  These low words coming from the scout master caused a general “ducking” on the part of the scouts. Every fellow carried out the tactics of screening himself from observation according to his individual notion. This one dodged behind an adjacent tree, another curled up back of a friendly bush, while a third might have been seen hugging the ground, with his nose touching the virgin soil. Possibly this latter class believed, like the foolish ostrich, that, as long as they could not see anything, their bodies must also be concealed. And after all it turned out to be a false alarm. Hugh himself was the first to ascertain that it had been a rabbit bounding away that had disturbed his peace of mind, and caused him to give that sudden warning. “It’s all over, fellows, and no damage done,” the scout master told them in his cautious way, though at the same time he could not help smiling at the ridiculous attitudes assumed by some of the scouts in their wild endeavor to hide. “Only a scared little bunny, as it turns out. We’ll go on where we left off.” Immediately every boy straightened up again, and tried to look as though he knew all along that it was nothing worth mentioning. Several pretended to be looking on the ground, just as though they believed they had dropped something. A few, however, colored up, and allowed sheepish grins to decorate their faces. It was not very long before Hugh realized that the scenery began to look rather familiar to him. This would indicate that they were getting close to the place in which he had left Billy, Monkey, and Gusty Merrivale. Now Hugh did not wish to lead the entire command too near the mill. Something might happen to betray their presence before things had been properly arranged to surprise the robbers. Under such circumstances, if the “mountain will not come to Mahomet, why one must go to the mountain,” an old Eastern proverb says. Accordingly, Hugh held up his hand to signify that every one was to drop down and lie low. Then he started in to make a sound that was similar to the grunt of a hedgehog searching for succulent roots under the trees. Every once in so often the scout master would grunt, and then wait. He fancied that either Billy or his mate would catch the sound, for which they must have been listening more or less anxiously for a long time past. And as all these things had been arranged beforehand, the boys would know that it meant they should begin to back away, so as to place a little more distance between themselves and the ramshackle building that sheltered the enemy. Five, six, seven minutes passed thus. Then, during one of the waits between the giving of the signals, there came a troubled grunting from a copse near by, which told Hugh the others must be coming. He encouraged them by getting part way up on his knees, and waving his red bandana handkerchief three times. Immediately afterward a figure came stealing toward the concealed scouts, which turned out to be Monkey. When Hugh discovered two others following cautiously in the wake of the leader, he breathed easier. Perhaps, while on the way over to the island camp and back, he may have had more or less fear that some accident would betray the three boys to the wary tramps. The consequences would, of course, be very unpleasant. Soon the trio had joined the balance of the boys, and, crouching among the bushes, they shook hands all around. Why, even Gusty Merrivale persisted in clutching the digits of these friendly fellows! Circumstances beyond his control had placed the rich man’s son in a position where things began to assume a new aspect in his eyes, and the sensation in his heart was so very gratifying that he allowed himself to give way to it entirely. Hugh, believing that they should all work together, had Don Miller and Walter Osborne as leaders of the Foxes and Hawks get their heads close to his and discussed the situation from many angles. On the way across country, while he and Don were keeping at the head of the hiking party, the scout master had asked many questions. Of course he knew something concerning the outside of the mill for, at the time he had taken that one scout around the place, he had made sure of surrounding conditions. Then Don had been all over inside when he and Arthur had roved this way, and he was in a position to tell how the place was arranged. Don was a careful, wideawake scout who had long since learned the value of keeping his wits about him, not knowing when it might prove advantageous to his interests to be able to describe what he had seen. Consequently he had been able to draw something of a map of the interior of the mill, tell where the rusty and worthless machinery lay, and also just about where passing hoboes had always bunked, as the remains of many a cooking-fire proved. Beckoning to Billy to draw near, Hugh asked him if anything out of the way had happened while he was gone. Nothing had apparently, according to the report of the Wolf scout. Once or twice they had seen a movement in the vicinity of the mill, as a hobo came out to take a suspicious look around, or perhaps gather up an armful of wood to keep the fire going until the time came to cook another scanty meal. But, as the three lads faithfully kept securely hidden, their presence in the vicinity had not been suspected so far as they could say. The afternoon was pretty well gone. It began to look as though there was not the slightest chance for them to return to the island camp until another day had dawned, even if the shift might be made then. Billy understood this, and, as he was a great feeder, he became very solicitous to learn whether the boys had been thoughtful enough to provide against an enforced stay there by the mill. He also wanted to know if they had remembered that he and Monkey, and probably Gusty also, possessed something like an appetite; and whether the material to stop this squeamish feeling down below had been carried along. He was made happy by having several of the boys assure him that they had stocked up with more than one ration, so that soon Billy figured he would have no end of a good time making way with the extra provisions. “Nothing doing until it gets dark, seems like,” Billy told some of the others, for having been in consultation with the patrol leaders, he had managed to pick up information in regard to the decision reached in the council of war. “And that strikes me as a mighty clever thing,” remarked Bud Morgan. “An attack like this is always apt to be successful when made under cover of the night.” “Yes,” added Cooper Fennimore quickly, “in all the stories of border warfare I ever devoured, the Injuns always waited till a short time before dawn to rush the block-house. Seems like folks sleep heaviest just before day breaks, though any old time is good enough for me to get in seven winks.” “But I don’t think Hugh means to wait till that late,” Billy told them. “From the smattering I managed to pick up, it seemed that they had figured on creeping up as soon as night set in, and starting things to working.” Bud Morgan gripped his bat with vigor. “Can’t come any too soon to suit me,” he muttered. As a rule Bud was not of a