Chapter VI: The Friction Fire

"We haven't got any matches to start a fire with!" Coombsie sat down in a pool of gold with the well-nigh empty basket beside him, and turned baffled eyes upon the others.

"I have a few in a safety box in my pocket. Thank goodness! I didn't go back on our scout motto: 'Be Prepared!' so far as matches are concerned, anyway." Nixon felt in each pocket of his Norfolk jacket with a face that lengthened dismally under the smears of Varney's Paintpot. "_Gone!_" he ejaculated despairingly. "I must have lost the box!"

"It probably dropped out of your pocket into the grass when I tied our coats round the chest-nut-tree, to prevent that young coon from 'lighting down,'" suggested Leon, and _his_ face grew pinched; it was not a refreshing memory that conjured up a picture of Raccoon Junior limping back to the hole among the ledges near Big Swamp, with a leg broken by his stone, at the moment when a fellow had a whole thunderstorm in his ankle.

"Well! we're up against it now," gasped the scout. "We can't get out of the woods to-night; that's sure! We could sleep in the cave and be jolly comfortable too"--he stooped down and examined its wide interior--"if we only had a fire. But, without a camp-fire or a single blanket, we'll be uncomfortable enough when it comes on dark; these September nights are chilly."

He threw his hat on the ground, drew his coat-sleeve across his ruddy forehead, rendering his bedaubed countenance slightly more grotesque than before. He had forgotten that it was smeared, forgotten paint and frolic. An old look descended upon his face.

He was desperately tired. Every muscle of his body ached. His head was confused too from long wandering among the trees; his thoughts seemed to skip back into the woods away from him; he felt himself stalking them as Blink would stalk a rabbit. But there was one thing more alive in him at that moment than ever before, a sense of protective responsibility.

With Leon disabled and the two younger boys completely worn out, it rested with him alone to turn a night in the Bear's Den into a mere "corking" adventure, or to let it drag by as a dark age of discomfort with certainly bad results for two of the party. Nixon had felt Leon's hand as it slipped from his neck at the edge of the clearing, it was clammy as ice; his first-aid training as a scout told him that the injured lad would feel the cold bitterly during the night.

Starrie Chase would probably "stick it out without squealing," as in such circumstances he would try to do himself. But it would be a hard experience. And young Colin's clothing was still sodden from his partial immersion in Big Swamp. It was one of those moments for the Scout of the U.S.A. when the potential father in the boy is awake.

"I've _got_ to fix things up for the night, somehow," he wearily told himself aloud. "I wonder--I wonder if I could manage to start a fire without matches--with 'rubbing-sticks'? I did it once when we were camping out with our scoutmaster. But he helped me. If I could only get the fire, now, 'twould be a--great--stunt!"

"'Start a fire without matches!' You're crazy!" Colin and Coombsie looked sideways at him; they had heard of people being "turned round" in their heads by much woodland wandering.

"Shut up, you two!" commanded Leon, suddenly imperious. "He knows what he's about. He did a good stunt in helping me along here."

"If I could only find the right kinds of wood to start a friction fire--balsam fir for the fireboard and drill, and a little chunk of cedarwood to be shredded into tinder!" The boy scout was eagerly scanning the trees on either side of the grass-grown logging-road, trees which at this moment seemed to have their roots in the forest soil and their heads in Heaven's own glory.

"_There's_ a fir-tree! Among those pines--a little way along the road!" Leon spoke in that slow, stiff voice, sprained by pain. "Perhaps I can help you--Nix?"

"No, you lie still, but chuck me your knife, it's stronger than mine! I ought to have two tools for preparing the 'rubbing-sticks,' so the Chief Scout tells us in our book, but I'll have to get along somehow with our pocketknives."

Nix Warren was off up the road as he spoke; hope, responsibility, and ambition toward the performance of a "great stunt," forming a fighting trio to get the better of weariness.

The glory was waning from the tree-tops when he returned, bearing with him one sizeable chunk of balsamic fir-wood and a long stick from the same tree.

