The Boy Scout Fire Fighters Part 8

He realized that a loose stone or a deep rut meant death to him and destruction to the motor car! His teeth were clenched and his face was white! The wind had whisked away his c.o.o.nskin cap.

"Oh, if I can only make that turn! I must! I've _got_ to!" he told himself, as he saw the distance to the foot of the hill being eaten up by the flying motor car. Nearer and nearer came the turn. It was a hundred yards away. Now seventy, fifty, forty! Would the truck stay on all four wheels or would it go plunging on madly, end over end, into the lake?

Could he make it? The road bent slightly now. Brace followed the curve.

Now came the turn. Bruce tugged at the wheel. The big truck swerved.

It was skidding! It was two wheels and ploughing up the dust in great clouds! It was almost around! It was around! The road ahead of him was straight and clear!

Bruce breathed a great sigh of relief. And so did fifty individuals who had been watching the terrible race from the top of the hill. They cheered loud and long when the big truck shot safely around the bend and headed up the level road toward Woodbridge. Then all of them started down the grade pell mell, nor did they stop until they reached the place where the truck had finally stalled. Then every one tried to shake the boy's hand.

"By Jove, but for your nerve, Bruce, my boy, we'd have been minus film and motor truck. For pure grit, I think you scouts take the prize. I wish I could think of some way to repay you," cried Mr. d.i.c.kle, pumping Bruce around somewhat roughly.

"Why--er--you see--we don't want any pay for what we do, but if it can be arranged, I--I--well, we sure would like to see that 'movie.' Can't you send one to the Woodbridge Theater?" said Bruce.

"Huh, send one to the Woodbridge Theater! Why, I'll bring the first release of it to Woodbridge myself and show it in your headquarters.

How'll that suit you fellows?"

And the enthusiastic replies of the scouts convinced the "movie" manager that he had hit the right idea.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRIZE CONTEST

"Well, fellows, there's this much about it, if we are going to build a real sure enough motorboat this year we've got to get a hustle on us and earn some money. With the rent we received from the Historical Motion Picture Company and the money we secured from the circus ticket wagon we have just $73.75. We need $94.00 to buy the motor alone, even with the reduction that Mr. Clifford can get for us. And added to that is the expense of extra lumber and fittings, which will be at least thirty dollars more. Now where do we stand, I'd like to know?"

Thus did Bud Weir unburden his mind to the other boys of the Quarry Troop, sometimes called, because of their mechanical skill, the Boy Scout Engineers.

All spring the scouts had been planning to build a motorboat to be used on Long Lake. They had had their summer camp on the sh.o.r.es of this lake for the past two years, and they intended to have a camp there as usual this year, but they had decided to make it a construction camp and spend most of their time building a thirty-foot power boat, which would be the largest vessel on the lake. The idea was to increase the troop's fund in the treasury as much as possible during the Winter and Spring and use the money to purchase a three horsepower gasoline motor, which they calculated would be large enough to drive the boat faster than any craft thereabout.

But somehow the months had hurried past and the fund had not increased at a proportionate pace. Indeed if it had not been for a windfall of forty odd dollars from the Historical Motion Picture Company, the treasury would have been in a very bad way. The scouts really could not understand it at all. They had worked hard, or at least they thought they had, and they had contributed every cent they had made toward the engine fund, but somehow the balance in the Woodbridge bank looked mighty small to the scouts.

"What the d.i.c.kens is the matter with us anyway, are we lazy?" queried Nipper Knapp, breaking the long silence that followed Bud's remark.

"By jiminy, it looks that way to me," said Jiminy Gordon emphatically.

"It's procrastination that--"

"Whoops! Hi! what was that word? Ho, ho, say it again, Bruce," shouted Romper Ryan hilariously.

"He's worked for months on that _Boys' Life Dictionary Contest_," said Ray Martin, "that's what's the matter with Bruce. What does it mean?

Maybe it's something to eat!"

