CHAPTER IX
DICK CRAWFORD GIVES WARNING
It was an ideal summer day, and Dick Crawford, going through the woods toward the logging camp, could not help thinking what a lucky fellow he was.
“It’s worth a million,” he thought, “just to be a Boy Scout, and to be alive on a day like this.”
Dick was no poet, but if he had been, he could have written an ode to the wonderful, mystic forest. The narrow path he traversed was closely hemmed in by giant trees, covered with moss and, at times, he could see the glistening of a waxy bunch of mistletoe high up on some old oak.
Finally his mind came around to all the exciting events of the last few days, and he became sober.
When would the miscreants be brought to book? It did not seem possible that they could long remain at large, but then the North Woods are very extensive, and offer thousands of hiding places to experienced woodsmen like the discharged lumberjacks.
At this thought his heart sank, but Dick was not one to worry much about things he could not help, nor to cross a bridge until he came to it.
So he dismissed all forebodings from his mind and set up a shrill whistle that caused the forest to echo and the squirrels to sit up in front of the entrances to their homes and chatter angrily.
He looked upward toward the sun, which he could at times glimpse through the thick foliage, and, judging from its position that it must be growing late, hurried his footsteps. He was soon in sight of the camp, but could see no sign of life about it. As he drew nearer the rough log houses, he shouted, “Hello, there! Hello! Hello!”
“Hello, yourself!” responded a voice from the cook’s house, and a moment later the tangled red head belonging to the owner of the voice was stuck out of the doorway.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Dick?” he continued in a more friendly voice, as he recognized the Assistant Scout-Master. “Well, what can I do you for?”
Dick smiled at this characteristic question, and replied, “Why, I wanted to see the foreman, Mr. Flannigan. Where is he, do you know?”
“Search me!” replied Harry, with a careless shrug of his shoulders. “But say, wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “He did say something about it, too. I remember now. He has gone about fifty miles up north to look over a piece of uncut timber land there, and I remember he said he would be back before the last of this month. But what did you want him for, anyway?” inquisitively.
Dick thought a minute, and then decided to tell Harry all about the happenings of the last few days. He knew that Harry was friendly to the Scouts, and would help them all he could in bringing the outlaws to justice.
Another thing that he did not know, but which was an important factor in the chase later on, was that Harry disliked the outlaws heartily. They had often plagued him, and made his hard life even harder, and he had often wanted to get even with them. So it is possible that Dick could not have taken a wiser course than that which he now decided to pursue.
Accordingly he proceeded to detail the happenings of the last few days to the attentive cookee, who could not help interrupting him at times with expressions of surprise and indignation.
“Well, what do you know about that?” he asked at the conclusion of Dick’s recital. “Ain’t them two about the most underhanded crooks goin’? I only hope I can do somethin’ to help put them in jail,” and here the expression of his eyes boded no good to the outlaws.
Dick perceived that he had gained an ally worth having, and was pleased accordingly.
“I know that the others will be as pleased as I am to know that you are going to help all you can,” Dick replied cordially to the other’s outburst. “Now, Harry, you know from what I have told you that both Lavine and O’Brien will go to any lengths to get even with Flannigan, and also with us, whom they now suspect to be their enemies.
“We have reason to believe that they will do all they can to waylay the foreman, steal the money that he will have on his person, and either kill or seriously injure him.
“Now, what we want you to do is to notify us at our camp if the foreman is not back before the last day of the month. Will you do that?”
“Will I?” said Harry, his eyes sparkling as he thought of the trust that was being placed in him. “Well, I should smile! Just give me a chance, that is all I ask. You can count on me, Dick, as much as you can on yourself.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” responded Dick, heartily. “We’ll consider that settled, then. And another thing, Harry, why on earth don’t you join the Boy Scouts? You’d have no end of fun, and we’d all be glad to have you.”
“Dick, all you fellers are bricks fur askin’ me, but how can I? There ain’t anything I want as much as to be a Scout, but I have no chance to do what you fellers do. I got to work here from the first streak of daylight, and quit when my work’s done, which is about ten o’clock every night of the week. I am what you call a ‘kin and can’t’ worker; I work as soon as I can see and quit when it is so dark I can’t see.”
Here the boy tried to laugh, but the laugh sounded strained somehow. It is very possible that he felt more like crying than laughing, but he would not have had Dick know it for anything.
Dick, however, knew boy nature pretty well, and he guessed from Harry’s tone just about how he actually felt. So he joined in the latter’s laugh, and then said, “Now you see here, Harry, old top, if you really want to be a Boy Scout, there’s nothing on earth can stop you, and we’re going to help you all we know how. I was speaking to Mr. Durland about you the other day or, rather, he was speaking to me, and he said that he knew of a place that is open in Mr. Scott’s saw-mill that he was sure he could get for you. That would give you more money than you are making now, I guess, and you’ll have a whole lot more time to yourself. What do you say; would you like to have that job?”
Harry’s eyes had filled in spite of himself while Dick was talking, and now he said in a queer, husky voice, “Say, Dick, would a duck swim? All I can say is that you Scouts and your Scout-Master are about the squarest, whitest bunch that I ever run up against! I’ll beat it right along with you when you go back, and this job can go to the dickens for all I care!”
