Four in Camp: A Story of Summer Adventures in the New Hampshire Woods

by Ralph Henry Barbour

  CHAPTER VII

  PROVES THE TRUTH OF THE SAYING THAT THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM AT THE TOP,AND SHOWS DAN WITH THE “BLUES”

  As luck would have it, Bob and Tom were camp-boys the next morning,and, as their duties required the better part of an hour in theperformance, it was after nine o’clock before they were able tojoin Dan and Nelson at the landing. The canoe held Dan, Nelson, andthe bundles, and Bob and Tom followed in one of the rowboats. Theirembarkation was watched by several of the fellows, whose suspicionswere aroused, and questions were hurled after them as long as they werewithin hearing. As they passed the landing at Wickasaw three boys whowere making fast the launch after returning from the village with themail stopped work and observed them with meaning grins.

  “Hello, Chicks!” one called. “Been over to the bluff lately?”

  “Hello, Wicks,” Dan replied; “you’re all the ‘bluffs’ we’ve seen.”

  “You’ll be lu-lu-lu-laughing out of th-th-the other side of yourmu-mu-mouths pretty su-su-soon!” muttered Tom.

  At the village they divided the bundles and started down the roadtoward Hipp’s Pond; but presently they turned to the left and began theascent of the mountain, keeping along the side nearest the village. Itwas tough going, and twice Tom put down his load and suggested thatthey pause and have a look at the view.

  “The view’s perfectly swell, Tom,” answered Nelson, “but as it’sgetting late you want to forget about it and toddle along.”

  So Tom, with many a sigh and grunt, toddled.

  Ten minutes later they had reached their destination. Behind them rosethe thickly timbered slope of the mountain, and at their feet was thebluff. Even Nelson found time now for a look at the panorama of bluesunlit lake spread below them. The camp landing was hidden from themby the trees, but the upper end of the lake was in plain sight, eachisland standing out distinct against the expanse of breeze-ruffledwater. Below them at a little distance a column of smoke rising fromthe trees told of the location of Camp Trescott. Beyond was Joy’s Cove,and, to its left, Black’s Neck. Chicora Inn looked very near acrossthe lake. Far away a shimmer of blue indicated Little Chicora. It wasa beautiful scene, and the boys, their hats thrown aside, gazed theirfill while the breeze ruffled their damp hair. Then Dan started to work.

  The bundles were undone and their contents laid out on the narrow bitof turf between the trees and the edge of the cliff; two lengths ofrope, a gallon can of blue paint, a ball of stout twine, a piece ofsteel wire bent into a double hook, and an oak board sixteen incheslong and six inches wide, notched on each side near the ends. When theywere all displayed Dan looked them over as a general might view histroops. Suddenly he struck his right fist into his left palm with aloud smack:

  “Oh, thunderation!” he exclaimed.

  “What’s the row?” asked Bob.

  “We left the paint-brush down there!”

  Sorrowfully they walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down intothe meadow.

  “Somebody’ll have to go and get it,” said Nelson.

  “Where’d you leave it?”

  “You couldn’t find it in a week,” answered Dan in vexation. “Here,let’s get these things rigged up. It would take half an hour to go downthere and back the way we came. You can let me down with the rope andI’ll find it.”

  So they set to work. The board was lashed firmly to one end of an inchrope, the can of paint was opened, one end of the other length of ropewas tied into a noose, and the hook was passed through the rope at theend of the swing.

  “That looks like awfully small rope,” said Tom.

  “But it hasn’t got to hold you, my boy,” said Dan. “Pass the end of itaround that tree, fellows. That’s it. Now let’s see where to put itover.” He sank onto his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of thebluff. “Here’s a good place,” he said, and dropped the swing over theedge. “Now haul up the slack, Bob.”

  “Look here,” said Nelson, “it will be easy enough letting you down, butare you sure we can pull you up again?”

  “Well, if you can’t--!” Dan’s tones spoke volumes of contempt. “Butyou’ll have to unwind the rope from that tree, you know, and pull on itdirectly.”

  “Wouldn’t it be safer if we left it snubbed around the tree and pulledon it here at the edge, letting some one take up the slack at the tree?”

  “Yes, if two of you can lift me.”

  “We can, if we don’t have to bear the strain between hauls.”

  “That’s proper,” said Dan. “But say, how about having the rope workover the edge of the turf here?”

  “Won’t do,” answered Bob. “It would cut into the turf and scrape on theedge of the rock. We ought to have a plank or something.”

