CHAPTER VI
THE FRICTION FIRE
"We haven't got any matches to start a fire with!" Coombsie sat down ina pool of gold with the well-nigh empty basket beside him, and turnedbaffled eyes upon the others.
"I have a few in a safety box in my pocket. Thank goodness! I didn't goback on our scout motto: 'Be Prepared!' so far as matches are concerned,anyway." Nixon felt in each pocket of his Norfolk jacket with a facethat lengthened dismally under the smears of Varney's Paintpot."_Gone!_" he ejaculated despairingly. "I must have lost the box!"
"It probably dropped out of your pocket into the grass when I tied ourcoats round the chest-nut-tree, to prevent that young coon from'lighting down,'" suggested Leon, and _his_ face grew pinched; it wasnot a refreshing memory that conjured up a picture of Raccoon Juniorlimping back to the hole among the ledges near Big Swamp, with a legbroken by his stone, at the moment when a fellow had a wholethunderstorm in his ankle.
"Well! we're up against it now," gasped the scout. "We can't get outof the woods to-night; that's sure! We could sleep in the cave and bejolly comfortable too"--he stooped down and examined its wideinterior--"if we only had a fire. But, without a camp-fire or a singleblanket, we'll be uncomfortable enough when it comes on dark; theseSeptember nights are chilly."
He threw his hat on the ground, drew his coat-sleeve across his ruddyforehead, rendering his bedaubed countenance slightly more grotesquethan before. He had forgotten that it was smeared, forgotten paint andfrolic. An old look descended upon his face.
He was desperately tired. Every muscle of his body ached. His head wasconfused too from long wandering among the trees; his thoughts seemed toskip back into the woods away from him; he felt himself stalking them asBlink would stalk a rabbit. But there was one thing more alive in him atthat moment than ever before, a sense of protective responsibility.
With Leon disabled and the two younger boys completely worn out, itrested with him alone to turn a night in the Bear's Den into a mere"corking" adventure, or to let it drag by as a dark age of discomfortwith certainly bad results for two of the party. Nixon had felt Leon'shand as it slipped from his neck at the edge of the clearing, it wasclammy as ice; his first-aid training as a scout told him that theinjured lad would feel the cold bitterly during the night.
Starrie Chase would probably "stick it out without squealing," as insuch circumstances he would try to do himself. But it would be a hardexperience. And young Colin's clothing was still sodden from his partialimmersion in Big Swamp. It was one of those moments for the Scout of theU.S.A. when the potential father in the boy is awake.
"I've _got_ to fix things up for the night, somehow," he wearily toldhimself aloud. "I wonder--I wonder if I could manage to start a firewithout matches--with 'rubbing-sticks'? I did it once when we werecamping out with our scoutmaster. But he helped me. If I could only getthe fire, now, 'twould be a--great--stunt!"
"'Start a fire without matches!' You're crazy!" Colin and Coombsielooked sideways at him; they had heard of people being "turned round" intheir heads by much woodland wandering.
"Shut up, you two!" commanded Leon, suddenly imperious. "He knows whathe's about. He did a good stunt in helping me along here."
"If I could only find the right kinds of wood to start a frictionfire--balsam fir for the fireboard and drill, and a little chunk ofcedarwood to be shredded into tinder!" The boy scout was eagerlyscanning the trees on either side of the grass-grown logging-road, treeswhich at this moment seemed to have their roots in the forest soil andtheir heads in Heaven's own glory.
"_There's_ a fir-tree! Among those pines--a little way along the road!"Leon spoke in that slow, stiff voice, sprained by pain. "Perhaps I canhelp you--Nix?"
"No, you lie still, but chuck me your knife, it's stronger than mine! Iought to have two tools for preparing the 'rubbing-sticks,' so the ChiefScout tells us in our book, but I'll have to get along somehow with ourpocketknives."
Nix Warren was off up the road as he spoke; hope, responsibility, andambition toward the performance of a "great stunt," forming a fightingtrio to get the better of weariness.
The glory was waning from the tree-tops when he returned, bearing withhim one sizeable chunk of balsamic fir-wood and a long stick from thesame tree.
