CHAPTER XIV

THE PIONEER SCOUT

But it was not Vic Norris who was hurt; it was Skinny. He would not, he could not, tell them the truth. He must live in the shadow of their cruel thoughts. Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster of the troop, arrived in camp on Friday for the week end, and tried to smooth over the difficulty. But Skinny would not tell him why he had made his astonishing offer to the departed Helmer Clarkson. Nor would he say why he would not wear his scout suit. He was as stubborn as a little mule in those matters. Mr. Ellsworth told the Elks that they would just have to take Skinny as they found him, that there was no explaining him. He reminded them that at all events they had the canoe, and the white pennant.

So they took Skinny as they found him, and they found him different. He seemed worried and preoccupied, and took little interest in the patrol. They never asked him to wear his scout suit and he continued to be, what he had always been in camp, an odd little figure in a faded blouse. Those in the Bridgeboro troop who were most discerning noticed how he seemed always in fear. But when they made fun of him, as they were wont to do at camp-fire, he smiled bashfully in the same old way and was delightfully ill at ease.

He occasionally went out in the prize canoe with scouts of his patrol and sat wedged into one end like a funny little figurehead. You would never have dreamed that he was the boy who had won that trim craft which skimmed so lightly in the water. But he seemed to appreciate being taken out in it. Perhaps after all it was not Skinny who had won the canoe. It was the frenzied and despairing soul of Skinny which had done that. Anyway, they often took him out in it and he sat very still and upright as he was told to do.

The Elks soon lost the white pennant; a scout in a Vermont troop walked away with it one night during Vic Norris' watch, so Vic had two black eyes in a way of speaking. Bert McAlpin tried to get it back and was caught red-handed. Then Connie himself tried and got a good laugh from the Vermonters. Skinny was not particularly interested in these attempts; he was too much worried about Danny to concern himself with patrol exploits. He saw Danny every day and occasionally spoke with him, but they were not much together. The terrible thing that Danny was doing made Skinny afraid of him; he stood in awe of such daring and effrontery.

As for Danny, he was not in the least troubled. On the very day of his arrival he hiked to Catskill, keeping off the highway, and sent a telegram collect, in the name of Temple Camp, advising the father of Danville Bently that his son would be expected on August Second. Having come safely through the formality of enrollment, no embarrassing questions were asked him and indeed he had no further intercourse with the management. Temple Camp is a big place and he was soon absorbed in its life. Nobody cared where he lived or anything else about him; they were all too busy with scouting.

And he was busy with scouting too. He might have taken his second class tests, he might even have qualified for the first class, but he cautiously refrained from any step which might bring him face to face with trustees and councilors. Since he did not seek the first class ranking he could not try for merit badges. He became, in short, one of those nondescript scouts who are to be found in every summer camp, boys who have taken the scout oath and put on scout suits and let it go at that. He was too large to be thought of as a tenderfoot; moreover his prowess and skill lifted him out of that class. He was good at everything, but he did not fit his exploits into the scout program.

He bunked in Pioneer Row with that miscellaneous company whose members had come to Temple Camp without troop or patrol. Many of them were instances of the one lucky boy in some homekeeping scout unit. Some of them were active and clever, but they were deprived of the advantages of group spirit. A boy scout is better off with his patrol in a vacant lot than alone at the best of scout camps. The big sleeping quarters of Pioneer Row had more the atmosphere of a boarding school dormitory than of a scout camp. In a sense they did form one big troop--too big.

After the first few days of his life in this rather inglorious department of the spreading community, Danny lost all fear of being found out at camp. The whole thing had been so easy! And Temple Camp was so embracing and friendly! He was an adaptable boy and he felt quite at home. He still feared the grim authorities of the reform school, for he knew that he had been committed to that hated institution by the State and that the long arm of the law was reaching out for him. But as the days passed and nothing happened, his fear subsided. He was so cozy and remote that discovery from either quarter seemed an altogether unlikely sequel of his good fortune. And August Second was so far away!

Once or twice he feared that Skinny might inadvertently, or in a spasm of outraged conscience, say something. But nothing happened and whatever fears he had were lulled to sleep. Yet there was one person there whom he should have feared and that was himself. But he not only did not fear himself; he did not fear anybody. The only trouble was that he would have to sneak away before August Second. Well, he thought, the authorities would have ceased their search for him by that time, and he would go away on a ship.

All the boys in Pioneer Dormitory liked Danny. He was more sophisticated than most of them and they stood somewhat in awe of him. He seemed to know a good deal about the world and they respected him for it. His rather nonchalant attitude toward scouting had something engaging in it; but there was one serious boy who was not too ready to fall under his spell.

This was Holman Sharpe, a pioneer scout from a farm in New Hampshire. He was not summering away from his troop; he had no troop. Nor was he, as so many of those boys were, the single remaining member of a disintegrated troop. He was a registered pioneer. In the lonely section where he lived there were no boys to form a troop. So he had sent to National Headquarters for blanks and had been enrolled as a pioneer scout, which was a very different thing from the unattached scouts of Pioneer Row.

