CHAPTER IX
THE TENDERFOOT
If Specs had not stopped on his way to school that morning to playwith Felix; and if Miss Seeby, the botany teacher, had not expresseda desire for a specimen of _aspidium fragrans_, which is a variety offern; and if Professor Leland had not called a mass meeting for fouro'clock that afternoon, there is no telling how the day might haveended for the Black Eagle Patrol.
Felix was the Magoons' dog. He included in his affections all friendsof the family and particularly Roundy's brother Scouts. There werepeople, indeed, who claimed that Felix was the eighth member of thepatrol. But that was ridiculous, of course; for how could a dog passthe tenderfoot tests of tying knots, or take the Scout oath, or knowthe history of the flag?
Felix probably didn't worry about his official position. What countedwith him was the friendship of the Scouts; and that morning, whencare-free Specs McGrew hove in sight, with a stick in his hand, Felixbarked happily and said, as plainly as a dog can, "Throw it! I'llretrieve it for you!"
So Specs whipped the stick fifty feet away, and Felix rushed afterit. As soon as he had thrown, Specs raced for the corner, to get outof sight before the dog could recover the bit of wood and return it.But Felix was too quick for him, too wise in the game. All the wayto school they played it till, at the very door, with the last bellringing, Specs hurled it farther than he had any time yet, and thentook advantage of Felix by dodging into the hall and running upstairsto his seat in the big assembly room.
This was a mistake. The way to end a game with Felix was to standsternly before him and say, "Go home, Felix; go home, sir!" and waittill the dog dropped his tail between his legs and crept away.
The school day started like any other for Specs. He answered "present"at roll call, joined the others in singing, and listened attentively tothe five-minute address by Professor Leland. It was not until he hadmarched with the class to Room 4 for his botany recitation, indeed,that he thought of Felix again.
"The _aspidium fragrans_, or fragrant fern," Miss Seeby was saying,"is a rare and hardy little species, growing in clefts on the faces ofprecipices. It is aromatic, with an odor said to be like new-mown haycomposed largely of sweet-briar rose leaves. This fern is to be foundin our State, and I should like very much to have a specimen to showthe class. Look for a place where there is a bare cliff, overhanginga little, perhaps, so the rain cannot reach the plant, and up aboveall the trees, so that it can have no shade at all. If you find afern there, test it by its fragrance, its stickiness and its beautifulbrown, curling fronds." She paused, walked toward Specs and said, in awholly different voice, "Is that your dog?"
Specs looked down. Faithful Felix had evidently followed him throughthe hall when he left the assembly room and was now lying beside hisdesk, thumping an eager tail against the floor. His unexpected presenceprovoked discreet mirth from everybody except the teacher and Specshimself.
"No--no ma'am. It's the Magoons'." Common honesty made him add, "But hefollowed me to school, I guess. I was playing with him."
"Indeed!" said Miss Seeby, looking more offended than ever. "_Indeed!_Well, put him out--_immediately_!"
Specs coerced Felix into the hall and warned him to go home and behavehimself like a good dog. But there must have been meekness and apologyin the command; for, instead of obeying, Felix went only as far as theouter corridor, where he slunk into a dark comer. Two minutes later,in any event, he was scratching at the classroom door and whining foradmittance.
Miss Seeby had just shown her pupils a drawing of the fragrant fernand asked again that any one who knew where it was to be found securea specimen at the first opportunity. She paused suddenly, and her facehardened.
"Take that dog away," she ordered Specs; "yes, take him home. And youneed not come back to school yourself until you have a note from yourfather to Professor Leland, stating that you are sorry for this outrageand promising that you will not bring that animal here again."
Very penitent, although somewhat confused over the exact nature ofhis guilt, Specs rose and made dizzily for the door. As he closed itbehind him, he could hear the giggling of the class and a smotheredreference--he credited it to Rodman Cree--about "Mary's little lamb",interrupted by the teacher's sharp admonition for silence.
