That evening Gordon was doomed to disappointment. From the moment that he learned they might go, his active mind had been busy considering what articles they must take, and most of those he thought necessary were ruthlessly vetoed by his friend. He found that the first delight of the novice in camping and exploring was heartlessly taken from him—the delight of making preparations. There was, in fact, scarce any preparation at all. They spent the evening in Harry’s room, which had much the appearance of a frontier trading-post, so crowded was it with camping paraphernalia and forest mementos. From these Harry collected a few things, some from the walls, some from bureau drawers, some from a large chest. There was fishing tackle, a practical jewel-set compass, a jack-knife which he carefully selected from several others, a small belt ax, a flat metal trap, several snares, a pair of mooseskin moccasins, a water-tight match box, the necessary toilet articles, a small file, a small aluminum frying pan, a saucepan, a tin cup, a small aluminum coffee pot into which he put two knives, two forks, and two spoons, for Harry’s duffel bag, containing his personal equipment for the trip, had gone on with the troop.
“Now, let me see,” he said, standing beside the bed and contemplating the things he had chosen, “you take this paper and write down what I name—or wait a minute, while I think of it.” He disappeared, and presently returned with a spool of strong thread and two needles stuck into it. This he dropped into the tin cup, then dropped the tin cup into the coffee pot.
“Now write down what I tell you—these are all things we’ve got to get in the morning.
“Two tin plates.
“Bacon.
“Rice—do you like rice? Saccharine tablets. Raisins. Salt and pepper. Egg powder. Got all that down?”
“Yes.”
“All right, the rest will come to me in my sleep. Now let’s see what you’ve got in that fancy bag.” He turned the contents of Gordon’s duffel bag out on the bed. “What in the world is this?”
“That’s a suction pad, Harry.”
“What’s it for?”
“Keep you from falling off cliffs.”
“We’ll cut out the suction pad. Here, eat these apples and get them out of the way. Now, what’s this?”
So he went through the pile of things, approving some, discarding others, yielding here, insistent there, until, as he said, he had reduced Gordon’s freight to a common denominator.
The next morning they started, with a minimum amount of duffel for one week’s supply, the load divided between them. There were crackers of the iron-clad pilot variety; there was rice, which Harry said he could do lots of things with; there were chocolate, cheese, figs, cereal, besides the things Harry had enumerated the night before. Besides these, there was “fly dope,” one or two household medicines, an antiseptic solution, blankets, two empty cushion bags, and a good-sized piece of balloon silk (weighing next to nothing) for shelter.
Harry wore long khaki trousers laced down from the knee, and moccasins of heavy mooseskin. From the belt up, however, he was rather a sailor than a scout, for he had never been able to bring himself to abandon the blue flannel shirt with its flap front and double row of pearl buttons. He positively declined to wear any kind of coat. His belt was a thin book-strap, and from this hung a small belt ax. Of course, he carried his rifle.
Gordon was a scout from head to foot. He would not have missed one detail of the full regalia. He carried his part of the burden in his duffel bag slung over his staff, on which he also ostentatiously hung the trap and snares and to which was bound the fishing rod and tackle.
“You want to do what I did, Harry,” said he on their way to the station. “Rip the lining out of your hat and pull it on good and tight—the felt catches your hair and it can’t blow off.”
“Or pull off either when you’re crawling through brush. It’s a good idea.”
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon. “Look here.” He held his scout hat forward, displaying inside the crown a little flap pocket filled with matches. “See, you can splash through all the water you want, but they’ll never get wet there, and you’ve got them right handy where you want them to light in a breeze.”
“Good for you,” said Harry.
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon.
But just then the train whistled and both boys sprinted down the hill.
The ride to the city was not long, one or two trifling purchases at a sporting goods store where Harry seemed to be well known took but a few minutes, and before ten o’clock they were seated comfortably in the Montreal Express, gliding up the east shore of the Hudson, just as the Oakwood troop, minus these two boys, had gone the day before.
