And so Peter Piper, of Piper's Crossroads, proved too much forScoutmaster Ned. He kept his secret. But he had a very narrow escapefrom being a hero.
Scoutmaster Ned had his way, too. "So you think you'd like to have apike at that camp, eh?" he said.
Scoutmaster Ned's theory about camping was to keep open house. If helacked discipline (which it is to be feared he did) he made up in pep,and the surprises that he was forever springing on the camp were aperpetual joy. I suspect that he was not well versed in hisscoutmasters' handbook. He was a sort of human north wind. He adoptedthe pose of being driven to distraction by "those kids" and he denouncedthem roundly and said there were too many of them and that he was goingto pick out one and drown the rest. Then he would show up with a newone. He was a sort of free-lance scoutmaster and I wonder how he everdrifted into the movement. Probably he didn't drift in, but blew in.Scoutmaster Safety First (Bill) was his balance-wheel.
"Where is she? I'll talk to her," he said to Peter.
So he talked with Mrs. Piper while Peter stood by. He sat down in thekitchen and drank a glass of milk and ate a piece of pie and told herthat it was the first real piece of pie he had ever eaten in his life.Would he have another? Well, he'd say he would! Mrs. Piper thought hewas about the finest "young gent" she had ever seen.
He told her all about his adventures of the night as if she were a paland when she said she had slept through all the rumpus outside, he said,"Well, you've got West Ketchem, where I come from, beaten twenty ways.Could I have just one little sliver--no, not as much as that--well, allright. That town, why you couldn't wake it up, Mrs. Piper, not with anearthquake. It would just fall down through the crack in the earth andgo right on sleeping--no I couldn't eat another speck. We must be off."
"We?"
"Oh yes, Pete's going with me. He's going to make us a little visit fora week or two. We have lessons and everything, study nature, and allthat, and all he wants to eat. I'll bring him back, he wants to see thereal scouts in captivity. No accounting for tastes, hey, Mrs. Piper?You'd better bring along a coat, Pete; but don't change your clothes,you're not going to church; come just as you are, so I'll be able totell you from the rest in case I should decide to kill them all. Thatlet's you out, see? Come ahead before your mother changes her mind."
Poor Mrs. Piper had not yet made up her mind, so she could not very wellchange it. Scoutmaster Ned had made up her mind for her.
"I'll have to get Sally Flint ter come over and visit with me," saidMrs. Piper doubtfully.
"Just the one," said Scoutmaster Ned. "She'll keep you company andyou'll have a little peace with this youngster gone. Mrs. Piper, if Ihad my way I'd chloroform every boy in creation. I wonder you look soyoung with a wild Indian like that around."
"Oh, I ain't lookin' so young," she smiled, greatly pleased.
Before she realized it she was shaking hands with Scoutmaster Ned whileher other arm was around Peter. "I'm going to come here and stay amonth," the young man said. "I'm going to churn butter and eat pie--if Ican escape from that outfit. Well good-bye, we're off. I hope the oldbus runs."
"It looks reel smart with all the blue paint," said Mrs. Piper.
"Handsome is as handsome does," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Climb in, Pete,what are you scared of? It won't eat you. Anybody'd think you werestalking--stepping so carefully. Know what stalking is? They'll showyou."
Mrs. Piper stood holding her gingham apron to her eyes as they rode off.It was of exactly the same pattern as Peter's shirt. He looked funnysitting rather fearfully on the front seat. She had never dreamed ofseeing him enthroned amid such sumptuousness. Perhaps some day he wouldgo away and come back _rich_--a hero. Her Peter. And this strangerliked him. She was weeping because she had never heard her boy calledPete since his father died. She liked to hear him called Pete, it was sofriendly, and recalled the past so vividly....
As if Scoutmaster Ned would have called him anything else than Pete!
CHAPTER XXXVII
HINTS
They showed him. As Scoutmaster Ned had told him they would do, theyshowed him. And Peter Piper was in dreamland; it was all too good to betrue. They showed him how to track and stalk. And how to signal.