  “That old log over there will do all right,” said Nelson. “Fetch itover, Tom.”

  Tom obeyed, grunting, and the dead trunk was laid at the edge of thecliff.

  “What’s going to keep it from rolling over onto your head?” asked Tomof Dan.

  Dan looked puzzled. So did the others.

  “Seems to me,” said Nelson, “we didn’t get this more’n half plannedout.”

  “History teaches us,” said Dan, “that even the world’s greatestgenerals have been quite frequently ‘up a tree.’”

  “Wonder if they were ever up a bluff?” murmured Tom.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Dan, after a moment’s consideration of theproblem, “we’ll have to drive stakes on each side of the log; see?”

  “Yes,” Bob answered dryly, “but I don’t see the stakes.”

  “That’s easy. Who’s got the biggest knife?”

  It appeared that Tom had; so Dan borrowed it, and set to work cuttingdown a stout branch and converting it into four stakes some eighteeninches in length. It took a good while, and the other three fellowsdisposed themselves comfortably on the ground and looked on.

  “Wish those Wickasaws had broken their silly necks!” grumbled Nelson.“We’re going to miss our soak.”

  “Maybe we’ll miss our dinner, too,” said Tom.

  “Oh, cut it out!” said Bob. “You can eat to-morrow. I don’t see whatyou want to eat for, anyhow, fat as you are.”

  At last the stakes were done and were driven into the turf at each sideof the log, Tom mashing his finger with the rock which he was using asa hammer. Then Bob and Tom and Nelson manned the rope, and Dan wriggledover the edge of the cliff, feet foremost, keeping a tight hold on therope. When only his head remained in sight he winked merrily.

  “If I make a mess of it, fellows, kindly see that you find allthe pieces,” he called. “And don’t forget to put on my headstone‘Requiescat in pieces.’”

  Then the flaming red head disappeared, and the fellows let therope slip slowly around the tree. It seemed a long while before itslackened. When Bob got to the edge Dan was scrambling over the rocksinto the bushes. Presently he was back flourishing the brush and can.

  “We don’t need to pull you all the way up again,” shouted Bob. “We’llget you up where you are going to paint and then lower the can down toyou. Is that all right?”

  “All right,” echoed Dan. Then he stepped onto the seat at the end ofthe rope and waved his hand. Bob and Nelson laid back on the rope, andslowly it began to come up over the log, Tom securing the slack aftereach haul with a double turn around the tree. Finally there came ashout, and, after a glance over the edge, Bob directed them to makefast, and tied the twine to the can of blue paint and lowered it.Suddenly there was a yell of dismay and wrath from below.

  “See what’s wrong!” cried Bob.

  Nelson crawled to the edge and peered over. Then he crawled back, andseemed to be having a fit on the turf. Tom looked down, and then joinedNelson.

  Bob stared at them as though they had suddenly gone insane. “What’sthe matter, you idiots?” he cried. But Tom only shrieked the louder,while Nelson rolled onto his back, held his sides, and kicked his heelsinto the turf, gasping. In disgust Bob got cautiously to his knees,tied the line
around a stake, and had a look for himself. Thirty feetbeneath sat Dan on his wooden seat, muttering incoherently under abaptism of bright blue paint. The can had caught on the edge of a tinyprojecting ledge and had tilted in such a way that a portion of thecontents had slopped over onto Dan’s bare head, and even yet was stilltrickling a tiny stream. At first glance, so thoroughly was Dan’s headand face adorned, it seemed to Bob that the entire contents of the canmust have been emptied. But a second glance showed him that at leastthree-fourths of the paint still remained at the end of the cord. Heswung it away so that it no longer dripped, and hailed Dan.

  “What’s the good of wasting the stuff like that, Dan?” he asked withsimulated anger.

  Dan raised a strange blue visage from which his eyes peeped coylyupward. “If you’ll haul me up I’ll lick you within an inch of yourlife!” he said solemnly. Then he spat and sputtered and tried to wipethe sticky fluid from his face with his arm, his hands being alreadywell covered.

  Tom and Nelson, who had managed to creep to the edge for another look,here retired precipitately so that they might indulge their mirth wherethere was no danger of laughing themselves over the edge.

  “Too bad, Dan,” laughed Bob. “Haven’t you got a handkerchief?”

  “_Handkerchief!_” said Dan scornfully. “What good would that be? WhatI need is a Turkish bath and a dozen towels. Say, did you do that onpurpose, you--you blamed fool?”

