THE NEW SCOUT

Now comes the part of our bee-line hike that I like best because we had to go through woods and open country. Houses and villages are all right, but me for the open country. There wasn’t any one following us now, there were no buildings or anything like that ahead, and it seemed quiet and lonely. Up to that time our hike had been sort of like a circus, only more so. But pretty soon, oh, boy, it wasn’t much like a circus, because something pretty serious happened.

It was beginning to get dusk by that time and there were kind of like little dabs of dark red on the top of the ridge. Away up on the peak of the big poplar tree was a dab of red and all the rest of it was dark. It seemed awful clear against the sky, that tree. I kind of thought how all day long the sun had been on a bee-line hike too, going straight west. “If the sun can do it, we can do it,” that’s what I said. It would be nice up there under that tree in the dusk. I was hoping that we’d get there soon so we could start a fire. Then my mother could see that from the porch and she’d know we were all right. Because we’d come back around by the road and that would be easy. We could take the jitney on the state road right up there on the ridge and go straight to Bridgeboro station. I don’t know if you know where the Bridgeboro station is, but it’s right near Bennett’s.

Now I’ll tell you about the country from Little Valley to west ridge. First it’s easy, across fields. Then you come to Westcott’s Hill. Gee whiz, I don’t know what he ever wanted to own a hill like that for. The side nearest Little Valley isn’t very steep but going down the other side it’s pretty steep. On that side the hill is sort of broken off like. We weren’t worrying because we knew there’d be some way down. We should worry about hills. At the foot of that hill is a deep cut where the railroad goes through. On the other side of the railroad tracks the ridge begins. Before you get to the ridge there’s a pond—a pretty big one. Up the side of the ridge are woods.

Now most all the way from Little Valley to the ridge we could see the tree. There were only two places where we couldn’t see it. One was just before we got to the hill. But after we got part way up the hill we could see it again. The other place was west of the hill, in the hollow. We knew how it would be there but we didn’t care because we had our compass. We intended to go up through the woods on the ridge with our compass.

It was pretty easy going till we got up to the top of the hill but then we saw that it was going to be pretty hard getting down it, it was so steep. It went down a little way, maybe ten feet, almost straight. Then there was a kind of a little slanting shelf with all grass and bushes. We didn’t know how it was below that slanting shelf because we couldn’t see. Maybe it was so that we could climb down. If it wasn’t it would have to be pretty steep.

So we stood on the top of the hill thinking what we would do.

Warde Hollister said, “The only thing to do is for one of us to climb down on that ledge and look over and see how steep it is below. Then we’ll know whether we can make it or not. There’s no use turning back till we know we have to.”

“Turning back?” I said.

“Well, what else are we going to do if we can’t get down this hill?” he wanted to know.

“All our day’s hike for nothing?” Westy said.

“I didn’t say I’m for turning back,” Warde said. “But this isn’t a case of ringing front door bells and getting on the right side of people. Maybe scouts like Nature, but Nature doesn’t care much about scouts.”

“You said something,” I told him. “But, gee whiz, we don’t want to turn back.”

He said, “Well, there’s no use crying till we’re hurt. We’ve got to find out how steep it is below and that ought to be easy.”

He started throwing off his jacket.

“Only you’d better be careful,” I said. “That ledge is kind of slanting.”

“It’s all full of bushes,” he said.

“How will you get up again if you have to come back?” one of the fellows asked him.

“A couple of you can reach down,” he said. “There’s a good foothold up on top here.”

I didn’t like the idea of his doing that. But I didn’t like the idea of turning back either.

After leaving Little Valley I guess we had all begun to think it would be easy going on account of there not being any streets or houses in our way. Because, one thing, scouts are used to the open country. We never thought about running into anything like that. It came all of a sudden, like, and there we were with the big tree on the ridge across the valley, plain to see, and we couldn’t seem to get any farther. Gee williger, it was pretty hard for any of us to think about turning back then, after going right straight for that tree all day long.

“I don’t know about that,” Westy said. He’s always careful.

Warde said, “Well, what are we going to do then? Turn back? We could go north and down the hill where it’s easy, but that wouldn’t be a bee-line hike.”

I said, “This is a bee-line hike; it’s either straight west or home, victory or defeat. No beating around the bush.”

“That’s us!” they all shouted.

Warde said, “Well, then, we’ve either got to go on or turn back. And I’m going to find out which we have to do. There’s no use standing here talking about it. If we’re beaten, we might as well know it. We can be good losers, I hope. We can either go down this hill or we can’t and I’m not going to say we can’t till I know we can’t. That’s the kind of a scout I’m—going to be.”

“You mean it’s the kind of a scout you are,” I told him. “And I’m glad to have you in my patrol, I’ll tell you that!”

“Maybe this hill can beat me,” he said; “but it can’t fool me. Here, hold my jacket.”

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