"How about that, Paul," broke out Fritz, who had been watching the face of the patrol leader, "we"re about eighteen miles away from home; and must we wait till we get there to start help out for that poor chap?"
"He might die before then," remarked Jotham seriously.
Again a strange silence seemed to brood over the whole patrol. Every fellow no doubt was thinking the same thing just then, and yet each boy hated to be the one to put it into words.
They had taken so much pride in the big hike that to even suggest giving it up, and just in the supreme moment of victory, as it were, seemed next door to sacrilege, and yet they could not get around the fact that it seemed right up to them to try and save that forlorn aeronaut. His life was imperiled, and scouts are always taught to make sacrifices when they can stretch out a hand to help any one in jeopardy.
Paul heaved a great sigh.
"Fellows," he said, solemnly, "I"m going to put it up to you this time, because I feel that the responsibility ought to be shared; and remember majority rules whenever the scoutmaster thinks best to let the troop decide."
"All right, Paul," muttered Seth, dejectedly.
"It"s only fair that you should saddle some of the responsibility on the rest of the bunch," admitted Jotham, hardly a bit more happy looking than Seth; for of course every one of them knew what was coming; and could give a pretty good guess as to the consequences.
"That"s a fact," added Fritz, "so out with it, Paul. When I"ve got a bitter dose to swallow I want to hurry, and get it over."
"It hurts none of you more than it does me," went on the scoutmaster, firmly, "because I had set my heart on winning that fine trophy; and there"ll be a lot of people disappointed this afternoon when we fail to show up, if we do."
"Sure thing," grunted Seth, "I c"n see our friend, Freddy Rossiter, going around with that sickly grin on his face, telling everybody that he always knew we were a lot of fakirs, and greatly overrated; and that, like as not, even if we did show up we"d a been carried many a mile on some hay-wagon. But go on, Paul; let"s have the funeral quick, so a feller c"n breathe free again."
"I"m going to put a motion, and every scout has a right to vote just as he thinks best. Only before you decide, stop and think what it all means, to that poor man as well as ourselves," Paul continued.
"Ready for the motion," mumbled Fritz, who looked as though he had lost his very last friend, or was beginning to feel the advance symptoms of sea sickness.
"All in favor of changing our plans, and trying to rescue the lost balloonist right now, say yes," the scoutmaster demanded, in as firm a tone as he could muster.
A chorus of affirmatives rang out; some of the boys were a little weak in the reply they made, for it came with an awful wrench; but so far as Paul could decide the response was unanimous.
He smiled then.
"I"m proud of you, fellows, yes I am," he declared heartily. "I think I know just what each and every one of you feels, and when you give up a thing you"ve been setting your minds on so long, and just when it looks as if we had an easy walk-over, I"m sure it does you credit. Some of the Beverly people may laugh, and make fun when we fail to turn up this afternoon; but believe me, when we do come in, and they learn what"s happened, those for whose opinion we care will think all the more of us for doing what we mean to."
"Hope so," sighed Seth, who could not coax any sort of a smile to his forlorn looking face, "but because I talk this way, Paul, don"t you go and get the notion in your head that if the whole thing depended on me I"d do anything different from what we expect to. There"s such a thing as duty that faces every scout who"s worthy of the name. For that he must expect to give up a whole lot of things he"d like to do. And you"ll find that I can stand it as well as the next feller."
"P"raps when they know what happened, the committee"ll be willing to give us a chance to make another try next week?" suggested Jotham.
"Good boy, Jotham, and a clever idea," cried Fritz.
Somehow the suggestion seemed to give every one a sensation of relief.
"I think myself that we"ll be given another chance to show what we can do," was what Paul remarked. "We can prove that we had the victory about as good as clinched when this unexpected thing came along. And I know Mr. Sargeant will be pleased to hear that we gave up our chances of winning that trophy because a sudden serious duty confronted us."
"Then we"re going to start right away to try and find the middle of Black Water Swamps--is that the idea, Paul?" inquired Seth.
