A Scout of To-day Part 10

"What do you know about that?" Marcoo's voice was thick.

"Gee! that's a--wonderful--stunt. I guess you could light a fire with a piece of damp bark and a s...o...b..ll!" Leon looked up at the panting scout.

Colin's mind was telegraphing back to the moment when he lay on the salt-marshes that morning, hungry for the woods. If any one had told him that, before night, he would a.s.sist at a forest drama like this!

"Hush! Don't speak for fear you'd hoodoo it! We haven't got it yet--the fire! Perhaps--perhaps--I can't make it burn." It was the most wonderful moment of his life for the boy scout as he now took a pinch of the cedar-wood tinder, half-enclosed in a piece of paper-like birch-bark and held it down upon the red fire-germ--in all following the teaching of the great Chief Scout.

Then he lifted the slab of wood that served as tray, bearing the ruddy fire-embryo and tinder, and blew upon it evenly, gently. It blazed. The miracle was complete.

"_Wonderful stunt!_" murmured Starrie Chase again. His hand in its restless uneasiness had been plucking large flakes of moss from the gray rock behind him and turning them over, revealing the medicinal gold thread that embroidered the earthy underside of the sod; he was sucking that bitter fibre--supposed to be good for a sore mouth, but no panacea for a sprained ankle--while a like gold thread of fascinated speculation embroidered the ruddy mask of his face.

"Hurrah! we'll have a fire right away now, that will talk to us all night long." The triumphant scout lowered the flame-bud to the ground, piled over it some of the resinous pine-splinters and strips of inflammatory bark, fanning it steadily with his hat. In a few minutes a rollicking camp-fire was roaring in front of the old Bear's Den.

"Now! we must gather some big chunks, dry roots and stumps, to keep the fire going through the night, cut sods to put round it and prevent its spreading into the woods, and break up some pine-tips to strew in the cave for a bed. There's lots of work ahead still, fellows, before we can be snug for the night!"

The scout, having got his second breath with his great achievement, was working hard as he spoke; Marcoo and Colin followed his example in renewed spirits. Leon, chafing at his own inactivity, tried to stand and sank down with a groan.

"How's the thunderstorm sprain?" they asked him.

"Worse--ugh-h! And I'm parched with thirst--still!"

"Well, we'll lope off into the woods and bring you back some more water.

If you'll leave a little in the bottom of the mug I'll soak our handkerchiefs in it and wrap them round your ankle; cold applications may relieve the pain;" the scout was recalling what he had learned about first aid to the injured.

Darkness descended upon the old bear's stamping-ground. But the camp-fire burned gloriously, throwing off now and again a foam of flame whose rosy clots lit in the crevices of the tall rock and bloomed there for an instant like scarlet flowers.

The work necessary in making camp for the night done, the four boys gathered round it, dividing their scanty rations, the sc.r.a.ps of food left in Coombsie's basket, and speculating as to how early in the morning a search-party would come out and find them.

"Toiney Leduc will certainly be one of the party. Toiney is a regular scout; he's only been here a year, but he knows the woods well,"

remarked Leon, then was silent a minute, gazing wistfully into the heart of the flames which filled the pause with snappy conversational fire-works.

"Tell us something about this boy scout business, bo'!" he spoke again in the slow, sprained voice, his feverish eyes burning into the fire, his tone making the slangy little abbreviation stand for brother, as he addressed Nixon. "It seems as if it might be The Thing--starting that fire was a great stunt--and if it's The Thing--every fellow wants to be in it!"

"Oh! you don't know what good times we have," began the scout.

And briefly skimming from one point to another, he told of the origin of the Boy Scout Movement far away in Africa during the defense of a besieged city, and of the great English general, the friend of boys, who had fathered that movement.

Leon's eyes narrowed as he still gazed into the camp-fire: it was a long descent from the defense of a beleaguered city to the championship of a besieged chipmunk, but his quick mind grasped the principle of fiery chivalry underlying both--one and the same.

"Can you sing some more of that U.S.A. song which you were shouting in the woods near the log camp?" Marcoo broke in, as the narrator dwelt on those good times spent in hiking, trailing, camping with the scoutmaster.

