by Stan
There was nobody there to take note of Bigpaw’s strange behavior except the mountain goats, of course. But they had problems of their own finding enough food to eat in the harsh mountain environment. That’s the way it is with an environment. If it isn’t one thing, it’sanother. If there wasn’t enough soil for plant life, there wouldn’t be enough food for animal life, and so on and so forth until there was no mountain environment, just a cold, dead mountain range.
That’s what’s so important about soil conservation. Soil may be just dirt to some folks, but to an environmentalist it’s the stuff of life.
Chapter 6
Trouble Ahead
Wow! thought Sister as she looked at the blaze of flowers in Gran’s front yard. “Talk about a green thumb!” said Sister to Gran. “You must have two green thumbs and eight green fingers!”
“No, my dear,” said Gran with a smile. “It’s Mother Nature that has the green thumb. I just try to help her along.”
The scouts told Gran about their soil conservation project and how they were looking for plants that would hold their ground in the mountains.
“Hmm,” said Gran. “Let me think on it a bit.” As Gran stood there thinking, the scouts looked around for Gramps. He was nowhere to be seen.
“I may be able to help,” said Gran. “Come on around back. Now, as I understand it, you’re looking for plants that can survive in that harsh mountain environment. While my backyard garden isn’t a mountainside, it is a hillside. I might just have some plants worth trying on your mountainside.”
There was a steep hill leading down into a little valley behind Gramps and Gran’s place. It was covered with low-growing plants.
“These plants are mostly different kinds of sedum and ivy,” said Gran. “Let me give you some samples to try on your mountainside.”
“We’ll do the work, Gran,” said Brother. “Just show us which plants.”
“No, I’d better do it myself,” said Gran. “Why don’t you go in and talk to Gramps and see if you can coax him out of his foul mood.”
“Foul mood?” said Brother.
“What’s it about?” asked Sister.
“He’s always happy to see you scouts. Just go in and see him. He’s in his study,” said Gran. Then she headed for her garden shed.
“Who’s there?” snarled Gramps when Brother knocked on the study door.
“It’s the Bear Scouts, Gramps,” said Brother. “May we come in?”
“Sure. Sure,” said Gramps.
The scouts could tell he was in a foul mood from the sound of his voice. Gramps, who was very fond of the scouts, was usually eager to show them his newest carving or his latest ship-in-a-bottle project. But not today. He was pacing back and forth with a worried look on his face. You could almost see the black cloud of worry over his head.
“What’s the matter, Gramps?” asked Brother.
“There’s trouble ahead!” said Gramps.
“What sort of trouble?” asked Sister.
“Weasel trouble,” said Gramps. “Nobody as mean, smart, and tough as Weasel McGreed is going to be stopped by a mere earthquake. I don’t know where, and I don’t know when. But we haven’t heard the last of McGreed. Count on it. I can feel it in my bones.”
The scouts looked at each other and shrugged. Everybody knew that the weasels had been wiped out in the earthquake. Everybody except Gramps. There was no point in arguing with Gramps’s bones. The scouts turned to leave just as Gran appeared at the door.
“I’ve got a good selection of plants ready,” she said. “I’ve put them in these plastic bags to keep them moist. Each plant has a name tag. There’s also a list of some other things you’ll need for your project.”
“That’s great, Gran,” said Brother. “Thanks a million!”
Then the scouts headed for their secret clubhouse at the far edge of Farmer Ben’s farm. That’s where they would organize their expedition.
Chapter 7
The Evil Eye
Ralph was cutting across Farmer Ben’s pasture on the way to keeping his date with the archweasel. The idea of using hypnotism to swindle folks out of their money had put the spring back in his step and the dollar signs back in his eyes. He had worked as a hypnotist’s assistant back in his carnival days. While the hypnotist dazzled the audience by making some poor sucker bark like a dog, Ralph picked their pockets. So Ralph knew that hypnotism worked and had a general idea how to do it. All he needed was a refresher course. “Hmm,” said Ralph, reading the hypnotism article as he crossed Farmer Ben’s cow pasture.