To Specs' credit, be it recorded that he followed instructions tothe best of his ability. With an affectionate twist of Felix's ear,he strode down the hall and outdoors, even forgetting his cap in hishurry, with the dog tagging at his heels. Straight to the Magoons' heled Felix; sternly he told him to stay there. Then he ambled downtown,to explain to his parent as best as he could the disgrace that hadbefallen him.
"Your father's out in the country," the clerk in the McGrew hardwarestore told him. "He'll be back in an hour or two, though."
Deep thought slowed Specs' steps on the return trip. In front of theMagoons' the forgiving Felix crept out and made it plain he was sorryand wanted to be friends again. The Scout stared at him with a slowsmile.
"Come on!" he called. "I can't go back to school till I get that note,and I can't get that note till father comes back to town. Tell youwhat, Felix; you and I will chase out along the lake shore and find oneof those smelly ferns for Miss Seeby. I know where they grow. Come on,old boy!"
Directly after school that afternoon, as has been intimated, ProfessorLeland called a mass meeting. After Marion Genevieve Chester, aspresident of the student association, rapped for order, the principalrose from his chair on the platform and stepped forward.
"To-morrow afternoon," he began, "Lakeville High School plays itssecond football game. I have called this meeting to suggest that weorganize to encourage the team during the game. We made enough noise atthe other; but some of us cheered at the wrong times, when it wasn'tquite fair to our opponents, and not at the right times, when it mighthave heartened our own boys; and some of us cheered all by ourselves,without any attempt to swell the volume of applause and encouragement.What I wish to suggest is practicing the Lakeville cheer, till we canpour it forth like the _boom-boom-boom_ of a cannon, and the appointingof cheer leaders for the different sections."
Nominations were promptly offered, and the candidates as promptlyelected. Profiting by that other meeting, the Scouts made no attempt towin a place.
"I wonder," continued Professor Leland, "if all of us realize that wemay help, even if we are not playing on the team itself. Let me showyou what I mean."
And then, while Bunny and Buck listened just a little more intentlythan the others, perhaps, he told them of the drop-kicks that hadfailed in the first game because of wind and dust and bad passes, andhow Rodman Cree had pointed out the handicaps and made possible thegoal when the teams changed sides.
A little applause rippled over the room. Everybody squirmed about inhis seat to see how Rodman took it, but it was soon evident that theboy had not attended the meeting.
"The Grant City team," went on the speaker, "had a curious andeffective trick formation, which was solved by our boys in the nick oftime, thanks to Captain Claxton. Now, if some one of us who was notplaying had discovered that trick and warned our team, it would havehelped."
"Mr. Chair--I mean, Miss Chairman!"
It was Buck Claxton who interrupted. Very embarrassed he looked as hestood there, and very white, but very determined, too.
"Mr. Claxton," recognized Marion Genevieve Chester.
"Somebody did discover that trick," blurted Buck. "Rodman Cree did. Hetold me about it between quarters. That was why I knew what to expect.That--that's all." He sat down with an audible thump.
Very wisely, Professor Leland dismissed the subject with a brief, "Thenwe have something more for which to thank Cree," and turned to anothersubject. "Suppose we practice the Lakeville cheer now," he said. "Let'sshake the rafters."
If the cheers inspired by the new leaders did not actually shakethe rafters, it was because the school building was new and rigid.They echoed and re-echoed from basement to attic; they forced MarionGenevieve Chester to thrust hur
ried fingers into her aristocratic ears;they made you believe that Lakeville was the best and biggest and mostloyal high school in all the world. In some mysterious way, everybodyseemed to think he could help win the morrow's game by yelling just alittle bit louder than his neighbor.
At the door, as they filed out, Bunny Payton stopped each member of theBlack Eagle Patrol long enough to say, "Scout meeting at the club houseto-night. Seven sharp. Be sure and come."
Roundy was the last to leave. "Seen Specs?" Bunny asked him. The patrolleader was not in Miss Seeby's nine-o'clock botany class and knewnothing of the morning incident. "H'm! Neither have I. That's funny.Well, don't forget the meeting."