This boy went in for scouting with both hands and feet and the easy-going Danny was greatly amused by him. He was one of those boys who take themselves very seriously. Such boys are found in schools and colleges, wrestling with their studies to the exclusion of everything else, forgetting life in the interest of learning. Scouting is not a good field in which to do this. There is nothing about scouting to study; it is just a form of life. But this boy conceived it as a sort of curriculum and the Handbook as a sort of text book. He was certainly born to be a student. It is not so certain that he was born to be a scout.

To this serious New England boy, Temple Camp was a sort of university, the merit badges all representing study courses. He was out for promotion; he did not care so much about fun. His Handbook was all marked up with memorandums of his progress and notes of his plans. He was a canny boy and did not forget about the future. He even took into consideration the time when he would be too old for scouting and had his plans all made for joining the _Veteran Scout Association_. In an envelope he had three dollars laid away with which to buy the veteran pin several years hence.

Everything in the Handbook was law and gospel to him and he had set about the strenuous labor of squeezing it dry. He would get his money's worth at Temple Camp by doing every single thing that was even casually suggested in the scouting program. He had never had any give and take with other boys and he could not conceive of scouting being carried lightly and airily, as Roy Blakeley of the Silver Foxes, carried it. He went in for scouting with a vengeance.

What Danny did, he did easily, and he was highly entertained by the way Holman would come in carrying his Handbook and some maps and papers, and sit down on his cot, which was next to Danny's, to go over them and enter notes in his field book.

"Busy with your homework?" Danny would quiz.

"I've just hiked fourteen miles," Holman answered him one day. "I'm going to write it up to-night, and there's test four all finished on the first class badge. If you took all the miles you've used up flopping around in the woods to-day, I bet they'd run over fourteen and you'd have a seven mile double to lay up on your first class tests. I mixed some dough and cooked my dinner, too, while I was off, so I'm claiming the cooking badge on that. I don't know whether I'll get it or not."

"Did you ever study algebra!" Danny queried.

"Well, it's not exactly a part of scouting," said Holman.

Danny, sitting on Holman's cot with his knees drawn up, pulled his hat down over his forehead, which gave him a sophisticated, even a tough, look. "But I had the fun of flopping around in the woods," said he. "You hike so fast you never see anything."

"Make hay while the sun shines," said Holman in his businesslike way. "Why, you were telling me about following those marks and you came plunk on a rattlesnake; he's a pretty big one, I guess."

"He was; he isn't any more," said Danny.

"You've got to look out how you kill those fellows. But what I was going to say was, you could use that stuff on the stalking test if you wanted to. Did you have any witnesses?"

"Only the rattlesnake and he's dead," said Danny.

"I'm only telling you how you waste your chances," said Holman. "You can do things, all right, only you don't think. I heard a scout over at the Kit Carson tents say you jumped over Outlet Brook."

"Yere?"

"I've got it planned out so I can use one stunt on two tests."

"Wholesale only, huh! What's that red book?" Danny asked, kicking it.

"That? That's the English Handbook. I'll wager you that's the only one in camp. I guess you never even read the American one, do you?"

"Oh, I gave it the once over; there's some pretty good dope in it. Ever think you'd like to make a stab for the Gold Cross?"

"Life saving with imminent risk?" (Holman quoted accurately). "That's something pretty high up; that's out of the ordinary."

"I was thinking I'd grab it--just for a stunt," said Danny.

Holman shook his head, "That's one of the big things--that's the very biggest," said he. He knew all about it.

"That's the one for me," said Danny.

"I sort of don't like the way you refer to it,"

"That's the snappiest one in the book," said Danny.

"Talking about books," said Holman, "you ought to look over this English Handbook; it's by General Baden-Powell. There's a section in it about deduction; deducing facts from clues and signs. Why you can even look at a scout's shoes and tell where he has been if you know how."

"I don't care where's he's been," said Danny.

"It's an interesting phase of scouting just the same."

"Phase, huh? That's just detective stuff. You don't want to be one of those guys, do you?"

"Oh, that's part of scouting--mental effort."

"Yere?"

"Now, for instance, I've noticed something. I even made a note of it."

"I bet you did."

"I don't believe there's a scout in this camp ever noticed that tattoo mark on your arm."

Danny started.

"Surprises you, eh!" Holman laughed. He did not often laugh. "Yes sir," he said in a way of small triumph, "I noticed it when you rolled up your sleeve; the time you reached down in the water after the compass that little big-eyed youngster is always losing. You rolled it away up--remember! I noticed. I said, 'That boy has known a sailor.' Now am I right?"

"Right--the first time."

"I wondered why the letters were D. M. since I knew your name was Danville Bently. But I hit on it. Now tell me if I'm right."

"Sure, you're always right."

"They name ships the _Molly B_ and all like that. If a ship is called after a woman named Molly B. Smith, they just call it the _Molly B_. I'll wager that M is your middle initial--Danville M. as you might say."

"_Geeee_, that's wonderful!" said Danny. "That's _simp_-ly wonderful! I bet you're going to keep it to yourself too."

"Oh, trust me for that," said Holman Sharpe.

Their talk was interrupted by the little tenderfoot office boy from Administration Shack who called from the open doorway at the end of the long row of cots.

"Danville Bently, you're wanted in the office," said he.