It was Gordon’s custom always to get his good turn done early in the day. He was not going to be caught at sundown with this duty staring him in the face. Not that he confined himself to one good turn per day, for, indeed, he acted on the approved theory that one good turn deserves another. But the first good turn was a religious duty; it was essential to his good standing, and when he undertook to become a scout he understood this to be a regular daily obligation. He did not ask for any credit or indulgence. He never let his good turn go over to be made up the following day by two good turns. He rose in the morning, washed, dressed, breakfasted, did his school work, then looked about for an opportunity to do his good turn.
So now he looked up and down the railroad carriage to see if any one were in need of his kindly ministrations. After a minute, he rose and walked up the aisle, where he stood on the outskirts of a little group consisting of the train newsboy, the brakeman, an elderly lady, and two little girls, evidently her grandchildren. The brakeman was trying to open the window for the elderly lady. But the window would not open. The brakeman, giving up the attempt, went up the aisle and out of the car, and an elderly gentleman offered his services with the same result. The lady was beginning to feel the embarrassment of being such a center of interest. As Harry craned his head around he saw Gordon standing modestly apart from the others, hat in hand.
Presently, the latter came back to his seat and got his staff.
“Did you think of a way?” asked Harry, laughing.
“Can’t tell yet,” said Gordon, as he went back up the aisle.
The car door opened and a sonorous voice called, “Poughkeepsie!”
Gordon stepped in between the seats, placing the end of his staff under the brass lift at the bottom of the sash. As the train slackened speed, he pressed gently on his lever. Suddenly the movement of the train became more abrupt, the cars shunted, there came the slight convulsive movement he had been waiting for, the staff was pressed quickly down just at the right second, the window creaked and rose.
In a moment more he was seated by his friend, volubly explaining the trick.
“If she doesn’t come when the train stops, try again when it starts and often that’ll fetch her. Only you’ve got to be careful to press just exactly at the right second—the physical moment, I think they call it.”
“That’s it,” said Arnold, and turned his face toward the window, laughing.
After they had left Albany there occurred another incident which, though trifling at the time, was destined to be long remembered. They were sitting comfortably back in their seats discussing their plan of campaign, when a boy of about sixteen came through the car. He was dressed in ordinary summer outing fashion save that he wore a scout hat, and as he passed the two boys he raised his right hand to his forehead and made the full salute to Harry. He was one of a long line of people carrying bundles, suitcases, and so forth, who were passing through the aisle, and it would have caused a slight interruption to the others had he paused. Probably for this reason he went straight on through the car and disappeared through the doorway.
“He’s a scout, all right,” said Gordon.
“Yes,” answered Harry, “but this is what puzzles me—how did he know I am entitled to the full salute?”
“From the badge on your hat, of course!”
“Only my hat’s upside down on my knees. Guess again.”
“Well,” said Gordon, “he knew you were a first-class man by your seamanship badge.”
“But how did he know I was patrol leader?”
“Your flag?”
“No—that’s gone on with the troop.”
The only conclusion they could reach was that the strange boy was a wonder. Every now and then they reverted to it, and one or the other would suggest going back through the train to hunt him up and ask him how he knew that Harry Arnold was patrol leader. But they invariably settled back satisfied with the observation that the boy was a “winner” until finally Gordon shouted:
“He saw the badge wasn’t on your sleeve, Harry, so he knew it must be on your hat—there you are!”
“No,” said Harry, “he wouldn’t expect to see it on this flannel shirt—he’d know it belonged on the khaki jacket.”
“Well, he’s a Sherlock Holmes, all right,” concluded Gordon, and there the matter rested for the time being.
At four o’clock in the afternoon the train pulled into the old village of Ticonderoga, which is at the head of Lake George and on the crescent-shaped stream which connects it with Lake Champlain. The boys realized now that it would have been better for them to arrive in the morning, but that would have involved an all-night journey in the train.
There was the inevitable cluster of summer boarders waiting at the station, and the two boys created quite a little ruffle of interest and curiosity as they stepped off the train. They made their way through the group and up to the post-office, where Harry said he wanted to “buzz” the postmaster for any knowledge he might have of the whereabouts of the Oakwood troop. Gordon stood by in fear and trembling lest the official might drop some hint which would simplify their quest and spoil the whole fun of their expedition.