* * * * *
Rodman Cree was not a Boy Scout, but Felix may have overlooked thispoint. Perhaps he realized that Rodman was worthy of his friendship,or perhaps it was merely the cap in the boy's hand that drew him likea magnet. Whatever the reason, at four that afternoon, when school wasdismissed, Felix ran straight to Rodman and tried to tell him, in doglanguage, that something was wrong, and that it had to do with somebodyconnected with Specs' cap, which Rodman had observed hanging in thecoatroom, although he knew its owner had not returned since his exilefrom Miss Seeby's botany class.
Felix nuzzled Rodman, yelped sharply and trotted away. When the dogsaw that he was not followed, he came back again, very patient withthe dull human who couldn't understand plain signs, and repeated hisactions. But it was not till the third time that the boy began to getan inkling of the truth. Felix clinched the matter by sniffing at thecap held toward him, barking excitedly, and racing off at full speed.
Rodman may not have been a Boy Scout, but he constructed this problemand its answer with a deft brain. Miss Seeby had asked for a specimenof the fragrant fern, which grew on the sides of cliffs. Specs hadbeen sent away from school in disgrace, accompanied by Felix. He hadnot returned. The only cliffs near Lakeville were to the west, alongthe shore of the lake. Felix had smelled Specs' cap and run in thatdirection. It followed, as surely as two plus two make four, that hewas endeavoring to lead somebody to the missing boy.
"Maybe poor Specs fell over a precipice and hurt himself," Rodman said,shivering uneasily. "All right, Felix, I'm coming. The old mass meetingcan go hang!"
At first, while the dog kept to the road, there was nothing that Rodmancould do save follow. But later, when Felix left the main highwaywhere it curved to avoid the sandstone cliffs near the lake, and beganpushing his eager nose through the underbrush and over tangles ofgrass, the boy recognized that this was virgin country. Specs could nothave come that way without unconsciously leaving signs for anybody whocame afterward.
Where some less observant boy might have found nothing, Rodman readilypicked up the trail. A pebble, lying with its damp side up, proved thata careless foot had turned it over. A splatter of partially dried mudon the trunk of a tree revealed that the passer-by had left the spotsome hours before. Broken branches, their tips toward the lake, pointedthe way like arrows. Grass and leaves added their mute evidence bylying brushed forward till their under sides showed. It was comforting,at least, to be certain Specs had hiked over this very stretch.
"Yes, he came this way," Rodman told Felix. "Find him, old fellow!"
At the top of the wooded rise they had been ascending, the hillculminated in barren knobs, which broke off abruptly in sandstonecliffs, sheer to the lapping water of the lake. In places, the rockwas solid, save for little dirt-filled crevices, from which hardyvegetation sprouted; in others, the stone had crumpled into fine sand,which day by day sifted downward till a niche had been formed in thesolid wall. It was toward the top of one of these indentations thatFelix raced, with Rodman hard on his heels.
Throwing himself flat on his stomach, the boy wriggled to the edgeand peered down. Some twelve or fifteen feet below him, squatting ona narrow patch of sand, Specs McGrew was engaged in disconsolatelytossing pebbles upon the placid bosom of the lake. On either sideof his little prison, the walls of the precipice fell straight tothe water's edge, apparently extending for hundreds of yards inboth directions. Specs was safe enough, to be sure, but he was aseffectually cooped upon the tiny plot of sand by the smooth rock cliffsand the deep lake as if the iron bars of a cage encompassed him.
"Hello, Specs!"
The imprisoned boy looked up. "Oh, it's you," he said sullenly. "Got arope?"
"No."
"Oh, of course not! You'd have one if you were a Scout. Well, what areyou going to do about it?"
"How did you get down there?" Rodman asked.
"Fell down, you chump!" snapped Specs.