vindictive nature, but he could see that the Merrivale boy had not only been robbed but cruelly hammered by the fists of the two ugly hoboes and it riled the scout considerably. “Let’s see,” mused Billy, while waiting for the patrol leaders to complete their plans and announce the method of working to the rank and file, “all told there are how many of us on deck?” “A dozen, no, just thirteen, counting Gusty here, who looks as if he were in a humor to do his part in the fight, if there is one,” observed Tom Sherwood. “Um, thirteen is said to be an unlucky number, too,” grumbled Billy. “Don’t let that bother you any,” Jack Dunham told him. “I haven’t a single ounce of superstition in my make-up, and only wish it was Friday, the thirteenth of the month, into the bargain. I hate all that clap-trap so much that I always try my best to start things on the bad luck day. And so far there hasn’t any trouble swooped down on me. In fact, I’ve had more than my share of good luck.” “Mebbe you carry a charm in your pocket—the left hind leg of a rabbit that has been shot in a graveyard at midnight in the full of the moon,” suggested Monkey Stallings mischievously, at which Jack only snorted and curled his upper lip, as though he could not find words to voice his contempt for such foolishness. “There’s the sun setting, boys,” remarked Blake Merton uneasily, for he had never been very much of a hand in any rough and tumble game like football or hockey, and secretly would have remained just as well satisfied had Hugh picked him out to stick in camp with Arthur Cameron and Ned Twyford. “Bully for the sun!” Bud declared, shaking his head aggressively. “The old chap knows when he isn’t wanted.” “He knows a good thing when he sees it, anyhow,” added Billy yawning, for he dearly loved to sleep, and the idea of the sun going to rest for something like nine hours appealed to him very much. “The council is breaking up,” Ralph Kenyon whispered. “That’s right!” said Sam Winter of the Otters. He picked up the rather tough looking cudgel, which he had managed to secure while on the way across the ridge, and at the same time a flash of excitement came into his eyes. “I’m going to make a very important suggestion to the scout master when he has told us what our part in the game will be,” Billy remarked. The others eyed him respectfully, wondering what sagacious idea had come into the mind of this comrade who was a boon companion of Hugh’s. But now the three patrol leaders came up. Hugh made motions intended to gather all the others in a close clump, because he did not wish to speak any louder than could be helped. Though they had selected a retired spot in which to gather and consult, there was always more or less danger of being overheard. Sounds sometimes travel remarkably far in the woods, especially just as dusk steals out from the shadows and starts to envelop all Nature in her mantle. “This is what we’ve fixed on, fellows,” began Hugh, who never made a practice of using twenty words when ten would answer the same purpose. “Don knows a way by which some of us can crawl into a sort of loft that lies just above the place the two tramps will use for sleeping, because of a layer of straw he saw there. I’ll let him take four of the best climbers with him—they will be Monkey, Ralph, Sam, and Blake Merton. The rest of you will stick by me, and we hope to get fixed so that when the signal is given the scouts will drop and tumble in on those hoboes, hobbling them by sheer numbers, so that they won’t have so much as a chance even to use their fists, much less their guns. Get that, do you?” “As plain as print, Hugh,” advised Bud Morgan, “but what’s the battle sign going to be, so every one of us may be keen to sense the signal and act on the flash?” “When Don has placed his force just as he wants it, he’ll scratch four times on the floor just like a gnawing rat might happen to do—four times, no more or less, remember, Don. Then, after waiting about a minute or so for every fellow to get a full breath, I’ll give a whistle. Of course that will startle the men, but we calculate to be tumbling in on them pell-mell before they can begin to get up. Divide your squad, Don, so that at least two will drop with a squash on that short rascal, because I rather think he’ll prove the harder one to knuckle under.” “And do we have the privilege of using these, if necessary?” asked Bud, holding up the home-run bat which was his special property, and had been brought along on the camping trip in anticipation of some lucky chance for a game. “Only in case of absolute necessity,” Hugh replied soberly. “Don’t forget that you are first of all scouts, and pledged to try every other means before resorting to force.” “Is that all settled then, Mr. Scout Master?” asked Billy eagerly. “Because if you’ve no other directions to give us, I’d like mighty well to make what I consider a very important suggestion.” The rest of the boys pricked up their ears. It was not often that good-natured Billy Worth conjured up any important idea in that rather easy-going brain of his, and they were more than curious to hear what it might be. “All right, Billy, let us have it,” the scout master told him, “and if it sounds good to me, I’ll be only too glad to incorporate it in the program.” “Then if you stop and think what time of day this is, Mr. Scout Master, perhaps you’ll remember that some of the boys are right now lugging a whole lot of stuff around with them that would be doing a heap more good if placed where it properly belongs. In other words, what’s to hinder us from eating our suppers while waiting for it to get dark enough to cover our move?” Several of the scouts began to snicker, but no one looked unhappy. The truth of the matter was that every fellow was willing to confess that he had a vacancy in his system that was crying out to be filled, and they had long ago learned in school that Nature abhors a vacuum. Even Hugh chuckled, as though the idea was not displeasing. “That’s a sensible remark of yours, Billy,” he said readily enough, “and after all, we’ll feel better qualified to do great deeds if we strengthen our systems with our regular feed that comes along about this time every evening. So I’ll appoint you a committee of one to ask the fellows to divvy up. And, please, no talking while we eat, unless it’s in whispers. This is no time for joking, you know.” Billy found no great difficulty in getting the boys who carried the “snacks” to place them in a great heap in front of Hugh. It looked like a tremendous amount of provisions when every fellow had unloaded; but when one remembered that thirteen lusty boyish appetites had to be satisfied, that mountain of bread and crackers and cheese did not seem so alarming after all. In fact, it would be next door to a miracle if a shred of food remained when all would announce themselves contented. There was a busy time for thirteen pairs of jaws for the next quarter of an hour. And, after that, no one found any reason to complain because of having to carry rations, since there wasn’t so much as a single sandwich left to give them trouble. |
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