CHAPTER XI.
"THEY'RE OFF!"
It would have been hard to find any busier boys in all Hampton thatmorning than the four scouts who have figured so prominently in thisstory. And about one o'clock of the same day the telephone was keptemployed carrying messages from house to house.
In fact, Rob had hardly left the lunch table when he heard a ring, andupon lifting the receiver to his ear, immediately recognized the excitedvoice of Andy.
"Rob, is that you? Say, it's all right, and I'm going along!"
"Oh! you didn't have to say more than one word to tell me that,"answered the patrol leader with a laugh. "Why, the minute you openedyour mouth you gave it all away. But I'm mighty glad you convinced yourfolks, Andy."
"At first father looked kind of glum, and shook his head as though hewouldn't hear of such a thing," continued the other joyously. "But Itook your advice, and just started in to tell the whole yarn. I couldsee his face keep getting lighter the further I went, till at the end heshook me by the hand, and says he: 'Andy, I don't mean to refuse you anyreasonable thing; and while I'll worry a lot if you go down there tothat troubled country, still, it's in a good cause. And if Mrs. Hopkins,Mr. Blake, and Mr. Crawford give their sons permission, I reckon I'llhave to do the same. I've found that scouts learn how to take care ofthemselves no matter where they happen to be!' And so that's settled.How about you?"
"Oh! there wasn't any trouble," replied Rob proudly. "Dad asked me a lotof questions, and then said he was willing to trust me anywhere. He'sthe finest dad that ever lived, barring none! Now, we're only waiting tohear from Merritt."
"Well, you won't have to wait long, then," said a hearty voice just overRob's shoulder; and glancing up he saw the other chum, who had reachedthe door of the room unobserved, even while the excited confab over thewire was in progress.
"There's no need of my asking what luck you've had, Merritt, my boy,"chuckled Rob, "because you carry the map on your face. It's all right,do I hear you say?"
"I should say, yes," hastily replied the other with a happy grin thattold how much his boyish heart was wrapped up in this grand project.
"Why, I didn't have any trouble at all. Father simply said that while hehardly approved of four lads like us going down into that country whereneighbor was warring with neighbor, and everything torn upside-down,still, it would be a shame if Tubby's old uncle, whom he has met, shouldlose all he had when there was a chance to save it. And so he told methat if the other boys received permission to go, he wouldn't throwanything in the way. You know, Rob, father has a heap of respect for theopinion of your dad."
"Good for you, Merritt," Rob rejoined. "I've been talking with Andy, andeverything is lovely over there at his house. I'm holding the wire, andjust wait till I tell him to come over here on the jump. He'd betterpick up Tubby on the way, because we want to talk things over once more,so as to know just what we ought to take along with us."
This was speedily arranged; and within ten minutes the other twomembers of the Eagle Patrol bustled in, out of breath with the exertionthey had put forth in order to save time.
Then the tongues began to wag, and all sorts of suggestions came thickand fast. It seemed as though everybody had been thinking up ideas, aswell as getting new ones from outsiders, mostly fellow members of thetroop to whom the subject of the great expedition was mentioned.
"My father advised that we go well armed," said Merritt; "not that wewould expect to use our guns against anybody, unless in the last pinch;but he says there are ferocious wild beasts down in that country, and hewouldn't feel easy to have us there with just a camp hatchet and ourstaves along for defense."
"How about that, Tubby? Did you happen to ask Uncle Mark whether we'd belikely to run across any grizzly bears or panthers or big game likethat?" inquired Andy.
"Just what I did, because you know my mother said she was worried aboutmy being gobbled up by a pack of hungry wolves," replied the fat scout.
"Guess they would pick you out first pop!" struck in Andy, chuckling.
"Which would show their good taste," Tubby informed him, withouthesitating a second. "But uncle admitted that we might run across wildbeasts of prey if we had to make much of a detour to avoid the Federaltroops that are combing the country back of Ciudad Juarez, on the RioGrande just opposite El Paso on the Texas side."
"Did he happen to say what kind of animals?" asked Rob.
"Oh! any old kind. There are wolves and coyotes on the plains, and inthe desert; jaguars among the hills; and sometimes even a bear is runacross, though not often. But my opinion is we'll have ten times as muchworry about rebels and Federal soldiers and some of the Mexican banditslike that Castillo crowd we've read so much about in the papers the lastfew months."
"I think myself that you hit the target in the bull's-eye that time,Tubby," was Merritt's way of expressing his opinion.
"Well, it's settled then," added Rob, "that we go armed. Every fellowwill have to carry some sort of a gun; and if you don't happen to ownone, borrow it. Be sure to have some ammunition along, because wemightn't be able to get the kind we need down there. Now, let's makeout a list of things we'll want with us. Of course we wouldn't think ofcarrying a tent, because we don't mean to have a pack train along, andwe'll have to move in a hurry lots of times."
"But what if it rains like all get-out?" questioned Tubby, who did notaltogether like the idea of getting his brand new khaki suitwater-soaked the first thing.
