Chapter I: HAD called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn (7)

"I'm very sorry, my man," said the captain. "There were six gold sovereigns, and I have your receipt. I can't pay you again."

"Na, na, cappen," answered Scotty, as sadly as the captain. "'Tis na fault o' yourn, nor mine; it's my luck, and it'll ne'er change till I git to New York and find my old skipper. I'm under a curse, I am."

But the captain had gone.

"Want to get to New York?" asked a voice behind him.

"That I do," said Scotty, shortly, as he faced the speaker. It was the captain of the schooner.

"I'm a man short," he said. "Where's your clo's?"

"On my back, cappen. I lost twa months' pay the noo, and can't repleenish my wardrobe."

"It's fine weather, and you won't need any. I pay twenty a month. Turn to."

Scotty went to New York in this schooner--that is, he went as far as the Sandy Hook Lightship, where the skipper, a man of poor judgment, mistakingly put about under the bow of an outward-bound steamer, which had slowed down to discharge her pilot, and which went ahead too soon for the welfare of that schooner. The impact was not dead on--it was a glancing blow that the schooner received, and it only carried away the weather main rigging and the davit on the stern. But Scotty was at work in this weather main rigging, and foreseeing disaster to the frail spider web to which he clung, he leaped for the big stockless anchor of the steamer just before it caught the shrouds. On this he sat perched, while wire rope snapped over and around him, and as the steamer forged ahead, managed to make himself heard over the shouts and curses with which the two skippers paid their parting compliments. He was lifted up and taken to the captain--a man black in the face from rage and overstrained vocabulary.

The captain greeted Scotty with inarticulate snorts.

"And can ye put me on some craft bound in, cappen?" asked Scotty, anxiously.

"Na-ow," roared the irate man. "Put you 'board nothing. Nor will I put you on the articles, curse you. I'll put you to work, and if you don't work your hands off, I'll charge you for your passage to Melbourne. Get out o' this."

"I tell ye," roared Scotty, in return, equally enraged at the prospect of another trip to the antipodes, "if ye don't get rid of me, ye'll no reach Melbourne. I'm a Jonah--a Jonah from the curse that has come to me. Put me ashore, ye poor, unfortunate fule."

Scotty was led away--after the gentle manner of the sea--and, in spite of his loud protestations that he was a competent able seaman, placed at the degrading labor of coal passing. When the cooler atmosphere of the stoke-hole had lowered his temperature somewhat, he again went to the captain and earnestly told his story--of his theft, his bad luck and the bad luck he had brought to others.

"The curse is a-warkin' and a-growin' on me, cappen," he concluded, sorrowfully. "I'm the line-e-al desceendent o' the Flyin' Dutchman, sir. And I'll wrack your ship wi'oot meanin' to."

"I've read the Bible," said the captain, calmly. "I know what to do with Jonahs. I always throw them overboard."

Scotty shoveled and wheeled coal for three months, then his prediction was fulfilled. Within a day's run to Melbourne, the screw slipped off the tail-shaft, and as it went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the racing engine went to pieces. This might not have prevented the steamer's reaching port under sail or tow, but the forward crank-pin broke, and the piston drove up with nothing to stop it, fetched up with a mighty jolt against the cylinder head--which held--and disconnected most of the bolts which bound the cylinder to its bed.

As the steamer fell off in the hollow of the sea, she rolled, and at the third roll the half-ton of metal toppled over, crashed down through the bottom of the ship, and sought the company of the screw. She was a compartmentless steamer, and in half an hour had followed, leaving her crew afloat in boats and on life-rafts. Scotty found himself in the boat with the captain, and wisely anticipating rebuke, had brought his shovel. The captain glared unspeakable things at him.

"It'll do ye no good the noo, cappen," said Scotty, anticipating the captain's outburst. "And if you, or a man o' your crew, lay the weight o' your finger upon me, I'll brain ye wi' my staff of office"--he elevated the shovel. "I warned ye in time; ye should ha' heeded me."

"Put down your shovel, and take an oar," commanded the captain. "I'd shoot you dead if it wasn't for the law. But you'll get out o' this boat, onto the first craft we meet--bound in or bound out."

"It'll be bound out, cappen," said Scotty, gravely. "Ha' no fear o' that."

It was an Italian bark, and as Scotty had predicted, she was bound out--to Rio Janeiro, as Scotty learned later. When the flotilla of boats swarmed into her path, she backed her main yards with much chattering and yelling of her crew, and Scotty's boat approached her side, where a Jacob's-ladder hung invitingly.

"Get up there, you miserable Sawnee," said the skipper. "I wouldn't put you aboard a white man's vessel, for you'll wreck her as you did mine."

It is very impolite, and sometimes inexpedient, to call a Scot a Sawnee.

Scotty climbed the ladder with his shovel, and when he stood upon the rail, turned and let it fly towards the captain in the stern-sheets. Had it struck edge first it would have cut him in two; as it happened, the handle merely flattened his nose. The captain sank down, then, rising, fired a revolver at Scotty, but missed, and forthwith ordered his men to give way.

And then, amid the excited cries and orders of the Italian captain, Scotty was pulled down from the rail, mobbed around the deck a little--though he fought furiously--by the three mates of the bark, and bundled into a hatch-house. And long after he was locked in he could hear the excited and puzzled accents of the Italian captain, calling to the misguided castaways, who would not be rescued; then he heard the yards braced, and knew that he was homeward bound.