"Aw, say, quit your joshin' me," said Bruce, "that's a real word. It means--ah--er--well--"

"Sure it does, we knew it all the time, didn't we, Romper?" said Nipper Knapp.

"That's exactly what it means," said Bud quite soberly.

"Well, it means that we've been putting off work. We haven't come down to bra.s.s tacks. And now we're up against it and our motorboat proposition falls through," snapped Bruce.

"Well, if that's what it means then you told the truth," said Bud, resuming his indignant att.i.tude. "We fellows haven't been on the job. I haven't made a cent in three weeks and neither has any one of the rest of you. Now be honest, have you?"

"No, we haven't," said Dug Maston.

"I guess we are actually growing lazy," said Romper solemnly.

Then Babe Wilson, the sarcastic fat scout, added:

"No, we haven't been lazy, we've just been waiting for opportunity to knock at our door--"

(_Rap--rap--rap, rap--rap--rap--rap._)

Babe looked startled and swallowed hard. Then, his sense of humor bobbing to the surface again, he grinned.

"That's Mr. Opportunity," he said.

"No, it wasn't," said Romper, rushing to the window, "it was a blasted old bill poster tacking a sign on Headquarters-- Hi! git out o' there!

This isn't an old barn!" he shouted to the bill poster.

But that individual never heard him and kept tacking away until the bill was up. Then he went on down the road whistling merrily.

"Hang it, Headquarters will look like a billboard soon. I'm going down to pull his blooming old sign off our wall," said Romper, as he disappeared through the doorway and stamped down the stairs. But a few moments later he seemed to have changed his mind, for he was heard to shout:

"Hi, fellows, come on down. It's worth reading anyway." And what the scouts read when they crowded about him was:

$200 In Prizes for Brown Tail Moth Exterminators.

The Town of Woodbridge is offering $200 in prizes to the individuals who can advance and demonstrate a practical method of exterminating the Brown Tail Moths that are infesting the trees in the township. For particulars apply to Mayor's Office, Town Hall.

Three Prizes Offered: $100 $60 $40.

"Say, was that opportunity, after all?" asked Babe in wide-eyed amazement when he read the poster.

And every boy looked at every other boy and wondered.

If there are any who do not believe that boys can become genuinely interested in study, they should have visited the Quarry Troop headquarters a few days after the discovery of the work of the bill poster. For at least three consecutive afternoons a dozen lads spent their time in the big meeting room on the second floor poring over dry looking pamphlets which bore the stamp of the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture.

They were all perusing this literature with the one purpose--to learn as much as they could about the habits of the brown tail moths, for they hoped in their study to discover some new and original way to exterminate the pest and thereby win one of the three generous prizes offered by the town authorities. But though they pursued the subject relentlessly none of them seemed able to generate an idea that smacked of originality.

"Aw, say, fellows, this will never do," said Babe Wilson. "We can't compete in this contest. We don't know anything about chemistry or things like that. Why, we don't even know a Brown Tail moth when we see one." He disconsolately tossed away his pamphlet and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Pshaw, don't give up so soon," said Bud Weir. "This reading isn't very gay but all the same we are learning some things we should know. And even if we are not familiar with chemistry, we may be able to figure out a way of getting rid of them by means of some mechanical appliance."

"I think this is mighty interesting," said Bruce, looking up from his leaflet. "I know now what's ailing those apple trees down back of our barn. The Brown Tail moths are in them. Listen to this: 'The princ.i.p.al injury caused by these moths is due to the feeding habits of the larva.

They attack apple, pear, plum, oak, elm and willow trees. If the infestation is bad the caterpillars are often numerous enough to devour the leaves as fast as the trees are able to develop them. As the webs are made on the terminals the growth of the tree is frequently checked.'

"Those apple trees of ours haven't had a full grown leaf on them this Spring and there are webs in the tops of them, too. That's the work of Brown Tails all right."