“He’s reading some kind of a magazine,” said Brother. He was watching Ralph with the field glasses that always hung on a hook in the scouts’ secret clubhouse.
“Bad idea!” said Sister.
“Right!” said Fred with a grin. “You should never go across Ben’s cow pasture without looking where you’re going.”
“It’s just a matter of seconds till he slips on a cow pie,” said Brother. “There he goes!” cried Brother, breaking into laughter.
“Let me have those,” said Lizzy, taking the field glasses.
“Let me see!” said Fred, reaching for them.
“Me, too!” demanded Sister.
“Hold it!” said Lizzy, elbowing Fred and Sister aside.
“What is it, Lizzy?” said Brother.
“That magazine Ralph was reading when he slipped,” said Lizzy. “I can read it.”
Lizzy’s fellow scouts didn’t doubt that for a second. Lizzy had super eyesight without field glasses. With field glasses she could count gnats a mile away.
“What’s it say?” said Brother.
“It’s about hypnotism,” said Lizzy, reading. “‘Gain power over others with the evil eye!’”
“The evil eye!” said Sister with a shiver.
“Hypnotism,” said Fred, who read the encyclopedia just for fun. “A strange power discovered more than a hundred years ago by that great magician Anton Grizmer.”
“Never mind about Grizmer,” said Brother. “Ralph Ripoff and hypnotism are a scary combination.”
“What can we do about it?” asked Sister.
“Nothing much at the moment,” said Brother. “We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get these plants up the mountain.”
Across the pasture, a group of cows watched Ralph pick himself up and brush himself off.
“Blasted cows! Why don’t you look where I’m going?” said Ralph. Hmm, he thought. Why don’t I try my evil eye on one of these cows?
Being careful to watch his step, he walked over to one of the cows. He took out his watch and swung it gently in front of the calm, quiet, cud-chewing cow. “Look me in the eye, Bossy. Look me deep in the eye. You are coming under my spell. You are coming under my power.” The cow followed the movements of the watch as if it were a tennis match.
“Listen very carefully,” said Ralph. “You are no longer a cow. You are a bull. An angry, snorting bull.”
The cow lowered her head and snorted. She pawed the ground like an angry bull.
“Whoa, Bossy!” said Ralph. He sensed that she was about to charge. And charge she did. She chased Ralph clean across the pasture. Ralph managed to escape over the fence in the nick of time.
Chapter 8
The Beginnings of a Plan
“It worked! It worked!” said Ralph, trying to catch his breath after his long run. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea making the cow think she was a bull, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that there was power in hypnotism. Power over the minds of others. Power over the actions of others. Who needed sleeve cards, loaded dice, and fake four-leaf clovers when he had the power of the evil eye? Of course, there was more to hypnotism than making a sucker bark like a dog or making a cow charge like a bull. He would have to practice. He would have to study.
As he walked along thinking about power over others, he heard a rumbling. At first he thought it was the sound of distant thunder. Then he realized it was the sound o
f Bigpaw singing way off in the Great Grizzly Mountains. Talk about a tin ear—a big tin ear.
Hmm, thought Ralph. Power over others. Power over Bigpaw. Anyone who had power over Bigpaw could . . . what was it McGreed was always saying? “Take over Bear Country, lock, stock, and honeypot.” Why not take over Bear Country, lock, stock, honeypot, and the folks, fields, forests, factories, and everything else in between? Bigpaw was far and away the strongest force in Bear Country, and anyone who controlled him could control Bear Country. And there were those trouble-making, scheme-foiling Bear Scouts to worry about.
Ralph knew there was one power that hypnotism could not control. At least that’s what it said in the magazine. It was the power of love. And Bigpaw loved the Bear Scouts. There was a powerful bond between them. Bigpaw would never do anything to hurt the scouts. But, even so, there was no way of getting close enough to Bigpaw to hypnotize him. The big fellow wasn’t too bright, but he was shrewd and wary. One false move in his direction and he could squash you like a grape.
The sound of Bigpaw’s singing kept rumbling in Ralph’s ear. Hmm, thought Ralph, the singing. Yes, maybe the singing . . .
A plan began to form in Ralph’s twisted mind. He would need help, of course. But help lay just ahead—in Weaselworld.
