Читать книгу Along the Mohawk Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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Harry Arnold was eighteen years old, and, as you may have noted from the position of his badge and the color of his scarf, he was leader of the Beaver patrol. He was tall, lithe, and active, and, without being exactly an athlete, he gave the impression of being athletic.

There was a certain indescribable something in his appearance which suggested the out-of-door life rather than a gymnasium training, and it is a fact that he seldom did a thing simply and solely because it would make him strong. There was nothing of the athletic faddist about him, and it was said by some of the Oakwood boys that he was not much of a sport. Of course, that depends on what you call sporting, but it must be confessed that he took but slight interest in games—as such. He liked to see a good kick on the gridiron, a good ball pitched; he enjoyed seeing a boy catch a “sky-scraper” or watching a home run. But whether the pitcher, runner, or catcher wore a white suit or a blue suit or a red suit, or the initial A or B or any other letter, made little difference to him.

He was not much given to talking (his friend Gordon attended to that), but he was fond of saying, “The question is, what can a fellow do, not whom can he beat?” He was not particularly fond of either football or baseball but, if I can make the distinction clear, he was fond of each feature of these games for its own sake independently of results. It made several of his companions quite impatient when he calmly protested, on his way home from the baseball field one day, that the visiting team which had just been beaten by the Oakwood High School had really done the best work.

“Well, we beat them anyway, and that’s how I judge,” said Collins. And that, indeed, is the way most boys judge. But Arnold had watched each individual play apart from its connection with the game as a whole, and he persisted that the visitors had done the best work.

Perhaps we can get at it best by saying that he had the true sporting instinct, but lacked the spirit of the contestant. He saw a difference between the word “success” and the word “victory.” It was a grand, inspiring thing to see a home run—never mind which side scored.

He cared nothing for dumb-bells, Indian clubs, elastic exercisers, and such. He loved the woods and the water, and the things he loved to do made him strong and enduring. “You cannot get up much of an affection for dumb-bells and Indian clubs,” he said; “so they don’t do you much good.”

I don’t know that I wholly agree with him in this, but I think I catch his idea, which is sound and wholesome. At all events, we must take him as we find him.

He was inordinately fond of boating, and had walked away with the seamanship badge so easily that it seemed a shame for him to take it. He gave the examiners good measure in all the tests and threw in several feats gratis. He could ride a canoe as a cowboy rides a mustang, and had come alone in one of those little shells from Block Island to New York, straight through Long Island Sound, in November.

He was thoughtful and far-sighted, and studious in regard to matters that interested him specially. In his seamanship test he had voluntarily drawn a plan of a turbine engine, giving also a description of its advantages in sea navigation. What he knew, he knew thoroughly, and the thing that interested him most, next to wood lore and outdoor life and boating, was Gordon Lord.

That loquacious Beaver, with his head stuffed full of a variety of useful and semi-useful information, furnished him a source of never ending amusement which had blossomed into a genuine attachment for the younger boy. “Kid,” he would say, “the inside of your head reminds me of a rummage sale or an old attic. Why don’t you get busy and clear it out some rainy Saturday?”

And Gordon would answer, “Because then I wouldn’t have anything to make you laugh with when you get a grouch on. See?” And this, perhaps, may afford a hint as to why the two had been drawn together.

It now became the first duty of Harry Arnold to encounter his young friend’s father and surmount, if might be, the difficulty of parental objection to the proposed undertaking. This he could not do until evening, but he knew enough to know that he was going to talk to a business man and that it behooved him to be prepared. Of his own father’s consent he had no doubt.

Mr. Lord had a great admiration for Harry. His shrewd business habit of keen observation had long since shown him that here was a boy who was adventurous but not visionary. He admired the lad’s straightforward, self-possessed way of talking. He had even been favorably impressed with the moderate and discriminate use of slang which characterized his conversation.

