Tom Slade on the River Part 27

"Well, then, let him serve as a terrible example," laughed the scoutmaster. "I dare say there are a few others like him."

"Did he have any invisible badges on?" Doc asked slyly.

"Doesn't Toma.s.so look too sweet for anything?" teased Roy.

"Cut it out," grumbled Tom. "It's time to get supper."

They stayed at their mooring that night and lolled about on the cabin roof of the _Honor Scout_ while Harry Stanton strummed his ukulele and those who knew the soft music of the far-off Pacific isles hummed the airs which seem nowhere so melodious as on the water. A group of small boys from the unkempt waterside section caught the strains and shuffled down, grimy and ragged, to sprawl upon the piles of lumber on the wharf, staring with wide open eyes, and listening. To them it was like a circus come to town. To the scouts it was a new kind of camp fire.

In the morning they were gone, doubtless leaving a refreshing memory with the youthful denizens of that squalid neighborhood.

The Hudson above Troy is no longer of majestic beauty and the voyagers were not sorry for the novelty which presented when they entered the ca.n.a.l. At least, they did not have to "squint" for hidden perils, though the locks played sorry havoc with the beautiful enameled freeboard of the _Honor Scout_.

"Cruising in a ca.n.a.l is about as exciting as a hike on Broadway,"

commented Roy.

"You said something," agreed Connie.

It was not long, indeed, before the novelty began to wear off, and they were one and all glad when the boats emerged into the broad expanse of Lake Champlain.

"Lake Champlain," said Roy, contemplating it in his favorite att.i.tude, sitting on the cabin roof with his hands clasped about his updrawn knees; "Lake Champlain rises early in the morning, takes a northerly course, and flows into the sink. Correct, be seated, Master Blakeley."

They could accelerate their speed now and the _Good Turn_ had her work cut out for her keeping up, even with the _Honor Scout's_ motor throttled down to half-speed.

"This is historic territory," said Mr. Ellsworth. "Almost every rock has its tale to tell of the b.l.o.o.d.y French and Indian War--"

"I hope they won't tell them," said Roy. "School's closed."

But for all that he was interested as "our beloved scoutmaster" recalled some of the stirring events which occurred along the rugged, historic sh.o.r.es between which they were pa.s.sing. They paused to see the ruins of the old Revolutionary fort at Crown Point, and the restored fort at Ticonderoga, with its underground pa.s.sage to the sh.o.r.e.

The first night of their cruise through the lake they tied up at Port Henry and early in the morning sallied forth into the town for oil, gasoline and supplies, replenishing their depleted stock sufficiently for the fifty mile run up to Plattsburg.

"Believe _me_, this is some hike," said Roy.

"I dare say it looks about the same," mused Mr. Ellsworth, glancing about at the wild sh.o.r.e, "as it did when Champlain sailed through it with his Indian guides--"

"That was sumpty-sump years ago," said Artie Van Arlen, "you have him in the third grade."

"Maybe he stopped at Port Henry for gasoline," suggested Roy.

"I hope he didn't have to pay twenty-three cents for it," said Connie.

For about fifteen miles above Port Henry the lake is comparatively narrow, then it opens up to a breadth of ten miles or more, becoming a veritable inland-sea, with the rolling hills of Vermont reaching far eastward and merging in the distance with the lofty Green Mountains.

About ten miles above Port Henry, and at the narrowest part of the lake's narrow stretch, there rises upon the New York side an extent of precipitous and rugged height known as the Split Rock Mountain. On the landward side the slope from the mountain is easy enough, but toward the lake this irregular eminence presents a steep surface interspersed with woody patches and gray rock. Nestling under this forbidding height is a narrow area of marshy woodland between it and the sh.o.r.e.

It is related that in the olden days a Mohawk warrior, being pursued and finding himself upon this dizzy summit without an arrow to his bow, tried to scramble down and losing his foothold was precipitated against trees and over rocks and his mangled body became a prey to vultures in the wooded swamp below. There are guides about that historic water who can point you where his skeleton and tomahawk were found-if you are disposed to venture within that tangled mora.s.s.

As the little flotilla approached this spot, Tom who was steering the smaller boat noticed a green canoe drawn up at the wood's edge, and he called to Roy, sprawling on the cabin of the _Honor Scout_, to look.

"It's a canoe all right, ain't it?" he called.

"Sure it is," answered Roy.

"It's the same color as the woods, that's why you can't see it plainer,"

said Will Bronson, looking through the field gla.s.s.

Scarcely had he spoken when two scouts emerged at the sh.o.r.e and busied themselves at the canoe for a moment or two.

"Why, that's the red-headed fellow we saw in Albany!" said Artie, who had taken the gla.s.s. "I can see him plain."

"Sure it is," added Roy. "You can recognize him without the gla.s.s."

The scouts on the larger boat pa.s.sed the gla.s.s from one to another, though most of them could distinguish the boy without it.

"His hair is as red as a brick, isn't it?" said Mr. Ellsworth.

"That's him, all right," said Tom, ungrammatically, from the other boat.

They were almost abreast of the spot when the two boys disappeared in the woods. Roy had meant to hail them and perhaps would still have done so but for the fact that the freckled scout presently reappeared alone climbing up the precipitous slope.

"You don't suppose he's going to try to climb that, do you?" Mr.

Ellsworth queried as he watched.

"Looks that way," said Connie.

"Wonder where the other fellow is."

The other scout did not appear, and they watched the agile form as it scrambled up the almost sheer face of the mountain. The sunlight was falling upon the dull face of rock and touching the spa.r.s.e vegetation with its bright glow, and they recognized the boy clearly now, even to his red hair which shone when it caught the rays of the sun.

"Well-that's-some stunt!" exclaimed Garry, in amazement. "Do you suppose their camp is up there?"

"They ought to call themselves the Eagles, if it is," said Roy.

"Watch him," called Tom from the other boat.

The eyes of the whole troop were upon the nimble figure as it worked its way upward, now scrambling, now climbing among trees, now going zigzag over a precipitous area.

"Some monkey, hey?" called Garry, to the boys in the smaller boat, where Harry Stanton watched, fascinated.

"Some scout, all right," one of the O'Connor boys called back.

"That's a most amazing feat," said the scoutmaster, watching with the gla.s.s.

Soon the agile form, verging to right or left to follow a path of less resistance and sometimes pausing to use his brains as a scout should, had reached a little clump of freakish trees, growing out of rock, and for a few moments he was hidden from the distant watchers.

They had shut off the power of both boats and lay drifting. A scout is brother to every other scout, and I dare say the whole party took a pride in the scout who dared attempt so hazardous an undertaking.