"If the bloody hooker don't sink on the way," he growled. "Howe'er, I'll no revile the craft that carries me, for it's lang odds she gits the warst o' it."

Shipboard etiquette is international. Scotty, in throwing the shovel, had violated the strictest clause in the code, and the Italian captain, though understanding nothing of the circumstances, had sensed the enormity of his offense, and punished him. But he was not confined long; the door was soon opened, and from the jabbering and gestures of the three mates he understood that he was to go forward. He went, and with a bucket of salt water and a piece of old canvas so improved his personal appearance as to partly overrule the prejudice against him.

Seamanship, like nautical etiquette, is international, and though he understood not one word of what was said to him, and though not a man aboard understood him, yet he knew what to do without orders, and soon proved himself superior to any of the officers. The rather impulsive, but generous, captain noticed this, and made as much of him as was possible without a common means of communication; but Scotty ascribed it to the influence of the unblessed, but jealously guarded, leather pendant often visible on his hairy chest. He made the most of this influence among the men forward, and even went to the blasphemous extent of making the sign of the cross on occasions, and repeating certain words, picked up from his devout shipmates, of the Roman Catholic ritual. But when he prayed, alone and in the silence of the night, he prayed for forgiveness, for the removal of the curse, for opportunity to redeem himself--for the test of a ten-mile swim or a thousand-mile walk, to the end that he might place that stolen dollar in the hand of Captain Bolt.

But his prayers availed not. He became a man without a country. The Italian bark caught fire in the South Atlantic, and in the confusion of abandoning the charred and sinking hulk, Scotty found himself alone in a small quarter-boat, which, like himself, had been left behind, and which he had lowered and unhooked unaided. But he had been unable to find the oars, and the other boats were far away; so he spent seven days and nights in the cockle-shell, freezing by night, roasting by day, with the horrors of hunger and thirst for company, and was then rescued in a delirious state of mind by a Norwegian barkentine, bound for Cape Town.

There is no need of recounting his further adventures in detail. He had now been a year without touching land, and he spent four more at sea before there came to him even a gleam of hope. No matter what the craft, or what the port bound for, something occurred to destroy the ship or prevent him finishing the passage. At times, when an alleged advance of pay was worked off, he drew clothing from the ship's slop chest, and always left it behind when the curse closed down upon him and removed him from that ship. Once he was abandoned with a boy, third mate, and three others on a derelict which they had been sent to inspect, and from the neighborhood of which a furious gale drove their own vessel. They were rescued just before the derelict sank. Again, in Manila Bay, he swam to a near-by ship which he had heard was bound to New York, and secreted himself, only to find when at sea that she was bound for Liverpool. He made the stormy passage of the Horn in midwinter with the clothing he stood in.

Too eager to touch dry land at Liverpool, he quit the ship in a runner's boat before docking, and the boat getting in the way of an outbound ocean-tug, he went to sea on the tug, and was again put aboard the first craft met, an English four-master, bound for Calcutta. And it was in this ship that there came to him the gleam of hope mentioned. In her forecastle he found the quondam third mate of the big skysail-yarder, the Mr. Smart who, backed by the law, had thrashed him on the forecastle deck and later arranged his transfer to the tramp.

Scotty had long since forgiven him, regarding him as but an instrument of the Lord. But the instrument, down on his luck and 'fore-the-mast in a "lime-juicer," must needs refer to it, again and again, until the sorely tried man gave way. Then occurred one of the shortest and fiercest fights that ever delighted the souls of English sailors. Scotty did the fighting, and he struck out twice; but each blow was like the kick of a mule, and Smart was carried aft to have his broken ribs and jawbone reset, while Scotty went in irons for murderous assault; but the captain released him on learning that the war began in an American ship. There was no further trouble between these two, but Scotty drew comfort and hope from the incident because it seemed his first victory over the forces that opposed him.

Cholera was rampant in Calcutta, and not a man but the skipper left the ship while there; then she sailed for New York, and Scotty's hope increased. He carefully guarded the black and grimy talisman of evil that hung to his neck, and prayed fervently for the final test that would redeem him; and he prayed, too--for his great trouble had softened and spiritualized him--that this big ship and large company should not suffer disaster on his account.

But as the ship reached soundings it seemed that the prayer was to be unanswered; for she came driving up to the light-ship before a southerly gale and sea that prevented any sail holding but the foresail and three lower topsails. All lighter canvas was blown away--and lower topsails and a lee shore are a bad combination.

The captain could not conceal his anxiety; there had been no sign of a pilot, and though the holding ground was good, his anchors were small--too small for his big ship. To add to the danger, the spume and spin-drift from the combers were thickened by a mist that seemed to descend from above, blotting out the distant light-ship. But this mist was ahead; astern, the horizon was visible, and far this side of the horizon--not half a mile on the port quarter--was a sight that sent the blood coursing through poor Scotty's veins, and a prayer of thanksgiving to his lips.

Coming along before the storm, but on a convergent course which would soon bring her in the big ship's wake, was the steamer _Proserpine_ towing her barges. Scotty knew them; every detail was pictured on his brain. He knew that big funnel, and big nigger-head in the bow; he knew the stump bowsprit of the _Champion_, with its one-chain bobstay; and he knew the _Anita_ behind her, straight-stemmed, black and dingy.

And as he looked there came to him the conviction that here was the test required of him--that if he, the Jonah of many ships, should remain where he was, there would be one more catastrophe on the list, while some maneuvering of fate would again send him to sea; but that if he rid the ship of his presence, there was a chance, not only for the ship, but for himself.