“Just enough to make what he says pithy and vivid,” he told Gordon. “You never hear him use senseless expressions or words that have no meaning—I like to talk to him.” In short, he was well pleased with the intimacy between the two boys, for he felt that Harry was an admirable companion for his own impulsive son.

Harry started at once for the city, where he procured from a sporting outfitter just what he wanted and no more, which is not always an easy thing to do. This was a government survey map of the Lake Champlain country. If there had been time he might have gotten this from Uncle Sam at the moderate price of five cents; as it was, it cost him a dollar.

The afternoon he spent in his room alone, studying the map. Gordon’s alluring picture of dropping in on the troop unexpectedly some fine day did not divert him from a calm and thoughtful consideration of the chances of success or failure. Of course, the idea of going up there and searching them out by the application of wit, persistence, and resource appealed strongly to his spirit of adventure. But he was not going to allow himself to be too hopeful. He saw that if they started at Ticonderoga and journeyed north in a direct line they would be, generally speaking, on high ground, whence they could keep the lake in view as well as the two miles, approximately, which would intervene between themselves and the water.

In other words, his plan would be to start at the foot of Lake Champlain and follow the ridge of high land which ran parallel with the lake about two miles west of it. He saw that here and there along the route were high elevations whence they might obtain excellent surveys of the shore line and the country between. A few days’ tramping and climbing would enable them to pick out the camp if it were in open ground. But he realized that it probably would not be in open ground.

The only definite knowledge they would start with as to the troop’s camping place was as follows:

They were to start at Ticonderoga and press north.

They were to camp on the New York side of the lake.

They would remain in proximity to the lake.

They would, probably, not go north of Port Henry, which was, roughly speaking, fifteen miles above Ticonderoga.

That left a tract of country fifteen miles long and from two to three miles wide to be explored. The long sides of this rolling, wooded rectangle were bounded respectively by the ridge and the long stretch of lake shore. But the ridge was not continuous and well defined, and its constant availability for outlook was, of course, not to be depended on. Indeed, to the average eye the map would have shown no ridge at all. But Harry picked it out, following the contour linings and altitude notations, and saw it as if it were a grand stand. He knew enough of woodcraft to know that a searcher must keep to the high ground, and he did not make the mistake of supposing that the thing to do would be to follow the shore.

He took a lead pencil from his ear. It was the first weapon to be used and he knew its value. Then and there, in the seclusion of his own room, he began the search for the needle in the haystack.

He knew that certain things could be eliminated by deduction and that it was best to eliminate them before he tripped over them. He marked the imaginary rectangle on his map. Then he studied it as if it were a chess-board and he a player. He knew that the chances were strongest for finding the troop encamped toward the southern end of his rectangle, because when they found the sort of place they were after why should they go farther? There was a river rising somewhere in Keeny Mountain and making its way into the lake about three miles north of Ticonderoga. Very likely they would not be north of that, for why should they not camp along the first river they came to? They would probably not be remote from a road. If they followed up the lake, they would cut in west a little below the river because there was a swamp. If they did this, they would buck right into the river on high ground about one mile in from the lake. If conditions there were as he thought they were, that would mark the general locality of their camp. For people, like rivers, follow the path of least resistance. Harry judged what Dr. Brent would do by considering what he would do. He let the rectangle stand as he had marked it, but he interested himself most in its lower end.

There was a ring at the door-bell.

“If that’s Kid Lord,” he called out, never looking up from the map, “tell him if he comes up here, he’s got to keep quiet.”

But it was not Kid Lord, for Kid Lord was otherwise engaged.

That evening, Harry rolled up his map and went up to the Lord house. Mr. Lord was standing on the lawn watching the activities of a new revolving sprinkler.

“Hello, Harry, my boy,” said he, cordially. “Well, you and Gordon are a couple of A-1 scouts, aren’t you? You made a great botch out of getting off!”

“I think we can find them, Mr. Lord,” said Harry, as they walked toward the porch and seated themselves in two large wicker chairs.