"Perhaps I can--a verse or two! That's the latest for the Boy Scouts of America--the Scouts of the old U.S. Don't know whether I have a pinch of breath left, though!"

And the flagging voice began, gathering gusto from the camp-fire, glee from the stars now winking through the pine-tops:--

"Mile after mile in rank or file, We tramp through field and wood: Or off we hike down path or pike, One glorious brotherhood.

Hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields, Hurrah for the life that's free!

With a body and mind both clean and kind, The Scout's is the life for me!"

"Chorus, fellows!" he cried:--

We will fight, fight, fight, for the right, right, right, "Be prepared" both night and day; And we'll shout, shout, shout, For the Scout, Scout, Scout, For the Scouts of the U.S.A.

The rolling music in the pine-trees, the reedy whistle of the breeze among beeches and birches, soft cluck of rocking branches, the bagpipe skirling of the flames leaping high, fluted and green-edged, all came in on that chorus; together with the four boyish voices and the bark of the dog as he bayed the blaze: the night woods rang for the Scouts of the U.S.A.

"If when night comes down we are far from town, Both tired and happy too, Camp-fires we light and by embers bright We sleep the whole night through.

Hurrah for the sun, hurrah for the storm, Hurrah for the stars above!

We feel secure, safe, sane and sure, For we know that G.o.d is Love."

"Why have you that knot in your tie?" asked Leon after the last note had died away in forest-echo, while the scout was wetting the bandages round his inflamed ankle before they crept into the cave to sleep.

"To remind me to do one good turn to somebody every day."

"Well, you can untie it now; I guess you've done good turns by the bunch to-day!"

Lying presently upon the fragrant pine-tips with which they had strewn the interior of the cave, the scout's tired fingers fumbled for that knot and drowsily undid it. He had lost both way and temper in the woods. But he had tried, at least, to obey the scout law of kindness.

As he lay on guard, nearest to the cave's entrance, winking back at the stars, this brought him a happy sense of that wide brotherhood whose cradle is G.o.d's Everlasting Arms.

From the well of his sleepy excitement two words bubbled up: "Our Father!" Rolling over until his nose burrowed among the fragrant evergreens, he repeated the Lord's Prayer, adding--because this had been an eventful day--a brief pet.i.tion which had been put into his lips by his scoutmaster and was uttered under unusual stress of feeling, or when he remembered it: That in helpfulness to others and loyalty to good he might be a follower of the Lord of Chivalry, Jesus Christ, and continue his faithful soldier and servant "until the scout's last trail is done!"

It was almost morning when he awoke for the second time, having stirred his tired limbs once already to replenish the camp-fire.

Now that hard-won fire had waned to a dull red shading on the undersides of velvety logs, the remainder of whose surface was of a chilly gray from which each pa.s.sing breeze flicked the white flakes of ash like half-shriveled moths.

"Whew! I must punch up the fire again--but it's hard to get the kinks out o' my backbone;" he straightened his curled-up spine with difficulty and stumbled out on the camping-ground.

It was that darkest hour before dawn. The stars were waning as well as the fire. The trees which had been friends in the daytime were spectators now. Each wrapped in its dark mantle, they seemed to stand curiously aloof, watching him.

He attacked the logs with a stick, poking them together and thrusting a dry branch into the ruddy nest where the fire still hatched.

Snip! Snap! Crackle! the flames awoke. Mingling with their reviving laughter, came a low, strange cluck that was not the voice of the fire, immediately followed by a long shrill cry with a wavering trill in it, not unlike human mirth.

It hailed from some point in the scout's rear.

"For heaven's sake!" The stick shook in his fingers. "Can it be a wildcat--or another c.o.o.n?"

Stiffly he wheeled round. His eyes traveled up the great rock--in whose cave his companions lay sleeping; as they gained the top of that old grayback, they were confronted by two other eyes--mere twinkling points of flame!

The scout's scalp seemed to lift like a blown-off roof. His throat grew very dry.

At the same moment there was a noiseless flitting as of a shadow from the rock's crest to a near-by tree whence came the weird cry again.

"_An owl!_ Well, forevermore! And my hair is standing straight still!"

"_What is it?_ _What is it, Nix?_" came in m.u.f.fled cries from the cave.