Mounting the forecastle deck--where he had a right to be--he watched and waited until the three crafts astern were as one in the wake; then, shedding his oilskins and boots, he sprang overboard. He heard the shouts of a shipmate, and as he came to the surface, saw men on the rail, looking and waving. He saw the second mate heave over a life-buoy, but it fell short, and he did not swim for it. The ship went on, for a square-rigged craft may not round to in a gale.

Scotty swam shoreward at first, for he knew that the steamer and tow would make leeway. On the tops of the seas he took his bearings, and then swam, or paddled, according to the inclination of the steamer's bow. In the hollows he swam towards her. Nearer and nearer she came, and at last he began hailing; but not a man could be seen on her deck, and the bridge was empty; the captain or mate on duty was in the warm pilot-house, no doubt--after the manner of tug-men. Hailing frantically, he met the wash of her bow wave and went under; when he came up she was past him, with her white-painted name staring at him. No one had seen or heard him.

The _Champion_ was coming, and he swam into her path, barely missing a clutch at the steel towline whizzing past him. He hailed her, but there was no response. How could they hear, in the teeth of that furious wind? Realizing this, he saved his breath.

The barge, rolling along before the sea, was making good weather of it, yet she lifted and plunged heavily as the big billows passed beneath her--the chain bobstay often rising six feet out of water, and again sinking as far below. To catch this chain was all that he could hope for; to miss it meant death; for even should he be seen or heard as he passed astern, no power on earth could bring that tug back to windward in such a sea.

When but twenty feet away from him the bow lifted, dripping water from the hawse-pipes--and to the agonized man beneath it this bow and dripping hawse-pipes bore a harrowing resemblance to a large, implacable, yet weeping face, a face that expressed sorrow and condemnation--then it fell upon him, and the heavy iron chain struck his head, then glanced to his shoulder and bore him under. But the downward blow gave him his grip upon it; had it struck him while lifting, he might not have held.

Clinging for dear life, unable to move himself an inch against the rush of water, with head swimming from the impact of the chain, and lungs bursting from lack of air, he waited for the rise, and when it came, moved upward a foot. Then he was borne under again, this time with his lungs full of air, and he suffered less; and when he was lifted out, he gained another foot.

Four times he was plunged under before he had climbed high enough to avoid it, and then he rested, until his head cleared and the awful pain of fatigue left his arms. When strength came back he mounted to the bowsprit, crept in to the topgallant forecastle, and sprang down on the main-deck, to the consternation of two men at the weather fore-rigging. These were foremast hands, and Scotty had no present use for them. He ran past them in his stocking-feet--and they gave room to the wild-eyed apparition--and aft to the poop, where, besides the helmsman, was a man who might be captain or mate, but who could certainly inform him.

"Is Cappen Bolt in charge o' the _Anita_ the neo?" he asked, hoarsely, as he halted before him.

"Yes. Who are you?" asked the astounded man.

"God be thankit!" exclaimed Scotty, and he mounted the taffrail--not for a swim this time, there was no need of it. Stretching back to the _Anita_ was a steel trolley, which was all he wanted. Before the man could do more than yell at him, Scotty had hitched himself out on the towline beyond reach; then, for faster progress, he swung beneath it, head aft and downward, and in this position, hand over hand and leg over leg, he made his way along until the water took him. Filling his lungs with air and locking arms and legs around the rope, he let himself go; and he slid at the speed of the tug down the trolley and up again, traversing half of the length of the towline beneath the surface.

He was nearly dead and fully blind when he felt air on his face, and had only time to take a breath when a following sea immersed him again. But with another breath, he began to climb.

Captain Bolt, aft on the poop, saw men on the _Champion_ waving arms and pointing a megaphone his way. He could not hear, nor could he hope to from the bow, yet he ran forward. As he reached the forecastle steps, an unkempt figure came in over the bow--a big, rawboned man in dripping rags, with blood streaming from arms and legs, with a red, round, and sorrowful face bordered by long, matted, gray hair-with the gleam of incipient insanity in the eyes. He sprang off the forecastle and faced the captain.

"Cappen Bolt," he stammered, as he tore at a small leather bag with fingers and teeth. "Cappen--cappen--here it is. I've fetched it t' ye. I never spent it." From the bag came a stained and oxidized coin, which he forced into the amazed captain's hand. Then, sinking to his knees, he lifted his eyes to heaven, muttered a few inarticulate words, and fell over in a swoon.

"Here!" called the captain, sharply, to two of his men who had drawn near. "Take him below and strip him. Put him to bed, and I'll get some brandy. Lord knows who he is, or where he came from, but he's in a bad way."

Scotty was carried down the forecastle stairs and cared for; but he did not waken to drink the captain's brandy; the swoon took on the form of child-like sleep, and the sleep continued until the barges had made port and moored to the dock. Here, amid the confusion of making fast, opening hatches, and rigging cargo gear, Captain Bolt had about forgotten the mysterious stranger in his forecastle, and was only reminded of him when the captain of the _Champion_ came aboard to inquire.

"He climbed up my bobstays, no doubt; he must have fallen overboard from that big Englishman that anchored in the Horseshoe. Went crazy in the water, I suppose. He went out on your towline like a monkey. I wouldn't ha' believed a man could stand it. He was three minutes under water."

"I can't make it out," said Captain Bolt. "He put this in my hand"--he held out the blackened dollar--"and then went daffy. He's down below now. No, here he comes."