"Any sort of stick will do for the bent bow which is attached to the drill and works it; that's what our book says," he murmured, as if conning over a lesson. "Who's got a leather shoe-lace? You have--cowhide laces--in those high boots of yours, Colin! Mind letting me have one?"

The speaker was excitedly setting to work, now, fashioning the flat fireboard from the chunk of fir-wood, carving a deep notch in its side, and scooping out a shallow hole at the inner end of the notch into which the point of the upright drill would fit.

In feeling, he was the primitive man again, this modern boy scout: he was that grand old savage ancestor of prehistoric times into whose ear God whispered the secret, unknown to beast or bird, of creating light and warmth for himself and those dependent on him, when the sun forsook them.

"Say! can't you fellows get busy and collect some materials for a fire, dry chips and pine-splinters--fat pine-splinters--and dead branches? There's plenty of good fuel around! You wood-finders'll have a cinch!"

It certainly was a signal act of faith in Colin and Coombsie when they bestirred their weary limbs to obey this command from the wizard who was to try and evoke the mysterious fire-element latent in the combustible wood he handled, but hard to get at without the aids which civilization places at man's disposal.

They each kept a corner of their inquisitive eyes upon him while they collected the fuel, watching the shaping of the notched fireboard, of the upright pointed drill, over a dozen inches in length, and the construction of a rude bow out of a supple stick found on the clearing, with Colin's cowhide shoe-lace made fast to each end as the cord or strap that bent the bow.

This cord was twisted once round the upper part of the drill whose lower point fitted into the shallow hole in the fireboard.

"Whew! I must find a piece of pine-wood with a knot in it and scoop that knot out, so that it will form a disc for the top of the drill in which it will turn easily," said the perspiring scout. "Oh, sugarloons! I've forgotten all about the _tinder_; we may have to trot a long way into the woods to find a cedar-tree."

"I'll go with you, Nix," proffered Marcoo, while Leon, lying on the ground near the cave, with his dog pressing close to him, undertook the task of scooping that soft knot out of the pine-disk.

"All right; bring along the tin mug out of your basket; perhaps we may find water!"

And they did! Oh, blessed find! Wearily they trudged back about sixty yards into the woods, in an opposite direction from that in which they had traveled before--Nixon taking the precaution of breaking off a twig from every second or third tree so as to mark the trail--before they lit on a grove of young cedars through which ran a sound, now a purling sob, now a tinkling laugh; softer, more angel-like, than the wind's mirth!

"_Water!_ A spring! Oh--tooraloo!" And they drank their fill, bringing back, along with the cedar-wood for tinder--water, as much as their tin vessel would hold, for the two boys and dog keeping watch over the fire-sticks on the old bear's camping-ground.

The soft cedar was shredded into tinder between two stones. The drill was set up with its lower point resting in the notched hole of the fire-board, its upper point fitting into the pine-disk which Nixon steadied with his hand.

Then the boy scout began to work the bent bow which passed through a hole in the upper part of the drill, steadily to and fro, slowly turning that drill, grinding its lower point into the punky wood of the fireboard.

In the eye of each of the four boys the coveted spark already glowed, drilled by excitement out of the dead wood of his fatigue.

Even the dog, his jaws gaping, his tongue lolling out, lay stretched at attention, his gaze intent upon the central figure of the boy scout working the strapped bow backward and forward, turning the pointed drill that bored into the fireboard.

Ground-up wood began to fall through the notch in the fireboard adjacent to the hole upon another slab of wood which Nixon had placed as a tray beneath it.

This powdered wood was brown. Slowly it turned black. Was that smoke?

It was a strange tableau, the four disheveled boys with their red-smeared faces, the painted clown's dog, all holding their breath intent upon the primitive miracle of the fire-birth.

Smoke it was! _Increasing smoke!_ And in its tiny cloud suddenly appeared the miracle--a dull red spark at the heart of the black wood dust.

"What do you know about that?" Marcoo's voice was thick.

"Gee! that's a--wonderful--stunt. I guess you could light a fire with a piece of damp bark and a snowball!" Leon looked up at the panting scout.