Nick showed him how to make a smudge fire, and Peter was doubly sure,then, that Nick would win the cup. In the nights he dreamed of thewinning of that cup, of Nick winning it. Yes, they showed him. FidoNorton showed him how to track a rabbit, and a small-sized, pocketedition of a scout in the Elephant Patrol showed him (very difficult)how to trail a hop-toad. Charlie Norris showed him how to use a deadlykodak, which Peter had never seen before. He liked it because it pulledopen the way a turtle's neck comes out, and then went in again. Oh yes,they all showed him.
And meanwhile Peter Piper kept his secret and no one ever knew of hislittle exploit, for which the handbook really deserved all the credit.The adventure of the stolen car was now forgotten in a hundred newactivities, and with it the rope across the road and the lantern and allthat. Sometimes when they spoke of that, Peter was troubled. But theydid not often speak of it. And he did not even tell them that he was apioneer scout. Harding and Coolidge he now kept in the pocket of hisstove-pipe pantaloons. For Peter Piper was approaching scouthood throughthe tenderfoot class. Yes, they were all busy showing him.
Scout Harris showed him. Oh yes, he showed him. But Scout Harris was toobusy showing all the rest of them to do any exclusive showing for thepioneer scout. And besides, Peter, who was too new and too bashful andtoo awed by his companions and surroundings to be a good general mixer,was mostly occupied with his hero, Nick Vernon. Pee-wee, who was a mixeras well as a fixer, went on mixing and fixing and soon he performed hisgreatest of all "fixing" feats; probably the greatest fixing feat inscout history. Perhaps the greatest fixing stunt in the history of theworld.
But Peter was satisfied to laugh at Pee-wee with the rest of them, withthat bashful, hesitating laugh, which endeared him to them all.
It was natural that he should follow Nick Vernon about the island, foreveryone liked Nick, who was quiet, humorous, modest and withal veryresourceful and skilful. He had a kind of a contained air, as if he knewmore than he gave out, in contrast to Scout Harris who gave out morethan he knew. A bantering, off-hand way he had, as if all the things hedid (and he could do many) were done just to kill time. Skilful thoughhe was, he did not take himself too seriously. Everything he did heseemed to do incidentally.
He would wander aimlessly into some triumph. "Going tracking?" theywould say. "Guess so," he would answer. He never made a fuss. Thegeneral impression that he gave was that scouting was a good enough wayto while away a summer. Peter Piper worshipped at the shrine, winningscout personality. He hoped that his mother would allow him to stay forthe finish so that he could see Nick receive the cup. He watched,jealously, anxiously, the stunts of the other scouts, but none of themcould be mentioned along with Nick's signalling.
One morning Nick sauntered down to the shore, Peter with him.
"Going to wigwag?" they asked him.
"Maybe, if there's anyone to wigwag to. No use talking if there isn'tanyone in town to listen."
"Scout Harris talks whether there's anyone to listen or not," one said.
"Shall I bring the card to wigwag with?" Peter asked.
"No, don't bother. Got some matches? Never mind if you haven't."
Peter ran back and got some.
"If you're signalling tell them not to hurry with the school, we canwait. Scout Harris is giving us an education. He's going to move thelake to-morrow."
"He's a queer duck," one of the party sprawling around the tents said asthe two made their way down toward the shore.
"Who, Pete?"
"No, Nick; jiminy, it always seems as if--I don't know--as if he hassomething up his sleeve."
"It's his arm," commented a joker.
"Maybe he knows about a mystery," Pee-wee said; "maybe there's treasureburied on this island."
"There'll be some scouts buried on this island if we all die laughin
g atyou," another scout observed. "Come on, let's dig some bait."
Nick did not decide what he was going to do till he reached the shore.That was just like him. Peter was all excitement.
"Are you going to signal?" he asked.
Nick often signalled over to town and sometimes he got an answer, forthere were other scouts over there. He did it just for pastime. Usuallyit was the wigwag that he used. But on this morning, noticing the driedleaves all about, he said, "We'll try a smudge, that's pretty goodsport; Morse Code, you know." He looked about half-interestedly andbegan kicking leaves into a pile, Peter doing the same. If Nick had anyparticular purpose in this business, at least you would not havesupposed so. He seemed as aimless as a butterfly. "Are you going to askabout school?"
