Tom Slade on Mystery Trail | Page 7

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.

CHAPTER VI
THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT
And so these two strolled on. And presently they came to a point where
the wood was more sparse, for they were approaching the rugged lower
ledges of a mighty mountain, and the last rays of the dying sun fell
upon the rocks and scantier vegetation of this clearer area, emphasizing
the solemn darkness of the wooded ascent beyond.
Few, even of the scouts, had ever penetrated the enshrouding
wilderness of that dizzy, forbidding height. There were strange tales,
usually told to tenderfeet around the camp-fire, of mysterious hermits
and ferocious bears and half-savage men who lurked high up in those
all but inaccessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had
ever ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.
At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching
hour of yarn telling, the seasoned habitués of the camp would direct the
eye of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain,
and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had
challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to
war and had never been able to find his way down again--a quite just
punishment for his cowardice. But time and again this freakish glint of
light had been proven to be the reflection of that very camp-fire upon a
huge rock lodged up there and held by interlacing roots.
Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a
great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake
seemed a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.
"I bet there are wild animals up