  The mysterious fisherman, none the less, was pushed out of Dirk’s mind by the crowded hours of the camp routine. There were still half a dozen blank spaces on the emblem card that pointed his way to the Long Trail; and as the end of the week drew near, he was in a fever of excitement, wondering if ever he would complete all the needful tests in time. His day of service as aide to Tent One was finished without mishap; and late the same afternoon he managed, after scorching a pan of rice and burning his fingers, to produce an edible meal cooked over an open fire built by himself. On Friday morning he rose before Reveille and in company with Long Jim Avery and Nig Jackson penetrated silently into the dewy woods, noting the plumage and song of many birds that Long Jim pointed out to the interested boys. At the performance that evening of the Lenape Vode-Villians on the improvised stage in the lodge, he won applause with a short act entitled “A Wee Drop of Scotch.” In golf sox, a kilt made of a plaid blanket, and a tam-o’-shanter, he sang several songs of Scotland and cracked all the jokes he knew about the canny race, marking his points with a crooked and knobbed cane cut from one of Farmer Podgett’s apple trees. One by one the blank spaces on the card were filled in by the initials of some councilor. On Saturday afternoon Dirk, after helping Jim Avery after lunch at the store, raced to the boat dock and took his final swimming test, diving into the water head-first as Brick Ryan had taught him, and rounding a life-boat stationed fifty yards out, in all handling himself so neatly that he won a nod from Wally Rawn and a promise to be allowed to help keep the score in the inter-tent Boat Regatta that afternoon. Dirk arose at dawn on Sunday morning, when around him all the camp was asleep. He shivered as he looked into the misty drizzle that fell among the pines; but screwing up his resolution, threw off the warm blankets and slipped into his heavier clothing and high laced boots. His woodcraft exhibit, a rustic birchwood bench circling the wild-cherry tree beyond the lodge, was still uncompleted; and his skill at axmanship was far from great. He sighed as he shouldered his hand ax and went through the dripping woods to a grove of birches beyond the Council Ring; but the work warmed him in short order, and he was soon whistling as he trimmed the smooth white saplings and split them for his purpose. It still lacked half an hour to Reveille—which always came later on Sundays—when Dirk stepped back from his work at the base of the cherry tree, and surveyed his progress. The little bench needed only a few more slats in the seat to be completed and ready for the use of all campers; the braces were as steady as Dirk could make them, each sunk some inches into the ground and set with wedged rocks. The boy stood sucking his thumb, which had received a blow of his ax-head instead of the nail at which he had aimed; and thus he was unaware that the Chief had approached in his silent fashion and was at his elbow. The Chief’s face was as unreadable as ever as he nodded in answer to Dirk’s “Good morning!” merely striding to the bench and testing it with his weight. Sitting there, he gazed at the eager lad and smiled gravely. “A good bench,” he said, and paused. Then: “Dirk, you’ve been working mighty hard on your emblem, haven’t you?” “I only have two more things to finish, sir.” “H’mm. Dirk, what would you say if I told you that, even if you finished these two things, you couldn’t go on the Long Trail this year?” The boy’s face went white, and he gulped. “I—I’d say you know best about that sir,” but his lip trembled with disappointment. The Chief, who had been watching him closely, laughed—rather cruelly, as Dirk thought. “Let me see your emblem card.” He took it from Dirk’s hand, and pointed to the thirteenth item. “It says here that any boy winning the Lenape honor emblem must show at all times the finest spirit as an all-round camper. Well, any boy who can answer me as you have just done——Look there!” He pointed behind the lodge, where a large hay-wagon pulled by two horses came into sight, sweeping toward the road leading up the mountain. Upon it were securely lashed three canoes—and on top, gleaming red, was the Sachem. The Sachem! The Chief was scrawling his initials on the two empty spaces of the card. Dirk let out a whoop like an Iroquois on the warpath. “I’m going, Chief!” he cried. “You mean it! I’m going on the Long Trail!” “It looks that way. Last night I got an answer from my telegram to your father. He’s given his permission for you to join Sagamore Carrigan’s trailers. You still have much to learn, Dirk, but with this new spirit of yours, I think you’ll win out!” He clasped hands with the dancing boy. At breakfast, Mr. Carrigan ordered that all Long Trailers report to him immediately to have their outfits inspected, and to receive instructions. Within fifteen minutes Dirk and Brick Ryan had carried several armloads of belongings