Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp Part 9

"Only the test says _alone or with another scout_." Warde said doubtfully. "What do you think? It would be a peach of a chance and I'm crazy to get my first cla.s.s badge."

"The question is, are we to consider Pee-wee a scout?" Roy said, winking at Warde. "Is he a scout or a sprout?"

"It's just as you say, you're patrol leader," Warde laughed.

"Sure, it's all right," laughed Roy, "come ahead. I'd have asked you only I never thought about it."

"Have you got your note book?" Pee-wee again demanded.

"Yep," Warde laughed.

"Then you're all right," Pee-wee a.s.sured him. "It doesn't make any difference whether one scout goes with you or two."

With such high legal authority as this, Warde's mind was at rest. He was the newest scout in the troop and a member of Roy's patrol, the Silver Foxes. He had made a great hit in the troop and was immensely liked.

He had not been long enough a member of the Silver Fox patrol to have imbibed the spirit of freedom with its sprightly leader which the others so hilariously exhibited. The Silver Fox patrol was an inst.i.tution altogether unique in scouting. One had to be half crazy (as the Ravens and Elks said) before one became a tried and true Silverplated Fox--warranted. The Silver Foxes had a spirit all their own--and they were welcome to it.

Warde had shown his mettle by his tests, and also he had shown his fine breeding and spirit by not pus.h.i.+ng too aggressively into troop familiarity. If he was not yet a full-fledged scout, he was at least a fine type for a scout, and the uproarious Silver Foxes and their irrepressible leader were proud of him.

He had now, as he had said, but one test to take before becoming a first cla.s.s scout. This meant more to him than it might have meant to another for he had obtrusively prepared himself to claim several merit badges of the more easily won sort, as soon as his first cla.s.s rank should enable him to properly lay claim to these.

He was ahead of the game in fact, and hence the anxiety of his tone and manner when he ran after Pee-wee and Roy, hoping that here might be the chance of fulfilling the final requirement before the coveted first cla.s.s badge should be his. None fully knew how much he had dreamed of the first cla.s.s badge. His fine loyalty had kept him at work among them, but he had not been able to see those two fare forth without jumping at the chance.

The test on which his achievement hung is on the same page of the handbook with the picture of the badge he longed for:

4.--Make a round trip alone (or with another scout) to a point at least seven miles away (fourteen miles in all) going on foot or rowing a boat, and write a satisfactory account of the trip, and things observed.

Warde Hollister was not the one to strain the meaning of this. To him it meant just exactly what it said. And so he had asked his patrol leader if it would be all right for three to go instead of two. It was a small matter and of course it was all right, as any scoutmaster or National Scout Somebody-or-other would have agreed. The point is that Warde's thinking about it was very characteristic of him. In this instance he accepted his patrol leader's decision....

CHAPTER XIII

WARDE IS IN EARNEST

It was not likely that Warde Hollister would forget his note book, for his habit of keen observation and a knack he had for full and truthful description had won him the post of troop scribe which Artie Van Arlen's duties as Raven patrol leader had compelled him to relinquish.

"If it's seven miles there," said Warde, plainly elated at the thought of accompanying them, "all I'll have to do is to write my little description when I get back and there you are."

"A first cla.s.s scout," said Pee-wee, quite as delighted as his friend.

"It says fourteen miles there and back," said Roy. "Maybe it'll be seven miles there but we don't know how far it will be back. Sometimes it's longer one way than another. You never can tell."

"You make me tired," said Pee-wee.

"All right, you're so clever," said Roy; "how far is ten miles?"

"How _far?_"

"That's what I said."

"You're crazy," Pee-wee shouted.

"Answer in the affirmative," said Roy. "There's a gra.s.shopper, get out your note book.... Do you know what he did once?" he asked, turning to Warde. "He wouldn't jot down a fountain in Bronx Park because he didn't have a fountain pen--"

"You're crazy!" Pee-wee shouted.

"He went into a store and asked for the handbook and when they told him they didn't have one he asked for the feetbook. He thinks the feetbook has got all the daring feats in it. He--"

"Don't you believe him," Pee-wee yelled.

"Before he was in the scouts he used to be a radiator ornament on an automobile," Roy persisted. "There's a caterpillar, enter him up, Kid,"

he added.

"Up at Temple Camp," Pee-wee yelled in merciless retaliation, "they--they told him he could play on the veranda and he said he could only play on the harmonica!"

"I admit it," Roy said. "That was when I was a second-hand scout."

"They ought to be called the Nickel Foxes, that's what all the scouts up at Temple Camp say," Pee-wee shouted. "Because none of them ever have more than five cents."

"The Raving Ravens haven't got any sense," Roy came back. "Five is twice as good as nothing."

"That shows how much you know about arithmetic," Pee-wee retorted.

"It's good the boss isn't here," Warde said, "or he'd laugh himself to death." The boss was what they always called Blythe.

"Maybe you'll say I didn't discover _him_," Pee-wee demanded.

"You're the greatest discoverer next to Columbus, Ohio," Roy said.

"Well anyway, whoever discovered him, I like him," Warde said.

"Same here," said Roy quite ready for any topic of conversation. "I can't make him out but I like him."

"He's just down and out, sort of," Warde said. "Maybe he's been sick.

That's the way it seems to me. But he likes us and I like him. It's fun to see him smile."

"I wonder where he came from?" Roy asked, as they made their way across fields. "He never says anything about where he belongs or anything."

"Maybe he doesn't know," Warde said.

"We shouldn't worry about his history," said Roy. "He's all right and that's enough. And he's going up to Temple Camp with us if I can get him to."

"I--" began Pee-wee.

"Sure, you discovered Temple Camp," said Roy. "You discovered the North Pole and the South Pole and the clothes pole and the Atlantic Ocean and Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company and you've got them all down in your little book."