CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PRICE

Given time they managed to get a boat in somehow, poling it this way and that and finally taking the marsh, as one might say, by flanking tactics. With the large area of resisting canvas lying upon the yielding morass, there was no great need for hurry. The frame was broken, but it could not sink. And the Eagle Scout, beneath whose weight the loosened canvas sagged, was safe. No boat could have saved him. No swimmer could have averted that imminent tragedy. But the eager-eyed little fellow who squatted there on that outlandish, sustaining rug, glancing at the Eagle Scout as if he were a god, had done it. His shirt was in shreds; a great rent in his faded trousers exposed his whole thin little leg. He did not look like a boy scout at all; you could not find a picture on all of your scout posters that bears the faintest resemblance to him.

As the boat neared the canvas a tall boy with a white scarf gently pushed a couple of scoutmasters aside and helped the bewildered Skinny into the boat. He seemed to intimate that Skinny belonged to him and the rest should take notice and keep their hands off. Then he allowed them to help Holly Hollis aboard. And so they made slow progress out of the dreadful place and nothing was left there but the big broken frame with its soiled expanse of canvas. A very big triumphant pennant for such a little boy!

They were all crowding at the landing place and the diving board bent dangerously under the weight of gaping scouts. The Elks were there. Even Chocolate Drop, the darky cook, had come down in his white cap and apron, gazing as if he saw a ghost. And no one said a word about the race.

"Can't I go up on the hill with you fellows?" Holly asked.

"Sure, only you'll have to come down again," said Danville. "Wait till you get your bathing trunks off and are all washed up and rested, then come up and make us a call. Eagle Scouts are always welcome."

But Holly Hollis shook his head and brushed Connie Bennett aside and interrupted Vic Norris, who seemed to have something to propose.

"No, I mean to stay," said he. "You're the ones I belong with. I resign from the Elk Patrol."

"You can't do that, you're our Eagle Scout," said Connie.

"And where would your Eagle Scout be if it wasn't for the little chap that gave his place to him, and just now risked his life to save him--_for you_!" said Danville Bently. "I don't know whether they have diamond studded crosses; all I know is that the Gold Cross isn't good enough for him. But he'll get it all right. And if your Eagle wants to come with us, why just remember that the eagle is a free bird; he flies high and goes where he pleases--he belongs up on precipices and crags, with others who jump off cliffs. Do you get that, Connie Bennett? And you're going to lose him! Look in his face--you can tell what he's thinking. I guess he never knew that he's filling Alf's place in your patrol. Tell him about it, why don't you? How about you, Holly? Do you follow the Gold Cross--or the Elk Patrol?"

"I follow the Gold Cross," said Holly. "An Eagle is nothing but a lot of merit badges."

"So that's that," said Danville Bently.

Yes, that was that. They played for big stakes, Connie and his patrol, and they lost. They lost both the Gold Cross and the Eagle Scout. They paid the penalty. You dance and you pay the fiddler. You may have what you crave, but you pay the price. And sometimes the price is very large. You may play high for an Eagle Scout. And the Eagle Scout may bow before the Gold Cross awarded for the heroism that is made divine by the spirit of sacrifice. For it is not true, as the song says, that an Eagle is as high as you can go. You can go higher than that if there is an elemental frenzy in your soul. The price of the Gold Cross is very, very high. For you must forget yourself and then they will remember you. Even if you are a ragged little codger out of Corkscrew Alley, they will scream your praises to the sky.

An Eagle is not as high as you can go.

THE END