Scotty had climbed to the deck. He stood near the hatch, looking about with a doubtful, bewildered air at the docks and shipping. Then his face cleared a little, and like a cat in a strange street he moved slowly and hesitatingly along the rail towards the fore rigging. Then with one bound he swung himself to the top of the rail, and a mighty upward jump landed him on the string-piece of the dock. Here he paused long enough to sink to his knees and elevate his clasped hands; then he rose, walked hurriedly, and, breaking into a run, disappeared from sight behind the crowd of horses and trucks on the dock.

"By the Lord," exclaimed Captain Bolt, "I know him! It's Scotty. I lost him overboard off the Delaware capes five years ago. How'd he get picked up, I wonder? Where's he been? And this----" he produced the dollar. "I wonder if--why, very likely--a Scotchman has a conscience. Say, cappen, this seems funny. I put up a job on Scotty. I pretended to lose a dollar to see if he'd keep it, and he did. And I'll bet this is the one." He opened his knife and cut into the dingy coin. "Yes, it was a counterfeit."

FOOTNOTE:

[M] Reprinted by special permission from "Land Ho." Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.

XV.--The Mascot of "Troop 1"[N]

_By Stephen Chalmers_

THE troop was just about scared to death when the Scoutmaster announced at the close of the meeting that the visitor would remain for an informal talk with the boys.

The visitor was a big man in more than height. He was a State Commissioner--the kind you spell with a big C--a Commissioner of Forests, or Weights, or something like that; and he happened, too, to have an official position with Boy Scout Headquarters. He was, so to speak, a heap big Scout, and Troop 1, Saranac Lake, which is away back in the Adirondacks, felt uneasy.

"There aren't many of you," said the Commissioner to the group of Scouts gathered about him, "but you're all good stuff. You have a chance most Boy Scouts don't get. You were all born in the big North Woods. You have inherited instincts that can't be driven into a boy with teaching. You don't have to be taught trailing, or woodcraft, except maybe for an organized way of handling them. You can open old trails as a good turn to the public. You can patrol the woods, report forest fires, and you can fight forest fires, too, as I hear you have been doing. I hear, too, that the Municipal Board picked this troop to select a Christmas tree; that you felled that tree in a neat way and brought it to the village, helped set it up, and then patrolled the crowd with your staffs, so the little kids crowding around Santa Claus's municipal wagon wouldn't get hurt in the crush."

This made the Scouts breathe a little easier.

"But there is more than that to this Scout game----"

The Scouts began to fidget again. They knew they were not going to be let down as easy as all that, especially by a big Scout like this who knew conditions all over the country.

"The thing that comes easy for you to do is good. But, like bravery, the best form of it is doing what you are afraid to do, or doing what isn't second nature for you to do. You belong to the second generation of the wilderness. There are towns now and you live in them, and it is in the towns----"

The big man suddenly hesitated. He was looking at a small black face that emerged from a khaki collar between two first class Scouts in the front row. The Commissioner pointed at him and said, abruptly, breaking off his remarks:

"By the way, what's _your_ name?"

The small black face went into strange contortions of embarrassment. It tried to hide like the ostrich, but the Scouts in front parted and revealed a little negro boy in Scout uniform with a tenderfoot badge pinned where it should be.

"I'm Smokey," said a faint voice. Then, remembering, he stiffened up, saluted the big man, and amplified:

"Dey calls me Smokey, sir. Dat's all de name I ever has. I'se just a li'l nigger, sir, but dey all's a moughty good bunch and dey don't mek no difference 'cause I ain't white."

There was a little applause and much grinning. The Commissioner of Forests, or Weights--I forget just what he was--stared in a queer way, then went on with his address from where he had left off.

I remember he laid particular stress on the fact that doing one's simple everyday duty was all right, but not just what was called a "Good Turn."

But all the time he was watching Smokey, who stood there drinking in every word and nudging his neighbor, a thin, pallid boy, who also wore a tenderfoot badge.

"What's _your_ name?" the speaker broke off again to ask, pointing at Smokey's neighbor.

"I'm Jimmy," said he. "Smokey's me pal," he added, scrambling to his feet with a belated salute. "We--we likes bein' Scouts, sir."

Smokey wriggled in absolute approval of Jimmy's loyalty and comment.

Again the Commissioner looked puzzled. He went on with his talk, however, and when he had finished and the Scouts had left, he went into the Scoutmaster's office to compare notes with him. But he dismissed the notes pretty swiftly and suddenly said to the Scoutmaster:

"Where did you pick up those two kids, Smokey, and his--his pal, Jimmy?"

"Oh, that's quite a yarn," said the Scoutmaster. "Both of them were New York newsboys. They got sick down there--ill-feeding, lack of care and so on, and drifted up here. We have a lot of invalids who come here for their health--rich mostly. But Jimmy and Smokey weren't rich. In fact, if a couple of our boys hadn't heard about them and done one of the best turns ever pulled off, I----"

The Commissioner leaned forward and tapped the Scoutmaster on the knee.

"Tell me the whole story," said he, his eyes sparkling. And the Scoutmaster did.

THE STORY THE SCOUTMASTER TOLD

Smokey and Jimmy were newsboys in the big city. Smokey was much littler, I expect, when he invested his first pennies in papers and tried to hold his own with the newsboy gang at the Grand Central Station. Jimmy was cock of the walk and had licked every newsboy on the stand. He looked little Smokey over. He resented the smokiness, but hated to wallop him; there was so little to wallop. And because the other newsboys tried to, Jimmy walloped the whole lot of them all over again. After that he felt sort of responsible for Smokey's welfare.

