The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound Part 27

"Count me in too," added Sim Jeffreys. "I feel pretty sick of the whole business, and we can't get back home any too soon to suit me."

"Same here," muttered Bud Phillips, who had kept looking at Paul for some time in a furtive way, as though he had something on his mind that he was strongly tempted to communicate to the scout leader.

"So you see that settles it," grinned Hank. "Even if I wanted to hang out here all the rest o' the holidays, three agin one is most too much. We'd be havin' all sorts o' rows every day. Yep, we'll start fur home the fust chance we git."

That pleased Paul, and was what he had hoped to hear.

"Of course," he went on to say to Hank, "it's a whole lot shorter cutting across country to Stanhope than going around by way of Lake Tokala and the old ca.n.a.l that leads from the Radway into the Bushkill river; but you want to be mighty careful of your compa.s.s points, or you might get lost."

"Sure thing, Paul," remarked the other, confidently; "but that's my long suit, you ought to know. Never yet did git lost, an' I reckon I ain't a-goin' to do it now. I'll lay it all out and make the riffle, don't you worry about that same."

"We came over that way, you know," interrupted Jud Mabley, "and left blazes on the trees in places where we thought we might take the wrong trail goin' back."

"That was a wise thing to do," said Paul, "and shows that some of you ought to be in the scout movement, for you've got it in you to make good."

"Tried it once you 'member, Paul, but your crowd didn't want anything to do wi' me, so I cut it out," grumbled Jud, though he could not help looking pleased at being complimented on the woodcraft of their crowd by such an authority as the scout-master.

Paul turned from Jud and looked straight into the face of the leader.

"Hank," he said earnestly, "you know just as well as I do that Jud was blackballed not because we didn't believe he had it in him to make an excellent scout, but for another reason. Excuse me if I'm blunt about it, but I mean it just as much for your good as I did bringing this food all the way over here to help you out. Every one of you has it in him to make a good scout, if only he would change certain ways he now has."

Hank looked down at his feet, and remained silent for a brief time, during which he doubtless was having something of an inward fight.

"All right, Paul," he suddenly remarked, looking up again grimly. "I ain't a-goin' to git mad 'cause you speak so plain. If you fellers'd go to all the trouble to fight your way over here, and fetch us this food, I reckon as how I've been readin' you the wrong way."

"You have, Hank! You certainly have!" affirmed Bobolink, who was greatly interested in this effort on the part of Paul to bring about a change in the boys who had taken such malicious delight in annoying the scouts whenever the opportunity arose.

"Believe this, Hank," said Paul earnestly; "if you only chose to change your ways, none of you would be blackballed the next time you tried to join the organization. There's no earthly reason why all of you shouldn't be accepted as candidates if only you can subscribe to the iron-bound rules we work under, and which every one of us has to obey. Think it over, won't you, boys? It might pay you."

"Reckon we will, Paul," muttered Hank, though he shook his head at the same time a little doubtfully, as though deep down in his heart he feared they could never overcome the feeling of prejudice that had grown up against them in Stanhope.

"I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to start back home," continued Paul, thinking he had already said enough to fulfill his duty as a scout.

"In another day or so it's likely to warm up a bit, and you'll find it more comfortable on the way."

"Just what I was thinkin' myself, Paul," agreed Hank. "We've got stacks of grub now, thanks to you and your crowd, and we c'n git enough wood in places, now you've opened our dooryard fur us. Yep, we'll hang out till it feels some warmer, and then cut sticks fur home."

"Here's a rough map I made out that may be useful to you, Hank,"

continued the scout-master, "if you happen to lose your blazed trail.

Tolly Tip helped me get it up, and as he's been across to Stanhope many times he ought to know every foot of the way."

"It might come in handy, an' I'll take the same with thanks, Paul,"

Hank observed, with all his customary aggressive ways lacking. There is nothing so well calculated to take the spirit out of a boy as acute hunger.

When they had talked for some little time longer, Paul decided that it was time for him and his chums to start back to the cabin. Those afternoons in late December were very short, and night would be down upon them almost before they knew it.

