Woodcraft: or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good

"Yes, it's me, all right," remarked the object of their attention, with rather a sickly grin, as he started to get out a handkerchief to apply to his bleeding nose; "anyhow, it's what's left of me after that nasty tumble."

"Are you hurt bad, Matt?" demanded Dr. Ted, scenting an opportunity to practice his arts of healing; "because if you feel that you've broken a leg, or your collar bone, call on me for help. Won't charge you a cent either. Glad to cut off a limb or do any little favor. Don't be bashful, now; just thspeak up."

"Oh! rats, I ain't hurt so bad as that! I reckon I kin get up all right," and as he spoke Matt proceeded to prove the truth of his assertion by scrambling to his feet, though he winced a little as he did so.

"Where'd you ever come from?" demanded Matty. "We felt sure you'd gone off in that car with your father and the police, headed for Cramertown. Say, are they near here; and did they turn back?"

"Naw," grunted Matt. "I jumped out after I got to thinkin' about it. Seemed to me after what I saw Elmer Chenowith do yesterday up at the place of my aunt, that he'd be more apt to find that pesky Dolph Gruber than a pack of noisy cops. So I just follered the bunch, that's all."

And strange to say, Elmer felt more pride over hearing one who had been an enemy speak these words of praise than he would have been had his chums gone into ecstasies over his work as a trailer. He believed he knew what was going on in that mind of Matt. And he was not at all sorry for it, either. It might mean great things in the near future for both the Fairfield boys, and those of the Hickory Ridge troop.

"D'ye mean to tell us, Matt, you've been dodging after us right along, and none of us saw you?" demanded Red.

The Fairfield bully grinned; and as his broad face was by this time pretty well smeared with traces of blood, he presented a queer appearance while so doing.

"All the same, that's just what I done, Red," he declared. "Sometimes I was that clost I heard every word you fellers said. Then agin I dropped back, when the cover got thinner. An' right here let me say I was huggin' the ground all the time Elmer, he says such great things about the trail, an' the ottermobile on that road. Never knowed there could be so much diskivered by just peekin' at footprints. Gosh! 'twas great, that's what."

"Well, where are you going?" asked Toby, between whom and the Fairfield bully there was a long standing grudge.

"Same as you fellers, I reckon," grinned Matt.

"He means he wants to stick along with us, boys," remarked Red.

"Just like his impudence!" snarled Chatz, unable to bring himself to believe there was an atom of good in this hulking Fairfield leader, who had many a time started a fight when the boys of the rival towns tried to compete on the diamond, the gridiron, or at hockey on the ice of the Sweetwater River.

Matt heard these remarks, which were none too complimentary. He seemed to have made up his mind not to pay any attention to them, much as they must have set his fighting blood to coursing hotly through his veins.

His eyes were fastened on Elmer alone, as though he recognized the fact of his leadership, and that what he said was apt to go.

Elmer made up his mind immediately. He considered that this was too good an opportunity to be lost. Matt, the rough and ready fighter of the neighboring town, was at the crossroads. A very little thing would turn him one way or the other. He might be said to be groping in the dark. And what scout worthy of the name would forget his vows, and turn a cold shoulder upon a seeker after light?

So he turned toward Matt a face that was filled with encouragement; and even before the leader of the Wolf Patrol had spoken a single word Matt realized that his case was as good as won.

"Would you mind telling us, Matt," said Elmer, pleasantly, "just why you want to go along with us now?"

"Sure not," came the ready answer. "I said, didn't I, that when I saw what blundering fools them jay cops were, I believed there was a heap more chance of Elmer trackin' Dolph Gruber? Well, that's one reason why I want to go along; 'cause I reckon you're just goin' to get that critter, while the police are waitin' for him to show up in Cramertown, where he never meant to go at all."

"But, Matt, there is another reason?" persisted Elmer.

"There be," replied the bully, with one of his grins.

"Tell us what it is," asked Mark.

"Well, you fellers know we're startin' a troop over in Fairfield, don't you?" Matt replied. "I've heard a lot 'bout what this here Elmer Chenowith knowed concernin' woodcraft an' such things. When I seen him take holt of my uncle yest'day, and fix him up just like a reg'lar doctor might, when I didn't know the fust blamed thing to do, says I to myself, says I, 'It's time you was findin' out all 'bout what this here scout business means; 'cause thar's a heap more connected with it than fightin'.' An' I want to be along to see what else Elmer kin show us, when the trail she grows dim. There seems to be somethin' in here," and he clapped a hand on his breast, "that just wants to larn 'bout these things. Never felt just this way afore, give you my word I ain't. Kin I go, Elmer?"