"Any sort of stick will do for the bent bow which is attached to thedrill and works it; that's what our book says," he murmured, as ifconning over a lesson. "Who's got a leather shoe-lace? You have--cowhidelaces--in those high boots of yours, Colin! Mind letting me have one?"
The speaker was excitedly setting to work, now, fashioning the flatfireboard from the chunk of fir-wood, carving a deep notch in its side,and scooping out a shallow hole at the inner end of the notch into whichthe point of the upright drill would fit.
In feeling, he was the primitive man again, this modern boy scout: hewas that grand old savage ancestor of prehistoric times into whose earGod whispered the secret, unknown to beast or bird, of creating lightand warmth for himself and those dependent on him, when the sun forsookthem.
"Say! can't you fellows get busy and collect some materials for a fire,dry chips and pine-splinters--fat pine-splinters--and dead branches?There's plenty of good fuel around! You wood-finders'll have a cinch!"
It certainly was a signal act of faith in Colin and Coombsie when theybestirred their weary limbs to obey this command from the wizard who wasto try and evoke the mysterious fire-element latent in the combustiblewood he handled, but hard to get at without the aids which civilizationplaces at man's disposal.
They each kept a corner of their inquisitive eyes upon him while theycollected the fuel, watching the shaping of the notched fireboard, ofthe upright pointed drill, over a dozen inches in length, and theconstruction of a rude bow out of a supple stick found on the clearing,with Colin's cowhide shoe-lace made fast to each end as the cord orstrap that bent the bow.
This cord was twisted once round the upper part of the drill whose lowerpoint fitted into the shallow hole in the fireboard.
"Whew! I must find a piece of pine-wood with a knot in it and scoop thatknot out, so that it will form a disc for the top of the drill in whichit will turn easily," said the perspiring scout. "Oh, sugarloons! I'veforgotten all about the _tinder_; we may have to trot a long way intothe woods to find a cedar-tree."
"I'll go with you, Nix," proffered Marcoo, while Leon, lying on theground near the cave, with his dog pressing close to him, undertook thetask of scooping that soft knot out of the pine-disk.
"All right; bring along the tin mug out of your basket; perhaps we mayfind water!"
And they did! Oh, blessed find! Wearily they trudged back about sixtyyards into the woods, in an opposite direction from that in which theyhad traveled before--Nixon taking the precaution of breaking off a twigfrom every second or third tree so as to mark the trail--before they liton a grove of young cedars through which ran a sound, now a purling sob,now a tinkling laugh; softer, more angel-like, than the wind's mirth!
"_Water!_ A spring! Oh--tooraloo!" And they drank their fill, bringingback, along with the cedar-wood for tinder--water, as much as their tinvessel would hold, for the two boys and dog keeping watch over thefire-sticks on the old bear's camping-ground.
The soft cedar was shredded into tinder between two stones. The drillwas set up with its lower point resting in the notched hole of thefire-board, its upper point fitting into the pine-disk which Nixonsteadied with his hand.
Then the boy scout began to work the bent bow which passed through ahole in the upper part of the drill, steadily to and fro, slowly turningthat drill, grinding its lower point into the punky wood of thefireboard.
In the eye of each of the four boys the coveted spark already glowed,drilled by excitement out of the dead wood of his fatigue.
Even the dog, his jaws gaping, his tongue lolling out, lay stretched atattention, his gaze intent upon the central figure of the boy scoutworking the strapped bow backward and forward, turning the pointed drillthat bored into the fireboard.
/> Ground-up wood began to fall through the notch in the fireboard adjacentto the hole upon another slab of wood which Nixon had placed as a traybeneath it.
This powdered wood was brown. Slowly it turned black. Was that smoke?
It was a strange tableau, the four disheveled boys with theirred-smeared faces, the painted clown's dog, all holding their breathintent upon the primitive miracle of the fire-birth.
Smoke it was! _Increasing smoke!_ And in its tiny cloud suddenlyappeared the miracle--a dull red spark at the heart of the black wooddust.
"What do you know about that?" Marcoo's voice was thick.
"Gee! that's a--wonderful--stunt. I guess you could light a fire with apiece of damp bark and a snowball!" Leon looked up at the panting scout.