Colin's mind was telegraphing back to the moment when he lay on the salt-marshes that morning, hungry for the woods. If any one had told him that, before night, he would assist at a forest drama like this!

"Hush! Don't speak for fear you'd hoodoo it! We haven't got it yet--the fire! Perhaps--perhaps--I can't make it burn." It was the most wonderful moment of his life for the boy scout as he now took a pinch of the cedar-wood tinder, half-enclosed in a piece of paper-like birch-bark and held it down upon the red fire-germ--in all following the teaching of the great Chief Scout.

Then he lifted the slab of wood that served as tray, bearing the ruddy fire-embryo and tinder, and blew upon it evenly, gently. It blazed. The miracle was complete.

"_Wonderful stunt!_" murmured Starrie Chase again. His hand in its restless uneasiness had been plucking large flakes of moss from the gray rock behind him and turning them over, revealing the medicinal gold thread that embroidered the earthy underside of the sod; he was sucking that bitter fibre--supposed to be good for a sore mouth, but no panacea for a sprained ankle--while a like gold thread of fascinated speculation embroidered the ruddy mask of his face.

"Hurrah! we'll have a fire right away now, that will talk to us all night long." The triumphant scout lowered the flame-bud to the ground, piled over it some of the resinous pine-splinters and strips of inflammatory bark, fanning it steadily with his hat. In a few minutes a rollicking camp-fire was roaring in front of the old Bear's Den.

"Now! we must gather some big chunks, dry roots and stumps, to keep the fire going through the night, cut sods to put round it and prevent its spreading into the woods, and break up some pine-tips to strew in the cave for a bed. There's lots of work ahead still, fellows, before we can be snug for the night!"

The scout, having got his second breath with his great achievement, was working hard as he spoke; Marcoo and Colin followed his example in renewed spirits. Leon, chafing at his own inactivity, tried to stand and sank down with a groan.

"How's the thunderstorm sprain?" they asked him.

"Worse--ugh-h! And I'm parched with thirst--still!"

"Well, we'll lope off into the woods and bring you back some more water. If you'll leave a little in the bottom of the mug I'll soak our handkerchiefs in it and wrap them round your ankle; cold applications may relieve the pain;" the scout was recalling what he had learned about first aid to the injured.

Darkness descended upon the old bear's stamping-ground. But the camp-fire burned gloriously, throwing off now and again a foam of flame whose rosy clots lit in the crevices of the tall rock and bloomed there for an instant like scarlet flowers.

The work necessary in making camp for the night done, the four boys gathered round it, dividing their scanty rations, the scraps of food left in Coombsie's basket, and speculating as to how early in the morning a search-party would come out and find them.

"Toiney Leduc will certainly be one of the party. Toiney is a regular scout; he's only been here a year, but he knows the woods well," remarked Leon, then was silent a minute, gazing wistfully into the heart of the flames which filled the pause with snappy conversational fire-works.

"Tell us something about this boy scout business, bo'!" he spoke again in the slow, sprained voice, his feverish eyes burning into the fire, his tone making the slangy little abbreviation stand for brother, as he addressed Nixon. "It seems as if it might be The Thing--starting that fire was a great stunt--and if it's The Thing--every fellow wants to be in it!"

"Oh! you don't know what good times we have," began the scout.

And briefly skimming from one point to another, he told of the origin of the Boy Scout Movement far away in Africa during the defense of a besieged city, and of the great English general, the friend of boys, who had fathered that movement.

Leon's eyes narrowed as he still gazed into the camp-fire: it was a long descent from the defense of a beleaguered city to the championship of a besieged chipmunk, but his quick mind grasped the principle of fiery chivalry underlying both--one and the same.

"Can you sing some more of that U.S.A. song which you were shouting in the woods near the log camp?" Marcoo broke in, as the narrator dwelt on those good times spent in hiking, trailing, camping with the scoutmaster.

"Perhaps I can--a verse or two! That's the latest for the Boy Scouts of America--the Scouts of the old U.S. Don't know whether I have a pinch of breath left, though!"

