Boy Scouts on a Long Hike | Page 5

run back into his head that way," suggested Eben.
"Make quick, blease!" wailed the unhappy scout, who was growing dizzy with all this dangling and turning around. "I hears me der cloth gifing away; or else dot dree, it pe going to preak py der roots. Hurry oop! Get a moof on you, somepody. Subbose I want to make some squash pie down on der rocks?"
But Seth was already hard at work trying to coax that noose at the end of the dangling rope to fall over the uptilted legs of the unfortunate scout.
"Keep still, you!" he shouted, when for the third time his angling operations were upset by some unexpected movement on the part of the struggling boy. "Think I c'n lasso a bucking broncho? Hold your feet up, and together, if you want me to get you! There, that's the way. Whoop-la!"
His last shout announced sudden success.
Indeed, the loop of the handy rope had dropped over the feet of Noodles, and was speedily drawn tight by a quick movement on the part of the operator.
The balance of the boys laid hold on the rope and every one felt that the tension was relieved--that is, every one but Noodles, and when he found himself being drawn upward, with his head down, he probably thought things had tightened considerably.
As the obliging branch saw fit to let go its tenacious grip about that time, of course Noodles was soon drawn in triumph over the edge of the shale, protesting more or less because he was scratched in several places by sharp edges of the rock.
"Hurrah for Scout tactics; they count every time!" exclaimed Eben.
Fritz was unusually solicitous, and asked Noodles several times whether he had received any serious hurt as a result of his strange experience. The German boy felt himself all over, grunting several times while so doing. But in the end he announced that he believed he was all there, and beyond a few minor bruises none the worse for his adventure.
"Put you pet me I haf a narrow escape," he added, seriously. "How far must I haf dropped if dot pully oldt khaki cloth gives vay?"
"All of twenty feet, Noodles," declared Andy.
"Dwenty feets! Ach, petter say dree dimes dot," asserted Noodles. "I gives you my word, poys, dot it seemed I was on der top of a mountain, mit a fine chance my pones to preak on der rocks pelow. Pelieve me, I am glad to pe here."
"I hope you don't think I did that on purpose, Noodles?" asked Fritz, contritely.
The other turned a quizzical look upon him.
"Tid for tad, Fritz," he remarked, "iff I had nodt peen drying to choke mit you meepy I might nodt haf met with sooch a shock. Petter luck nexdt time, hey?"
"I don't know just what you mean, Noodles, blest if I do," remarked Fritz, with a puzzled look on his face, "but I agree with all you say. This practical joke business sometimes turns out different from what you expect. I'm sure done with it."
But then, all boys say that, especially after they have had a little fright; only to go back to their old way of doing things when the shock has worn off. And the chances were that Fritz was far from being cured of his habits.
"How lucky we had the rope along," ventured Jotham, who was coiling up the article in question at the time he spoke.
"I always said it would come in handy," remarked Eben, quickly and proudly, "and if you stop to think of the many uses we've put that same rope to, from yanking a fellow out of a quicksand, to tying up a bad man who had escaped from the penitentiary, you'll all agree with me that it's been one of the best investments we ever made."
"That's right," echoed Seth, always willing to give credit where such was due.
"Ketch me ever going into the woods without my rope," declared Eben.
"Well, do we make that start for home and mother and supper right now; or are we going to stay here till she gets plumb dark?" asked Fritz, impatiently, moving his feet out of the way every time anyone approached too closely, as though possessed by a fear lest he be tempted to repeat his recent act.
"Come on, everybody," said Eben, making a start, "I refuse to hang out a minute longer. Seems like I c'n just get a whiff of the steak a sizzling on the gridiron at our house; and say, when I think of it, I get wild. I'm as hungry as that bear that came to our camp, and sent us all up in trees like a covey of partridges."
"If you're as hungry as that after just an afternoon's signal practice, think what'll happen when we've been hiking all day, and covered