CHAPTER V
TOM BINNS' BAD LUCK
Jack Danby and Tom Binns, Second Class Scouts, were ready now to becomeFirst Class Scouts, and so to earn the right to wear the full Scoutbadge, and compete for all the medals and special badges of merit forwhich Scouts are eligible. They had passed all the tests save one.They had proved their efficiency in signaling, in scout and camp craft,in the tying of knots, had given evidence of their ability to savethose who were drowning and give first aid to the injured, and they hadonly to make a hike of seven miles, alone or together, to receive thecoveted promotion.
They determined, with Scout-Master Durland's permission, to make thishike together the Saturday afternoon following the Field Day that hadbrought so much glory to Jack Danby and his Patrol, the Crows.Although Tom Binns had been a Scout longer than Jack, Jack had been aTenderfoot Scout for only thirty days, the shortest time in which aScout can pass out of the Tenderfoot class, and he was fully as good aScout now as many of the older ones who had had the right to wear theFirst Class Scout's badge for a long time.
"Gee, Jack, I wonder if we'll ever get to be Patrol Leaders andScout-Masters?" asked Tom Binns, as they met after work that Saturday,and prepared to start on their hike.
"Why not, Tom? Everyone has to make a start. And Mr. Durland wasn't aScout when he was our age, because there weren't any Boy Scouts then."
"I suppose it's a lot of responsibility, but then that's a good thing,too."
"You bet it is! That's one of the things I like best about being aScout. It teaches you to be responsible, and to understand that you'vegot to do things just because you are responsible for seeing thatthey're done, and not just because someone keeps standing over you andtelling you what to do."
"Where shall we go, Jack?"
"The camp for the Troop hike today is out at Beaver Dam. I thought wemight start from the other side of the lake there, go to HaskellCrossing, and get back to camp in time for supper. Then we could getour badges from Mr. Durland, I guess."
"That's a fine idea, Jack. I don't know that country very well,though. Do you?"
"No. That's one reason for going that way. We know that we'll find aplace where we can make a fire and cook our supper, though. We don'tneed to eat it unless we're particularly hungry, but we've got to cookit."
"Say, Jack, if fellows make that hike alone, who's going to tellwhether they really did it or not? If a fellow wasn't straight, hecould go off somewhere; and then report that he'd hiked the fourteenmiles, and there wouldn't be anyone to prove that he hadn't."
"I know, but we're all on our honor, Pete, and a chap who had got to bea Second Glass Scout wouldn't ever play a trick like that. It wouldn'tpay."
"I guess that's true, too, Jack. That's another fine thing about beinga Scout. When you see a fellow give you the Scout sign in a strangeplace, you know he's all right, just because he is a Scout, even if younever saw him before."
"Yes. That's why we've all got to be so careful to keep up the honorof the Scouts, and not do anything ourselves, nor let any other Scoutdo anything that would give outsiders a chance to say that we preachedone thing and did another."
They took the trolley to their starting point, on the side of LakeWhitney away from Beaver Dam, where their fellow Scouts were to gatherlater in the afternoon for a practice camp, such as Durland andCrawford arranged for nearly every half holiday.
"How will we know when we've gone seven miles?" asked Tom.
"It's just about seven miles--perhaps a little more--to HaskellCrossing, so we can tell without any trouble. That's one reason Ipicked out the place. The trail through these woods is pretty rough,but we can follow it all right."
"Whose land is this, Jack?"
"No one knows, exactly. It's a sort of a no man's land. Or, at least,two sets of heirs to an old estate are fighting about it in the courts.They've been trying for years to get it settled between them, but thecourts haven't decided yet, and they may not for a long time."
"And meantime no one can use it?"
"That's it. It seems silly, doesn't it? If the courts take so long todecide it must mean, I should think, that both sides were partly right,and I should think they'd want to settle it between themselves, and soeach get some use out of the land. There's an old house, more than ahundred and fifty years old, in the woods, too."
"Doesn't anyone live in it?"
"No one now. Tramps go there sometimes, I've heard, because it is solonely. Some people say it's haunted, but I guess the tramps playedghost, just so that people would stay away and let them alone."
"Gee, if there's a ghost around, I hope he stays in when we're passing.I'm afraid of them!"
"Why, how could a ghost hurt you, Tom? Anyhow, you don't need to worryabout ghosts in the daytime. They only come out at night."
"It's pretty dark in here, Jack. The woods are mighty thick."
"I believe you _are_ scared, Tom," said Jack, laughing. "Well, don'tyou worry! I'm pretty sure that if anyone ever did see a real thinghere that he thought was a ghost it was a tramp in disguise. And Idon't believe you're afraid of a tramp--though I'd rather meet a ghost,myself, than a vicious tramp."
"Gee, that railroad train's whistle sounds good," said Tom, a fewminutes later. "That must be at the crossing."
"Yes. It isn't much further now. And the house is near the crossing,too. I believe the people who lived in it made a great fuss when therailroad went through, and that was about the time when the quarrelstarted. They said it would spoil their property to have the stationso near them--instead of which, if they could only see it, it's made ita whole lot more valuable."
Suddenly Tom, who was walking as fast as he could and was ahead ofJack, stumbled and fell against a root. When Jack got beside him hewas white with pain.
"I guess I must have twisted my foot pretty badly," he said. "I don'tbelieve I can stand on it for a while."
He put a hand on Jack's shoulder and tried to walk, but found the paintoo great.
"Here, let me see it," cried Jack. "I may be able to do something tomake it better."
Tenderly he removed Tom's shoe, and turning the stocking back from theinjured ankle, rubbed and examined it thoroughly.
