had to say, the farmer was positive that no one could have come to his place that day; nor had any one been near him for more than a week. But Hugh had heard the clamor, he claimed, of the dogs a quarter of an hour before his party reached the lonely farm; and he felt sure that the fugitive was concealed about the place right then.
So with Billy at his side, he conducted a careful search of the ground, and sure enough they discovered the tracks they sought, issuing from the woods and making straight for the little tumble-down old barn.
When they made this report to the Chief, he had his men quickly surround the place. Then he compelled the farmer to enter and make good use of his pitchfork in tossing the hay from one side to another.
Presently a man’s boot was uncovered, seeing which, the Chief seized it and dragged the fugitive into view. The thief struggled and tried to break away, but was soon cowed by the sight of the significant bright brass buttons on the Chief’s coat; though perhaps the heavy pistol that was kept pointed at his head had something to do with his docility.
Looking further, they found the bag into which he had thrust all the stuff taken from the store. And so, after all, the jeweler came out of the affair luckily, although that was not the most fortunate result of the incident.
That was the beginning of the end of the destructive pranks to be laid at Lige Corbley’s door. Hugh managed to arouse such a keen interest concerning scout activities in the inquiring mind of his caller that evening and gave Lige so many things to excite his ambition to join the new Owl Patrol, that he knew the other boy was well on the road to a complete change-about-face.
It came about better than Hugh had hoped, even in his most ardent moments; for Lige not only came as a candidate himself, but managed to bring several other fellows along with him. Evidently the seed had fallen on good ground and was already bearing fruit.
Some of the scouts grumbled a little at the idea of allowing boys to join who had had such a bad reputation. Hugh, however, privately talked with these objectors, and opened their eyes as to what the mission of true scouts must always be. If they meant to be true to their colors and observe the twelve rules to which they had so willingly subscribed at the time they became members of the troop, they must ever be ready to forgive and forget an injury, when asked. They should also be quick to hold out a helping hand so as to lift others, not so fortunately situated as themselves, out of the mire.
It turned out all right in the end. Lige had it in him to be a first-class scout when once he was started along the right lines. He was a natural born leader, even if possessed of a hot temper and owning to several more faults that were calculated to give him more or less trouble all his life.