“Hold on a bit,” exclaimed Dick, smiling at the boy’s impulsiveness. “You can do us a whole lot more good by sticking right here than you could by being with us just now. We need you here to tell us in case Flannigan doesn’t get back on time.”
“Gee, I’d clean forgotten all about that,” said Harry, ruefully. “But you’re dead right, and no mistake! I’d be willing to stay here the next ten years if it would help to catch them guys. They’re pretty slick articles, though, don’t fool yourself about that,” he added.
“Oh, I realize that we will have our work cut out for us,” responded Dick, seriously, “but I think we can get them finally, just the same.”
“You bet your sweet life we can!” responded Harry, enthusiastically. He had great confidence in his new friends and felt that if anybody could, they would be the ones to break up the plot. But he was better acquainted with the rascals than any of the Scouts, and knew that they were resourceful and desperate men.
He was immensely proud of the trust placed in him by Dick and the others, and resolved then and there to show himself worthy of it. He had always had a hard time of it, and had never known what it meant to have a father or a mother. He had earned his own living as long as he could remember and that in a great city meant constant and hard work. Then he had drifted north in search of better paying work, and had finally landed the job of cookee to the lumber camp. There was more money in this than he had ever made, although it was little enough, in all conscience, but the work was terribly hard and exacting.
He was supposed to be the first one up in the camp every morning, and on him devolved the responsibility of arousing the sleeping men and getting a good share of the breakfast. Then, after each meal, there was the immense pile of dishes to wash—a task which he hated with all his heart. His work was ended only after everyone else was asleep and he had rounded out the last of his duties by setting the huge pot of beans in the pit dug for it, there to simmer all night.
And it was not only the wearing work and long hours that worried him and made him wish more than once that he had never been born. He lacked the comradeship of other boys of his own age. He had always been too busy earning a living in the city to mingle much with others, and now, since coming to the lumber camp, there had not been another boy within many miles of him until the advent of the Scouts.
So is it any wonder that at the thought of easier and more congenial work and more especially at the prospect of having that companionship that his very soul craved, his heart went out in gratitude to those responsible for the change in his fortunes?
He felt that no sacrifice would have been too great to make for them, and would willingly have risked his life if he thought their welfare demanded such a sacrifice.
So now when Dick held out his hand, and said, “Well, so long, old man, until I see you again!” his heart was running over with gratitude.
“So long!” responded Harry, shaking the proffered hand fervently. “You can count on me to the last gasp.”
“I’m sure of it, Harry,” and so with a last word of farewell, Dick started on his homeward journey.
He was very well satisfied with the result of his mission, and was convinced that he had gained a recruit worth having. In addition to this he had formed a real liking for the cookee, and was glad for his sake that things were to be better for him in the future.
He felt, as many others have done, the force of the fact that there is always a greater and nobler pleasure in giving happiness to anyone else than there is in securing it for oneself.
He swung along at a good gait, his mind busy with these thoughts, and was somewhat startled when, at a short turn in the path, he almost ran into Bob Hart.
“Gee, you gave me a scare!” he exclaimed, after they had exchanged salutes. “What on earth are you doing here, Bob?”
“Why, it’s this way,” explained Bob. “You know that we overheard what the outlaws said, and after you had gone, Mr. Durland thought that we had better patrol this path so that in case either of them tried to stop you from going to or coming from the logging camp, we could wig-wag signals back to our camp, and so let them know there what was going on. That is the solution of the reason we are here.”
“I wish we could solve the mystery of why those fellows aren’t in jail just as easily,” remarked Dick.
“So do I!” returned Bob, soberly. “We seem to be as far as ever from catching them, don’t we?”
“Here, here, young fellow! That kind of talk won’t do at all,” laughed Dick. “This isn’t a case of where we want to catch them. It’s a case of where we’ve simply got to. That’s the only way to look at it.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Dick,” said Bob, his confidence somewhat restored. “What did Harry say? Is he going to join?”
“Surest thing you know!” responded Dick, cheerfully. “That boy is going to help us more than a little, too. He knows a good deal about the surrounding country, and he knows the habits of these rascals. He can figure out better than we can, perhaps, just what they would be likely to do under given conditions.”
As they had been holding this conversation, the boys had been walking rapidly along, and now they came up to one boy after another, all posted as relays for wig-wagging.
Before very long they reached the camp itself, and soon Dick was making his report to Scout-Master Durland.
“So you see, sir,” he concluded, “Harry will be a help to us, and we can help him, so it is a sort of mutual benefit arrangement all around.”
“Which is just what the Boy Scouts are for,” said Mr. Durland, smiling.
After a pause, he continued thoughtfully, “Well, Dick, I guess we have done all we can for the present, and now all we can do is to keep a sharp lookout and see how events shape themselves. Do you think of anything else?”
“No, sir, I can’t say I do. Not before Flannigan gets back, anyway,” answered Dick respectfully, and so matters were left, and the Scouts settled down to a short spell of “having a good time, doing nothing in particular,” as Ben Hoover expressed it.