The Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts: Under Canvas Part 4

When Connie Mallon suddenly gave a tremendous spring forward, and started on a full run, there was no holding the other three back. They went plunging madly on in his wake, paying little attention to the direction they took, so long as their flight promised to carry them away from those dreadful manifestations.

Elmer did not stop his labors; in fact he even went to some pains to increase the racket, under the impression that once you get a thing started it is good policy to keep it moving.

He had distinctly warned the others, however, not to allow their excitement to overlap their discretion; for should one of them so far forget himself enough to give vent to a genuine boyish shout, perhaps the panic-stricken quartette might become wise to the fact that they were being made victims to a great hoax.

"Come on, let's chase after them a bit, fellows!" Elmer told them, between his puffs through the birch bark megaphone; "but keep well back, so that they can't get a look-in at us if they turn their heads. Noise is what we want, and plenty of the right kind."

Acting on his suggestion the others trailed after their leader. They swished in and out of the bushes, and accompanied their progress with all manner of novel sounds, each of which was calculated to add just a mite more to the alarm of the fugitives.

More than once they heard loud cries of pain coming from ahead, as one of the runners collided with some tree which had not been noticed in his terror; or else found himself tripped up by a wild grape-vine that lay in wait for unwary feet. As Toby declared later on, all this was "just pie" for the chasers; they feasted off it, and seemed to enjoy the run immensely; which was more than the Mallon boy, with his three cronies, could ever say.

At least Connie seemed to have kept his head about him in one important particular, which pleased Elmer very much; he knew in which direction lay their wagon, for which he had been in the act of sending one of his companions at the very moment this awful clamor broke out which had started them in full flight.

The neigh of a horse close at hand told Elmer what was happening, and he immediately held his eager clan in. Far be it from them to wish to delay the departure of the Mallon tribe, whose room was worth far more to the scouts than their company.

"Wait, and listen!" said Elmer, in a whisper.

"You didn't get the whole of that straight, Elmer," Toby told him, quickly, in a low, husky voice; "you ought to have said, 'Stop! Look!

Listen!' That's the way it always is at railroad crossings!"

"Hist! Be still!" cautioned the leader.

They could hear loud excited voices near by, accompanied by the stamping of horses' hoofs, as though the excitement had communicated to the team used by Connie Mallon and his three cronies in their rival nutting expedition.

"Now, let's start up again, and add the finis.h.i.+ng touches!" Elmer told the others, when a dozen more seconds had dragged past, and they felt they might safely a.s.sume that the fugitives must have untied the team, as well as scrambled into the wagon.

Once again did that strange chorus break forth, with Elmer groaning through his birch bark horn, and the others doing all in their power to accompany him in regular orthodox ghostly style, in as far as their limited education along these lines went.

Taken altogether the racket was certainly enough to scare almost any one. Snorts and prancing on the part of the horses announced that they were now sharing the general excitement. Then came cries urging haste, and presently the plain unmistakable smack of a whip being brought down with decided emphasis on the backs of the animals, several times repeated.

With that there was the crunch of wheels, and away dashed the two-horse wagon, making for the road which Connie knew must not be far away. Once or twice the scouts had fugitive glimpses of the departing vehicle as it flashed past small glades where the view happened to be un.o.bstructed; and it was certainly "killing," as George called it, to see those fellows bouncing about in the bed of the wagon, holding on for dear life, and with Connie plying the whip savagely, while the horses leaped and tugged and strained to make fast time over the uneven floor of the woods.

The echoes of the flight grew fainter in the distance, and presently as they stood there the scouts could tell from the change in sounds that those who were fleeing from the wrath of the ghosts must have reached the harder road, for the hoof beats of the horses came with a pounding stroke.

Gradually even this was dying away. Then the five boys turned and looked at each other, with their faces wreathed in huge grins.

"Tell me, Elmer, is it safe to let off steam now?" demanded Toby, eagerly.

"If you're careful not to be too noisy, go it!" came the reply.

With that Toby threw himself flat on his back, and began to kick his heels up in the air, all the while laughing, and giving queer gurglings that were meant to serve his pent-up emotions about as the escape valve of a boiler does when the steam presses too heavily on the boiler, and relief is necessary.

He was not alone in his hilarity, although the merriment of the others partook of a different nature. Ted, Chatz and George went around shaking hands, and a.s.suring each other that never in all their lives had they ever run across a more ridiculous diversion than this flight of the bold nut-gatherers.

"Talk to me about Napoleon's retreat from Moscow," said George, who prided himself on his knowledge of history, "why, it wasn't in the same category as that wonderful escape of the Connie Mallon gang from the raid of the Cartaret ghosts. And say, what thrilling stories they'll have to tell about it all! Believe me, the whole Hickory Ridge will know about it by night time. Oh! I'll never forget it! I haven't had so much fun for a whole year as to-day. It was worth coming twenty miles just to see them on the jump."

"Why," observed Ted, after he could regain his breath in part, "that Phil Jackthon took the cake when it came to covering ground. Did you thee him clear that log like a buck? I bet you he made a record jump that time, and beat anything he ever marked up on the thlate at a match."

