IT never rains but it pours, and the conversion of Mrs. Bennett to scouting was shortly followed by the greatest catch of the season.

Charlie O’Connor came into the troop on the same wave which brought Connover, and East End contingent, though it did not surrender as yet, retired to the sweltering and almost deserted Bridgeboro, and tried to kindle a fire in Temple’s lot after the Camp Ellsworth fashion. The effort was not very successful.

The next day Jakie Mattenburg, on the strength of talk he had overheard in camp, tried his hand, or rather, his foot, at stalking, and was surprised to find that it was rather more interesting to watch the movements of a sparrow than to throw stones at it.

It could hardly be said that this band of seasoned hoodlums made much immediate progress toward scouting, but they remembered their rescue from the river at Roy’s hands, and they accorded him thereafter a grudging measure of consideration which, in the fullness of time, blossomed into genuine friendship. They were, in fact, the future Elk Patrol in its chrysalis form; but their career as scouts is part of another story.

A few days after the events of the preceding chapter the troop’s birthday was celebrated in camp and Connover and Charlie O’Connor submitted themselves to Roy, who tied a pink ribbon about the right arm of each. From Connover’s ribbon depended a card reading,

Chief
With Many Happy Returns from
The Silver Foxes

while Charlie O’Connor was presented as the gift of the Ravens.

The presentations were made at supper and the two tenderfeet were led (with rather sheepish faces) to Mr. Ellsworth at the head of the table and tendered to him in true birthday fashion amid much laughter.

Roy made a characteristic speech. “These two valuable gifts are presented to our beloved scoutmaster with twelve profit-sharing coupons. When you get one hundred of these coupons take them to Temple’s lot in Bridgeboro and receive a new scout.

“Honorable Charles O’Connor has always had brothers enough, but now he has a few hundred thousand more, so he ought to be satisfied. This priceless gift” (grabbing Connover by his pink ribbon) “was very difficult to procure; it is what you have always wanted. If it doesn’t fit you can exchange it. Honorable Bennover Connett is the only survivor, ladies and gentlemen—­the only survivor of the extinct Eureka Patrol! The Eureka Patrol was a part of the only original Cock and Bull Troop of Nowhere-in-Particular. The records of this troop, known as the Dan Dreadnought Series, are donated to Camp Ellsworth for fuel in case the kindling wood runs short. Full and implicit directions go with each gift.”

It was a gala occasion in camp and the troop sat late about the roaring fire that night.

They were just raking up the last embers preparatory to turning in when they were startled by the sound of running footsteps, and out of the darkness emerged a dark-cloaked figure with streaming hair and glints of white under the heavy garment which she wore.

“I—­lost the path,” she gasped, “and—­and then I saw your—­light—­and-oh, Mr. Ellsworth—­the house—­was robbed and James—­is shot and-there’s another man shot—­and it was all planned for they’ve cut the wires—­and we have to get help—­a doctor——­”

It was Mary Temple who gasped this shocking news and then all but collapsed from fear and haste and excitement. An automobile coat had been donned over her nightdress. For a few moments she was utterly unable to give a coherent account of what had happened at Five Oaks. The few minutes during which she had been lost in the woods, together with the appalling events at home, had quite unnerved her and she clung to Mr. Ellsworth, looking affrightedly about her as if she were being pursued.

He did not wait to get at the details. Something had happened and medical aid was needed. That was apparent.

“Did they send you?” he asked.

“No—­I just came—­I know scouts can do anything.”

“Yes,” he said concurrently.

“Of course, we can’t get a real doctor, but—­”

“We can try,” said a voice.

She looked up startled, and in the last dying glow of the fire she saw the stolid face of Tom Slade. It was the first time she had seen him since her mother’s mishap and their visit at camp, though she knew from Roy of his tracking feat and recovery of her pin. She knew too of his night in the lock-up, but no knowledge of his father’s connection with the affair had come to her.

“I meant—­I was coming to thank you—­Tom; truly, I was——­”

But Tom had turned away and presently she saw an agile figure spring after him.

“Are you going to try for it, Tom?” said Roy. “It’s after one o’clock.”

“He sometimes stays there till two—­he told me—­he’ll be there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I want him to be.” “Mary thinks you snubbed her, Tom; why didn’t you speak to her?”

“I wish I had her ball to toss back,” said Tom.

It was odd that he should think of that now.

In the lean-to Roy lit the lantern and presently the whole troop was divided into two groups; one was getting ready the stretcher and helping Doc Carson, and the other stood about the lean-to watching Tom, who sat on the rickety grocery box before the wireless apparatus. Roy stood anxiously at his shoulder; the others waited, speaking to each other in an undertone occasionally, but never to Tom. By common consent they seemed to leave this thing for him to do, and there was about him a certain detachment from the others which suggested slightly his manner that day when he had been arrested.

Boys came and went, Mr. Ellsworth and others departed hastily with Doc, the little group in the lean-to watched and waited while Tom, apparently unconscious of all about him, sat there adjusting his spark gap. Occasionally he spoke in an undertone to Roy, but seemed oblivious of all else.

“R. V., isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Roy.

“Better look and make sure.”

Roy consulted a note book. “R. V. is right,” said he.

Tom laid his hand upon the key and adjusted his head receivers. Then up into the darkness and out into the vast trackless sky went the call for R. V.

