Читать книгу Great Hike: or, The Pride of the Khaki Troop - Douglas Alan Captain - Страница 2

"Hoop-la, somebody grab me before I drop!" shouted Landy, as he kept trying to get a grip with his fat legs on the foliage of the outer branches which seemed to take particular delight in evading his ambitious designs.

"Get a feather bed under him!" shrieked Ty, although at the same time he was changing his position in the tree with all possible haste, meaning to assist the clinging boy, if it could possibly be done.

"Oh, save me first, and joke about it afterward!" cried Landy, who was really alarmed and under a tremendous strain, both bodily and mentally.

"If I only had a rope with a loop in it, I could lasso him!" declared Jasper.

"But you haven't, you see," cried Landy. "Think up something else! Hurry along, boys; I can't hold out much longer. I'm no Elmer as a gymnast. I'm slipping right now, I tell you. Wow! Is that measly old ladder under me, and will I come down with a splash on it?"

He panted as he uttered this complaint, and the boys saw that his face resembled the setting sun, as he looked up to them almost piteously. But who could reach him there? On the very outer edge of the big tree, with the ground fully twenty feet below, and nothing to break his fall, it began to look like a serious business for poor Landy.

Dr. Ted realized that there was real danger of the boy getting a broken leg if he fell that distance. Landy was not like agile Lil Artha, or some other members of the troop. His weight made him solid, and being without any spring, he would likely come down with a dull, sickening thud.

"Hold on as long as you can, Landy!" yelled Ted, even neglecting to lisp in his great excitement.

He was slipping down the tree like a "greased pig," as Jasper termed it, though what that sort of animal would be doing up in an apple tree he never took the trouble to explain.

Ty saw what the idea was. He had been about to try and reach Landy by standing far out on a limb; but the prospect of success was very small. And so he followed Ted down the tree, slipping from limb to limb with the agility that some boys can only display when the owner of the orchard is seen coming on the full run with a ferocious bulldog at his heels.

"Oh, hurry! hurry! I'm near gone, and can't hold out much longer! What're you doing down there to help me, boys?" wailed the one whose legs swung back and forth like a couple of pendulums, as they vainly sought for a chance to grip something that would ease the strain on his arms above.

"The ladder! They've gone to set it up again, Landy! Just hold on half a minute longer. And there's Elmer jumped off his bicycle; and he's already raising it up. Set your teeth, Landy; take a fresh grip, and it's going to be all right!"

So the excited Jasper shouted as he sat there in the tree, unable to lend a helping hand, but at least capable of offering good advice.

A boy who had been coming toward the place on a wheel, seeing the state of affairs, had instantly sized up the situation; and even while those in the tree were shouting back and forth, and before they could get started, Elmer Chenowith, jumping from his saddle, had limped forward to where the unlucky ladder lay.

By the time Ted, followed by Ty, landed on the ground, he had raised it single-handed, and with a readiness that told of long familiarity with ladders; for one not accustomed to such things would never know the secret of bracing the bottom against some root and then lifting rapidly.

So just in the nick of time the treacherous ladder was dropped against the outer branches of the tree, alongside the hanging boy. Elmer himself flew up the rounds, for he feared that Landy, always more or less clumsy, might not be able to swing his form around, and take advantage of the opening.

But desperation gave Landy new abilities, and he managed by a violent effort to roll around to the outer side of the leaning ladder. Utterly exhausted by the strain he had been under, the fat boy must have slipped helplessly down only that Elmer managed to clutch him.

Step by step the gasping Landy was lowered until he reached the bottom round. He was no longer furiously red, but had turned a sickly white.

"Here, let him down on the ground," said Dr. Ted, taking command at that point as though it were his acknowledged right. "He's only getting the reaction now. I'll fix him up, boys, and he'll be picking apples again before ten minutes, believe me."

He was as good as his word, for Landy soon recovered; but it was noticed that from that moment the fat boy showed great caution how he climbed up that ladder, by which he had once been betrayed.

"What was all that talk going on as I passed?" asked Elmer, a bright, wide-awake young fellow, whose year out on a Canadian ranch belonging to an uncle was proving of considerable value to him in his experience as a scout.

"What did you hear?" asked Jasper, assuming a little of his former importance.

"Seemed to me it smacked of a contest," Elmer replied, "and somebody was telling how a few of us could keep tabs on the same, while using our wheels. That struck me as interesting, and so, wanting to know more, I just wheeled around, and was coming in through the back gate to the garden when the ladder fell. Now tell me the rest, fellows, because you all know that I'm head over ears interested in anything that touches on contests of any sort."

"Well," spoke up Ty, grinning; "somehow we got to talking about who the best all-round walker and runner in the troop might be. A lot of names were mentioned, including my own. Then there were Red, Lil Artha, Matty, George Robbins and Jack Armitage. Even Landy here threatened to enter for the big hike."

"But what was the idea?" asked Elmer, his face aglow with interest.

"To fix up a long-distance hike, say for twenty-four consecutive hours; and a few fellows, mounted on their wheels, kind of superintend things by keeping tabs along the line. The contestant coming in ahead at the end of the walk to be declared the pride of the troop, and the greatest ever."

Jasper rattled all this off with a fluency that told how he had indeed been deliberating over the scheme for some little time, and only sprang it on his chums now because the talk had gotten around to the subject.

