The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill Part 17

Twenty minutes later he had Bill in his arms and Benny was building the biggest fire that had been seen on Greylock since I could remember. We were watching for it down below and knew that everything was all right.

"Now," said Pa, "let's have some supper. I don't know about William, but I feel hungry."

It was late at night when they finally brought Bill home. Mrs. Wilson nearly had a fit again when she saw them carrying him into the yard on a stretcher.

"Speak to her, son," said his father, "so that she will know you are alive."

Bill propped himself up on one elbow and gave such a yell that it scared the neighbors, and ended with a caw. Then she knew that it was all right and felt better.

Skinny was the proudest fellow you ever saw because we had found Bill.

It made him real chesty and we all felt good about it.

"Say, we're the stuff," said he. "If you don't believe it, watch our smoke. That's all I've got to say. Hurry up and get well, Bill, so we can have a meeting and tell about our hikes. I want to see a First Cla.s.s Scout badge on my manly bosom."

We were sitting in Bill's house at the time, to cheer him up a little because he couldn't go out without a crutch.

"What's the matter with having the meeting here?" said Bill. "I don't suppose Mr. Norton will give me a badge because I haven't delivered his message yet, but I'd like to hear what the rest of you did. I can't get out for a few days. When I do, I'm going to North Adams and back, if it takes a whole leg. Believe me."

"You did more than any of us," Benny told him, "badge or no badge."

"I guess you won't chase over the mountain the next time," I said. "When you stick to the roads there don't anything happen."

"Oh, there don't, don't they?" exclaimed Skinny. "Say, you fellers ought to have been with me. There was something doing every minute. Ma says it's a wonder that I'm alive. I've had awfully hard work to keep from telling about it."

"Tell us about it now."

"Not much, you wouldn't be able to sleep to-night. Besides, it might make Bill's ankle worse."

"Great snakes!" said Bill. "There ain't anything the matter with me, only it hurts me to step on my foot. Come on, Skinny. Let's have it."

"No-p. We've got to have a meetin' first."

"Suppose that you have your meeting here to-night," said Mrs. Wilson, who had come into the room in time to hear what we were talking about.

"Willie is a great deal better and I can have him take a nap to brace him for the story. If you boys will come around after supper you can meet right in this room, and perhaps, I don't say for sure, perhaps the neighbors will bring in some ice cream to quiet your nerves and make you sleep."

"May we bring Mr. Norton?" I asked. "He is our Scoutmaster and he ought to be with us when we tell about the doings of the patrol."

"Surely you can. He is coming, anyway. He sent word this morning that he would call to-night."

We met at Skinny's a little before eight o'clock and went over in a bunch. On the way Skinny told us what to do.

"When we get to the gate," said he, "let's stop and each one caw three times."

"What for?" I asked. "We know that he is there; don't we? Besides Bill is sick. Maybe we'd better keep quiet."

"Sick nothin'! He ain't any more sick than I am. He said so himself.

He's hurt his ankle a little, that's all. Ankles can't hear, can they?"

"Maybe it will cheer him up to hear us," I told him. "He can't get out, you know. It is hard to be cooped up in the house that way, and Fourth of July coming."

"Anyhow," said Benny, "let's not all caw at once. We can take turns and it will not make so much noise."

That was what we did, standing just outside the gate, where we could see a light streaming through an open window in Bill's room.

Skinny led off with three. I followed, and the others in turn, ending with Benny. Skinny said that it sounded like the booming of minute guns in some battle or other, that he read about in a book.

Say, it surprised the folks living around there. Before we were half through, they came running out of their houses to see what was going on.

It made us feel proud and we were just going to do it over again, when we heard Bill cawing in the house and Mrs. Wilson threw the door open and stood there laughing.

"I judge by the sound," said she, "that the Ravens have arrived and are in good voice."

We found Bill sitting in a big chair, with his foot propped up and his eyes s.h.i.+ning.

At first we didn't know just how to act, until in a few minutes Mr.

Norton came and then Mrs. Wilson brought in some ice cream and some cl.u.s.ters of strawberries, with dishes of powdered sugar to dip them into.

We knew how to act then, all right, and for a few minutes we were too busy to talk.

I am not going to tell what all the Scouts did on that hike. I already have told what happened to some of us. There didn't much happen to most of them, anyhow, any more than there did to me. It was different with Skinny. Something almost always happened to him.

CHAPTER X

A MAIDEN IN DISTRESS

"FELLERS," Skinny had told us, when we were getting ready to start on the hike, "you always ought to carry a rope. Something happens every time when you don't have a rope along."

"It happens when you do," Benny said. "Anyhow, a rope is too much bother. A blanket and a frying pan and things like that are all I want to carry."

"A rope is the thing, just the same. Didn't I la.s.so the robber last summer out on Illinois River, at Starved Rock? How could I la.s.so anything without a rope? And didn't we let you down into Horseshoe Canyon with a rope and pull Alice What's-her-name up again?"

"Bet your life we did," Bill put in. "You need a rope when you are camping out or are in a boat on the river, but what good is it in walking seven miles?"

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't; but, just the same, you'll be sorry if you don't take one along."

He was right, too, for Bill told us afterward that he would have given a good deal for a rope when he was sitting on top of Greylock. He didn't need it for anything, only, he said, it would have been sort of company for him.

Skinny was bound to carry a rope. When he marched down Center Street with it coiled around his shoulders, over his blanket, and with his tomahawk in his belt, people ran out of the stores to look at him.

The road that he took is uphill a good part of the way. It goes up through the foothills of the east mountain and isn't easy walking. We slide down that road sometimes in winter. When the coasting is good we can slide nearly a mile, clear into the village; then hitch on to a bob and ride back again for another.

There were no bobs for Skinny. It was warm in the sun and he loafed along, taking it easy and looking for somebody to rescue. Once he stopped to help a man in a field. Along about ten or eleven o'clock he began to get hungry and tired. No matter where he looked there didn't anything happen, so he made up his mind to take a long rest the next time he came to some good shade, and maybe to cook his dinner.

A half-mile farther on he came to a real shady spot by the roadside, under a tree which stood in a corner of a pasture on the other side of a fence. A tiny stream crossed the road, and ran down through the pasture.

This was the place he had been looking for and, after drinking, he threw himself down on the ground and went to sleep.