It was then the boys noticed the cloaked figure of the girl standing in the background watching. “I thought you went with Doc and Mr. Ellsworth,” someone said.

“He said I might stay,” she answered timidly.

Tom glanced around and saw her, but showed no interest. Roy sat on the edge of the instrument table, anxiously waiting.

“They can’t cut this kind of wires,” he said cheerily to Mary as if to make up for Tom’s silence.

Eagerly she watched Tom. She seemed fascinated with his absorption and with every slight move of his hand.

“Nothing doing?” said Roy with a note of discouragement.

Tom made no answer, only adjusted the sending instrument to a different wave-length.

“Too late, Tommy boy,” Roy said.

Tom paid no attention, only in dogged silence adjusted the sending instrument to another wavelength and readjusted the tuning-coil.

Mary watched him anxiously. She too seemed all by herself—­a strange, wide-eyed figure, standing apart with the great auto cloak about her, silently watching and not daring to ask a question.

“Who did you say was hurt?” Tom asked at length, without turning.

“A burglar and James—­our chauffeur, you know—­they were both shot.”

“Have you got him?” asked Roy excitedly.

“Nope.”

He adjusted the tuning coil again and waited patiently.

“Too late, Tom.”

No answer. Then suddenly Tom’s hand flew to the sending key, and as the letters of the Morse Code clicked away into the night a slight smile crept over his face. There was no member of the troop who could use the Morse alphabet with such rapidity as Tom, and he often thought (but seldom spoke) of that first message he and Roy had flashed together from the little tower on Blakeley’s Hill.

“Up?” asked Roy.

“Sure he’s up; wait till I get his O. K.”

Back through the night and down to this boy at the rough table and to the tense little group of watchers came the “O. K.” which assured them that the message was understood.

Tom rose and Mary Temple impulsively made a step toward him, then paused half-embarrassed.

She actually stood a little in awe of Tom Slade, of Barrel Alley, who had cheated her and stolen her ball. And Tom Slade, Scout, who was sure of himself and afraid of nothing, was very much in awe of this young girl. And Roy Blakeley, his chum, understood and took the timid, admiring girl into his own charge and so the little party made its way out of the dark woods and across the bridge to Five Oaks.

Mary Temple felt very much as Tom had felt the day after his own first essay at signalling. She knew it was a wireless apparatus he had used (she would have asked questions of him if she had dared), and she supposed that he was calling a doctor. She had experienced a thrill of admiration at the quiet, stolid exhibition of skill, and his apparent aloofness had only deepened her admiration into awe. But as Tom himself had felt so long ago, she wanted to see the tangible result of this work which was such a mystery to her.

Tom hurried stolidly along with Pee-wee and Charlie O’Connor, with that clumsy gait which he had never entirely overcome, and which, ever so faintly, suggested the old shuffle. Whether there was any foreboding in his mind none of his companions knew for he was never talkative, but in the light of what soon happened, it occurred to them afterward that he had known all along what was before him, that he knew what he should see at Five Oaks, and that, like the good scout, he was prepared.

On the way Roy gleaned from Mary more of what had taken place. It appeared that Mr. Temple, hearing sounds in the rooms below, had rung for the gardener who, with the chauffeur, had come from the garage and entered a back door, letting themselves in by means of the chauffeur’s key. They were just passing through the foyer when three masked men rushed out of the breakfast room. One got away carrying some loot, not, however, before he had shot and seriously wounded James, the chauffeur, who had dropped in the hall with a bullet in his thigh.

Neither of Mr. Temple’s men recalled what became of the second man more than that he disappeared, they thought, empty-handed. The third had made for an open window and was just climbing out when the gardener shot him and he fell to the ground outside, where he still lay when the scouts arrived.

The gardener insisted that the man had drawn a revolver, but no revolver could be found about him.

It was then discovered that the burglary was a well-planned affair, for the telephone wires had been severed, and it was upon discovery of this fact that Mary had hurried to Camp Ellsworth.

Doc Carson was busy with James, who had been lifted to a couch in the hall, when Mary saw the tangible result of Tom’s message in the form of two dazzling acetylene headlights coming under the porte cochÈre, and the doctor stepping briskly into the house.

“Oh, Tom,” she exclaimed, with as much delight as the occasion would permit, and with gratitude in every note of her voice. “He came, just as you——­Oh, where is he?” she broke off suddenly, as she noticed that Tom was not there.

It was then and not until then that a quick thought flashed upon Roy and he hurried out and around the house.

There, under the bay-window, lay a motionless form. Tom was bending over it and Roy could hear his quick, short breaths as he tried to control his emotion.

“Is he dead, Tom?” Roy asked softly.

“It’s—­it’s my father.”

“Yes, I know. Is he dead?”

“Get the doctor—­I’m glad it was me sent the message for him.”

It was another culmination of another triumph.

“I’m glad too, Tom.”

“They’ll have to see him—­they’ll have to know now. You tell the doctor. I got to be loyal. Tell Mr.—­Mr. Ellsworth he’s got to remember what he said, that there wasn’t no First Bridgeboro Troop when he was a boy—­you heard him say that.”

“He will remember it, Tom.”

“Get the doctor—­quick!”

Tom bent lower over the motionless form of his father as if he were asking a question.

Chapter XX