"Well, they're gone, all right," said Chatz; "and from the way they whipped their poor hosses I'd like to guess they'll keep on the wild run till they get home. And there isn't much chance that we'll be bothered again by that Mallon bunch to-day; how about that, Elmer?"

"You can set that down as certain," replied the one spoken to. "It would take more s.p.u.n.k than any of that crowd happens to own for them to change their minds, and come back here. And that's why I wanted you to be careful not to give the secret away. We've got the field to ourselves the rest of the day."

"Unless something comes along to give us a scare too," added Chatz, meaningly; for truth to tell, the superst.i.tious Southern boy was already wondering whether all this playing ghost on their part might not bring something down on their heads savoring of retribution.

"Then what's to hinder our getting busy, and changing all that pile of fine nuts from their sacks to ours?" George wanted to know. "The spoils of battle belong to the victors every time; and besides, they were trying to beat us out of our share as first discoverers. For one I ain't a bit ashamed to grab everything. Let that silly bunch wake up earlier next time, if they mean to get away with the game."

What Elmer may have thought just then he did not say; but his ideas were certainly not so p.r.o.nounced as those of George, who was a pretty blunt fellow, one of the "give-and-take" kind.

As they were all of one mind a start back was made; and Toby, not wis.h.i.+ng to be left in the lurch, had to bring his kicking exhibition to an abrupt finish, and hasten after his four chums.

The glorious store of nuts that had already been gathered was immediately turned from the sacks owned by Connie Mallon and his cronies into the burlap bags the scouts had provided for the purpose. Then, far from satisfied, the boys proceeded to take up the work where the late nut-gatherers had left off. They climbed trees, and whipped the branches with the long poles, delighting in the sound of splendid nuts rattling down like hail. There is such a fascination about this sport that it is difficult to know just when to stop it; and the ground was soon covered to such an extent, that when the harvest had been gleaned several of the enemy's bags were more than half filled with the surplus.

"I never saw half so many chestnuts, walnuts and sh.e.l.l-bark hickory nuts gathered in heaps in all my life, as there are right here!" declared George; "a big bag apiece all around, and with three partly filled sacks belonging to that crowd left over."

"Which extra plunder," said Elmer, quietly, "I'm sure none of us would think of wanting, as we've got twice as much as we can use already."

"Then you're going to leave them for the ghost, are you?" asked Chatz, eagerly.

"We'll take them along," said Elmer, "and turn them over to Connie Mallon as a consolation prize; he'll find them in his front yard to-morrow morning, bright and early."

CHAPTER V

WHAT A SCOUT LEARNS

"HUH! so far as the nuts go, I haven't any objection," remarked George; "but to my mind it's going to be like casting pearls before swine.

They'll never appreciate the real motive back of the thing; and chances are they'll reckon we're throwing them a sop so they won't hold hard feelings against us."

"Perhaps you're right, George," Elmer admitted; "but don't forget we're every one of us true scouts, and that we've promised to hold out the olive branch to those we call our enemies, whenever we find the chance.

There's such a thing as heaping coals of fire on another fellow's head, doing a kindness to the one who hates you, and making him ashamed of himself. Scouts learn that lesson early in their service, you remember.

If we didn't have all the nuts ourselves, perhaps I'd hesitate to put this up to you, but it's no sacrifice to any of us."

"Elmer, I agree with you there," Ted spoke up. "Of courth none of us may ever know jutht how they take it; but when a fellow hath done his duty he needn't bother himthelf wondering whether it payth."

"Listen to Ted preach, will you?" jeered Toby, who truth to tell was not much in favor of carrying those three half-filled hags of nuts all the way to town, just to serve as a "consolation prize" to those fellows who had conspired to cheat them out of their just dues.

"But he's right in what he says," maintained Chatz stoutly, for he had a Southerner's code of honor, and was more chivalrous that any other fellow in the whole troop of scouts. "Duty is duty, no matter how disagreeable it seems. And when once you realize that it's up to you to hold out a hand to the treacherous enemy who's flim-flammed you many a time, why, you'll have no peace of mind till you've made the effort."

"But," Toby went on to say, sneeringly; "if you step up to Connie Mallon, and say: 'Here's your bags come back, and we chucked the leavings in the same, which the ghost is sending you by us to sort of soft soap your injured feelings,' why, d'ye know what he's apt to do; jump on you, and begin to use those big fists of his like pile drivers.

You'll have to excuse me from being the white-winged messenger of peace, Elmer. I pa.s.s."

"There's no need of doing it that way, Toby," he was informed by the scout master. "Some time to-night, as late as we can make it, we'll carry these partly filled bags around to Connie's place, and drop them over the fence. Hold on, here's another of the same sort; now, if we only had that as full as the rest it would be just one all around, and we could leave them in each yard, you see."

"Like old Santa Claus had been making his annual visit, only this time he picked out Thanksgiving time instead of Christmas," remarked Toby, a trifle bitterly; and yet strange to say he was the very first one to start in gathering more nuts and thrusting his find into the fourth Mallon bag; which told Elmer that much of his objection was mere surface talk, and that his heart really beat as true to the principles of scout members.h.i.+p as did any other present.