“Now, you see, Harry, if I hadn’t stopped to do that good turn for Miss Leslie, and missed the train, you wouldn’t have had a ride in an aeroplane,” said Gordon, as he hitched up his stocking and settled himself comfortably in the boat for the voyage to camp. “And you fellows would have lost the boat-race, too.” “We don’t appreciate what a blessing G. Lord really is,” said John Walden, Hawk.
“And he wouldn’t have met Miss Crosby, either,” continued Gordon.
“He ought to be very thankful to you,” said Tom Langford, Beaver.
“That’s the great thing about having a good-turn specialist always right on hand,” said Vinton, the Hawks’ corporal. “When things are kind of slow, he just up and does a good turn, and presto! there’s something doing for everybody! Why wouldn’t it be a good idea, Red Deer, to have a ‘good turn’ badge? We have the marksman’s badge, and the trackers’ badge, and so on.”
“We might suggest that to headquarters,” smiled Dr. Brent.
“Well, anyway, Red Deer,” said Gordon, “here’s a sticker for you. Suppose you have your choice of doing a good turn or being prepared, now which should you do?”
Red Deer pondered a moment. “Well, you see, Gordon, if you do a good turn, that includes being prepared; you are prepared—to do the good turn. See? But if you just keep your mind on being prepared, and don’t think about good turns, why, then, the good turn often gets left. Technically, doing a good turn necessitates being prepared. You see, when a scout is a good-turn specialist, as you are, that really carries everything else with it. Of course, it is a nice question that you propound, and scouts might differ about it. Lawyers can never agree as to the law, you know—”
“That’s just what Mr. Danforth said,” interrupted Gordon.
“But if I were you,” continued Dr. Brent, smiling whimsically, “I should go right on and carry out your regular policy—good turns first—then trust to luck.”
“And the best turn you ever did,” said Brick Parks, “was to come up and find us, Kid. The camp wasn’t complete without you.”
“Well, anyway,” said Gordon, “we’re all lopsided.”
“What’s that?” said Dr. Brent, puzzled.
Gordon hitched up his stocking, and launched forth with a complete account of his great discovery, with the result that Dr. Brent, who was steering, had to give the wheel to George Conway, until he was sufficiently recovered to take it in charge again.
Half of the troop had gone on afoot, and by taking a short cut across country reached camp first. The boat made its way to a point about two miles north of the village, then up a stream for half a mile, and there in a grove of silver birches was the Oakwood Scouts camp.
“Well, here’s the needle in the haystack, Gordon,” laughed Dr. Brent, stepping out.
“By the way, Kiddo,” said Harry, as they joined the group ashore, “you were telling me of a way to find a needle in a haystack, the night before we started; you fix a magnet to the end of a long stick—”
“And then poke the stick in here and there,” continued Gordon, “and pretty soon you’ll find the needle sticking to the magnet; but of course there are other ways, and I thought if we didn’t find the troop one way we’d find them another. One way is, you—you—sit around on the haystack and—well—you just—pretty soon, you know, you’ve found the needle.”
“And that’s the way you found the troop,” laughed the doctor.
“Yes,” said Gordon.
“Have an apple, Kid?” said Morrel, pointing to a basket.
“Sure!” said Gordon.
The camp-fire burned late that night, for Gordon Lord recounted their adventures. It was an unabridged version and held the boys spellbound till midnight. It was in vain that Harry tried to modify this or that detail which reflected credit on himself, and it was in vain that Red Deer looked ruefully at his watch when one or other of the party added fuel to the already imposing blaze. Being a wise scoutmaster, he saw that Gordon’s enthusiasm, like the measles, must run its little course, and the sooner it was over the better.
“Now,” said Gordon, finally, “it’s time to discuss our attack on Fort Ticonderoga and—”
But here Red Deer put his foot down, and the discussion was put over until the next day.
That night Gordon and Harry slept in their own tent, with their own patrol, under the Beavers’ banner. And they slept hard. But Dr. Brent, alone in his little tepee, broke the rules unseen, and sat up until the wee hours of the morning. The week they had spent in camp had not been an idle one, and he had in a good-sized wallet various papers and memoranda which would mean promotion and awards upon their return to Oakwood.
For one thing, Brick Parks, in spite of his red head, had succeeded in getting near enough to a variety of birds and woods creatures to shoot them with his camera, which is the only way a scout shoots except in case of need. He needed only to develop his films and make prints, and the stalker’s badge would be his.
Then there was Howard Brent, the doctor’s nephew, who had at last, after a terrific struggle, mastered the Morse code, and would, so the camp gossip said, cease to be a tenderfoot before the summer was over.
Matthew Reed would glory in the marksmanship badge, if he kept up his crack target work, and Dan Swift and Johnnie Walden would wear the first-class badge before another camping season.
To these memoranda Dr. Brent added the letter from Mr. Wade, which recommended Gordon for the medal given for saving or helping to save life, and Harry for the signaler’s badge. On the back of this letter he made a memorandum of his own, about the saving of little Penfield Danforth’s life. Then he wrote a letter to Mr. Lord, and turned in for the night.
The idea of attacking old Ticonderoga, and winding up with a great laugh on the genial, but skeptical, Mr. Wade, took the Oakwood boys by storm, to say nothing of Red Deer, who was having the time of his life among them. He was a man of about thirty-five, was Red Deer, whose great recreation was getting among the boys, and he had organized the Oakwood troop quite as much for his own pleasure as for theirs. None of the boys could beat Red Deer when it came to roughing it He could take off his neat gold spectacles, fold them up, lay aside, his spotless white duck coat, and show you some fencing that was beautiful to see. Whenever he methodically and carefully removed those precious gold specs, and said, “Hold these a minute, Ben,” or “Harry,” as the case might be, the boys knew there was going to be “something doing.”
