Chapter V: Tom Binns' Bad Luck

Jack Danby and Tom Binns, Second Class Scouts, were ready now to become First Class Scouts, and so to earn the right to wear the full Scout badge, and compete for all the medals and special badges of merit for which Scouts are eligible. They had passed all the tests save one. They had proved their efficiency in signaling, in scout and camp craft, in the tying of knots, had given evidence of their ability to save those who were drowning and give first aid to the injured, and they had only to make a hike of seven miles, alone or together, to receive the coveted promotion.

They determined, with Scout-Master Durland's permission, to make this hike together the Saturday afternoon following the Field Day that had brought so much glory to Jack Danby and his Patrol, the Crows. Although Tom Binns had been a Scout longer than Jack, Jack had been a Tenderfoot Scout for only thirty days, the shortest time in which a Scout can pass out of the Tenderfoot class, and he was fully as good a Scout now as many of the older ones who had had the right to wear the First Class Scout's badge for a long time.

"Gee, Jack, I wonder if we'll ever get to be Patrol Leaders and Scout-Masters?" asked Tom Binns, as they met after work that Saturday, and prepared to start on their hike.

"Why not, Tom? Everyone has to make a start. And Mr. Durland wasn't a Scout when he was our age, because there weren't any Boy Scouts then."

"I suppose it's a lot of responsibility, but then that's a good thing, too."

"You bet it is! That's one of the things I like best about being a Scout. It teaches you to be responsible, and to understand that you've got to do things just because you are responsible for seeing that they're done, and not just because someone keeps standing over you and telling you what to do."

"Where shall we go, Jack?"

"The camp for the Troop hike today is out at Beaver Dam. I thought we might start from the other side of the lake there, go to Haskell Crossing, and get back to camp in time for supper. Then we could get our badges from Mr. Durland, I guess."

"That's a fine idea, Jack. I don't know that country very well, though. Do you?"

"No. That's one reason for going that way. We know that we'll find a place where we can make a fire and cook our supper, though. We don't need to eat it unless we're particularly hungry, but we've got to cook it."

"Say, Jack, if fellows make that hike alone, who's going to tell whether they really did it or not? If a fellow wasn't straight, he could go off somewhere; and then report that he'd hiked the fourteen miles, and there wouldn't be anyone to prove that he hadn't."

"I know, but we're all on our honor, Pete, and a chap who had got to be a Second Glass Scout wouldn't ever play a trick like that. It wouldn't pay."

"I guess that's true, too, Jack. That's another fine thing about being a Scout. When you see a fellow give you the Scout sign in a strange place, you know he's all right, just because he is a Scout, even if you never saw him before."

"Yes. That's why we've all got to be so careful to keep up the honor of the Scouts, and not do anything ourselves, nor let any other Scout do anything that would give outsiders a chance to say that we preached one thing and did another."

They took the trolley to their starting point, on the side of Lake Whitney away from Beaver Dam, where their fellow Scouts were to gather later in the afternoon for a practice camp, such as Durland and Crawford arranged for nearly every half holiday.

"How will we know when we've gone seven miles?" asked Tom.

"It's just about seven miles--perhaps a little more--to Haskell Crossing, so we can tell without any trouble. That's one reason I picked out the place. The trail through these woods is pretty rough, but we can follow it all right."

"Whose land is this, Jack?"

"No one knows, exactly. It's a sort of a no man's land. Or, at least, two sets of heirs to an old estate are fighting about it in the courts. They've been trying for years to get it settled between them, but the courts haven't decided yet, and they may not for a long time."

"And meantime no one can use it?"

"That's it. It seems silly, doesn't it? If the courts take so long to decide it must mean, I should think, that both sides were partly right, and I should think they'd want to settle it between themselves, and so each get some use out of the land. There's an old house, more than a hundred and fifty years old, in the woods, too."

"Doesn't anyone live in it?"

"No one now. Tramps go there sometimes, I've heard, because it is so lonely. Some people say it's haunted, but I guess the tramps played ghost, just so that people would stay away and let them alone."

"Gee, if there's a ghost around, I hope he stays in when we're passing. I'm afraid of them!"

"Why, how could a ghost hurt you, Tom? Anyhow, you don't need to worry about ghosts in the daytime. They only come out at night."

"It's pretty dark in here, Jack. The woods are mighty thick."

"I believe you _are_ scared, Tom," said Jack, laughing. "Well, don't you worry! I'm pretty sure that if anyone ever did see a real thing here that he thought was a ghost it was a tramp in disguise. And I don't believe you're afraid of a tramp--though I'd rather meet a ghost, myself, than a vicious tramp."

"Gee, that railroad train's whistle sounds good," said Tom, a few minutes later. "That must be at the crossing."

"Yes. It isn't much further now. And the house is near the crossing, too. I believe the people who lived in it made a great fuss when the railroad went through, and that was about the time when the quarrel started. They said it would spoil their property to have the station so near them--instead of which, if they could only see it, it's made it a whole lot more valuable."

Suddenly Tom, who was walking as fast as he could and was ahead of Jack, stumbled and fell against a root. When Jack got beside him he was white with pain.

"I guess I must have twisted my foot pretty badly," he said. "I don't believe I can stand on it for a while."

He put a hand on Jack's shoulder and tried to walk, but found the pain too great.

"Here, let me see it," cried Jack. "I may be able to do something to make it better."

Tenderly he removed Tom's shoe, and turning the stocking back from the injured ankle, rubbed and examined it thoroughly.

