Tom Slade : Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures Part 15

He heard other voices, the excited greetings of Mrs. Temple and Mary, and the sonorous and authoritative tones of John Temple.

For a moment he forgot what he had come out here for, as he realized that it would be difficult to leave without being seen. His hatred of John Temple had modified somewhat since he had become a scout, and had now given place to a feeling of awe for the man who could own a place of such magnificence as Five Oaks. Never before had Tom been in such a house. He had supposed that Roy's beautiful home was about the most luxurious abode imaginable. He realized now that he was stranded in this despotic kingdom with "No Trespa.s.sing" signs all about glaring at him like sentinels.

Tom had acquired many of the scout virtues and his progress in the arts (save in one or two which he could not master) had been exceptional.

But he had still to acquire that self-confidence and self-possession which are the invariable result of good breeding. He had not felt at home in the house and though his conscience was perfectly clear, he was ill at ease now.

Presently he heard voices again; he saw the car leave with the chauffeur alone, and heard the smothered ringing of the telephone bell in the house.

These evidences of the power of wealth hit his boyish imagination hard, and for a minute John Temple seemed like a hero. He could despatch a car to Bridgeboro, another to Keensburgh; he could call up every police station in the state and offer rewards which would cause sheriffs and constables to sit up and take notice. He could pay ten thousand dollars for the capture of the man who had stolen that little cla.s.s pin. John Temple might be an old grouch, but he was a wonderful man!

Then the words came rushing into Tom's head again, _Will you promise to toss it back?_ and those other words, _If they would only bring it back!_

Then he remembered what he had come out here for, and it seemed very silly and futile alongside the approved methods which were being followed within. While he knew the Scout Handbook did not lie, just the same he hesitated to give this deducing and tracking business a practical test. Then, suddenly, there came to his mind the words Mr.

Ellsworth was so fond of repeating to the troop, _He who has eyes to see, let him see_.

CHAPTER X

TOM TURNS DETECTIVE

As Tom rose he saw that the fresh paint on the pantry window ledge had been smeared. Then he looked at the ground. Below the window was a long smooth mark on the soil. "The fellow had jumped from that window," said he, "slid when he touched the groun'." He stopped, but not to pick up a rock. Then he went down on his hands and knees, with never a thought of those treasured khaki trousers, and while the telephone bell rang and rang again in the house he read the writing which is written all over the vast, open page of nature for those who have eyes and know how to see.

He was very much engrossed now; he forgot everything. He was a scout of the scouts, and he screwed up his face and studied the ground as a scholar pores over his books.

"Huh," said he, "his shoes need soling, that's one sure thing."

He examined with care a little thin crooked indentation in the soil, as if a petrified angleworm had been pushed into the hard earth.

"Huh," said he, "I hope he kicked into it hard enough so it stays there."

He was satisfied that the fugitive's shoe was worn in the sole so that the outer layer, worn thin and flopping loose, had slid onto one of the little malleable leaden bars used in the cathedral-gla.s.s windows. This had evidently pushed its way into the tattered sole, bent a little from the impact, and lodged securely. Either the fugitive did not feel it, or did not care to pause and remove it. It made a mark as plain as Tom's patrol sign.

He cast one apprehensive look at the open windows of the upper floor and, taking a chance, made a bold dash across the rear lawn, where he thought he could discern footprints in the newly-sprouting gra.s.s.

Several hundred feet away was the boundary fence and here the correctness of his direction was confirmed by a painty smooch on the top rail where the fugitive had climbed over.

Tom leaped across the fence and, as usual, after any vigorous move, he felt instinctively to see if his precious five-dollar bill was safe. He lived in continual dread of losing it. He paused a minute scrutinizing the small crooked marks left by the leaden bar. Then he thought of something which added fresh zest to his thus far successful search. It was provision four of the Second Cla.s.s Scout tests:

Track half a mile in twenty-five minutes, or,...

"If I do that," said he, looking at his dollar watch, "it'll land me in the Second Cla.s.s with a rush, and if I should get the pin for her that would knock the Commissioner off his feet, all right. Here's my tracking stunt mapped out for me. I never claimed I could cook. Oh, cracky, here's my chance!"

He got the word "Cracky" from Roy.

As he turned and cast a last look toward the house someone (a woman, he thought) seemed to be waving her arm from one of the upper cas.e.m.e.nts.