By and by Jimmy found out that Smokey never had had any parents. He came out of a colored orphan asylum--ran away, I expect. Jimmy didn't know anything about his parents, either. He came out of a foundling hospital--ran away, too, perhaps. Anyway, Jimmy says he felt he didn't have much on Smokey. They became close friends. Smokey thought Jimmy was God's little brother, and Jimmy proved it by taking absolute charge of Smokey's destiny.

They saved their pennies. Their living didn't cost much. They fed mostly at the back door of an east side quick-lunch place. For domicile they shared a basement with a drunken janitor, an Italian organ-grinder, and a monkey. The monkey got shoved off a second-story window ledge by some Christian person who probably resented the Darwin theory and died several days later of internal injuries. Smokey nursed him, while Jimmy and the organ-grinder worked harder and raised enough money to get a doctor. The doctor was indignant when he found that his patient was of the Simian persuasion. But that's a story by itself. You ought to hear Jimmy tell it. You'd find yourself laughing on only one side of your face.

About a week after the monkey died, Smokey fell ill. He hated to get up in the morning. He was just as dead-tired in the morning as when he lay down. His smokiness turned from a soft coal to an anthracite hue, and he went off his feed. Jimmy thought maybe Smokey needed a little Christian Science and walloped him as an experiment. Smokey took it as he would have taken anything from Jimmy, but he said--and his eyes were probably as big and solemn as an owl's:

"Jimmy," said he, "dey ain't no use'n you-all wallopin' me. Hones', Jimmy, Ah tinks Ah's a moughty sick li'l nigger."

That stuck in Jimmy's mind. He was sorry he had applied what he thought was practical Christian Science. He tried Smokey with therapeutic treatment. He gave him a cone of strawberry ice-cream. When Smokey ate only half of it, Jimmy knew it was a grave case and that something ought to be done about it.

That night after Smokey had crawled into the packing case where he was in the habit of sleeping--usually with the lid on--Jimmy talked over the crisis with the organ-grinder and the janitor. The janitor thought corn whiskey was good and went out to get some. He didn't come back that night and brought no whiskey when he turned up two days later. The organ-grinder, embittered by the loss of his monkey, had little faith in the medical profession; and in this Jimmy concurred. The newsboy, however, read the papers he sold, and was under the impression that Jimmy ought to get out into the country. Also, he wasn't sure that it was the best thing for Smokey to sleep in that packing-case with the lid on. Lacking funds, however, they were compelled to table the motion that Smokey be sent to the woods. Meanwhile Smokey got thinner and weaker and finally he hadn't the strength to push the lid off when he needed more air. It was then that the Lord provided.

One of Smokey's patrons was Pat Mulcahy, who drives the engine of the Montreal Express out of Grand Central every evening at 6.55. Smokey had been in the habit of taking a latest evening edition through to Pat in his engine cab. Mulcahy didn't get his paper one night, but next evening Jimmy turned up alongside the big locomotive and said:

"Here's yer paper, Mister Mulcahy. Smokey's down an' out. I tink he's got de Ol' Con. He worried hisself near stiff last night 'cos he fergot t' tell me youse was partic'lar 'bout gettin' de final. But don't youse worry, Mister, I'm runnin' the whole biz till Smokey's to rights again--see?"

Mulcahy was a good fellow. He'd bought from Smokey because--well, perhaps he liked the little fellow. He questioned Jimmy, and next night he cross-questioned him, about Smokey, and on the third night, when Jimmy reported the patient in a bad way, the engineer said:

"Now, lookee here, Jimmy. Can Smokey walk? Do you think he can stand a trip?"

"It couldn't make him no wuss, anyhow," says Jimmy.

"All right," said Mulcahy. "You get his things together. . . . Well just as he is, then . . . and bring him along here about 6.45 sharp to-morrow night--Hear?"

"I get yuh," said Jimmy. "Youse gonna give Smoky a free ride up to the country."

"You betcher life, Jimmy."

Smokey, when informed of this new turn of his destiny, didn't care much whether he went or stayed in his box; but Jimmy said he was to go, and of course that was all there was to it.

Next evening, when Smokey, the most washed-out little nigger that ever wobbled on weak knees, turned up at the station with Jimmy, the whole gang was there to give him a send-off. The guards let them all through the gates after the conductor of the Adirondack section had passed a wink, and the group of youngsters escorted Smokey to the big, wheezing engine. Jimmy first presented Mulcahy with his final, refusing the usual cent for it.

"Dat's on de house dis time," said Jimmy.

"Here--you--beat it!" said he. "Do you want to make me trouble?"

Smokey's eyes were full of tears as he said:

"So long, fellahs. You-all's a moughty good bunch."

Then he whispered something to Jimmy, who said, "Aw, fudge!" and went away, much embarrassed.

The engineer turned Smokey over to the conductor of the Adirondack section, and when the Montreal Express got under way he was comfortable on a pile of straw in a corner of the baggage car. At Poughkeepsie the conductor bought him a bottle of "pop." At Albany he fell heir to an orange and a chicken sandwich. At Utica he was sound asleep and a colored porter came through and spread a perfectly good Pullman blanket over the boy.

The train was wheezing at Tupper Lake when Smokey opened his eyes next morning. The baggage car door was opened and Smokey looked out. It was a big country, covered with trees and surrounded with great mountains. The sun was just rising and Smokey felt sure that this was the place where they made the movies. The golden east reminded him of his orange, and he ate it,--the orange.