up to the lodge porch and stacked them alongside of the kits of their five comrades who had been chosen to bear the Lenape flag. Cowboy Platt, lounging at the rail, opened his eyes wide as he took in the heap of things that Dirk had thought necessary to bring. “You shore must be goin’ to take a pack-hoss along to tote all that,” he remarked in his sleepy drawl. “Wait till old Wise-Tongue sees that pile, pardner!” Sure enough, when Mr. Carrigan arrived a few minutes later, his first words were on the necessity of “travelling light.” “We’re going Indian fashion,” he began, “and since each one of you will have to carry all your outfit on your back, we must take only the things that we cannot do without. Now, Dirk, suppose that when we come to the first portage, you have to pack all those clothes and shoes and that big flash-lantern, as well as your blankets and your end of the canoe! Let’s see what you can do without.” The councilor began laying aside only those belongings that would be needed on the trip. When he had finished, Dirk found his kit reduced to a sturdy hiking outfit of khaki shirt and breeches, puttees, and high shoes, a change of underclothing, a warm sweater, and four pairs of socks. In addition, he had for canoe-work a pair of shorts and light shoepacks. Since two boys would sleep together, one large warm blanket and rubber poncho apiece was adjudged sufficient, even though the mountain nights would be cool. “I’m glad to see you have a pocket compass and a good knife,” concluded Sagamore Carrigan. “I’ll take my large woodsman’s ax, and Sanders will take his hand ax—that should be enough for the whole party. Cowboy Platt here has offered to do all the cooking, if we take turns at K.P. I’ve drawn from the kitchen only the grub that we can’t get along the way, and we’ll save it for ‘iron rations’ in the back-country. Ellick also gave me some pots and pans, but each trailer will have to take his own cup and plate and fork. Before we leave tomorrow, I’ll have another inspection and try to see that we don’t forget anything we need. Have your blanket-rolls ready immediately after breakfast. Any questions about outfits?” Spaghetti Megaro and young Brown had need of the councilor’s advice about selecting certain of their garments. After he had given it, he unrolled a large map and tacked it to the pine shingles of the lodge wall, where all could see. “I want you trailers to get every line of this map into your minds,” he urged. “Learn it so you could draw it blindfolded. It will be riding in my pocket for the whole trip, and whenever any of you has a minute to spare, study it. You can see that I’ve lined in the Long Trail in red ink.” Dirk breathed faster as his eyes followed Sagamore Wise-Tongue’s pointing finger. “Here’s Lenape, and way off here in the corner is old Mount Kinnecut, where nine green-and-white pennants are flying. That’s where we’ve got to go, and we’ll make it in three days, if all goes well. The first day’s run—tomorrow—will be an easy stage, just to get in trim and harden up. And see that your feet are in good shape, for that’s what you’ll have to travel on most of the way. We’ll stop at Pot-Hole Glen at noon, and make the river before dark. The canoes left on a wagon this morning, and we’ll find them at Skinner’s Ferry when we get there. Now, I’ll leave this map posted here for the rest of the day, so that you can get its details clear in mind before we leave. Anything else?” “Yes, I got one!” put in Ugly Brown. “Who’s going to carry the flag?” Sagamore Wise-Tongue smiled, and drew from his blouse a triangular bit of green bunting on which was stitched a large L in white. “The trailer who carries this,” he said, “will have to be watchful and cunning, for he will bear with him the honor of all of us, and the honor of Lenape. I’ll leave it to you to choose which trailer it shall be.” Before anyone else could speak, Dirk cried out: “Brick Ryan! He’s the best of us! Let it be Brick, sir!” “Sure,” agreed Megaro, “I bet you my life Brick is the one. I vote for him too.” The others added their votes with shouts of approval; even Ugly Brown, who secretly had hoped to be the standard-bearer, swallowed his disappointment, and taking the banner, presented it to Ryan, whose face grew almost as red as his flaming hair. “I’ll take it,” he muttered with some feeling; then, looking the leader straight in the eye, added: “You can bet nobody is goin’ to get this away from me, Wise-Tongue. It’s not goin’ to leave me until we nail it to the flagpole on the big mountain over beyond!” With a cheer, the little council of war broke up. Brick stowed the pennant inside his shirt. “Thanks, kid,” he mumbled. “That was swell of you to say that about me.” “I meant it, Brick! Say, will you show me how to make a blanket-roll?” The day passed swiftly for Dirk, eager as he was for the morning that would mark the beginning of the Long Trail hike. He was kept busy getting his outfit into shape and seeing that everything was in