"No," laughed Nick, dragging some leaves with his foot; "there's noschool for a month, we know that. If you know a thing you know it; isn'tthat so?"
"I don't know many things."
"No? Well, get some water in your hat--here, take mine. These blamedscout hats are made to hold water."
Peter brought some water, which Nick poured on the leaves.
"Now haul that old raft up here and we'll hold it up. We'll just say'_hello_' to be sociable, show the town we're not stuck-up."
They held the old raft, of about the area of a door, slanting ways overthe leaves, and Nick showed Peter how to manipulate it so as to controlthe column of black smoke arising from the damp leaves. Peter wasgreatly interested, even excited, over this new kind of signalling. Hewas not quite as careful as he had been in talking with Scoutmaster Ned.
"Make one long one first to call their attention," he said, quitearoused by the novel enterprise.
"Yes?" said Nick, half interested apparently. "Who told you that?"
"I--I just knew it. I know now--let _me_ do it--it's easy. Only theyhave to be careful over there. That's--that's the hard part. I hopethey have a--one of those books over there--and then--maybe--I hope theykeep it open at page two hundred and eighty-four. Let _me_ try it--"
"Ned give you one of those books?"
"N--no, I--I saw one."
"Hmm."
"Well, let's get busy with the message, Pete."
Nick Vernon did not seem greatly interested in where or when or howPeter had seen the handbook, nor how he happened to remember page twohundred and eighty-four. But one thing Nick Vernon knew (it was areflection on Scoutmaster Ned and just exactly like him) and that wasthat _there was not a single copy of the scout handbook on Frying-panIsland_.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE FIXER
"All right, you can do as you choose," said Pee-wee; "only I'm justtelling you. There's always better fishing on the east side of an islandbecause that's what Uncle Jeb up at Temple Camp said and he knows--heknows--"
"He knows all the fish personally," said Charlie Norris.
"You think you're smart, don't you?" thundered Pee-wee. "There's abetter spring over there than there is here and then besides, the rainwill drain out better on account of the ground being higher, because Iknow all about camping, you can ask my scoutmaster. It won't be so coldover there at night, either; you see. You move the tents over there, geewhiz, Arabs move their tents every day, and look at gypsies, they keepmoving all the time."
"It will be a scout movement," said Scoutmaster Safety First, ratherimpressed with Pee-wee's arguments.
"I'm game for anything," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Variety is the spice oflife. The housing situation--"
"I know all about the housing situation," said Pee-wee; "my father ownsa house and the water's calmer on the east side of an island, because Ican prove it by the Pacific Ocean."
"The Pacific Ocean is west of here," said Scoutmaster Ned. "At least itwas when I went to school. I dare say it's there yet. Put another log onthe fire, Nick. How about it, Pete? Where's the Pacific Ocean? I'llleave it to Pete."
"It's in the school geography," Pee-wee shouted from the other side ofthe camp-fire, "and it's on the east of China. You have to know whereyou're at before you can tell where it is and there's better fishing inChina than there is here, because in Japan they catch sardines! TempleCamp is on the east side of Black Lake, and anyway there's a dandy placeover there for tents and there are a lot of birds' nests and there's abetter spring and you don't have to carry water so far and you alwaysspill a lot of it and there are a couple of pine trees and the leavesdon't fall off them, because there aren't any leaves and leaves keep therain and wind off but not if there aren't any and these trees aregetting bare--"
"Enough! Enough!" said Scoutmaster Ned, rising, and sticking his fingersinto his ears. "We ask for an armistice. All we ask for is three hours'time in which to move--"
"I'll fix it," vociferated Pee-wee.
"We surrender to the world's greatest fixer," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Thehigh authority from Temple Camp--"
"He isn't so high!"
"Size don't count," roared Pee-wee.
"Shall be followed," said Scoutmaster Ned. "To-morrow morning we'll moveto the east side of the island in view of the thriving metropolis ofEast Ketchem. Its four lights will cheer us at night. This spilling ofwater must be stopped. Pretty soon the island will be under water andthen where will we be?"