The scout leader gave a quick glance at his chums. Several nodded, hardly knowing themselves why they did it, save that somehow they had been affected by what the bully of Fairfield had just said.

"I don't think a single scout will raise any objection to your keeping along with us, Matt," Elmer said, seriously. "Only for the time being you must promise to be bound by the same rules that the rest are."

"Promise anything, Elmer, so's you let me go 'long," declared the other. "Now what d'ye want of me?"

"Only that you agree to obey orders," Elmer said.

"Whose orders?" demanded Matt, quickly.

"I happen to represent our scout-master, Mr. Garrabrant," answered the leader of the Wolf Patrol; "and in his absence the members of the troop look to me to command."

Matt grinned some more, and nodded cheerfully.

"Sure I'll do whatever you say while I'm along, Elmer," he declared. "And when we ketch up with that coward Dolph, I hope you set me on him. I'm just boiling over for a fight; and he'll get his medicine or else my name is Mud."

"That's just it, Matt," remarked Elmer. "We hope not to have to fight at all, if we can manage to get the child away from her stepfather. But one thing I will promise you, Matt – if there should be any need of strong-arm action, I'll call on you to do your share. You'll be on the firing line."

"All right, Elmer; and now forget I'm along, and just go on like you would if I hadn't come tumbling down that pesky slope like a bag of oats. Wow! my elbows must be skinned to beat the band."

And Elmer knew full well that after that his every movement would be watched by Matt with the utmost eagerness. A new world was opening up to this rough boy of Fairfield; through the open door he was beginning to catch enticing glimpses of things he had never dreamed existed on this earth. And Elmer could not find it in his heart to close that door that was ajar.

So they started again.

Whenever there came a brief halt, as the trailer found a temporary hitch in his work, Matt Tubbs invariably pressed to the front, and had eyes and ears only for the one whom he had begun to take as his pattern. And knowing his utter ignorance along the line of reading signs, Elmer took especial pains to explain just why he did this thing or that.

It was an object lesson that was apt to prove invaluable to every fellow who clustered around "the boy who knew." Besides the information they thus picked up, the fascination of the thing appealed strongly to their inquiring minds; and as a consequence, every fellow would make it a point to study the gentle arts of woodcraft more and more, as opportunities for doing so arose.

They had gone possibly another mile when Elmer came to a halt, and raised his hand in a way that told his companions he wanted them to stop.

"No noise, please, now, fellows," he said, in a low tone; and the manner of his saying this struck most of the scouts as highly significant.

"Thay, are we near him now?" asked Ted, in a hoarse whisper – he had been keeping close to Matt all the while, from time to time suggesting something in the way of relief from the aches and pains the Fairfield boy was suffering, even to the extent of promising to bind up his skinned elbows at the first chance.

"I believe we are," replied the leader, in the same cautious voice; "in fact, he may right now be within a hundred yards of where we are standing!"

CHAPTER XI.

AT MCGRAW's LUMBER CAMP

No one said anything immediately.

Although every scout had been showing more or less signs of impatience, and was wishing that they would soon come upon the fugitive who had kidnaped the sweet child of Mrs. Gruber, now that the critical moment seemed near at hand they found themselves attacked with a queer little case of shivers.

Had Elmer's opinion been asked as to what this meant, he might have compared it to the "buck fever" that usually assails a greenhorn on the occasion of his getting his first chance to shoot a deer. It was sheer nervousness, that was all.

All eyes were turned upon the leader as though they looked to him to say just what was next on their program.

"I want you to settle down here and wait for me," he remarked, quietly.

"Does that mean you're going to creep forward and try and glimpse the camp of the enemy?" asked Mark, regretfully; for he would have liked to share this duty with his chum, if possible.

"Yes," replied the other. "From signs I've been noticing along the way lately, I've got a hunch that we're close to that old logging camp I've heard tell of ever since I came to Hickory Ridge. You know it's been deserted now for some ten years because all the big timber was cut that could be moved to the river. Most of this around here is second growth, though a few big trees were left as being crooked or something else."