"Oh! don't bother about such a little thing as that," Merritt told him,with a snort of scorn. "What sort of scouts would we be if we couldn'tfix up some sort of shelter against rain? And even if we didn't, none ofus are made of salt, are we? Anyway, I don't believe it rains much downthere around Chihuahua, because a heap of the territory is only desert;and it wouldn't be that if it had showers, you understand."
By degrees they settled upon what they should take along. Tubby was forloading himself down with such a raft of stuff,--all of which might comein very handy, but could never be carried without breaking the back ofhis horse,--that Rob finally made out a slip for him, and insisted thathe should not pack up more than those essential things contained on thepaper.
"I'm going to take my fountain pen along, anyhow," grumbled Tubby, asthough determined to carry some article that was not on the list. "And Ibet, Rob, you'll be wanting to borrow it at every city where we stop forten minutes, to address post cards to somebody in Hampton, like you didthe time we went to Panama."
Of course that sly allusion caused a laugh on the part of Merritt andAndy, while Rob turned a bit red in the face.
"Oh! have your fun if you want to, fellows," the patrol leader said, asthough he were proof against their prodding. "I acknowledge that I didsend a few cards to Lucy Mainwaring that time; yes, and I calculate todo the same again. Just think up some nice girl, each of you, and investa few dimes that way yourself. It's lots of fun looking them overafterward, when she's got them so neatly pasted in her post card album."
"Well," Merritt proposed, "now that we know what's what, hadn't webetter scatter and get busy? There's an awful lot to be done between nowand night, looking over our clothes, having this fixed, or that buttonsewed on. Suppose we get together after supper and report progress. Howwould my house do?"
"I'll be on deck, never fear," Tubby announced promptly.
"Look for me about half-past seven, Merritt," Andy told him.
"Sorry, fellows," Rob put in, with a shrug of his shoulders and awhimsical smile on his face; "I'll have to plead a previous engagement."
"Oh! sure you do," jeered Andy; "and it'd be a shame to ask you to breakit for such a little thing as this. But the rest of us'll be around,Merritt. No need of worrying about Rob, anyhow, because we know he'llhave everything in ship-shape style long before our train leaves."
After that the meeting was dissolved, and three of the lads hurried awayto start packing their duffel according to arrangements, getting it inas small a compass as possible.
They w
ere frequently interrupted by other boy friends, calling to findout if this startling rumor had any truth back of it. The visitors askedunlimited questions, while they loudly bewailed their hard luck in notgetting a chance to accompany the four fortunate ones.
Sim Jeffords and Hiram Nelson, indeed, went so far as to threatenjokingly to start a rival expedition, and clean out all the rebels andRegulars in the Mexican State of Chihuahua. While Fred Mainwaring,Lucy's brother, who was at home at this time, boldly declared he hadhalf a mind to buy a ticket through to El Paso and wait for the fourscouts there, in hopes of thus forcing them to take him on.
In the town it became a subject of common talk, and all sorts of ideaswere passed around concerning this new and most extraordinary scheme ofthe scouts. Some people who were not in love with the organization, likeold Hiram Applegate, the farmer who had caused the boys so much troublein a previous story, openly scoffed at the idea of half-grown ladsundertaking such a risky mission. He said their parents must be crazy toallow it; but when casual mention was made of his own wild son, Jared,who had gone rapidly to the bad, and had not been heard from since hismisdeeds at Panama came near getting him into trouble with the UnitedStates Government, Hiram suddenly remembered he had an engagementelsewhere.
Even the old-time enemies of the Eagles, Max Ramsay, Hodge Berry, and afew of the members of the rival Hawk Patrol, investigated the excitingnews, and tried to prove to their own satisfaction that the people ofHampton were prejudiced in favor of Rob Blake and his crowd, because allsorts of splendid things seemed to be continually coming their way. Theywere wilfully blind to the fact that the boys of the Eagle Patrol hadsurely deserved all the good fortune that had been showered upon themthus far. This was because they had set their standard high, and triedto conform to the rules that govern the scout movement.
That was a long night to four boys at least in Hampton. At noon on thefollowing day a great crowd gathered at the station to see them leavefor New York, where they expected to take the night train for the FarSouthwest. Rob and his three chums felt their hearts beat a livelytattoo as they saw the faces of home folks and patrol comrades amongthose present.
As the train pulled out of the station amidst loud shouts and goodwishes, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, the boys could distinguishone sound that thrilled them to the core, and made them remember thevows they had taken always to be true scouts.
This was the shrill "k-r-e-e-e" of the Eagles, given in concert by theother members of the patrol to which all of the travelers belonged; andthe last thing they saw as they leaned from the windows was the swarm ofcampaign hats that went flying up into the air.
Then, as the scene was blotted out in the cloud of fine sand raised bythe train, the four boys, thus boldly starting on a long and hazardousjourney in quest of Uncle Mark's last remnant of his fortune, sank backin their seats and just looked at each other, too overcome to say asingle word. Behind lay home and all the dear ones; while beyond was theland of revolution and turmoil--Mexico!