"Worse off than in school," called a voice.
"I am for the pine trees," said Scoutmaster Ned. "I am for the highland and the fishing and the birds' nests and the shelter. In short, I'mfor Scout Harris!"
"I'm for the view of East Ketchem as long as I don't have to go there,"said Fido Norton.
It was the silly, tail end of the season; they were ready to do almostanything, except go to school. They were going to have the last minuteof the last day of this delightful little supplementary season, thisautumnal climax of their camping life. But aside from this resolutionthey cared not what they did. Pee-wee, instead of getting on theirnerves, had gotten into their spirits. A change of location wouldn't behalf bad. And Pee-wee was right too, in much that he had said; theyrealized this. And he admitted it.
"Sure, I'm right," he said; "you leave it to me. I'll fix it. We'll moveover there to-morrow and if you're sorry now you'll be glad of itbecause--"
"Oh, it will be a day of rejoicing," said Scoutmaster Ned.
"Anything goes," said Charlie Norris.
"Lead and well follow, Scout Harris," chimed Fido Norton.
"One place is as good as another if not better," shouted another scout.
"All in favor of moving, say Aye."
"Aye!" shouted Pee-wee, in a voice of thunder.
CHAPTER XXXIX
BETRAYED!
The next morning they folded their tents like the Arabs and moved to aspot which Pee-wee recommended, on the opposite side of the island. Whyhe liked it I do not know, for it was a quiet spot. Perhaps he liked itbecause it was retiring and modest, and kept in the background, as onemight say. It seemed to breathe peacefulness, which was Pee-wee's middlename. It afforded a fine view of East Ketchem, the thriving community onthe east shore of Kidder Lake; and the crystal spring, and stalkingfacilities, and better shelter of the stately, solemn pines, seemed inaccordance with scout requirements.
"Well, we're here because we're here," said Scoutmaster Ned, sittingdown on two loaded grocery boxes after his last trip. "If the springwater doesn't come to us, we come to the spring water. Not half bad atthat," he added, looking about. Indeed they had not been familiar withthe eastern shore of the island and now they contemplated the discoveryof Christopher Columbus Pee-wee, not without surprise and satisfaction.
"When I go to a place I always leave it--"
"Lucky for the place," interrupted Nick in his dry, drawling way.
"I always go on expeditions," Pee-wee explained. "I even discoveredislands and things, I discovered a mountain once, up at Temple Camp,only somebody discovered it before I did. I discovered this place daybefore yesterday when I was tracking a mud-turtle. Once I found apeninsula only it wasn't there the next day."
"Who took it?"
"Th
e tide came up and it was under water. Do you want me to show you howto make drain ditches around tents?"
They put up the tents and dug drain ditches around them and cleared aplace for the camp-fire and brought wood for it. They chopped supportsfor their messboard and drove them into the pine-carpeted earth and laidthe long boards upon them. To do Pee-wee justice, the place was anideal camping spot. And what was one day's work of moving, againstalmost an entire month of camping in that sequestered glen, amongfragrant pines?
"You've got the right idea, Scout Harris," said Scoutmaster Ned.
"It was a--a inspiration," said Pee-wee.
"Do you have those often?" Nick asked.
"_Oh boy_! I have them all the time."
"But how about a landing place?" a scout asked.
"Who wants to go to East Ketchem, anyway?" said Norris. "We shouldbother our heads about a landing place."
"Leave it to me. I'll fix it," Pee-wee said.
In the late afternoon they sprawled about and found the velvet coverletof pine needles restful to their weary bodies.
"Well, it's all over but the shouting," said Scoutmaster Ned. "All weneed is sup--"
"I'll do it!" shouted Pee-wee.
"What, the shouting?" asked Nick.
"Here comes a boat," said another scout.
"Maybe somebody's going to discover the island," said Pee-wee.
"There are two men in it," said another; they're rowing straight forus."
"Maybe this is their camping spot," said Fido Norton; "I knew this placewas too good to be missed all this time."