The colored porter came through and told the boy to stay where he was until ordered to get out. Smokey was disappointed to learn that his friend Mulcahy had gone off duty at Utica, where his wife lived. Ten minutes later the porter came back again. He had a glass tumbler in his hand and it was half full of quarters and fifty-cent pieces.

"You is shuah a lucky kid," said the porter. "Some o' de gents in de Lake Placid smoker heerd 'bout you an' chipped in all dis."

"Dey's shuah-all a good bunch--folks is," said Smokey, his eyes big as he totaled three dollars and twenty-five cents.

The Adirondacks section was switched off the main line at Lake Clear junction, and less than half an hour later Smokey found himself in the main street of Saranac Lake. He made straight for the belt of woods that fringes the river below the falls of the power station, and sat down beneath a big pine. He felt that he could sit there forever and listen to the gossipy river and the whispering trees. It was very restful. He ate some of his accumulated grub and went to sleep, his last thought a wish that Jimmy could be there.

Mr. Commissioner (the Scoutmaster continued), that little nigger was in town about six weeks before our boys got on to him. He was lucky enough to get a job delivering newspapers for Tom Daley and, luckier still, the little fellow began to get well.

So long as the nights were still summery he slept beneath that same pine below the falls, but when the Autumn snap set in he had to find shelter. It was Tolman, the undertaker--a good sort--good as they make 'em--who picked him up, asked a few questions and got him the loft of Fred Smith's paintshop. A ladder ascended to a trap door and the garret was full of old truck; but Smokey thought it was a mansion with a marble staircase. He fixed up a couple of boxes for seats, and there was an old two-legged sofa that he propped up for a couch. He scurried around town, got hold of several burlap bags, stuffed them with hay and made himself a comfortable bed. Between this and improving health and the delivery business, Smokey felt that he was prospering in the world.

Then he got a letter. It was from Jimmy, to whom he had sent picture-postcards without getting a word in reply. But Jimmy's misspelled letter now explained everything.

_"Dere smoke"_ (it ran--or something like that--I
read it), "I hate tu tell ya for I dident think it
was annything but I got the old Con too an im
awful sick and duno whatin bleazes im gone do, say
is there anny chanst up there where yu ar, but don
you worry bout me. _Jimmy._"

It was a terrible blow to Smokey, but right away the optimism that seems to breed itself in these woods bolstered him to action. He promptly sent a picture-postcard, and on it he wrote:

"yu se the injiner mr. Milcay, an come on up its
fine an I got a swel plaze to liv and lots ov
work, no selin jist deliverin. _Smokey._"

But that was only the beginning of Smokey's discharge of obligation. He interviewed the Pullman conductor. The conductor passed the word to Mulcahy at Utica, and two days later the porter brought back word to the tense, waiting little figure at the Saranac Lake station that it was all fixed and Jimmy was coming on by next night's train.

All that evening and all next day Smokey was mighty busy. He bolted the delivery of the New York papers, but at every house he stopped long enough to gasp:

"Please lady, has you-all got any ole pitcher supplements?"

In the evening he had a pile of them. He had begged leave of Mat Munn, the grocer, to extract nails from discarded boxes. With these, and a brick for a hammer, he covered the sloping roof walls of the garret mansion with stage beauties, art supplements, Buster Browns, Happy Hooligans, baseball giants and magazine covers. This art paneling covered every draughty hole or crack. Flour sacks draped Jimmy's sofa-couch. All that last night, while the Montreal Express brought Jimmy into the hills, there sounded the persistent tap-tapping of Smokey's brick hammer.

But in the morning when Jimmy, pale and sickly, climbed down from the baggage-car, there was no Smokey to meet or greet him. Jimmy wandered around, weakness of body conspiring with disappointment to sap his courage. He had no idea where Smokey lived and, being a New Yorker with a metropolitan turn of thought, in that circumstance he felt himself and Smokey completely lost to each other.

Presently, as Jimmy sat disconsolate on a baggage truck, an individual in shirt sleeves and savoring of paint halted before him. After a moment's study he said:

"Hallo, Jimmy!"

Jimmy started, hope returning; but neither the man nor the savor of paint conveyed anything profitable.

"Aw, can the bunk stuff," said he wearily. "I'm f'm Forty-second Street--see?"

Fred the painter was able to extricate himself from suspicion, however. At the words "Smokey's all to the bad," Jimmy forgot everything, particularly himself and his own illness.

"Where izze?" he asked breathlessly. "I wanna see'm right away. D'yuh get me? Aw, don't you tell me that li'l nigger's gone an' croaked?"

"Naw, he ain't croaked," said Fred Smith, the painter, "but he's awful bad, and he sent me to meet you, Jimmy, and tell you to come right on just the same, 'cause everything's ready."

"He's up there," said Fred when they got to the shack. Jimmy, short of breath as he was, went up that ladder like a streak. At first he could see little, the garret was so dark, but a faint voice said from some burlap bags in the corner:

"Is dat youse, Chimmy?"

"What's de matter, Smoke?" Jimmy's voice was shaky and a short sharp cough punctuated his question.

"Bles' if Ah knows," said Smokey. "Ah was hammerin' a nail in Christy Mat'ewson when somet'in esploded in ma chiss. But say, Chimmy, light de can'le an' pipe de livin' room. Some--swell--Chimmy!--an' Ah done it a-all ma-se'f!"

