A Scout of To-day Part 28

At daybreak upon an October morning their buffeted figures were sighted, clinging to the rocks, by the lookout on the able fishing vessel, Constellation, of which Captain Andrew Davis was then in command.

The furious gale had subsided. But as Captain Andy knew, the greatest danger to his own vessel lay in the sullen and terrible swell of the "old sea" which it had stirred up.

Nevertheless, the Constellation bore down upon the shipwrecked men, getting as near to them as possible, without being swept on to the rocks herself.

Then Captain Andy gave the order to put over a dory, stepped into it, and called for a volunteer. Twice, to and fro through the towering swell of the old sea, went that gallant little dory. She was smashed to kindling wood on her second trip, but not before the men in her could be hauled aboard the Constellation with ropes--not before every member of the yachting party was saved!

"And I guess if Captain Andy wants a chance to haul Dave Baldwin off the rocks where the old sea stirred up by the gusts of his own waywardness and wrongdoing have stranded him, the district attorney won't stand in the way!" said the doctor to himself.

His surmise proved correct.

It was just one month after the fire upon the dunes that the three patrols of boy scouts, Owls, Foxes, and Seals, a.s.sembled at a point of rendezvous upon the outskirts of the town, bound off upon a long Sat.u.r.day hike through the October woods.

But some hearts in the troop were at bottom heavy to-day, though on the surface they rose above the feeling.

For it was the last woodland hike, for the present, that Scout Warren of the Owls would take with his patrol. The return of his parents from Europe was expected during the coming week; and he--now with two white stripes upon his arm, signifying his two years of service in the Boy Scouts of America, wearing also the patrol leader's bars and first-cla.s.s scout badge--would rejoin his Peewit Patrol in Philadelphia.

However, his comrades' regrets were softened by Nixon's promise that he would frequently visit the Ma.s.sachusetts troop with which he had spent an exciting year, and which, unintentionally, he had been instrumental in forming.

And on this brilliant October Sat.u.r.day a.s.sistant Scoutmaster Toiney Leduc, perceiving that the coming parting was casting a faint shadow before, exerted himself to banish that cloudlet as the troop started on its hike.

"_Houp-e-la!_ We arre de boy! We arre de stuff! We arre de bes' scout ev'ry tam'!" he shouted with an _esprit de corps_ which found its echo in one breast at least--that of the terrier, Blink, who to-day capered with the troop as its mascot. "We arre de bes' scout; _n'est-ce pas_, mo' smarty?" And Toiney embraced Harold, marching at his side--Harold, whose lips turned up to-day and every day now in the scout's smile, for since the night of the dune fire had not each of his comrades and the scoutmasters too, kept impressing on him that he had "behaved like a little man and a good scout" at duty's call!

There were individuals among the onlookers, too, watching the three patrols march out of the town that morning, who shared Toiney's primitive conceit that they were the "best scouts"; or at least fairly on the way to being a model troop.

Little Jack Baldwin, gazing at his rescuers, Scouts Warren and Chase, Marcoo and Colin Estey, marching two and two at the head of the leading patrol, clapped his hands and almost burst his heart in wishing that he could be twelve years old to-morrow so that he might enlist as a tenderfoot scout.

Whereupon his old grandmother smilingly bade him "take patience," for the two years which now separated him from his heart's desire would not be long in pa.s.sing.

And the boy scouts, as they raised their broad-brimmed hats to old Ma'am Baldwin, saw a happier look upon her face than it had ever worn before, to their knowledge.

Farther on they came upon the explanation of this! They were taking a different route to-day from that which they usually followed in entering the woods. About a mile from the town they struck a partial clearing, where the land, not yet entirely relieved of timber, was evidently being gradually converted into a farm.

As the scouts approached they heard the ringing strokes of a woodsman's axe, and presently came upon a perspiring young man, putting all his strength into felling a stubborn oak-tree.

"Hullo, Dave; how goes it?" cried the scoutmaster, halting with his troop.

"Fine!" came back the panting answer from the individual engaged in this scouting or pioneering work, who was the former _vaurien_, Dave Baldwin.

"Find this better than loafing about the dunes, eh?"

"Well! I should say so," came the answer with an honest smile.

But the boy scouts were hardly noticing Dave Baldwin: Owls, Foxes, and Seals, they were gazing in transfixed amus.e.m.e.nt at their hero-in-chief, Captain Andy, owner of this half-cleared land.

He, who in his seagoing days had been known by such flattering t.i.tles as the Grand Bank Horse, the Ocean Patrol, and the like, was seated in the midst of a half-acre of pasture land, holding on like grim death to one end of a twenty-foot rope coiled round his hand, the hemp's other extremity being hitched to the leg of a very lively red cow which presently dragged him the entire length of the pasture and then across and across it, in obedience to her feminine whims.

"She'll be the death o' me, boys!" he shouted comically to the convulsed scouts. "Great Neptune! I'd rather take a vessel through the breakers on Sable Island Bar than to be tied to her heels for one day."

"For pity's sake! Hold on to her, Cap!" Dave Baldwin paused in his energetic tree-felling. "Yesterday, she got into that little plowed field that I'd just seeded down with winter rye, and thrashed about there!"

"Ha! I'll t'ink you go for be good _habitant_--farmer--Dave," broke in Toiney suddenly and genially. "I'll t'ink you get dere after de w'ile, engh?"

It was plain to each member of the troop that so far as Dave himself was concerned he was already "getting there,"--reaching the goal of an honest, industrious manhood.

The triple responsibility of starting a farm, directing the energies of his benefactor, and combating the cow, was rapidly making a man of him.

They heard the virile blows of his axe against the tree-trunk as they marched on their woodland way. And their song floated back to him:--

"At duty's call, with a smile for all, The Scout will do his part!"

Dave Baldwin paused for a minute to listen; then, as he swung his axe in a tremendous, final blow against the tottering oak, he too broke triumphantly into the refrain:--

"And we'll shout, shout, shout, For the Scout, Scout, Scout, For the Scouts of the U.S.A!"

THE END