And the flagging voice began, gathering gusto from the camp-fire, glee from the stars now winking through the pine-tops:--

"Mile after mile in rank or file,
We tramp through field and wood:
Or off we hike down path or pike,
One glorious brotherhood.
Hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields,
Hurrah for the life that's free!
With a body and mind both clean and kind,
The Scout's is the life for me!"

"Chorus, fellows!" he cried:--

We will fight, fight, fight, for the right, right, right,
"Be prepared" both night and day;
and we'll shout, shout, shout, for the Scout, Scout, Scout,
for the Scouts of the U.S.A.

The rolling music in the pine-trees, the reedy whistle of the breeze among beeches and birches, soft cluck of rocking branches, the bagpipe skirling of the flames leaping high, fluted and green-edged, all came in on that chorus; together with the four boyish voices and the bark of the dog as he bayed the blaze: the night woods rang for the Scouts of the U.S.A.

"If when night comes down we are far from town,
Both tired and happy too,
Camp-fires we light and by embers bright
We sleep the whole night through.
Hurrah for the sun, hurrah for the storm,
Hurrah for the stars above!
We feel secure, safe, sane and sure,
For we know that God is Love."

"Why have you that knot in your tie?" asked Leon after the last note had died away in forest-echo, while the scout was wetting the bandages round his inflamed ankle before they crept into the cave to sleep.

"To remind me to do one good turn to somebody every day."

"Well, you can untie it now; I guess you've done good turns by the bunch to-day!"

Lying presently upon the fragrant pine-tips with which they had strewn the interior of the cave, the scout's tired fingers fumbled for that knot and drowsily undid it. He had lost both way and temper in the woods. But he had tried, at least, to obey the scout law of kindness.

As he lay on guard, nearest to the cave's entrance, winking back at the stars, this brought him a happy sense of that wide brotherhood whose cradle is God's Everlasting Arms.

From the well of his sleepy excitement two words bubbled up: "Our Father!" Rolling over until his nose burrowed among the fragrant evergreens, he repeated the Lord's Prayer, adding--because this had been an eventful day--a brief petition which had been put into his lips by his scoutmaster and was uttered under unusual stress of feeling, or when he remembered it: That in helpfulness to others and loyalty to good he might be a follower of the Lord of Chivalry, Jesus Christ, and continue his faithful soldier and servant "until the scout's last trail is done!"

* * * * *

It was almost morning when he awoke for the second time, having stirred his tired limbs once already to replenish the camp-fire.

Now that hard-won fire had waned to a dull red shading on the undersides of velvety logs, the remainder of whose surface was of a chilly gray from which each passing breeze flicked the white flakes of ash like half-shriveled moths.

"Whew! I must punch up the fire again--but it's hard to get the kinks out o' my backbone;" he straightened his curled-up spine with difficulty and stumbled out on the camping-ground.

It was that darkest hour before dawn. The stars were waning as well as the fire. The trees which had been friends in the daytime were spectators now. Each wrapped in its dark mantle, they seemed to stand curiously aloof, watching him.

He attacked the logs with a stick, poking them together and thrusting a dry branch into the ruddy nest where the fire still hatched.

Snip! Snap! Crackle! the flames awoke. Mingling with their reviving laughter, came a low, strange cluck that was not the voice of the fire, immediately followed by a long shrill cry with a wavering trill in it, not unlike human mirth.

It hailed from some point in the scout's rear.

"For heaven's sake!" The stick shook in his fingers. "Can it be a wildcat--or another coon?"

Stiffly he wheeled round. His eyes traveled up the great rock--in whose cave his companions lay sleeping; as they gained the top of that old grayback, they were confronted by two other eyes--mere twinkling points of flame!

The scout's scalp seemed to lift like a blown-off roof. His throat grew very dry.

At the same moment there was a noiseless flitting as of a shadow from the rock's crest to a near-by tree whence came the weird cry again.

"_An owl!_ Well, forevermore! And my hair is standing straight still!"

"_What is it?_ _What is it, Nix?_" came in muffled cries from the cave.

"Only a screech owl; it's unusual to find one so far in the woods as this!"