"That"s what it amounts to, it looks like, to me," replied the scoutmaster, as he stood there in the open road, looking long and steadily at the very spot where they had seen the last of the dropping balloon; just as though he might be fixing the locality on his mind for future use.
"Do we all have to go, Paul, or are you going to let several of us tramp along to Beverly?" some one asked just then.
"That depends on how you feel about it," was the answer the scoutmaster gave. "It won"t do any good for a part of the patrol to arrive on time, because, you remember one of the rules of the game is that every member must fulfill the conditions, and make the full hundred miles hike. Do you want to go to town, while the rest of us are searching the swamps for the aeronaut, Eben?"
"I should say not," hastily replied the bugler.
"How about you, Noodles?" continued Paul.
"Nixey doing; me for der swamps, undt you can put dot in your pipe undt smoke idt," the one addressed replied, for there were times when the scouts, being off duty, could forget that Paul was anything other than a chum.
"Well," the patrol leader went on to say, laughingly, "I"m not going to ask any other fellow, for I see by the looks on your faces that you"d take it as an insult. So, the next thing to settle is where we"d better strike into the place."
Seth came to the front again.
"Well, you see, I talked a lot with that feller that got lost in there; and he told a heap of interesting things about the blooming old swamp, also where he always started into the same when trapping. You see, somehow I got a hazy idea in this silly head of mine that some time or other I might want to get a couple of chums to go with me, and try and see what there was in the middle of the Black Water Swamps."
"That"s good, Seth," declared one of his mates, encouragingly.
"The smartest thing you ever did, barring none," added Jotham.
"It"s apt to be of more or less use to us right now, and that"s a fact,"
was the way Paul put it.
"I reckon," Andy remarked, looking thoughtfully at Seth, "that you could tell right now whether we happened to be near that same place. It would be a great piece of good luck if we could run across the entrance, and the trail your trapper friend made, without going far away from here."
"Let"s see," continued Seth, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his forehead up into a series of funny wrinkles, as he usually did when trying to look serious or thoughtful, "he told me the path he used lay right under a big sycamore tree that must have been struck by a stray bolt of lightning, some time or other, for all the limbs on the north side had been shaven clean off."
"Well, I declare!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jotham.
"Then you"ve noticed such a tree, have you?" asked Paul, instantly, recognizing the symptoms, for he had long made a study of each and every scout in the troop, and knew their peculiarities.
"Look over yonder, will you?" demanded Jotham, pointing.
Immediately various exclamations arose.
"That"s the same old blasted sycamore he told me about, sure as you"re born," declared Seth, with a wide grin of satisfaction.
"The Beaver Patrol luck right in the start; didn"t I say nothing could hold out against that?" remarked Fritz.
"Come along, Paul; let"s be heading that way," suggested Jotham.
In fact, all the scouts seemed anxious to get busy. The first pang of regret over giving up their cherished plan had by this time worn away, and just like boys, they were now fairly wild to be doing the next best thing. They entered heart and soul into things as they came along, whether it happened to be a baseball match; a football scrimmage on the gridiron; the searching for a lost trail in the woods, or answering the call to dinner.
And so the whole eight hurried along over the back road, meaning to branch off at the point nearest to the tall sycamore that had been visited by a freak bolt from the thunder clouds, during some storm in years gone by.
Paul was not joining in the chatter that kept pace with their movements.
He realized that he had a serious proposition on his hands just then.
If so experienced a man as that muskrat trapper could get lost in Black Water Swamps and stay lost for two whole days, it behooved a party of boys, unfamiliar with such surroundings to be very careful in all they did.
But Paul had ever been known as a cautious fellow. He seldom acted from impulse except when it became actually necessary, in order to meet some sudden emergency; and then there were few who could do things more quickly than the patrol leader.
In a case of this kind, the chances were that they must take unusual precaution against losing their bearings; that is, they must feel that they had a back trail to follow in case forward progress became impossible, or inexpedient.