Chapter 9
Operation Revenge
Ralph was expected. No sooner had he entered Weaselworld than a troop of armed guards took him in charge and quick-marched him along the rubble-strewn tunnel. The heavy marching was shaking bits of dirt and rocks loose from the damaged tunnel roof. Signs of the earthquake were everywhere. There were cracked walls, roof props, and blocked-off tunnels. And they were miles from ground zero, where the earthquake had struck.
Ralph was gasping for breath when they finally arrived and the sergeant shouted, “Company, halt!” The troop stopped, but not before a final one-two stomp knocked loose a rock that damaged Ralph’s straw hat. “Look what you’ve done to my hat!” he complained. “This is no way to treat an invited guest. I shall complain to the archweasel himself!”
The sergeant ignored Ralph and pushed him into McGreed’s office, where the Big Three were waiting. The Big Three were McGreed; Dr. Boffins, his top scientist; and Stye, his tunnel-tough lieutenant. The room was poorly lit, but Ralph could make out a chair and a large video screen.
“I must protest,” said Ralph. “This is no way to treat a loyal friend. Look at this hat!”
“Siddown and shut up,” snarled Stye. Ralph sat down and shut up.
“Listen very carefully, Ralph,” said McGreed, his yellow eyes boring in and his needle-sharp teeth glinting. “We have spared no effort to find out who it was that foiled our earthquake scheme. At first we thought it might be those infernal Bear Scouts and perhaps that crazy grandfather of theirs. But that has not turned out to be the case. We believe we have found the culprit. It is a creature whose appearance, habits, and behavior are so strange that we can make no sense of it. But to plan a successful revenge we need to know more about this creature. Dr. Boffins, run the tape!”
The tape was fuzzy and brief and had poor sound. It showed Bigpaw. It showed him stretching, yawning, singing, and swatting mosquitoes. When the tape stopped, Ralph smiled and said, “That’s no creature, that’s Bigpaw. And you’re right about him foiling your earthquake. When your earthquake surfaced, he simply grabbed a couple of trees, forced the split back together, and sent it back where it came from.”
“But that’s impossible!” said Dr. Boffins. “That earthquake was a seven on the Richter scale! There’s no way . . .”
“Maybe not,” said Ralph. “But it just so happens that I saw him do it with my own eyes.”
McGreed and the top brass looked at each other in disbelief.
“As for revenge—forget about it,” said Ralph. “I mean, this guy is bigger than a hundred-year-old oak and ten times stronger.”
“What about that awful roaring he does?” asked McGreed.
“That’s not roaring,” said Ralph. “That’s singing. Bigpaw loves to sing. That’s his favorite thing to do in all the world.”
“What about that crazy part where he bashes himself in the nose?”
“Swatting mosquitoes,” explained Ralph. “Bigpaw hates mosquitoes. They can’t get through his thick fur, but they drive his nose crazy.”
“It sounds like you actually know this guy,” said McGreed.
“I know him well,” said Ralph, feeling more and more in control. “Which brings me to a little plan I have in mind.”
“We’re listening,” said McGreed.
“As I said, forget about revenge,” said Ralph. “Bigpaw could scoop up Weaselworld as if it were an anthill. Besides, why do things the hard way?”
“What’s the easy way?” said McGreed.
“It’s right here in this magazine.” He handed Swindler’s Magazine to McGreed.
“Hmm,” said McGreed. “‘Try hypnotism! Gain power over others with the evil eye!’ Very interesting.” McGreed called for the lights to be turned on and began reading the hypnotism article.
“Who’s going to be doing all this hypnotizing?” asked Stye.
“You’re looking at him,” said Ralph, puffing out his chest.
“You?” snarled Stye. “Since when are you a hypnotist?”
“Since about twenty minutes ago when I hypnotized one of Farmer Ben’s cows. I put her under just like that,” said Ralph, snapping his fingers.
“A cow?” said Stye.
“Not to mention the fact that I was a carnival hypnotist years ago,” said Ralph, stretching the truth quite a bit.