Whenever Gordon was about to undertake one of his unusual feats, it was his mischievous habit to put his two hands up to his ears, making the funny little twirl as if to remove a pair of spectacles, and by this sign the boys knew that something remarkable was about to take place. The doctor, who saw everything, had seen this, and it amused him greatly.
Whenever Dr. Brent’s trim little runabout stopped before a residence in Oakwood, you might be sure of seeing a boy or two sitting comfortably beside him, for one or several of them were always about him; and the little Red Cross on the front of his white automobile might appropriately have had placed beside it the full badge of the scouts. What is more, Red Deer had the Master-at-Arms badge, for he was not going to be handing out honors and earn none for himself, and his wrestling and jiu jitsu were the envy of his two patrols. In baseball, he played a very heady game at “first,” and his skyscrapers were famous.
For Harry Arnold, Dr. Brent had an unbounded esteem, and since it was one of his pet theories that laughter was a great medicine, he took frequent doses of it at the hands of Gordon Lord. In short, Red Deer was a true sport, and the proposition to go up the lake about the middle of August to repeat the historic assault on the old fort touched him in a susceptible spot. “We’ll do that,” said he, rubbing his glasses with a spotless handkerchief. “Harry, you’ll be Ethan Allen. Don’t argue now—I appoint you—I’ll make other appointments later.”
But there was a full month before this plan could be carried through, and judging from all appearances there was much to occupy the time. For one thing, Gordon was going to pull himself up to the first-class rank this summer, which means that his activities are worth watching.
Harry was full of aviation. His meeting with Penfield had kindled an already existing spark, and his flight with Mr. Goodwin had fanned it to a flame. Now here, to cap the climax, were Howard Brent, Matthew Reed, and Ben McConnell, or Mac, of the Hawks, and Tom Langford of his own patrol, with a good store of pliable, selected willow which they had gathered for the manufacture of their models to be entered in the Oakwood contest that Fall. But not a word did Harry say to them of the wonderful combination motor which Penfield was going to spring on the multitude, for he was not going to lessen the boy’s glory a particle. Meanwhile, the others worked away on their models, introducing rudders and so forth, of any shape and size, to suit their fancies.
One day, about a week after his arrival, Harry came in from one of his rambles (for he was fond of going off alone at times), and squatted on a rock under the cooking lean-to, where several of the boys were binding their frames with coarse linen thread.
“What’s the matter, old chap—blues?” asked Mac, with an end of thread in his mouth.
Harry laughed, for, oddly, it was a question often asked him.
“Where’s G. Lord, Esquire?” asked Matthew Reed.
“Don’t know,” said Harry. “He’s after his first-class badge these days. How’s that old balloon silk shelter you had last year, Howard?”
“Why, it hasn’t written me lately. It was a little under the weather when we camped last season.”
“That a joke, Howard?” said Mac.
“Well, you remember it rained, and the shel—”
“Kill him, if he tries to explain it,” piped up Tom Langford.
“Why, what’s up?” asked Howard.
“I was thinking we might make a glider,” Harry answered. “Red Deer’s talking of having us throw a bridge up, Baden-Powell fashion—over that chasm. A glider would be more sport, and help us over, too.”
“You’ve surely got the aeroplane bee in your bonnet, Harry,” said Mac.
“Well, how about it?” said Harry.
“Looks good to me,” said Langford. “Where would we get the stuff?”
“Now you’re talking,” said Harry. “Has this aero club any financial backing?”
“If you mean, is this aero club able to launch a glider—”
“That meant for another joke?” asked Mac, picking up a stone.
“The answer is, Yes, several of them. The question is, we have one Beaver in the club already; could we stand for another?”
“Of course, it would be an advertisement to have Harry Arnold a member.”
“Let up on that,” said Harry. “Do you want to build one, or don’t you?”
“Surely we do,” said Mac, becoming serious.
“Well, then,” said Harry, “we’ll need four sticks,—spruce sticks would be best,—twenty feet long, and we’ll need Howard’s old piece of balloon-silk, if we’re going to go up against the wind—”
“The first thing is to go up against the doctor,” said Matthew.
So Red Deer was taken into their councils. The upshot of it was that Howard Brent, Matthew Reed, Mac, Tom Langford, and Harry spent the rest of the morning with Dr. Brent making and criticising little diagrams on one of the doctor’s prescription pads.
“I think,” said Red Deer, at length, “that that is about all you’ll need; the cross-ribs that are left over we can use for splints, in case of broken arms and legs—they’ll come in very handy.”
The five boys went into Port Henry in the boat that afternoon in search of a sawmill or lumberyard.
“When G. Lord hears of this taking place in his absence, he’ll explode,” said Tom, as they chugged up the lake.
Their first business was to send a telegram for Howard Brent’s old balloon-silk shelter, which would, with piecing, amply cover the two planes.
“What would you say if I sent for my old wheel?” asked Mac. The suggestion was received with acclaim, for an old bicycle is a perfect treasure house of fittings, wire bars, and various odds and ends useful to the ingenious amateur mechanic. So Mac, with much adding and eliminating and changing of words, finally succeeded in concocting a satisfactory message to his father.
“Better underline the word ‘old,’ Mac,” said Harry, quietly, “or he may send you............