He could not make up his mind whether she was beckoning to him or only scrubbing the window. Then he entered the woods where the ground was spa.r.s.ely covered with pine-needles.

He had to stoop and search for the guiding mark and there were places where for thirty or forty feet at a stretch it was not visible, but the tumbled appearance of the pine-needle carpet showed where someone had recently pa.s.sed. Then the marks took him into a beaten way and he jogged along with hope mounting high.

He had tracked for more than twenty-five minutes and a very skillful tracking it had been, entirely independent of its possible result. So far as the tracking requirement was concerned he had fulfilled that in good measure, and the possible danger in connection with it would commend it strongly to the Scout Commissioner. Moreover, the deductive work which preceded the tracking and the chivalrous motive would surely make up for any lack in first aid and cooking. "One thing has to make up for another," he thought, recalling Mr. Ellsworth's words.

He was breathing hard, partly from a nervous fear as to what he should do if he succeeded in overtaking the robber, and his little celluloid membership booklet with the precious bill in it, flapped against his chest as he hurried on. "I'll be in the Second Cla.s.s before Pee-wee,"

he thought.

Suddenly he came to a dead stop as he saw a figure sitting against the trunk of a tree a couple of hundred feet away. The tree trunk was between himself and the man and about all he could see was two knees drawn up.

Now was the time for discretion. Tom was a husky enough boy; he seemed much larger since he had acquired the scout habit of standing straight, but he was not armed and he felt certain that the stranger was.

"I wish I had Roy's moccasins," he thought.

He retreated behind a tree himself and quietly removed his shoes. The position of the stranger was favorable for a stealthy approach and Tom advanced cautiously. A flask lay beside the man and he was just taking a measure of encouragement in the prospect of the man's being asleep when the drawn-up knees went down with a sudden start and the figure rose spasmodically, reeled slightly and clutched the tree.

Tom stepped back a pace, staring, for it was the face of Bill Slade which was leering, half stupidly, at him.

"Stay--stay where you are," said Tom, his voice tense with fear and astonishment, as his father made a step toward him. "I--I tracked you-stay where you are--I--didn' know who I wuz trackin'--I didn'. Don't you come no nearer. I--I wouldn' do yer no hurt--I wouldn'."

It was curious how in his dismay and agitation he fell into the old hoodlum phraseology and spoke to his father just as he used to do when the greasy, rickety dining-table was between them.

The elder Slade was a pathetic spectacle. He had gone down quite as fast as his son had gone up. He leered at the boy with red and heavy eyes out of a face which had not been shaved in many a day. His cheek bones protruded conspicuously. The coat which at the time of Mrs.

Slade's funeral had been black and which Tom remembered as a sort of grayish brown, was now the color of newly rusted iron. His shoe, which had turned traitor to him and whispered the direction of his flight to the trailing scout, was tied with a piece of cord. He was thin, even emaciated, and there was a little twitch in his eye which grotesquely counterfeited a wink, and which jarred Tom strangely. He did not know whether it was his lately-acquired habit of observation which made him notice this or whether it was a new warning from Mother Nature to his father. But Tom was not afraid of a man whose eye twitched like that.

He stood as firm as Roy Blakeley had stood that night of his first meeting with him. That is what it means to be a scout for two months.

"Yer--a--a one o' them soldier lads, hey, Tommy?" said his father unsteadily.

"You stay there," said Tom. "Yer seen what I d-did ter de marshal. I'm stronger now than I wuz then, but I'm--I'm gon'er be loyal."

"Yer one o' them soldier fellers, hey?"

"I'm a scout of the Second Cla.s.s," said Tom with a tremor in his voice: "or I would be if 'twasn't for you. I--I can't tell 'em the trackin' I done _now_. I gotter obey the law."

"Yer wouldn' squeal on yer father, would yer, Tommy?" said Slade, advancing with a suggestion of menace. "I wouldn' want ter choke yer."

Tom received this half-sneeringly, half-pityingly. He felt that he could have stuck out his finger and pushed his father over with it, so strong was he.

"Gimme the pin yer took," he said. "I don't care about nothin' else-but gimme the pin yer took."

"What pin?" grumbled Slade.

"You know what pin."

"Yer think I'd steal?" his father menaced.

"I _know_ yer did an' I want that pin."

For a minute the elder Slade glared at his son with a look of fury. He made a start toward him and Tom stood just as Roy had stood, without a stir.