"I may hurt you when I rub it around, Tom," he said, "but it won't hurtyour ankle for more than a minute."
For two or three minutes, while Tom, with set teeth, endured the painwithout even a whimper, Jack rubbed and massaged the ankle, alreadyslightly swollen.
"It's just a strain, I think, Tom," he said. "I'll find a spring or abrook, if they're not all dried up around here, and make a coldcompress for it. Next to blazing hot water, that's the best thing todo for it, and I think you'll be able to get to Haskell Crossing prettysoon, with a little help from me. Then we can get a train or a trolleyback."
"Gee, I never thought, Jack! You can't do that! If you go back withme, you won't be able to get your First Class Scout badge."
"What of it, Tom? I guess I can wait a week or two for that withoutsuffering very much. And you didn't think I'd leave you alone here, orto go home alone, did you? You can't walk back on that foot--that'sone sure thing."
Tom protested that all Jack should do was to get him to the station,whence he said he could manage to get home all right, but Jack wouldn'thear of such an idea, and, after he had put the cold water bandage onTom's ankle, he helped his comrade the short distance that remained tothe track, and the little flag station at Haskell Crossing.
The sun was low on the horizon when they got there. In the littleshanty that served as a station, loafing and wishing for something todo, was a red-headed, gawky youth whose business it was to set signalsand listen at a telegraph key for the orders that went flashing up anddown the line.
"There's no train back to town for four hours," he told them, when theyasked how soon they could get a train. "One went a few minutesago--you must have heard it whistle. Hurt, there, sonny?"
"Twisted my ankle a bit," said Tom Binns, wit
h a plucky smile.
"Sho, that's too bad," said the red-headed one. "Here, come into thestation and set down! There's a place in the freight daypo where youcan be more comfortable like."
The shanty was divided into two parts. One was for the sale oftickets, though Jack guessed that there were few purchasers, the otherheld a few empty milk cans, which showed pretty well what made up thebulk of the freight handled there. But there was a pile of sacks inone corner, also, and on those, arranged and spread out like a bed, Tomwas made fairly comfortable. Rest was what his ankle needed, and hecould rest there as well as anywhere else.
"I ain't got but a little lunch here," said the red-headed telegrapher,station agent and baggage man rolled into one, regretfully. "Butyou're welcome to share it with me."
"No need of that, thanks," said Jack, heartily. "We were going to cookour supper in the woods, and if you'll show me a place where I canbuild a fire, I'll cook it now. We've got plenty for you, too, andI'll give you some bacon and eggs and coffee if you like them."
"Say, you're all right! My name's Hank Hudson, and if there's anythingI sure do hanker after, it's bacon and eggs. I can't get a hot supperon this job--I have to tote everything along with me from home, andit's all cold victuals I get."
"Well, we'll have a treat for you tonight, then, and I'm glad we will.It's mighty nice of you to let Tom Binns lie in the depot."
Jack was as good as his word. Hudson showed him a place where anatural fireplace, as it seemed, was all ready and waiting for the fireto be made, and Jack, in a comparatively short time, sent up a fragrantodor of frying bacon and eggs, and of rich, steaming coffee that wouldhave given a wooden Indian an appetite. He carried the meal to thestation, too, and the three of them ate it together, while Hudson'scold lunch, despised now, and not to be compared with the fine fareJack provided, was cast aside in a corner of the station.
"Do many trains pass here that don't stop?" asked Tom.
"Sure they do!" said Hudson. "This last hour is about the quietest oneof the whole day. I have to watch them all, too, and report when theypass here, so that the despatchers can keep track of them."
"What would happen if you didn't?"
"Can't tell! But there might easily be a bad wreck. If the despatcherthought he would get a flash from here as soon as the Thunderboltpassed, for instance, and I was asleep when she went by, he might letsomething into the track ahead of her, and then there'd be a fine lotof trouble. You can see that!"
"I should say so! You've a pretty responsible place here, I shouldthink. Do you like it?"
"Sure! I think the work's great! I'd rather work on a railroad thananything I can think of. But it gets awful lonely here sometimes.That's the worst part of it. The work's easy enough, but it's nothaving anyone to talk to, except the fellows and the girls on the wire,that makes it a hard job."
"You talk to all of them, I guess, don't you?"
"Sure." Hudson walked over to the telegraph instrument by the windowand threw his switch. "There's a girl at Beaver Dam calls me aboutthis time every evening. Things are slack, you know. They send her ina hot supper from the restaurant there, and she calls every evening andtells me what she had and how good it was, so that I'll be jealous.I'll have something to surprise her with tonight though--Hullo! Thereshe is now!"
Both boys knew the Morse code, from their signal work with the BoyScouts, and Jack, indeed, had experimented a little with wireless, sothat he could read the code of dots and dashes, if it was not sent toofast.
"H-K--H-K--H-K--" he heard now, and, in a minute more, he was trying tointerpret the swift interchange of chaffing messages between the twooperators.
"That's the only break in the loneliness," said Hudson, "unless someonecomes in for a visit the way you have. I wish there were more ofthem--except for those tramps back there in the woods. They hangaround a lot, and they get my goat!"
"In the big house in the woods there, you mean?" asked Jack. "The onethey say is haunted?"
Hudson laughed.
"That's the one. They say it's haunted, but it's Willies and TiredToms that haunt it, believe me! They come over here and look up theplace, and they'd have stolen everything in it long ago if there'd beenanything to steal. They let me alone because they're pretty sure Ihaven't got any money, and they know I've got a gun, too."