order; but he found time now and again to study the map posted on the wall. The names on it gave him a thrill that he could not have explained—Flint Island, Lake Moosehorn, the Chain of Ponds, even the few scattered towns that lay among the folds of the hills that skirted Mount Kinnecut. He was a Long Trailer now! When dusk fell, and the whippoorwills could be heard trilling in the thickets, the Lenape tribe draped their blankets about them and trooped to council. There was no happier or prouder member of that tribe than Dirk Van Horn when, at the time for awards and coups, he rose and was given his honor emblem before the throne of the Chief. It seemed impossible that little more than a week had passed since he had first landed on the Lenape campus. So many wonderful things had happened that he felt a different person from the—as he thought, looking back—pitifully ignorant tenderfoot who had tried to buy Brick Ryan’s friendship with an expensive gift. He had that friendship now, but he had won it as a man should. He drifted off to sleep clutching his new honor, and when he awoke at dawn, rose and sewed it carefully on the front of the sweater that he would wear on the trail. Brick Ryan was astir too, dressing in his worn hiking clothes and rolling his blankets into a neat pack to be strapped over his shoulders. He winked over at Dirk and whispered: “The pennant is still safe, by gollies! I pinned it to my pajama shirt with a big blanket-pin!” The eight trailers were off up the mountainside before nine o’clock, after a brief but thorough inspection by their leader. They travelled in close marching order, for as Sagamore Wise-Tongue explained, they were like a war-party and must not lose their strength through straggling or getting out of touch with each other. It might be necessary, when they were in wilder country, to put out scouts, but since the road to Indian Glen was well known to them, they would take it in regular stages. Although Dirk’s unaccustomed blanket-roll was heavy and grew heavier as the morning wore on, his heart was light. He joined in the songs of the gay trailers as they threaded their way through the trees on the slope above camp, pausing as they reached the road at Fiddler’s Elbow and taking a last glance at the placid waters of the lake and the white tents they were leaving behind. Dirk laughed aloud as he thought of all the adventures he would have before he again caught sight of Camp Lenape. But had he guessed that his life would be more than once in wild danger on the path that lay before him, he might well have shivered instead. Up and down, over one ridge after another of the Lenape range, the boys took their way, resting now and then for a few moments in the shade beside some bubbling mountain spring. Mr. Carrigan, in the lead, bearing a first-aid kit and many other necessities in the knapsack over which his blankets were strapped, strode along silently, ever on the alert for some wilderness creature that he might point out to his eager followers. Once he pointed out the marks of a fox, and several times their progress stirred up a covey of stupid, drumming partridge. And in one breathless instant, before they came to the end of the forest, he paused and pointed through the trees. Dirk caught a glimpse of a swift-moving dun-colored animal that with a flick of its stubby tail was off in long easy leaps to the shelter of the far thickets—a young deer, the first he had ever seen in its native haunts. He marched beside Brick and Ugly Brown, the young, snub-nosed lad whose blunt, sun-burnt face was somewhat likable in its very ugliness. He remembered that these two, with Kipper Dabney, had hazed him one moonlight night—long ago, it seemed—but he made no mention to them of that night when he had leaped, blindfolded, over Indian Cliff. “What’s this Glen like that we’re heading for, Ugly?” Dirk asked. “Ain’t you ever been there? Say, it’s a swell place. We hike over here lots of times. Whillikers, I’m ready for a swim there right now, even if the water feels as if it had just melted from snow. It’s called Pot-Hole Glen because down below, the water has run across the rocks so fast that there are a bunch of deep, smooth holes worn down by pebbles whirlin’ around—right through solid rock. It used to be an old Indian camping place, I’ve heard. We’ll be there soon, right after we cut across the fields over yonder.” At that moment Mr. Carrigan turned off the dusty road and cut through a meadow where a herd of white-faced cows grazed. Dirk climbed the rail fence slowly, for he was hot and more than a little tired by the march; but he joined in the whoops of his companions as they raced the short distance that separated them from the goal of their noonday pause and the swim that was to come. And thus Dirk Van Horn came to Pot-Hole Glen, which he was never in his life to remember without a chill of horror creeping up his spine—the horror of strangling death. |
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