Jimmy found the candle and lighted it. He surveyed Smokey lying in the corner, his eyes and head seeming a misfit for his frail body. The candle illumined the comic supplements and art sections on the sloping roof walls and the sofa with its flour-sack bedding turned down as for a guest. Lastly Jimmy's eyes encountered several dark red spots on the floor.

"Swell, ain't it, Chimmy?" said Smokey. "Why don't you-all say something?"

For answer Jimmy blew out the candle somewhat hastily, and Fred at the foot of the ladder heard some one sobbing in the mansion above.

The Scoutmaster turned to fumble with some papers on his desk. The Commissioner sat silent, his eyes wide and a bit shiny. He said nothing for at least half a minute, then, clearing his throat:

"And what then?"

"Oh, the rest is simple enough," said the Scoutmaster. "One of our Scouts got wind of it and told his patrol leader and they investigated. Then they got the other Scouts of the patrol together, went into the woods and cut some fuel, got a basket of grub and provisions from their mothers and a delegation of two called on Dr. Trudeau--you've heard of him--died just the other day--the Grenfell of the hills--and the doctor sent a nurse and then moved Jimmy and Smokey to a hospital, and----"

The Scoutmaster broke off, chuckling.

"Funny thing," he said, "when the great doctor climbed the ladder to where the two boys were lying sick, Jimmy, remembering the doctor who wouldn't attend the monkey, got suspicious and he said to Dr. Trudeau: 'There's just wan thing you got to un'stand right away, Doc. Smokey may be a li'l nigger, but _he ain't no monk_! D'yuh get me?'

"They both got well, and they got work, too. Then one evening they came down to look over this Scout business that had helped them for not so much as a 'thank you' and--well, Jimmy's a good little Scout. As for Smokey, he's the Troop Mascot, but--he still thinks Jimmy is God's little brother; and I don't know that I blame him."

"Fine!" said the Commissioner, and a few seconds later he repeated with even more emphasis, "FINE!"

FOOTNOTE:

[N] Reprinted from "The Boy Scouts' Year Book." Copyright, 1918, by D. Appleton and Company.

XVI.--The Lion's Smile[O]

_By Thomas W. Hanshew_

_Cleek, the Master Detective of Scotland Yard, or
"the Man of Forty Faces," as he was sometimes
called, solved the riddles that proved too much
for his friend, Mr. Maverick Narkom,
Superintendent of Police. I am confident boys will
enjoy meeting "Cleek" and will, with keen delight,
follow him as he unravels the threads of the great
mystery of the "lion's smile."_--THE EDITOR.

IT was on the very stroke of five when Cleek, answering an urgent message from headquarters, strolled into the bar parlor of "The Fiddle and Horseshoe," which, as you may possibly know, stands near to the Green in a somewhat picturesque by-path between Shepherd's Bush and Acton, and found Narkom in the very act of hanging up his hat and withdrawing his gloves preparatory to ordering tea.

"My dear Cleek, what a model of punctuality you are," said the superintendent, as he came forward and shook hands with him. "You would put Father Time himself to the blush with your abnormal promptness. Do make yourself comfortable for a moment or two while I go and order tea. I've only just arrived. Shan't be long, old chap."

"Pray don't hurry yourself upon my account, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek, as he tossed his hat and gloves upon a convenient table and strolled leisurely to the window and looked out on the quaint, old-fashioned arbor-bordered bowling green, all steeped in sunshine and zoned with the froth of pear and apple blooms, thick-piled above the time-stained brick of the enclosing wall. "These quaint old inns, which the march of what we are pleased to call 'progress' is steadily crowding off the face of the land, are always deeply interesting to me; I love them. What a day! What a picture! What a sky! As blue as what Dollops calls the 'Merry Geranium Sea.' I'd give a Jew's eye for a handful of those apple blossoms, they are divine!"

Narkom hastened from the room without replying. The strain of poetry underlying the character of this strange, inscrutable man, his amazing love of Nature, his moments of almost womanish weakness and sentiment, astonished and mystified him. It was as if a hawk had acquired the utterly useless trick of fluting like a nightingale, and being himself wholly without imagination, he could not comprehend it in the smallest degree.

When he returned a few minutes later, however, the idealist seemed to have simmered down into the materialist, the extraordinary to have become merged in the ordinary, for he found his famous ally no longer studying the beauties of Nature, but giving his whole attention to the sordid commonplaces of man. He was standing before a glaringly printed bill, one of many that were tacked upon the walls, which set forth in amazing pictures and double-leaded type the wonders that were to be seen daily and nightly at Olympia, where, for a month past, "Van Zant's Royal Belgian Circus and World-famed Menagerie" had been holding forth to "Crowded and delighted audiences." Much was made of two "star turns" upon this lurid bill: "Mademoiselle Marie de Zanoni, the beautiful and peerless bare-back equestrienne, the most daring lady rider in the universe," for the one; and, for the other, "Chevalier Adrian di Roma, king of the animal world, with his great aggregation of savage and ferocious wild beasts, including the famous man-eating African lion, Nero, the largest and most ferocious animal of its species in captivity." And under this latter announcement there was a picture of a young and handsome man, literally smothered with medals, lying at full length, with his arms crossed and his head in the wide-open jaws of a snarling, wild-eyed lion.

"My dear chap, you really do make me believe that there actually is such a thing as instinct," said Narkom, as he came in. "Fancy your selecting that particular bill out of all the others in the room! What an abnormal individual you are!"

"Why? Has it anything to do with the case you have in hand?"

