But he grinned, and yawned, and said: "You kids get up awful early. What time is it?"
"Six o"clock."
He-haw! And he yawned some more. Then he sat up and let his blanket go and kicked Bat. "Breakfast!" he shouted.
That made Bat grunt and grumble and wriggle; and finally uncover, too.
They acted as if their mouths might taste bad, after the pipes.
We hadn"t made a big fire, of course; but breakfast was about ready, on the little fire, and Fitz our cook sang out, according to our regulations: "Chuck!"
That was the camp"s signal call.
"If you fellows want to eat with us, draw up and help yourselves,"
invited General Ashley.
"Sure," they answered; and they crawled out of their blankets, and got their pieces of bark, and opened their knives, and without washing their faces or combing their hair they fished into the dishes, for bacon and bread and sorghum and beans.
That was messy; but we wanted to be hospitable, so we didn"t say anything.
"Where are you kids bound for, anyway?" asked Bat.
"Over the Divide," told General Ashley.
"Why can"t we go along?"
That staggered us. They weren"t our kind; and besides, we were all Boy Scouts, and our party was big enough as it was. So for a moment n.o.body answered. And then Walt spoke up.
"Aw, we won"t hurt you any. What you afraid of? We aren"t tenderfeet, and we"ll do our share. We"ll throw in our grub and we won"t use your dishes. We"ve got our own outfit."
"I don"t know. We"ll have to vote on that," said General Ashley. "We"re a Patrol of Boy Scouts, traveling on business."
"What"s that--Boy Scouts?" demanded Bat.
We explained, a little.
"Take us in, then," said Walt. "We"re good scouts--ain"t we, Bat?"
But they weren"t. They didn"t know anything about Scouts and Scouts"
work.
"We could admit you as recruits, on the march," said General Ashley.
"But we can"t swear you in."
"Aw, we"ll join the gang now and you can swear us in afterwards," said Bat.
"Well," said General Ashley, doubtfully, "we"ll take a vote."
We all drew off to one side, and sat in council. It seemed to me that we might as well let them in. That would be doing them a good turn, and we might help them to be clean and straight and obey the laws. Boys who seem mean as dirt, to begin with, often are turned into fine Scouts.
"Now we"ll all vote just as we feel about it," said General Ashley. "One black-ball will keep them out. "N" means "No"; "Y" means "Yes.""
The vote was taken by writing with a pencil on bits of paper, and the bits were put into General Ashley"s hat. Everything was "Y"--and the vote was unanimous to let them join. So everybody must have felt the same about it as I did.
General Ashley reported to them. "You can come along," he said; "but you"ve got to be under discipline, the same as the rest of us. And if you prove to be Scouts" stuff you can be sworn in later. But I"m only a Patrol leader and I can"t swear you."
"Sure!" they cried. "We"ll be under discipline. Who"s the boss? You?"
We had made a mistake. Here started our trouble. But we didn"t know. We thought that we were doing the right thing by giving them a chance. You never can tell.
They volunteered to wash the dishes, and went at it; and we let them throw their blankets and whatever else they wanted to get rid of in with the packs. We were late; and anyway we didn"t think it was best to start in fussing and disciplining; they would see how Scouts did, and perhaps they would catch on that way. Only--
"You"ll have to cut that out," ordered General Ashley, as we were ready to set out. He meant their pipes. They had stuck them in their mouths and had lighted them.
"What? Can"t we hit the pipe?" they both cried.
"Not with us," declared the general. "It"s against the regulations."
"Aw, gee!" they complained. "That"s the best part of camping--to load up the old pipe."
"Not for a Scout. He likes fresh air," answered General Ashley. "He needs his wind, too, and smoking takes the wind. Anyway, we"re traveling through the enemy"s country, and a pipe smells, and it"s against Scout regulations to smoke."
They stuffed their pipes into their pockets.
"Who"s the enemy?" they asked.
"We"re carrying a message and some other boys are trying to stop us.
That"s all."
"We saw some kids, on the other side of that ridge," they cried.
"They"re from the same town you are. Are they the ones?"
"What did they look like?" we asked.
"One was a big kid with black eyes--" said Bat.
"Aw, he wasn"t big. The big kid had blue eyes," interrupted Walt.
"How many in the party?" we asked.
"Four," said Bat.
"Five," said Walt.
"Any horses?"
"Yes."
"What were the brands?"