"How's that strike you, Elmer?" asked Ty.

"Yeth, give uth your opinion, Mr. Thcoutmaster!" echoed Ted.

"Boys, it's just dandy, and that's a fact!" declared Elmer. "We can make up the arrangements to-night, if you'll all come around to my house. I'll get a lot of the other boys on the phone. I was thinking this morning that we ought to have a meeting about now, anyway, for there are a lot of matters that need attention."

"Then if you say so, it will be a go," declared Jasper, highly pleased because his little scheme had met with such instant approval at the hands of one in whom he placed the utmost confidence.

"Sure to be, Jasper," came the reply. "And it does you great credit too. Some of us were wondering what we might do to stir things up a little. With school opening just two weeks off, we want to make the most of the few days left of our vacation. Now this big hike will be just the thing."

"Besides, you see, Elmer," the small scout continued, eagerly, "it's going to settle a dispute between the lot of us here. Some think one fellow is going to have a walkover, and others hold different opinions. Of course we all know you're bound to be shut out, on account of that sore foot of yours. And as Mark is out of town, he can't enter the game either. But we think the six fellows we picked out ought to make things lively enough to suit anybody."

"They will, for a fact," replied Elmer. "Of course I pin my faith on Lil Artha, but I may be mistaken just as well as any one of you. But I must be going, fellows, as I was on an errand, and just ran around here to see how you were getting on. Better not try those gymnastics again, Landy. That was an ugly scrape for even an acrobat, let alone a fellow as chunky as you are."

"Elmer, never again," said the fat boy, solemnly, as he slowly shook his head. "I'll be sore for a week after that job. My arms feel right now like they'd been nearly pulled out of their sockets. Gee, but nobody can understand just how it feels to be hanging twenty feet up, on the outside branches of a tree, and slowly slipping, slipping! And I lost a basket of the biggest pippins you ever saw; every one a prize winner, but now all bruised and wasted!"

"You'd have been the biggest squashed pippin of the lot if you went down that time," sang out Ty from the top of the tree.

"Now that's real cruel of you, Ty," complained Landy; but he did not take the jibes of his comrades much to heart, for he was fond of a joke himself.

"Remember, every one of you drop around to-night," said Elmer, as he picked up his wheel, which he had hastily thrown aside at the moment he discovered how necessary prompt action was required in order to save Landy.

"Any chance of striking some of that delightful sponge cake your housekeeper makes to beat the Dutch?" asked Landy, who had never forgotten the treat set before the scouts the last time some of them were invited around to Elmer's home.

"Seems to me Mrs. Gregg was making a big batch this very morning when I left home," called back Elmer; just as if he hadn't asked her to do the same, since he intended having the boys in khaki there that night.

"Then count me in," declared the fat boy, firmly; "even if my arms are so sore I'll have to ask somebody to raise the cake to my mouth. Yum, yum; that was the finest thing that ever came down the pike, barring none! And you tell her that, Elmer, with my compliments."

"All right, I will," sang out the departing one, as he passed out of the rear gate, mounted on his wheel and riding as one to the manner born.

The apple picking went on, with the heap at the base of the tree growing in size as basket after basket was added to it. And the conversation between the five lads covered a great variety of subjects as they stripped the big tree of its golden freight.

"What makes me sore," remarked Landy with a big sigh, "is the fact that I upset the basket that held the finest apples going. You see, my dad expected to show some of these at the fair next week, if they turned out as well as they looked from the ground. And I was just saying to myself that I had the beauts, when the silly old ladder went back on poor little Philander."

"Don't weep, old chap," called out Ty. "If you look over that last lot I sent down on my little cable here, you'll find them the mates of the ones you dropped. And for a wonder, too, I got that basket down safe without an upset."

"Thanks, you make me happy again, Ty," remarked Landy. "And for that you'll be remembered in my last will."

"Huh!" grunted Jasper; "he deserves a heap of credit for letting all those fine pippins get past him; because he acted like he meant to gobble every extra good one that came along. I've counted about a dozen he's got away with up to now; and I think even at that he's just taken the edge off his appetite."

"Well, in that case I'll get down and pick out a basket from the pile to take in the house, before Ty starts at full speed," and Landy did actually head for the ground to put his threat into execution.

So they kept up a crossfire of remarks, sometimes more or less witty, until the last apple that could be reached was bagged. Then the game was declared off, and Landy invited his chums in to help dispose of a quart of peanuts he happened to have in his room.

"We'll all be around to-night at Elmer's house, I suppose?" remarked Ty as, with Ted, Jasper and Chatz, he started for the door.

"Count on me, if I have to be carried on a stretcher," vowed Landy, laughing at the speaker, as he recalled to mind the attractive lure that had been held out for their attendance.

"And I'm anxious to have this thing put through," declared Jasper; "because, you see, it was partly my suggestion; and besides, I've got a hunch that the Fairfield troop are figuring on a long hike, to try out their best fellows. I'd like to see our Lil Artha or Matty Eggleston up against the best they have. It'd be a hike worth hearing about, believe me, fellows."

"And perhaps we can fix up a match; I'm going to mention the thing to Elmer, anyhow," remarked Chatz, who really had no small nature, and could see one of his comrades winning laurels without showing the slightest envy.

And talking it over earnestly, they left Landy, heading for their various homes.