Colin's mind was telegraphing back to the moment when he lay on thesalt-marshes that morning, hungry for the woods. If any one had told himthat, before night, he would assist at a forest drama like this!
"Hush! Don't speak for fear you'd hoodoo it! We haven't got it yet--thefire! Perhaps--perhaps--I can't make it burn." It was the most wonderfulmoment of his life for the boy scout as he now took a pinch of thecedar-wood tinder, half-enclosed in a piece of paper-like birch-bark andheld it down upon the red fire-germ--in all following the teaching ofthe great Chief Scout.
Then he lifted the slab of wood that served as tray, bearing the ruddyfire-embryo and tinder, and blew upon it evenly, gently. It blazed. Themiracle was complete.
"_Wonderful stunt!_" murmured Starrie Chase again. His hand in itsrestless uneasiness had been plucking large flakes of moss from the grayrock behind him and turning them over, revealing the medicinal goldthread that embroidered the earthy underside of the sod; he was suckingthat bitter fibre--supposed to be good for a sore mouth, but no panaceafor a sprained ankle--while a like gold thread of fascinated speculationembroidered the ruddy mask of his face.
"Hurrah! we'll have a fire right away now, that will talk to us allnight long." The triumphant scout lowered the flame-bud to the ground,piled over it some of the resinous pine-splinters and strips ofinflammatory bark, fanning it steadily with his hat. In a few minutes arollicking camp-fire was roaring in front of the old Bear's Den.
"Now! we must gather some big chunks, dry roots and stumps, to keep thefire going through the night, cut sods to put round it and prevent itsspreading into the woods, and break up some pine-tips to strew in thecave for a bed. There's lots of work ahead still, fellows, before we canbe snug for the night!"
The scout, having got his second breath with his great achievement, wasworking hard as he spoke; Marcoo and Colin followed his example inrenewed spirits. Leon, chafing at his own inactivity, tried to stand andsank down with a groan.
"How's the thunderstorm sprain?" they asked him.
"Worse--ugh-h! And I'm parched with thirst--still!"
"Well, we'll lope off into the woods and bring you back some more water.If you'll leave a little in the bottom of the mug I'll soak ourhandkerchiefs in it and wrap them round your ankle; cold applicationsmay relieve the pain;" the scout was recalling what he had learned aboutfirst aid to the injured.
Darkness descended upon the old bear's stamping-ground. But thecamp-fire burned gloriously, throwing off now and again a foam of flamewhose rosy clots lit in the crevices of the tall rock and bloomed therefor an instant like scarlet flowers.
The work necessary in making camp for the night done, the four boysgathered round it, dividing their scanty rations, the scraps of foodleft in Coombsie's basket, and speculating as to how early in themorning a search-party would come out and find them.
"Toiney Leduc will certainly be one of the party. Toiney is a regularscout; he's only been here a year, but he knows the woods well,"remarked Leon, then was silent a minute, gazing wistfully into the heartof the flames which filled the pause with snappy conversationalfire-works.
"Tell us something about this boy scout business, bo'!" he spoke againin the slow, sprained voice, his feverish eyes burning into the fire,his tone making the slangy little abbreviation stand for brother, as headdressed Nixon. "It seems as if it might be The Thing--starting thatfire was a great stunt--and if it's The Thing--every fellow wants to bein it!"
"Oh! you don't know what good times we have," began the scout.
And briefly skimming from one point to another, he told of the origin ofthe Boy Scout Movement far away in Africa during the defense of abesieged city, and of the great English general, the friend of boys, whohad fathered that movement.
Leon's eyes narrowed as he still gazed into the camp-fire: it was a longdescent from the defense of a beleaguered city to the championship of abesieged chipmunk, but his quick mind grasped the principle of fierychivalry underlying both--one and the same.
"Can you sing some more of that U.S.A. song which you were shouting inthe woods near the log camp?" Marcoo broke in, as the narrator dwelt onthose good times spent in hiking, trailing, camping with thescoutmaster.
"Perhaps I can--a verse or two! That's the latest for the Boy Scouts ofAmerica--the Scouts of the old U.S. Don't know whether I have a pinch ofbreath left, though!"