It was just then that Bud Phillips seemed to have made up his mind to say something that had been on the tip of his tongue ever since he realized under what great obligations the scouts had placed him and his partners.

"Seems like I oughtn't to let you get away from here, Paul, without tellin' somethin' that I reckon might be interestin' to you all," he went on to say.

"All right, Bud, we'll be glad to hear it," the scout-master observed, with a smile, "though for the life of me I can't guess what it's all about."

"Go ahead Bud, and dish it out!" urged Bobolink, impatiently.

CHAPTER XXVIII

MORE STARTLING NEWS

Bud Phillips looked somewhat confused. Apparently, he did not figure any too well in what he felt it his duty to confess to Paul and his chums.

"I'm ashamed that I kept mum about it when the old man accused some of you fellers of startin' the fire, an' gettin' at his tight wad," he went on to say; and it can be easily understood that this beginning gave Paul a start.

"Oh! it's about that ugly business, is it?" the scout-master remarked, frowning a little, for, naturally, he instantly conceived the idea that Hank and his three reckless cronies must have had a hand in that outrage.

That Hank guessed what was flitting through the other's mind was plainly indicated by the haste with which he cried out:

"Don't git it in your head we had anything to do with that fire, Paul, nor yet with tappin' the old man's safe. I know we ain't got any too good reputations 'round Stanhope, but it's to be hoped we ain't dropped so low as that. Skip along, Bud, an' tell what you saw."

"Why, it's this way," continued the narrator, eagerly. "I chanced to be Johnny-on-the-spot that night, being 'mong the first to arrive when old Briggs started to scream that his store was afire. Never mind how it came that way. And Paul, I saw two figures a-runnin' away right when I came up, runnin' like they might be afraid o' bein' seen an'

grabbed."

"Were they close enough for you to notice who they were?" asked Paul, taking a deep interest in the narration, since he and his chums had been accused of doing the deed in the presence of many of Stanhope's good people.

"Oh! I saw 'em lookin' back as they hurried away," admitted Bud. "And, Paul, they were those same two tramps we had the trouble with that day. You remember we ran the pair out o' town, bombardin' 'em with rocks."

Paul could plainly see the happening in his memory, with the two hoboes turning when at a safe distance to shake their fists at the boys. Evidently their rough reception all around had caused them to have a bitter feeling toward the citizens of Stanhope, and they had come back later on to have their revenge.

"Now that I think of it," Paul went on to say, "they had just come out of the store when you ran afoul of the pair. The chances are that Mr. Briggs treated them as sourly as he does all their cla.s.s, and they were furiously mad at him."

"Yes," added Bobolink, "and while in there they must have noticed where he had his safe. Maybe they saw him putting money in it."

"I'm glad you told me this, Bud," the scout-master confessed, "because it goes part way to clear up the mystery of that fire and robbery."

"Bud was meanin' to tell all about it when we got back," said Hank.

"He kept still because he heard Briggs accuse you scouts of the fire racket, and Bud just then thought it too good a joke to spoil. But we've been talkin' it over, and come to the conclusion we owed it to the community to set 'em right."

This sounded rather lofty, but Paul guessed that there must be another reason back of the determination to tell. These fellows had decided that possibly suspicion might be directed toward them, and, as they had had enough trouble already without taking more on their shoulders, it would be the part of wisdom to start the ball rolling in the right quarter.

"Well, we must be going," said Paul.

"Do you reckon on stayin' out your time up here?" queried Hank.

"We haven't decided that yet," replied the scout-master; "but the chances are we shall conclude to cut the trip short and get back home.

This heavy snow has spoiled a good many plans we'd laid out; and we might be having a better time of it with the rest of the fellows at home. We're going to talk it over and by to-morrow settle on our plans."

"Here's where we get busy and start on the return hike," announced Tom Betts, just as cheerily as though he were not already feeling the effects of that stiff plunge through the deep snowdrifts, and secretly faced the return trip with more or less apprehension.