Rodman wanted to snap back, "Well, fall up here, then!" But he foughtback the temptation. Instead, "Sit tight," he called, "and I'll haveyou out in a jiffy."
Back in the woods, wild grapevines twined over the trees. It was thework of only a few minutes to cut and trim one eight or ten feet longand lower it over the sandy cliff.
"Grab hold," he called to Specs, "and you can walk up the side of thissloping sand-pit as easy as falling off a log. Ready! Up you come!Steady there! Careful! Careful! There you are, safe and sound and ontop of the world once more. Now, is there a fragrant fern anywherearound here?"
At seven o'clock that evening the Boy Scouts of the Black Eagle Patrolmet in their clubhouse. Before seven-thirty they had threshed out theproblem of electing another member, and there was not a dissenting votewhen the name of Rodman Cree was proposed to fill the patrol roster.
"Which is just as it should be," Horace Hibbs approved. "Unless everysingle one of us thinks he is the best fellow for the place, he shouldnot be invited to join. Now, if Specs--"
"Yes, Specs!" groaned Bi. "We'll never convert Specs; no, not in athousand years. He says Rodman is no good, and I guess he'll grow longwhite whiskers before he'll admit he's wrong. No, siree, if we wait forSpecs to make it unanimous, this patrol will be one man shy the rest ofits life."
"I wish," began Bunny, "that Specs--"
The sentence was chopped short by the rattle of the latch. As theScouts turned, the door flung wide, and Specs himself popped into theroom.
"Come on in, Rodman," he called. "Say, fellows, Rodman is a whiz. Youknow the cliffs out near Old Baldy. Well, I fell down one of them thismorning, reaching for a fragrant fern, and Rodman came looking for me.Found me, too, by following my trail and--"
"Felix led me to him," Rodman said depreciatingly.
"Rats!" scorned Specs. "You did it. Felix didn't make a grapevine rope,did he, and pull me up the cliff? I guess not. And who reached downand plucked this fern? Felix? Huh! Smell it, Bunny. Listen, fellows!Rodman knows all the things we do about trailing, and the woods, andthe birds, and tying knots, and making fires without matches, and--oh,everything. I always told you he was all right!" Specs made thisstatement gravely and sincerely; he had forgotten his former opinion ofthe new boy. "Well, then, what's the matter with making him a Scout inthe Black Eagle Patrol? Anybody object?"
He stared at them fiercely, defiantly, as if daring one of them toprotest. Nobody did. Horace Hibbs stroked his chin in high glee.
"Rodman," the Scout Master said, "can you tie--let me see--these knots:the square or reef, sheet-bend, bowline, fisherman's, sheepshank,halter, clove hitch, timber hitch and two half hitches?"
"Yes, sir. I know some others, too."
"And do you know the Scout laws, motto, sign, salute and significanceof the badge?"
"Yes, sir."
"How about your country's flag. Do you know its composition and historyand the customary forms of respect due it?"
"Yes, sir." The boy was both eager and confident in his replies.
Horace Hibbs smiled. "One more question: Would you like to join theBlack Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts?"
There was no formal "Yes, sir!" this time. Instead, Rodman Cree gulpedonce or twice, as if it were difficult to speak, and then fairlyshouted, "You bet I would!"
"In that case," pronounced Horace Hibbs judicially, fitting the tipsof hi
s fingers together, "I see no reason why you should not take thetenderfoot tests at once. Bunny, will you get us a rope?"
Twenty minutes later, when Specs rose to replenish the dying flames inthe great brick fireplace, his eyes fell upon Rodman Cree.
"Shucks!" he laughed, "what's the use of wasting our wood when thatfellow's head is a regular bonfire?" He paused to digest his remark."Say--say, let's call Rodman 'Bonfire' after this. It's a dandy namefor him."
Horace Hibbs glanced shrewdly across the table at the recruit. "Do youmind?" he asked.
The boy grinned happily. "Of course, I don't. I--I like it," saidBonfire Cree, tenderfoot of the Black Eagle Patrol.
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