The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill Part 20

There didn't much happen, anyhow, while he was going up to Savoy. The road was steep and winding, and climbing it kept Skinny busy and made him wish more than once that he had gone in some other direction.

What Mr. Richmond had said about bears made him nervous. Every time he saw a stump of a tree, he was sure it was a bear, and every time he came to a part of the woods where the trees stood very close together and it looked dark inside, he had to whistle and sing louder than Mary did when she was afraid of the cow.

Whenever he felt real scared he would caw like a crow, and that made him feel almost brave again, for sometimes when you just pretend you are brave and act as if you are, all of a sudden you get brave. I don't know why it is but I have noticed it.

He kept a sharp eye out for deer, for he wanted to bring us one, but he didn't see a thing all the way up that looked like a wild animal except a calf, which ran when he threw a stick at it, and the birds, which don't count.

It was hot work but the air was fine, and he could see all up and down Hoosac Valley, and that is worth seeing any time. If he had taken a spy-gla.s.s with him, perhaps he could have seen the other Scouts on the way to North Adams and Cheshire.

Once in a while he came to a mountain brook, gurgling and singing over the stones. Then he would throw himself down to rest and listen to the pouring water, which we boys think is the sweetest music in all the world, unless it is the cawing of a crow away off somewhere, on the mountainside.

Late in the afternoon he came to Savoy and stopped in a field to cook himself a good supper.

That night he slept in a barn, cuddling down in the haymow, where he could hear some horses stirring in their stalls. They seemed sort of like company for him, although they couldn't talk any.

"Were you not afraid up there, all alone?" Mr. Norton asked, when Skinny was telling about the horses.

"What, me?" said he. "Anyhow, I wouldn't have been, only there were all kinds of noises in the night and once I heard something scratching at the door. I think it was a bear; maybe, two bears."

"Great snakes!" said Bill, and we all thought so, too. But Skinny waved one hand, as if that wasn't anything worth mentioning, and went on.

When morning finally came and the sun shone in through a cobwebby window across the haymow he slipped out of the barn on the side away from the house, so that the folks wouldn't see him.

Just the same, they saw him cooking his breakfast, and were going to set the dog on him. But when the farmer's wife found out that it was a Boy Scout and not a tramp she told him to come right into the house and eat with them. He went, too, because he could smell the breakfast cooking and it 'most made him crazy.

"How about it, Mr. Norton?" said Bill. "That makes two meals Skinny had given to him, not counting the dinner at Richmond's the next day, which he hasn't told about yet. That makes three. Didn't he have to cook them himself on account of the Scout business?"

Before Mr. Norton could answer Skinny spoke up.

"Aw, g'wan!" said he. "I cooked enough to make up for it, I guess. Why, I stopped two or three times and cooked something. You don't suppose a feller can climb mountains without eatin', do you?"

"I didn't eat much," said Bill with a grin, "but I wanted to."

"I think Gabriel is right," laughed Mr. Norton. "Besides it sometimes is harder to work folks for a meal than it is to cook it, yourself."

"Anyhow," Skinny told him, "I didn't get to Richmond's in time for that dinner and I paid for those other meals. I rescued the girl the first time, didn't I? That ought to be good for a dinner. And to pay for my breakfast I carried in a lot of wood for the farmer's wife. She liked it so well that she said she would be glad to have me stay to dinner. There wasn't any chance to do any rescuing in Savoy, so I had to do something else."

"That's business!" exclaimed Mr. Norton. "Pay as you go. Gabriel, my boy, you showed yourself a true Scout and I'm proud of you."

He reached over and fastened a First Cla.s.s Scout badge to Skinny's coat.

"Maybe I am a little ahead of the game," said he, "but Gabriel is leader and I think that he has earned a badge. This seems to be the psychological moment to present it."

Benny spoke up before we could stop him.

"What's a skological moment?" said he.

Say, that stumped Mr. Norton. He couldn't tell us.

"I'd like very much to give you one, William," he went on, after a little, turning to Bill. "You showed yourself a hero and you have done everything except the hike. How would it do to give you the badge now, with the understanding that you will make good on the hike later, when you get well?"

Skinny swelled all up when Mr. Norton gave him the badge, and I guess anybody would. He didn't know what to do or say at first, but in a minute he came to his senses. He jumped to his feet and gave the Scout salute. It was great to see him.

"Fellers," said he, turning to us with his arms folded, while Mr. Norton looked on, wondering what was going to happen.

"Who are going to be the best Boy Scouts in America, or England, either?"

"We are!" we shouted.

"Who is the best Scoutmaster that ever happened?"

"Mr. Norton!" we yelled.

"Who is great stuff, if he did sprain his ankle on Greylock?"

"Bill Wilson!"

"'Tis well. Everybody caw. Now!"

There was some racket around that room when we turned ourselves loose.

Bill sat there smiling and with his face all flushed up, he was so tickled over what Mr. Norton and Skinny had said.

Then Mr. Norton pulled another badge out of his pocket and started to pin it on Bill's clothes. Bill stopped him.

"It wouldn't be fair, Mr. Norton," said he. "I started out to do my hike and I didn't do it. I know that I did something which was harder but I didn't do that. I wouldn't feel right about wearing the badge until after I had made good."

"What do you say, boys?" asked Mr. Norton, his eyes shining because he was so proud of Bill.

"Bill's all right," said Hank. "We all know that he can do the stunt and that he will do it, but he hasn't done it yet."

Then Benny spoke up.

"Guess what!" said he. "Let's all wait until Bill gets well and does it, before getting our badges. Except Skinny; he's got his."

"Bet your life I'll wait, too," said Skinny.

He started to take the badge off, but we wouldn't let him.

"Forget it," said Bill, "and go on with the story. You stopped in an interesting place. I don't believe much happened, anyhow, except the cow, and you've told us about that."

"I don't like to tell the rest. It will make you walk in your sleep and that will hurt your foot. But I'm willing to risk it if you are."

You see, when Skinny started toward home from Savoy, he made up his mind that he would la.s.so a deer, or know the reason why, because it would look fine to have one stuffed and standing in front of our cave at Peck's Falls. So, when he had found a place that looked wild and sort of scary, he left the road and, getting his rope in shape to throw, made his way in through the brush, as still as he could, so as not to frighten the deer away.

He didn't see any deer, but after a while he found a big patch of wild strawberries, so thick he couldn't step without tramping on some. That made him forget all about his deer for 'most an hour.

Then, all of a sudden, he heard a crackling in the bushes on the other side of a clearing, and he felt sure that his chance had come.

Skinny dropped on his hands and knees and crawled toward the sound. It was slow work because he had to be careful not to make any noise, and he grew more excited every moment.