Читать книгу Tom Slade on Mystery Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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“You’re not?” Hervey asked in puzzled dismay. “You can bet that every time I look at that little old gold eagle on top of the flag pole I say, ‘Me for you, kiddo.’”

“I like Star Scout better,” Tom said, unmoved by his companion’s consternation.

“Why, that means only ten merit badges,” Hervey said.

“It’s fun studying the stars,” Tom added.

“Oh, sure,” Hervey agreed. “But star and eagle, they’re just names. What’s in a name, hey? Is that the badge you meant that I forgot about? The astronomy badge?”

“No, it isn’t,” Tom said. “You’re too excitable to study the stars. It’s got to be something livelier.”

“You’ve got me down pat, that’s sure,” Hervey laughed.

Tom smiled, too. “Well, you want the Eagle badge, do you?” he said.

“You seem to think it doesn’t amount to much,” Hervey complained.

“I think it amounts to a whole lot,” Tom said.

“When I get my mind on a thing——” Hervey announced.

“That’s the trouble with you,” Tom said.

“There you go,” Hervey shot back at him; “you’ve been through the game and walked away with every honor in the book, and you know the book by heart and you can track with your eyes shut and you’ve been to France and all that and you think I’m just a kid, but it means something to be an Eagle Scout, I can tell you.”

Doubtless Tom Slade, scout, was gratified to receive this valuable information. “And there’s just the one way to get there, is that it?” he answered quietly, but smiling a little. “I always heard that a scout was resourceful and had two strings to his bow.”

“You just give me a tip and I’ll do the rest,” said Hervey.

“It must be about tracking, hey?”

“That’s it; test three for the stalking badge. Track an animal a quarter of a mile.”

“Well, let me think a minute, then,” Tom said.

“Up on that mountain, maybe, hey?” Hervey urged.

“Maybe,” Tom said.

So they ambled along, the elder quite calm and thoroughly master of himself, the younger, all impulse, eagerness and enthusiasm. His generous admiration of Tom, amounting almost to a spirit of worship, was plainly to be seen. It would have been hard to say how Tom felt or what he thought. At all events he had not been jostled out of his stolid calm.

“Did you ever hear any one say that there is more than one way to kill a cat?” he finally inquired, pausing to notice some bird or squirrel among the trees.

“I don’t want to kill a cat,” Hervey said. “I want to find some tracks, I——”

“You want to be an Eagle Scout,” Tom concluded; “and you’ve got your mind set on it. That it?”

“That’s it; but it’s for the sake of my troop, too.”

Still again, they strolled on in silence. A little twig cracked under Tom’s foot, the crackle sounding clear in the solemn stillness. Some feathered creature chirped complainingly at the rude intrusion of its domain by these strangers. And, almost under their very feet, a tiny snake wriggled across the trail and was gone. The shadows were gathering now, and the fragrance of evening was beginning to permeate the dim woods. And all the respectable home-loving birds were seeking their nests.

And so these two strolled on, and for a few minutes neither spoke.

“Well then, suppose I give you a tip,” Tom said. “Will you promise that you’ll make good? You claim to be a scout. You say that when you get your mind set on a thing, nothing can stop you. That the idea?”

“That’s it,” Hervey answered.

“You wouldn’t drop a trail after you once picked it up, would you? Some animals take you pretty far.”

“You bet nothing would stop me if I once got the tracks,” Hervey said. “I wouldn’t care if they took me across the Desert of Sahara or over the Rocky Mountains.”

“Hang on like a bulldog, hey?” Tom said.

“That’s me,” said Hervey.

“All right, it’s a go,” Tom concluded. “I’ll see if I can give you a pointer or two down near camp in the morning. Ever follow a woodchuck—or a coon? Only I don’t want any badge-getter falling down on a trail, if I’m mixed up with it. That’s one thing I can’t stand—a quitter.”

“I wouldn’t anyway,” Hervey said with great fervor; “but as long as I’ve got you and what you said to think about, you can bet your sweet life that not even a—a—a jungle would stop me—it wouldn’t.”

“That’s the kind of a fellow they want for an Eagle Scout,” Tom said; “do or die.”

“That’s me,” said Hervey Willetts.