Tom Slade on Mystery Trail Part 5

Sitting there with his legs pressed up tight against the under side of the branch so as to hold his balance on his precarious seat, he held the end in one hand while he carefully pulled away the twigs from the end beyond the nest. Thus he had a piece of branch perhaps twenty inches long, with the nest hanging midway of it. This he held with the greatest care, lest in turning the branch the delicate fabric by which it hung should strain and break away. You would have thought that that little prisoner of the speckled head owned the tree, which in point of fact was owned by Temple Camp, notwithstanding its distance from the scout community. So it was really Hervey's more than it was little downy-head's if it comes to that.

It is not every landlord that goes to so much trouble for a tenant.

CHAPTER X

OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, ON WITH THE NEW

"All right, we're coming down; kill the fatted calf," Hervey called with all his former gay manner. "No more up and down trails for me. This is moving day."

When he had descended a little nearer, Tom heard the cheery voice more clearly. "It's no easy job moving a house and family. I have to watch my step. Oh, boy, _coming down!_ This tree is tied in a sailor's knot."

"Are you bringing the bird?" Tom called.

"I'm bringing the bird and the whole block he lived in," Hervey called back merrily. "I'm transplanting the neighborhood. He's going to move into a better locality--very fas.h.i.+onable. He's coming up in the world--I mean down. _O-o-h, boy_, watch your step; there was a narrow escape! I stepped on a chunk of air."

So he came down working his way with both feet and one hand, and holding the precious piece of branch with its dangling nest in the other.

"Talk about your barbed wire entanglements," he called. Then, after a minute, "This little codger lives in a swing," he shouted; "I should think she'd get dizzy. No accounting for tastes, hey? Whoa--boy! There's where I nearly took a double-header. If I should fall now, I wouldn't have so far to go."

"You won't fall," said Tom with a note of admiring confidence in his brief remark.

"Better knock wood," came the cheery answer from above.

And presently his trim, agile form stood upon the lowest stalwart limb, as he balanced himself with one hand against the trunk. His khaki jacket was in shreds, a great rent was in his sleeve, and a tear in one of his stockings showed a long b.l.o.o.d.y scratch beneath. In his free hand he held the piece of branch with its depending nest, extending his arm out so as to keep the rescued trophy safe from any harm of contact.

"Some rags, hey?" he called down good-humoredly, and exposing his figure in grotesque att.i.tude for sober Tom's amus.e.m.e.nt. "If mother could only see me now! Get out from under while I swing down. Back to terra cotta--I mean firma. Here goes----"

Down he came, tumbling forward, and sprawling on the ground, while he held the branch above him, like the Statue of Liberty lighting the world.

"Here we are," he said. "Take it while I have a look at my leg. It's nothing but an abrasion. It looks like a trail from my ankle up to the back of my knee. What care we? I've got trails on the brain, haven't I?"

Tom took the branch and stood looking admiringly, yet with a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt lighting his stolid features, at the younger boy, who sat with his knees drawn up humorously inspecting the scratch on his leg.

"Well, what do you think of eagles now?" Tom asked, in his dull way.

"Decline to be interviewed," Hervey said, with irrepressible buoyancy.

"What kind of a crazy bird is this that lives upside down in a house that looks like a bat. It reminds me of a plum pudding, hanging in the pantry. What's that streak of red, anyway? His patrol colors? You'd think he'd get seasick, wouldn't you?"

"You've got the bird badge," Tom said, smiling a little; "can't you guess?"

What Tom did not realize was that this merry, reckless, impulsive young dare-devil, whose very talk, as he jumped from one theme to another, made him smile in spite of himself, could not be expected to bear in mind the record of his whole remarkable accomplishment. He was no handbook scout.

There is the scout who learns a thing so that he may know it. But there is the scout who learns a thing so that he may do it. And having done it, he forgets it. Perhaps there is the scout who learns, does, and remembers. But Hervey was not of that order. He had made a plunge for each merit badge, won it and, presto, his nervous mind was on another.

It takes all kinds of scouts to make a world.

Perhaps Hervey was not the ideal scout, but there was something very fascinating about his blithe way of going after a thing, getting it, and burdening his mind with it no more. He lived for the present. His nave manner of asking Tom for a tip as to a trail had greatly amused the more experienced scout, who now could not understand how Hervey had used the handbook so much and knew it so imperfectly.

"Didn't you ever see one before?" Tom asked.

"Not while I was conscious," Hervey shot back, "but if he likes to live that way it's none of my business. He's inside taking a nap, I guess. He had some rocky road to Dublin coming down. I wonder what he thinks? That wasn't the right kind of a trail, was it?"

"Wasn't it?" Tom queried.

"No; I want a trail along the ground."

"Still after the Eagle, huh? Do you realize what you have done?"

"I've torn my suit all to shreds, I know that. Right the first time, hey? I'd look nice going up on the platform Sat.u.r.day night? Good I won't have to, hey?"

"I thought you were going to," Tom said soberly.

"So I am," Hervey shot back at him; "trails up in the air don't count.

Never mind, I'll find a trail to-morrow. It's my troop I'm thinking of.

I'll land it, all right. When I get my mind on a thing.... Hey, Slady, what in the d.i.c.kens is that streak of red in the nest? Is it a trade mark or something like that? You're a naturalist."

"It's an oriole's nest," Tom said, with just a note of good-humored impatience in his voice. "I thought you'd know that."

"You see my head is full of the Eagle badge just now," Hervey pleaded, "but I'm going to look up orioles."

Tom smiled.

"I'm going to look up orioles, and I'm going to get Doc to put some iodine on my leg, and I'm going to do that tracking stunt to-morrow.

There's three things I'm going to do."

Tom paused, seemingly irresolute, as if not knowing whether to say what was in his mind or not. And presently they started toward the camp, Hervey limping along and carrying the branch.

"An oriole picks up everything he can find and weaves it into his nest,"

Tom said; "string, ribbon, bits of straw, any old thing. He likes things that are bright colored."

"He's got the right idea, there," Hervey said.

Tom tried again to interest the rescuer in this little companion, imprisoned within its own cozy little home, whom they were taking back to camp. He could not comprehend how one who had performed such a stunt as Hervey had just performed, and been so careful and humane, could forget about his act so soon and take so little interest in the bird which had been saved by his reckless courage. But that was Hervey Willetts all over. His heart went where action was. And his interest lapsed when action ceased.

"Somebody in a book called the oriole Orestes, because that means dweller in the woods," Tom ventured.

"He dwells in a sky-sc.r.a.per, that's what _I_ say," Hervey commented. "In a hall bedroom upside down, twenty floors up."

Tom tried again. "What do you mean to do with her now that you've got her?" he asked.

"I'm going to turn her over to you, Slady. You're the real scout; none genuine unless marked T. S. You've got the birds all eating out of your hands."

"You didn't tear the nest from the branch," Tom said. "You must have had some idea."

"Well," said Hervey, "my idea was to stick it up in an elm tree down at camp. Think she'd stand for it?"