And the flagging voice began, gathering gusto from the camp-fire, gleefrom the stars now winking through the pine-tops:--
"Mile after mile in rank or file, We tramp through field and wood: Or off we hike down path or pike, One glorious brotherhood. Hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields, Hurrah for the life that's free! With a body and mind both clean and kind, The Scout's is the life for me!"
"Chorus, fellows!" he cried:--
We will fight, fight, fight, for the right, right, right, "Be prepared" both night and day; and we'll shout, shout, shout, for the Scout, Scout, Scout, for the Scouts of the U.S.A.
The rolling music in the pine-trees, the reedy whistle of the breezeamong beeches and birches, soft cluck of rocking branches, the bagpipeskirling of the flames leaping high, fluted and green-edged, all came inon that chorus; together with the four boyish voices and the bark of thedog as he bayed the blaze: the night woods rang for the Scouts of theU.S.A.
"If when night comes down we are far from town, Both tired and happy too, Camp-fires we light and by embers bright We sleep the whole night through. Hurrah for the sun, hurrah for the storm, Hurrah for the stars above! We feel secure, safe, sane and sure, For we know that God is Love."
"Why have you that knot in your tie?" asked Leon after the last note haddied away in forest-echo, while the scout was wetting the bandages roundhis inflamed ankle before they crept into the cave to sleep.
"To remind me to do one good turn to somebody every day."
"Well, you can untie it now; I guess you've done good turns by the bunchto-day!"
Lying presently upon the fragrant pine-tips with which they had strewnthe interior of the cave, the scout's tired fingers fumbled for thatknot and drowsily undid it. He had lost both way and temper in thewoods. But he had tried, at least, to obey the scout law of kindness.
As he lay on guard, nearest to the cave's entrance, winking back at thestars, this brought him a happy sense of that wide brotherhood whosecradle is God's Everlasting Arms.
From the well of his sleepy excitement two words bubbled up: "OurFather!" Rolling over until his nose burrowed among the fragrantevergreens, he repeated the Lord's Prayer, adding--because this had beenan eventful day--a brief petition which had been put into his lips byhis scoutmaster and was uttered under unusual stress of feeling, or whenhe remembered it: That in helpfulness to others and loyalty to good hemight be a follower of the Lord of Chivalry, Jesus Christ, and continuehis faithful soldier and servant "until the scout's last trail is done!"
* * * * *
It was almost morning when he awoke for the second time, having stirredhis tired limbs once already to replenish the camp-fire.
Now that hard-won fire had waned to a dull red shading on the undersidesof velvety logs, the remainder of whos
e surface was of a chilly grayfrom which each passing breeze flicked the white flakes of ash likehalf-shriveled moths.
"Whew! I must punch up the fire again--but it's hard to get the kinksout o' my backbone;" he straightened his curled-up spine with difficultyand stumbled out on the camping-ground.
It was that darkest hour before dawn. The stars were waning as well asthe fire. The trees which had been friends in the daytime werespectators now. Each wrapped in its dark mantle, they seemed to standcuriously aloof, watching him.
He attacked the logs with a stick, poking them together and thrusting adry branch into the ruddy nest where the fire still hatched.
Snip! Snap! Crackle! the flames awoke. Mingling with their revivinglaughter, came a low, strange cluck that was not the voice of the fire,immediately followed by a long shrill cry with a wavering trill in it,not unlike human mirth.
It hailed from some point in the scout's rear.
"For heaven's sake!" The stick shook in his fingers. "Can it be awildcat--or another coon?"
Stiffly he wheeled round. His eyes traveled up the great rock--in whosecave his companions lay sleeping; as they gained the top of that oldgrayback, they were confronted by two other eyes--mere twinkling pointsof flame!
The scout's scalp seemed to lift like a blown-off roof. His throat grewvery dry.
At the same moment there was a noiseless flitting as of a shadow fromthe rock's crest to a near-by tree whence came the weird cry again.
"_An owl!_ Well, forevermore! And my hair is standing straight still!"
"_What is it?_ _What is it, Nix?_" came in muffled cries from the cave.
"Only a screech owl; it's unusual to find one so far in the woods asthis!"
