The Boy Scouts on the Trail: Scouting through the Big Game Country
9781465674746
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“Call the roll, Mr. Secretary,” said the acting scoutmaster. Of course this was a mere matter of form, because everybody knew that the entire membership of the Silver Fox Patrol, connected with the Cranford Troop of Boy Scouts, was present. But nevertheless Bob White gravely took out his little book, and made each boy answer to his name. “Thad Brewster.” “Present,” said the patrol leader, and assistant scoutmaster. “Allan Hollister.” “Here,” replied the second in command, a Maine boy, now living in Cranford, the New York town from whence these boys had journeyed to this far-off region along the foothills of the great Rocky Mountains. “Bumpus Hawtree.” “Ditto,” sang out the fat youth, looking up with a wide grin; for he was about as good-natured as he was ponderous. “Giraffe Stedman.” “More ditto,” answered the tall lad, with the long neck, and the quick movements, who was busying himself over the fire, being never so happy as when he could feed wood to the crackling blaze. “Step Hen Bingham.” “On deck,” replied the boy mentioned, who was busy with the supper arrangements. “Davy Jones.” “O. K.” came from the fellow who was walking on his hands at the moment, his waving feet being high in the air, where his head was supposed to appear; because Davy was a gymnast, and worked off his superfluous energy in doing all manner of queer stunts. “Smithy.” “Present,” and the speaker, a very natty chap, brushed off an imaginary insect from the sleeve of his coat; because it happened that Edmund Maurice Travers Smith, as he was known in his home circle, had been born with a horror for dirt: and it was taking his comrades a long time to bring him down to the ordinary level of a happy-go-lucky, care-free boy like themselves. “Robert White Quail.” And the last named being the secretary himself, he merely put a cross down, to indicate the fact of his being in the line of duty on that occasion. “You neglected two other important members of the party!” called out Giraffe, who, of course had gained his peculiar name on account of the habit he had of often stretching that unusually long neck of his, until the boys likened him to an ostrich, and then a giraffe. “Who are they?” demanded Bob White, scenting some sort of joke. “Mike, and Molly, the honest, hard-working mules here that we have for pack animals,” replied the tall scout, with a chuckle. “Oh! I reckon, suh, they don’t count on the roll call,” remarked Bob White, who was a Southern boy, as his soft manner of speech, as well as certain phrases he often used, betrayed. “Well,” protested Giraffe, sturdily, “if you think now, that our pack mules ain’t going to make an impression on our camping through the big timber, and the foothills of the Rockies, you’ve got another guess coming, let me tell you.” “Mike strikes me as particularly worthy of mention in the log book of the trip. He made a distinctimpression on me, right in the start; and left a black and blue record of it that hurts yet,” with which remark, fat Bumpus—whose real name chanced to be Jasper Cornelius, began to ruefully rub a certain portion of his generous anatomy. A general shout went up at this. “Well, what could you expect, Bumpus?” demanded Davy Jones. “When Mike, out of the corner of his wicked eye, saw you stooping over that way, and offering such a wide target, the temptation was more than any respectable, well-educated mule could resist.” “Yes,” put in Step Hen, who had divided his name in that queer fashion as a lad first attending school, and it had clung to him ever since; “you didn’t know the strong points of pack mules, Bumpus, or you would never have gone so close to his heels.” “And,” continued Davy, humorously, “you turned over in the air three times, before you struck that dirty pool of water. And that time, Bumpus, I own up you beat me fairly at gymnastics; for try as I will, so far I’ve only been able to do two turns backward in the air, myself.”