"I may hurt you when I rub it around, Tom," he said, "but it won't hurt your ankle for more than a minute."

For two or three minutes, while Tom, with set teeth, endured the pain without even a whimper, Jack rubbed and massaged the ankle, already slightly swollen.

"It's just a strain, I think, Tom," he said. "I'll find a spring or a brook, if they're not all dried up around here, and make a cold compress for it. Next to blazing hot water, that's the best thing to do for it, and I think you'll be able to get to Haskell Crossing pretty soon, with a little help from me. Then we can get a train or a trolley back."

"Gee, I never thought, Jack! You can't do that! If you go back with me, you won't be able to get your First Class Scout badge."

"What of it, Tom? I guess I can wait a week or two for that without suffering very much. And you didn't think I'd leave you alone here, or to go home alone, did you? You can't walk back on that foot--that's one sure thing."

Tom protested that all Jack should do was to get him to the station, whence he said he could manage to get home all right, but Jack wouldn't hear of such an idea, and, after he had put the cold water bandage on Tom's ankle, he helped his comrade the short distance that remained to the track, and the little flag station at Haskell Crossing.

The sun was low on the horizon when they got there. In the little shanty that served as a station, loafing and wishing for something to do, was a red-headed, gawky youth whose business it was to set signals and listen at a telegraph key for the orders that went flashing up and down the line.

"There's no train back to town for four hours," he told them, when they asked how soon they could get a train. "One went a few minutes ago--you must have heard it whistle. Hurt, there, sonny?"

"Twisted my ankle a bit," said Tom Binns, with a plucky smile.

"Sho, that's too bad," said the red-headed one. "Here, come into the station and set down! There's a place in the freight daypo where you can be more comfortable like."

The shanty was divided into two parts. One was for the sale of tickets, though Jack guessed that there were few purchasers, the other held a few empty milk cans, which showed pretty well what made up the bulk of the freight handled there. But there was a pile of sacks in one corner, also, and on those, arranged and spread out like a bed, Tom was made fairly comfortable. Rest was what his ankle needed, and he could rest there as well as anywhere else.

"I ain't got but a little lunch here," said the red-headed telegrapher, station agent and baggage man rolled into one, regretfully. "But you're welcome to share it with me."

"No need of that, thanks," said Jack, heartily. "We were going to cook our supper in the woods, and if you'll show me a place where I can build a fire, I'll cook it now. We've got plenty for you, too, and I'll give you some bacon and eggs and coffee if you like them."

"Say, you're all right! My name's Hank Hudson, and if there's anything I sure do hanker after, it's bacon and eggs. I can't get a hot supper on this job--I have to tote everything along with me from home, and it's all cold victuals I get."

"Well, we'll have a treat for you tonight, then, and I'm glad we will. It's mighty nice of you to let Tom Binns lie in the depot."

Jack was as good as his word. Hudson showed him a place where a natural fireplace, as it seemed, was all ready and waiting for the fire to be made, and Jack, in a comparatively short time, sent up a fragrant odor of frying bacon and eggs, and of rich, steaming coffee that would have given a wooden Indian an appetite. He carried the meal to the station, too, and the three of them ate it together, while Hudson's cold lunch, despised now, and not to be compared with the fine fare Jack provided, was cast aside in a corner of the station.

"Do many trains pass here that don't stop?" asked Tom.

"Sure they do!" said Hudson. "This last hour is about the quietest one of the whole day. I have to watch them all, too, and report when they pass here, so that the despatchers can keep track of them."

"What would happen if you didn't?"

"Can't tell! But there might easily be a bad wreck. If the despatcher thought he would get a flash from here as soon as the Thunderbolt passed, for instance, and I was asleep when she went by, he might let something into the track ahead of her, and then there'd be a fine lot of trouble. You can see that!"

"I should say so! You've a pretty responsible place here, I should think. Do you like it?"

"Sure! I think the work's great! I'd rather work on a railroad than anything I can think of. But it gets awful lonely here sometimes. That's the worst part of it. The work's easy enough, but it's not having anyone to talk to, except the fellows and the girls on the wire, that makes it a hard job."

"You talk to all of them, I guess, don't you?"

"Sure." Hudson walked over to the telegraph instrument by the window and threw his switch. "There's a girl at Beaver Dam calls me about this time every evening. Things are slack, you know. They send her in a hot supper from the restaurant there, and she calls every evening and tells me what she had and how good it was, so that I'll be jealous. I'll have something to surprise her with tonight though--Hullo! There she is now!"

Both boys knew the Morse code, from their signal work with the Boy Scouts, and Jack, indeed, had experimented a little with wireless, so that he could read the code of dots and dashes, if it was not sent too fast.

"H-K--H-K--H-K--" he heard now, and, in a minute more, he was trying to interpret the swift interchange of chaffing messages between the two operators.

"That's the only break in the loneliness," said Hudson, "unless someone comes in for a visit the way you have. I wish there were more of them--except for those tramps back there in the woods. They hang around a lot, and they get my goat!"

"In the big house in the woods there, you mean?" asked Jack. "The one they say is haunted?"

Hudson laughed.

"That's the one. They say it's haunted, but it's Willies and Tired Toms that haunt it, believe me! They come over here and look up the place, and they'd have stolen everything in it long ago if there'd been anything to steal. They let me alone because they're pretty sure I haven't got any money, and they know I've got a gun, too."