As it happened two ruddy screech owls, faithful lovers and monogamists, which had dwelt together as Darby and Joan in the hollow of an old apple-tree in a distant orchard, being persecuted both by boys and blue jays, had eschewed civilization, isolating themselves, at least from the former, in the woods.

As dawn broke between the tall pines and a pale river of daylight flowed along the logging-road, they were seen, both together, upon a low bough, with the dawn breeze fluffing their thick, rufous plumage, making them look larger than they really were, and their heads slowly turning from side to side, trying to discover the meaning of a camp-fire and other strange doings in this their retreat.

"Oo-oo! look at them," hooted Colin softly, creeping out of the cave and stealthily approaching their birch-tree. "They have yellow eyes and faces like kittens. Huh! they're more comical than a basket of monkeys. Oh, there they go."

For even as his hand was put forth to touch them, they vanished silently as the ebbing shadows in the train of night.

"This must be a great place for owls," said Leon, blinking like one--not until far on in the night had he slept owing to the wrenching pain in his ankle. "Listen! there goes the big old hooter--the great horned owl--the Grand Duke we call him. Hear him 'way off: 'Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo!' Sounds almost like a wolf howling! _Ou-ouch!_"

"Is your ankle hurting badly, Starrie?"

"It's--fierce."

"Daylight is coming fast now; I'll be able to find the spring and wet those bandages again--and bring you a drink too"; this from the scout.

"Thanks. You're the boy, Nix!"

The brotherly act accomplished, there was silence in the cave where the four boys had again stretched themselves while young Day crept up over the woods.

Suddenly Leon's voice was heard ambiguously muttering in the cave's recess: "If it's The Thing, every fellow wants to be in it!"

"Say! fellows, I've got an idea," he put forth aloud.

"Out with it, if it's worth anything!" from Colin.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Leon! get it out quick, and let us go to sleep again!" pleaded Coombsie, who knew that if Starrie Chase was oppressed by an idea, other boys would hear it in his time, not in theirs.

"I propose that after we get home--when my ankle is better--we start a boy scout patrol in our town and call it the Owl Patrol! I guess we've heard the owls--different kinds--often enough to-night, to be able to imitate one or other of them."

"Good enough! The Scout's is the life for me!" sang out Colin.

"The motion is seconded and carried--now let's go to sleep!" from Marcoo.

"As I expect to stay in these parts for six months, or longer, I'll get transferred from the Philadelphia Peewits to the new patrol!" decided Nixon.

"Bully for you! We'll ask Kenjo Red and Sweetsie to come in; they're dandy fellows--and who else?" Leon hesitated.

"Why don't you get hold of that frightened boy who was with Toiney on the edge of the woods? We had a boy like him in our Philadelphia troop," went on Nixon hurriedly, ignoring a surge of protest. "Scared of his own shadow he was! Abnormal timidity--with a long Latin name--due to pre-natal influences, according to the doctors! Well, our scoutmaster managed somehow to enlist him as a tenderfoot. When he got out into the woods with us and found that every other scout was trying to help him to become a 'fellow,' why! he began to crawl out of his shell. He's getting to be quite a boy now!"

"But the '_Hare_'! he'd spoil--_Ouch!_" A sudden wrench of agony as Leon moved restlessly put the pointed question as to whether the mental pain which Harold Greer suffered might not be as hard to drag round as a thunderstorm ankle.

"All right, Nix! Enlist him if you can! I guess you'll have to pass on who comes into the new patrol."

Colin dug his nose into the pine-tips with a skeptical chuckle: that new patrol would have a big contract on hand, he thought, if it was to gather up the wild, waste energy of Leon,--that element in him which parents and teachers sought to eradicate,--turn it to good account, and take the fright out of the Hare.

But from the woods came a deep bass whoop that sounded encouraging: the Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo! of the Grand Duke bidding the world good-morning ere he went into retreat for the day.

It was answered by the Whoo-whoo-whooah-whoo! of a brother owl, also lifting up his voice before sunrise.

"Listen, fellows!" cried Leon excitedly. "_Listen!_ The feathered owls themselves are cheering the Owl Patrol."