"Anything to do with it? My dear fellow, it _is_ 'the case.' I can't imagine what drew your attention to it."

"Can't you?" said Cleek, with a half smile. Then he stretched forth his hand and touched the word "Nero" with the tip of his forefinger. "That did. Things awaken a man's memory occasionally, Mr. Narkom, and---- Tell me, isn't that the beast there was such a stir about in the newspapers a fortnight or so ago, the lion that crushed the head of a man in full view of the audience?"

"Yes," replied Narkom, with a slight shudder. "Awful thing, wasn't it? Gave me the creeps to read about it. The chap who was killed, poor beggar, was a mere boy, not twenty, son of the Chevalier di Roma himself. There was a great stir about it. Talk of the authorities forbidding the performance, and all that sort of thing. They never did, however, for on investigation---- Ah, the tea at last, thank fortune. Come, sit down, my dear fellow, and we'll talk whilst we refresh ourselves. Landlady, see that we are not disturbed, will you, and that nobody is admitted but the parties I mentioned?"

"Clients?" queried Cleek, as the door closed and they were alone together.

"Yes. One, Mlle. Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is the lady's fiancé."

"Ah, then our friend the chevalier is not so young as the picture on the bill would have us believe he is."

"No, he is not. As a matter of fact, he is considerably past forty, and is, or rather, was, up to six months ago, a widower, with three children, two sons and a daughter."

"I suppose," said Cleek, helping himself to a buttered scone, "I am to infer from what you say that at the period mentioned, six months ago, the intrepid gentleman showed his courage yet more forcibly by taking a second wife? Young or old?"

"Young," said Narkom in reply. "Very young, not yet four-and-twenty, in fact, and very, very beautiful. That is she who is 'featured' on the bill as the star of the equestrian part of the program: 'Mlle. Marie de Zanoni.' So far as I have been able to gather, the affair was a love match. The lady, it appears, had no end of suitors, both in and out of the profession; it has even been hinted that she could, had she been so minded, have married an impressionable young Austrian nobleman of independent means who was madly in love with her; but she appears to have considered it preferable to become 'an old man's darling,' so to speak, and to have selected the middle-aged chevalier rather than some one whose age is nearer her own."

"Nothing new in that, Mr. Narkom. Young women before Mlle. Marie de Zanoni's day have been known to love elderly men sincerely: young Mrs. Bawdrey, in the case of The Nine-fingered Skeleton,' is an example of that. Still, such marriages are not common, I admit, so when they occur one naturally looks to see if there may not be 'other considerations' at the bottom of the attachment. Is the chevalier well-to-do? Has he expectations of any kind?"

"To the contrary; he has nothing, but the salary he earns, which is by no means so large as the public imagines; and as he comes of a long line of circus performers, all of whom died early and poor, 'expectations,' as you put it, do not enter into the affair at all. Apparently the lady did marry him for love of him, as she professes and as he imagines; although, if what I hear is true, it would appear that she has lately outgrown that love. It seems that a Romeo more suitable to her age has recently joined the show in the person of a rider called Signor Antonio Martinelli; that he has fallen desperately in love with her, and that----"

He bit off his words short and rose to his feet. The door had opened suddenly to admit a young man and a young woman, who entered in a state of nervous excitement. "Ah, my dear Mr. Scarmelli, you and Miss Zelie are most welcome," continued the superintendent.

"My friend and I were this moment talking about you."

Cleek glanced across the room, and, as was customary with him, made up his mind instantly. The girl, despite her association with the arena, was a modest, unaffected little thing of about eighteen; the man was a straight-looking, clear-eyed, boyish-faced young fellow of about eight-and-twenty, well, but by no means flashily, dressed, and carrying himself with the air of one who respects himself and demands the respect of others. He was evidently an Englishman, despite his Italian _nom de théâtre_, and Cleek decided out of hand that he liked him.

"We can shelve 'George Headland' in this instance, Mr. Narkom," he said, as the superintendent led forward the pair for the purpose of introducing them, and suffered himself to be presented in the name of Cleek.

The effect of this was electrical; would, in fact, had he been a vain man have been sufficient to gratify him to the fullest, for the girl, with a little "Oh!" of amazement, drew back and stood looking at him with a sort of awe that rounded her eyes and parted her lips, while the man leaned heavily upon the back of a convenient chair and looked and acted as one utterly overcome.

"Cleek!" he repeated, after a moment's despairful silence. "You, sir, are that great man? This is a misfortune indeed."

"A misfortune, my friend? Why a 'misfortune,' pray? Do you think the riddle you have brought is beyond my powers?"

"Oh, no; not that--never that!" he made reply. "If there is any one man in the world who could get at the bottom of it, could solve the mystery of the lion's change, the lion's smile, you are that man, sir, you. That is the misfortune: that you could do it, and yet I cannot expect it, cannot avail myself of this great opportunity. Look! I am doing it all on my own initiative, sir, for the sake of Zelie and that dear, lovable old chap, her father. I have saved fifty-eight pounds, Mr. Cleek. I had hoped that that might tempt a clever detective to take up the case; but what is such a sum to such a man as you?"

"If that is all that stands in the way, don't let it worry you, my good fellow," said Cleek, with a smile. "Put your fifty-eight pounds in your pocket against your wedding-day and good luck to you. I'll take the case for nothing. Now then, what is it? What the dickens did you mean just now when you spoke about 'the lion's change' and 'the lion's smile'? What lion--Nero? Here, sit down and tell me all about it."