“I don’t know about that, Harry,” said Mr. Lord, seriously. “I’m afraid it’s too much of an undertaking. Dr. Brent will manage to get word to you boys, as I told Gordon—you needn’t be afraid of that. He’ll have one of the boys arrange to meet you somewhere—the nearest station—and—”

“And they’ll all laugh at us.”

“What do you care for that?”

“Well, I don’t know that I do, sir, but it would be a lot of fun to find them.”

“That’s what Gordon says, but now just think a minute, my boy. You propose to roam around through those woods, tramp up mountains, walk through swamps for maybe two weeks or more, simply for the pleasure of stealing quietly up to their tents some day and calling, ‘Peek-a-boo.’ I don’t think the game’s worth the candle, now, do you?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“What’s that you’ve got?”

“That’s a map I want to show you,” answered Harry, unrolling it and spreading it on his knee; “I guess maybe Gordon has an idea that we’re going into a country like the wilds of Africa, but it isn’t quite as bad as that. Of course, there are wild tracts, but there are roads and villages, and then there’s the lake to keep us from going too far astray. I’m pretty sure we’ll find camp near the lake. Now, my idea is to follow this ridge—”

“What ridge?”

“Why, right along here,” said Harry, pointing with his pencil.

“You call that a ridge?”

“Yes, sir; those are all mountains, and the high land is more or less continuous. It’ll give us a bird’s-eye view.”

“Now, let me tell you something, my boy. It’s easy to climb a mountain on a map. But a few curlicue lines aren’t a mountain—no sirree—any more than a bill of fare is a dinner. Now, take my advice and do the comfortable, easy way. Stay right here till you get word from Dr. Brent.”

“It would be good sport,” protested Harry.

“I know, but suppose you shouldn’t find them?”

“Mr. Lord,” said Harry, “if I were working for you in your office and you wanted me to do something, you wouldn’t ask me what would happen if I failed to do it. You would expect me not to fail.”

Mr. Lord gave the boy a quick, approving glance but said nothing, only fell to examining the map.

“Well,” said he, “let’s see how you mean to do.”

“I mean to explore this tract, not every inch of it, of course, but by signals, and so forth. I figure that we’ll find some trace of them along the roads or in the wood trails. Also we can see a good deal of country from these mountains, some of them especially.”

“Suppose you tramped away up a mountain for a grandstand view and found it covered with dense woods?”

“I could climb a tree, but even that won’t be necessary. Do you know how they made this map, Mr. Lord? They had men out surveying the country. On the tops of some of these mountains there must be some old disused government survey stations. Here’s a mountain called Bald Knob, so we know right off there are no woods on it. Here’s Owl Pate—no woods on Owl Pate, I guess. Now this is what I mean to do, sir. I’m going right up that road from Ticonderoga, and if there hasn’t been any rain I can pick out their tracks if they went that way. That’s a stretch of flat country. If we haven’t spotted them by the time we get to Dibble Mountain, we’ll go up and take a look and see what we see. We may send up a Morse smoke signal and like enough that’ll fetch them. If it doesn’t, then on for Crown Point. You see, there’s the village, and no harm can come to us.”

“You could wire me from Crown Point,” suggested Mr. Lord.

“Yes, only we wouldn’t.”

Mr. Lord laughed. “See, there’s a good high mountain, Harry; Bulwagga, is it? Yes, Bulwagga.” He was getting quite into the spirit of the thing, and Harry led him along with the lead pencil, which Mr. Lord’s eyes followed as a needle follows a magnet. “Well, I hope you’ll find them,” he concluded. “I guess you’re equal to it. I wish I were young enough to go along.”

Harry rolled up his map and went up to Gordon’s room. He found that young gentleman in a rather despondent mood.

“What’s the matter, Kid?”

“My father won’t stand for it.”

“Oh, I guess he will; I’ve just been talking to him.”

“What’d he say?”

“Said he wished he was young enough to go along with us. Come on now, get a hustle. We start to-morrow morning.”