As it happened two ruddy screech owls, faithful lovers and monogamists,which had dwelt together as Darby and Joan in the hollow of an oldapple-tree in a distant orchard, being persecuted both by boys and bluejays, had eschewed civilization, isolating themselves, at least from theformer, in the woods.
As dawn broke between the tall pines and a pale river of daylight flowedalong the logging-road, they were seen, both together, upon a low bough,with the dawn breeze fluffing their thick, rufous plumage, making themlook larger than they really were, and their heads slowly turning fromside to side, trying to discover the meaning of a camp-fire and otherstrange doings in this their retreat.
"Oo-oo! look at them," hooted Colin softly, creeping out of the cave andstealthily approaching their birch-tree. "They have yellow eyes andfaces like kittens. Huh! they're more comical than a basket of monkeys.Oh, there they go."
For even as his hand was put forth to touch them, they vanishedsilently as the ebbing shadows in the train of night.
"This must be a great place for owls," said Leon, blinking likeone--not until far on in the night had he slept owing to thewrenching pain in his ankle. "Listen! there goes the big oldhooter--the great horned owl--the Grand Duke we call him. Hearhim 'way off: 'Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo!' Sounds almost like a wolfhowling! _Ou-ouch!_"
"Is your ankle hurting badly, Starrie?"
"It's--fierce."
"Daylight is coming fast now; I'll be able to find the spring and wetthose bandages again--and bring you a drink too"; this from the scout.
"Thanks. You're the boy, Nix!"
The brotherly act accomplished, there was silence in the cave where thefour boys had again stretched themselves while young Day crept up overthe woods.
Suddenly Leon's voice was heard ambiguously muttering in the cave'srecess: "If it's The Thing, every fellow wants to be in it!"
"Say! fellows, I've got an idea," he put forth aloud.
"Out with it, if it's worth anything!" from Colin.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Leon! get it out quick, and let us go to sleepagain!" pleaded Coombsie, who knew that if Starrie Chase was oppressedby an idea, other boys would hear it in his time, not in theirs.
"I propose that after we get home--when my ankle is better--we start aboy scout patrol in our town and call it the Owl Patrol! I guess we'veheard the owls--different kinds--often enough to-night, to be able toimitate one or other of them."
"Good enough! The Scout's is the life for me!" sang out Colin.
"The motion is seconded and carried--now let's go to sleep!" fromMarcoo.
"As I expect to stay in these parts for six months, or longer, I'll gettransferred from the Philadelphia Peewits to the new patrol!" decidedNixon.
"Bully for you! We'll ask Kenjo Red and Sweetsie to come in; they'redandy fellows--and who else?" Leon hesitated.
"Why don't you get hold of that frightened boy who was with Toiney onthe edge of the woods? We had a boy like him in our Philadelphia troop,"went on Nixon hurriedly, ignoring a surge of protest. "Scared of his ownshadow he was! Abnormal timidity--with a long Latin name--due topre-natal influences, according to the doctors! Well, our scoutmastermanaged somehow to enlist him as a tenderfoot. When he got out into thewoods with us and found that every other scout was trying to help him tobecome a 'fellow,' why! he began to crawl out of his shell. He's gettingto be quite a boy now!"
"But the '_Hare_'! he'd spoil--_Ouch!_" A sudden wrench of agony as Leonmoved restlessly put the pointed question as to whether the mental painwhich Harold Greer suffered might not be as hard to drag round as athunderstorm ankle.
"All right, Nix! Enlist him if you can! I guess you'll have to pass onwho comes into the new patrol."
Colin dug his nose into the pine-tips with a skeptical chuckle: that newpatrol would have a big contract on hand, he thought, if it was togather up the wild, waste energy of Leon,--that element in him whichparents and teachers sought to eradicate,--turn it to good account, andtake the fright out of the Hare.
But from the woods came a deep bass whoop that sounded encouraging: theWhoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo! of the Grand Duke bidding the worldgood-morning ere he went into retreat for the day.
It was answered by the Whoo-whoo-whooah-whoo! of a brother owl, alsolifting up his voice before sunrise.
"Listen, fellows!" cried Leon excitedly. "_Listen!_ The feathered owlsthemselves are cheering the Owl Patrol."