The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat | Page 2

called him Bobolink; and what boy could do otherwise, seeing that his real name was Robert O. Link?
As the trio of lads were all dressed in the khaki suits known all over the world nowadays as typifying Boy Scouts, it could be readily taken for granted that they belonged to the Stanhope Troop.
Already were there three full patrols enlisted, and wearing uniforms; while a fourth was in process of forming. The ones already in the field were known as, first, the Red Fox, to which these three lads belonged; then the Gray Fox, and finally the Black Fox. But as they had about exhausted the color roster of the fox family, the chances were that the next patrol would have to start on a new line when casting about for a name that would stamp their identity, and serve as a totem.
An efficient scout master had been secured in the person of a young man by the name of Mr. Gordon, who cheerfully accompanied the lads on their outings, and attended many of their meetings. But being a traveling salesman, Mr. Gordon often had to be away from home for weeks at a time.
When these lapses occurred, his duties fell upon the shoulders of Paul Morrison, who not only filled the position of leader to the Red Fox Patrol, but being a first-class scout, had received his commission from Headquarters that entitled him to act as assistant scout master to the whole troop during the absence of Mr. Gordon.
"How did you like it up on the Radway?" continued the one who had made the first inquiry, Jack Stormways, whose father owned a lumber yard and planing mill just outside the limits of the town, which was really the goal of their present after-supper walk.
"Great place, all right," replied Bobolink. "Paul kept calling my attention to all the things worth seeing. He seems to think a heap of the old Radway. For my part, I rather fancy our own tight little river, the Bushkill."
"Well, d'ye know, that's one reason I asked how you liked it," Jack went on. "Paul seemed so much taken with that region over there, I've begun to get a notion in my head he's fixing a big surprise, and that perhaps at the meeting to-night he may spring it on us."
"Tell me about that, will you?" exclaimed Bobolink, who was given to certain harmless slang ways whenever he became in the least excited, as at present. "Now that you've been and gone and given me a pointer, I c'n just begin to get a line on a few of the questions he asked me. Well, I'm willing to leave it to Paul. He always thinks of the whole shooting match when trying to give the troop a bully good time. Just remember what we went through with when we camped out up on Rattlesnake Mountain, will you?"
"That's right," declared Tom Betts, eagerly; "say, didn't we have the time of our lives, though?"
"And yet Paul said only today that as we had so long a time before vacation ends this year, a chance might pop up for another trip," Bobolink remarked, significantly.
"Did, eh? Well, don't that go to prove what I said; and you just wait till we get back to the meeting room in the church. Paul's just bursting with some sort of secret, and I reckon he'll just have to tell us to-night," and Jack laughed good-naturedly as he still led his two comrades on toward the retired lane, where his father's big mill adjoined the storage place for lumber; convenient to the river, and at the same time near the railroad, so that a spur track could enter the yard.
Besides these three boys five others constituted the Red Fox Patrol of Stanhope Troop. In the first story of this series, which appeared under the name of "The Banner Boy Scouts; Or, The Struggle for Leadership," the reader was told about the formation of the Red Fox Patrol, and how some of the boys learned a lesson in scout methods of returning good for evil; also how a cross old farmer was taught that he owed a duty to the community in which he lived, as well as to himself. In that story it was also disclosed how a resident of the town offered a beautiful banner to that troop which excelled in an open tournament also participated in by two other troops of Boy Scouts from the towns of Aldine and Manchester; the former on the east bank of the Bushkill, about six miles up-stream, and the latter a bustling manufacturing place about seven miles down, and also on the same bank as Aldine.
In this competition, after a lively duel between the three wide awake troops, Stanhope won handsomely; and had therefore been given the