“Hypnotizing a weak-minded cow is one thing,” said Stye. “Let’s see you hypnotize me.”
“Happy to do so,” said Ralph, taking out his watch. “Or, better yet, I’ll hypnotize McGreed himself. If that’s okay, chief.”
“Okay,” said McGreed. “Hypnotize away.”
Ralph moved close to McGreed. Stye and Dr. Boffins looked on as Ralph began to swing his watch in front of the arch-weasel. “Observe my watch,” said Ralph in a low, spooky voice that he remembered from his carnival days. “Gently swinging . . . back and forth . . . gently swinging . . .”
But McGreed wasn’t watching the watch. He was looking into Ralph’s eyes.
“Your eyes are getting . . . heavy,” said Ralph.
But it wasn’t McGreed’s eyes that were getting heavy.
“You feel . . . you feel a great need to sleep,” said Ralph, his voice getting weaker and his eyes beginning to close.
McGreed reached out and gently took the watch from Ralph’s hand. “Do you hear me, Ralph?” he said. “Do you hear me?”
Ralph nodded his head.
“When you wake up,” said McGreed, “you are no longer going to be Ralph. You are going to be Big Red Rooster, king of the barnyard, and it is your job to tell the world the sun has just come up.” Then McGreed snapped his fingers and said, “Wake up, Big Red Rooster.”
The effect was astounding. As soon as Ralph opened his eyes he began leaping around, flapping his arms, and screaming, “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO! COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!”
“Amazing,” said Stye.
“Astonishing,” said Dr. Boffins.
McGreed let Ralph be Big Red Rooster for a while. Then he said, “When I snap my fingers, you will once again be Ralph.” He snapped his fingers and Ralph came to.
“Wha-what happened?” said Ralph, looking puzzled.
“Nothing to worry about,” said McGreed with a grin. “You and I just had an evil eye contest, and I won. Now, let’s get on with Operation Revenge. You mentioned preparations. What sort of preparations did you have in mind?”
Chapter 10
Preparations
So it was that while the Bear Scouts were preparing a mountain expedition to conserve soil, Ralph and the archweasel were preparing a mountain expedition to take over Bear Country, lock, stock, and honeypot, and everything in between. The Bear Scouts’ preparations included plants, plant food
, potting soil, garden tools, and bottles of water, pictures of plant labels for hardy ivy, climbing ivy, creeping sedum, spreading sedum, and sprawling sedum. The Ralph/McGreed expedition included cardboard cutouts of the Bear Scouts, a portfolio of artwork, a slouch hat, an opera cape, and a giant tongue depressor.
It also happened that the Bear Scouts and the Ralph/McGreed team began climbing the Great Grizzly Mountains at about the same time. The scouts climbed up the mountain on the outside, while the Ralph/McGreed team climbed it from the inside.
McGreed led the way up the twisting, turning, secret passageway that led to a cave near the top of the mountain.
“I wondered how you got that tape of Bigpaw,” said Ralph. “He’s very wary of strangers.”
One of the things the scouts liked about working in the mountains was that it gave them a chance to visit with their great and good friend Bigpaw. Naturally, they chose to start their soil conservation project on Mount Grizzly, where Bigpaw lived. Their plan was to plant the ivy and sedum about halfway up the mountain, then climb the rest of the way to visit Bigpaw.
As they climbed they could see what the professor was worried about. The higher they climbed the thinner and patchier the soil became. The scouts were expert climbers (they had long since earned the Rock-climbing Merit Badge).
It was mostly bare rock that they were climbing—bare rock with patches of tired-looking plants hanging on for dear life in the thin, gritty soil.
They rested and snacked when they reached the halfway point. Then they went to work mixing the potting soil into the gritty mountain soil, putting in the plants, watering them with plant food–laced water, patting them down, putting in their little name signs, and hoping for the best when the mountain snow and ice melted and spring rains came.
They couldn’t see their friend Bigpaw high up on the ledge in front of his cave. But, about halfway through the job, he began to sing. So they sure could hear him. And since they couldn’t get the work done with their fingers in their ears, they had to listen. “Bigpaw has a great voice, but not for singing,” said Brother with a grin.