It had gotten around to the postmaster by a somewhat circuitous route that a party of boys and one man had arrived in town the day before and were not known to be staying at any of the houses, so they must have gone somewhere. They couldn’t have stayed in town very long. “If they had, we’d a knowed it,” said the postmaster.
They inquired in the telegraph station as to whether a party of boys had sent a message to Oakwood, N. J., the day before. None had. But the telegraph operator’s sister had called in the doctor that morning, who had told her that the livery stable man had gone into the hardware store to buy a bit and had heard the hardware man say two “rigged-up fellers” had bought a steel trap the night before. So, despite Gordon’s protest, Harry interviewed the hardware man. The incident of the trap was true, but that was all they could learn, and they sought no further information.
It lacked still an hour or two of sunset when they left the village and found themselves on the open road which stretched northward. It traversed a tract of fairly level country about two miles to the west of the lake, and about the same distance to the west of the road rose the mountains. Now and then they could catch a glimpse of the water whose winding course they were following, and always to their left were the hills, rolling one over another far to the westward and fading in color as they receded, till they merged into the horizon. Here and there, amid that multitudinous confusion, there arose some lofty peak touched with the first crimson rays of sunset. Doubtless, there were pleasant villages nestling here and there, and cheerful homes, but these the boys could not see—only the innumerable hills, silent, wild, lonesome. It seemed that they might reach to the farthest ends of the earth. To Gordon the country did not look at all like the map, and it was hard to believe that the print and paper really represented anything or could be used to any purpose.
“Well, here we are in the haystack,” said Harry, cheerily. “Now for the needle—I don’t see it anywhere, do you?”
“Harry,” Gordon answered, “I think we’ve got a job on our hands. Look at those hills. They don’t look much as they do on the map—all crisscrossed up with roads and villages and things.”
“Especially, things,” said Harry. “You see, Kid, we’re between the foothills and the lake. That ridge bends toward the lake and touches the shore about five miles ahead—savvy? We’re cutting right up through the middle of a great big wedge, as you might say, and Dibble Mountain is the point. We’re headed right for it.”
“The point isn’t sharp enough to cut you,” commented Gordon.
“And when we get to Dibble Mountain, we’ll run upstairs and see what we can see.”
The sun was rapidly sinking, and as they followed the unfrequented road, the gathering shadows, the increasing chilliness of the air, the absence of any of the cheerful and familiar signs of human life, were not without their quieting effect on Gordon’s buoyant spirit. He had heard Dr. Brent say that this country was not the Adirondacks proper, that it was not, in fact, a very wild country. But now, as he looked about him at the far-reaching hills with their dense patches of woods, growing somber and more forbidding in the twilight, it seemed to him that no country could possibly be wilder and more impenetrable. Hills, hills, nothing but hills; some rearing their rugged summits high above the rest as if they cherished a kind of lofty scorn at being put on a map and traced with a lead pencil. For the moment, his faith in human resource and the facilities and possibilities of woods-wisdom was shaken in the face of this great, enveloping, silent adversary. He even doubted whether Black Wolf[1] himself (let alone Red Deer) could put up much of a fight against such odds.
Presently the road entered a patch of woodland where frogs croaked despondently in a little marshy pond and crickets kept up their incessant night songs. Then their way brought them into open country again. Silently they tramped on. On their right the road skirted a ravine which descended abruptly and whose bottom was lost in a black, tangled thicket. And beyond, in the direction of the great lake, extended woods till the twilight and the distance merged the tree-tops into one vast dark coverlet. They paused a moment, peering over the broken log fence into the depths. Somewhere in the stillness was the sound of falling water. High above them in the dusk sped a great bird, hastening toward the mountains.
“It’s a pretty big haystack, hey, Kid?” said Harry, cheerily.
“It certainly is,” answered Gordon.
[1] Ernest Thompson Seton.