  “No, honest, Dan, I didn’t. I didn’t know what was up, until Nelson wastaken with a fit.”

  “Fit! I’ll fit him!” said Dan with a grin. “How do I look?”

  “Like New Haven after a football victory!”

  “Huh! Well, let’s have that stuff and get this fool job done!”

  “Sure you don’t want to come up and clean off a bit?”

  “I’m not coming up until the thing’s done, I tell you. Lower away onthat paint, only for goodness’ sake be careful!”

  “Of course I will! What’s the saying about gilding refined gold andpainting the lily, Dan? There’s no use wasting any more of thisprecious stuff on you; you’re complete now. I couldn’t add to yourbeauty if I had gallons and gallons here!”

  “Shut up!” said Dan cheerfully; “and tell those two other idiots thatif they don’t stop laughing I’ll go up there and paint ’em from head tofeet!”

  Here Tom looked over.

  “Su-su-say, Dan,” he shouted, “di-di-didn’t you mean ‘Re-re-requiescatin pu-pu-pu-paint’?”

  “Shut up, Tom,” gurgled Nelson, thrusting his blushing countenanceover the edge. “Can’t you see he has enough already to make him blue?”

  But Dan made no answer. He was tracing a monstrous C on the face of thecliff with a dripping brush.

  He was tracing a monstrous C.]

  “Don’t be too generous with that paint,” cautioned Bob. “Remember,there isn’t very much left.”

  “Guess I know that, don’t I?” asked Dan.

  An A and an M followed the C, and then it was necessary to move theartist along. Nelson had solved the difficulty after a fashion thepreceding afternoon. The second rope was made fast to a tree at the topand lowered down to Dan. He put his foot in the noose and swung freeof the seat, keeping hold, however, of the rope above it. Then thiswas moved at the top and made fast anew. Dan stepped back on the seat,released the rope with the noose, and went swinging across the faceof the rock like a pendulum. The watchers held their breaths, but Danclung fast, and presently the swing came to a stop and the paintingwas resumed. Four times more was this process gone through with to therisking of Dan’s limbs before the last numeral of “’04” was completed.Then Dan heaved a sigh of relief, viewed his work approvingly, andtrickled what remained of the paint down the face of the rock in apartly successful endeavor to obliterate the red lettering below.

  “How does it look?” asked Nelson eagerly.

  “Swell,” said Dan. “Pull me up.”

  They obeyed, and when he crawled over the edge and stood up they allsat down and howled anew. And Dan, just to be sociable, sat down andlaughed at his plight until the tears came.

  “Oh, Dan, if we could only keep you just as you are!” gasped Nelson,“and use you for a mascot!”

  Head and face were as blue as though he had dipped them in thepaint-can; his hands and arms were a lighter shade; the stuff hadtrickled down behind one ear and so down his back, and his jersey waspatriotic to a fault.

  “What shall I do?” he asked finally. “I can’t go back like this.”

  “We’ll land you just across from the village,” said Nelson, “and youcan sneak back to camp through the woods. No one will see you, becausethe crowd will be having soak. Get a lot of kerosene and take a bath init.”

  The plan was the best they could think of, and so it was carried out.The ropes and the rest of the paraphernalia they hid in the woods,and then they got down the hill as fast as their legs would carrythem. Going through the village, Dan created quite a little interest,although he modestly strove to avoid notice. They put him ashorea quarter of a mile from camp, and when last seen he was stalkingthrough the trees like an Indian in war-paint. The others got back tothe landing in time to hurry into their bathing-trunks and get a fewplunges before the signal “All out!” was given. They were very reticentas to what they had been doing, but somehow the secret was all overcamp by dinner-time, and the fellows spent the most of the afternoonrowing to and fro across the lake to the point of Black’s Neck, fromwhere an excellent view of the cliff was obtainable. And what they sawpleased them immeasurably. Dan had fairly beaten the Wickasaws at theirown game. He had painted his legend in letters fully three feet highat least fifteen feet above theirs, and there could be no comparisoneither in artistic effect or publicity. Camp Chicora hugged itself ingleeful triumph.

  Just before supper Dan ran across Mr. Verder.

  “Why, Speede,” asked the latter, stopping him, “aren’t you feelingwell?”

  “Me, sir? Oh, I’m all right,” answered Dan uneasily, eager to pass on.

  “Sure?” asked the councilor. “You look--er--kind of blue andunhealthy.” And Dan thought he heard a chuckle as he hurried away.