The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill Part 14

It was a circle and in the circle was the picture of a crow and there was an arrow. It was the Scout sign for "I took this path." The crow meant that whoever drew the sign belonged to Raven Patrol. We knew then that it was Bill.

"We've got him," shouted Skinny. "He went through this way so as not to meet the Gang."

It did look like that, but although we examined every inch of the way between there and the Gingham Ground, we couldn't find another sign of any kind. And we couldn't understand why he had not delivered the message to Mr. Jenks and come back home.

Sorrowfully we made our way out to the sign again and sat down to rest and talk about what to do next.

"Guess what!" said Benny, after a little. "That arrow doesn't point toward the Gingham Ground at all. It points straight back from the road.

Let's go that way and see."

There didn't seem to be much use in doing it, but we had to do something.

"Come on," said Skinny, springing up. "He is somewhere; that's a cinch, and we know that he was all right when he drew that sign."

We hurried along and soon struck a little path, up which we ran as fast as we could, for it was growing late.

"Look for another sign," warned Skinny. "Scouts and Injuns always mark the paths they take."

"Hurrah, here it is!" he shouted, a little farther on.

When we had come up, he pointed to a stone, which had been placed in the middle of the path, with a smaller stone on top of it. It was the Indian sign for "This is the trail."

We couldn't understand it, for it was leading away from North Adams.

We hurried on, calling every now and then, but not a sound could we hear, except the birds and squirrels, and not another sign or track could we find.

All that time we were going uphill and away from North Adams. At last, we came out of the woods on top of the hill, where we could see up and down the valley, and Greylock over beyond. Feeling too disappointed to speak we threw ourselves down on the gra.s.s.

Suddenly Skinny gave a yell and we thought for a moment that he had gone crazy.

"Look! Look! Look there!" he shouted, pointing back at the mountain.

We looked; then, when the full meaning of what we saw came to us, grew as excited as he was, threw our hats in the air, and danced around and cheered ourselves hoa.r.s.e.

From the very top of Greylock, two columns of smoke were going almost straight up, for there happened to be no wind to speak of. If it was Bill, and we felt sure that it was, those two columns of smoke meant:

"I have lost the camp. Help."

CHAPTER VIII

SMOKE SIGNALS ON THE MOUNTAIN

BEFORE Bill started on his trip he made up his mind that he would walk farther and do a bigger stunt than any of us. When Bill Wilson is for anything, he is for it. There is no halfway doings with him. He didn't take to the Scout business very well at first because he didn't know much about it and thought that Indians or bandits would be better. But as soon as he had joined he cared more than anybody.

Trying to do more than the other Scouts did was what got him into trouble. He started for North Adams, the same as Wallie, Benny, and myself, and he took with him a message for Mr. Jenks, as I have said.

But a seven-mile walk and back again the next day was not good enough for Bill. He made up his mind that he would deliver the message first and then go on as far as Williamstown and stay all night there.

Williamstown is five or six miles west of North Adams. There is a big college there, called Williams College. I guess it was the name that made Bill think of going there.

Our valley runs north and south until it gets to North Adams and then turns west. Hoosac River turns with it. After flowing north all the time, which everybody knows is no way for a river to flow, it turns west, and so finally reaches the Hudson. Then, of course, its waters flow south in the Hudson and at last reach the Atlantic Ocean at New York.

After Bill had left Wallie the first morning of his trip, he walked along lively, knowing that he had a long way to go to Williamstown, and he did a lot of cawing on the road, just as Skinny thought. Nothing happened to him at all until he found himself almost to the Gingham Ground. Then he saw five or six members of the Gang playing ball near where he would pa.s.s.

That made him stop. Bill is brave, all right, but what is the good of being brave when they are six to your one, and the whole six have it in for you?

That is what Bill thought, anyhow, and he started to leave the road and try to work around out of sight through the woods and fields. Then he thought of something to do, which scared him at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do it.

Hoosac Valley, as I have said, swings off toward the west at North Adams. That brings Williamstown on the opposite side of Greylock from where we live.

We found that out once when we went up on the mountain and came near getting lost, which you know if you have read about the doings of the Band. Almost straight down in front of us, on the east, was our village, with Bob's Hill back of it, looking flat and not like a hill at all. We could tell that it was Bob's Hill because we could see the twin stones, standing there like tiny thimbles on a table. Looking north, we could see North Adams; looking south, Ches.h.i.+re, and on the west side of the mountain and a little north, was Williamstown.

Bill thought of that when he was wondering how he could pa.s.s the Gingham Ground without the Gang's seeing him.

"What's the use of going that way at all?" he said to himself. "What's the matter with going straight back over the hills, climbing Greylock, and then, after seeing exactly where Williamstown is, making a bee line for it? I can deliver the message on the way back."

Say, that would be a great stunt! We are going to do it some time, when we get bigger and our folks get over being scared.

He wanted to prove to us that he had done it; so made signs at different places on the way, beginning where he turned off the road. We struck the trail at the second sign.

Bill can beat us all climbing and he went along fast, having a lot of fun all by himself. There is a path which leads up on Greylock from the Gingham Ground; he followed that.

Before he had gone far he found a couple of bottles, which some one had thrown away, and he hung those around his neck with a string. He took them both so that one would balance the other. You see, he knew that there was no water on Greylock. It has to be carried there from some spring part way up. The day was hot, and he was thirsty, already.

When the sun grew hotter he took it easy along, picking berries and lying around in the shade. He didn't get to the spring, where he was going to fill his bottles, until almost noon. After that there was a hard climb to get to the top, as steep as Bob's Hill, maybe steeper in places.

He stopped at the spring to rest and eat his lunch; also to fix some signs.

At last he stood on the very top of Greylock, which, as you probably know, is the highest mountain in the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, and it has all kinds of mountains. Our geography says that it is 3,505 feet high.

Those last five feet seemed a mile to Bill, and they would to you, if you were climbing the mountain on a hot day, with a pack on your back and two bottles of water hanging from your neck.

I guess there never had been so much cawing on the top of Greylock as when Bill stood there, after his hard climb, looking down on the hills, which did not seem like hills, he was so much higher.

The air was so clear that Williamstown seemed close. So, after resting a few minutes and drawing the sign on a flat rock to show which way he had gone, he started down the west side of the mountain on a run, whooping and yelling like an Indian at every jump.

Then, just as he was thinking how easy it was and what fun he would have bragging to us boys about what he had done, he caught his foot in a root or something, fell headlong, rolled down until he struck a tree; then lay still.

How long he had lain there, when he finally came to life again, he couldn't tell. At first he didn't know where he was or what had happened. Then he remembered and tried to get on his feet and go on.

With a cry of pain, he sank back again. He had sprained his ankle and hardly could move it without yelling.

When Robinson Crusoe was s.h.i.+pwrecked on an island he wrote on a piece of paper the good things and the bad things that had happened to him. To start with, he wrote on one side, "I am s.h.i.+pwrecked on an island," or something like that, and on the other, "but I am alive."

Bill did the same, only he didn't write it. He thought it.

"I've busted my ankle," he said to himself, "but I didn't break my bottles or spill my water.