Chapter XVI: In Dutch

That Hervey Willetts was a kind of odd number at camp was evidenced by his unfamiliarity with the things that were very familiar to most boys there. He was too restless to hang around the pavilion or sprawl under the trees or idle about with the others in and near Council Shack. He never read the bulletin board posted outside, and the inside was a place of so little interest to him that he had not even seen the beautiful canoe that was exhibited there, and on which so many longing eyes had feasted.

Now as he and Skinny entered that sanctum of the powers that were, he saw it for the first time. It was a beautiful canoe with a gold stripe around it and gunwales of solid mahogany. It lay on two sawhorses. Within it, arranged in tempting style, lay two shiny paddles, a caned back rest, and a handsome leather cushion. Upon it was a little typewritten sign which read:

This canoe to be given to the first scout this season to win the
Eagle award.

"That's rubbing it in," said Hervey to himself. "That's two things, a bicycle and a canoe I've lost before I got them."

He sat down at the table in the public part of the office while Skinny, all excitement, stood by and watched him eagerly. He pulled a sheet of the camp stationery toward him and wrote upon it in his free, sprawling, reckless hand.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This will prove that Alfred McCord of Bridgeboro troop tracked some
kind of an animal for more than a half a mile, because I saw him
doing it and I saw the tracks and I came back with him and I know
all about it and it was one good stunt I'll tell the world. So if
that's all he's got to do to be a second-class scout, he's got the
badge already, and if anybody wants to know anything about it they
can ask me.

HERVEY WILLETTS,
Troop Cabin 13.

After scrawling this conclusive affidavit and placing it under a weight on the desk of Mr. Wade, resident trustee, Hervey sauntered over to the cabins occupied by the two patrols of his troop, the Leopards and the Panthers. They were just getting ready to go to supper.

"Anything doing, Hervey?" his scoutmaster, Mr. Warren, asked him.

"Nothing doing," Hervey answered laconically.

"Maybe he doesn't know what you're talking about," one of his patrol, the Panthers, suggested. This was intended as a sarcastic reference to Hervey's way of losing interest in his undertakings before they were completed.

"Have you got a trail--any tracks?" another asked.

Hervey began rummaging through his pockets and said, "I haven't got one with me."

"You didn't happen to see that canoe in Council Shack, did you?" Mr. Warren asked him.

"Yes, it's very nice," Hervey said.

Mr. Warren paused a moment, irresolute.

"Hervey," he finally said, "the boys think it's too bad that you should fall down just at the last minute. After all you've accomplished, it seems like--what shall I say--like Columbus turning back just before land was sighted."

"He didn't turn back," Hervey said; "now there's one thing I didn't forget--my little old history book. When Columbus started to cross the Delaware----"

"Listen, Hervey," Mr. Warren interrupted him; "suppose you and I walk together, I want to talk with you."

So they strolled together in the direction of the mess boards.

"Now, Hervey, my boy," said Mr. Warren, "I don't want you to be angry at what I say, but the boys are disgruntled and I think you can't blame them. They set their hearts on having the Eagle award in the troop and they elected you to bring it to them. I was the first to suggest you. I think we were all agreed that you had the, what shall I say, the pep and initiative to go out and get it. You won twenty badges with flying colors, I don't know how you did it, and now you're falling down all on account of _one single requirement_.

"Is that fair to the troop, Hervey? Is it fair to yourself? It isn't lack of ability; if it was I wouldn't speak of it. But it's because you tire of a thing before it's finished. Think of the things you learned in winning those twenty badges--the Morse Code, life saving, carpentry work. How many of those things do you remember now? You have forgotten them all--lost interest in them all. I said nothing because I knew you were after the Eagle badge with both hands and feet, but now you see you have tired of that--right on the threshold of victory. You can't blame the boys, Hervey, now can you?"

"Tracks are not so easy to find," Hervey said, somewhat subdued.

"They are certainly not easy to find if you don't look for them," Mr. Warren retorted, not unpleasantly. "I heard a boy in camp say only this evening that that queer little duck in the Bridgeboro troop had found some tracks near the lake and started to follow them. There is no pair of eyes in camp better than yours, Hervey. But you know you can't expect to find animal tracks down in the village."

"In the village?"

"Two or three of your own patrol saw you down there a week ago, Hervey; saw you run out of a candy store to follow a runaway horse. You know, Hervey, horses' tracks aren't the kind you're after. Those boys were observant. They were on their way to the post office. I heard them telling Tom Slade about it."

"What did _he_ say--Tom Slade?" Hervey queried.

"Oh, he didn't say anything; he never says much. But I think he likes you, Hervey, and he'll be disappointed."

"You think he will?"

"You know, Hervey, Tom Slade never won his place by jumping from one thing to another. The love of adventure and something new is good, but responsibility to one's troop, to oneself, is more important. How will your father feel about the bicycle he had looked forward to giving you? You see, Hervey, you regarded the winning of the Eagle award as an adventure, whereas the troop regarded it as a commission--a commission entailing responsibility."

"I'm not so stuck on eagles," said Hervey, repeating Tom Slade's very words. "There might be something better than the Eagle award, you can't tell."

"Oh, Hervey, my boy, don't talk like that, and above all, don't let the boys hear you talk like that. There's nothing better than to finish what you begin--_nothing_. You know, Hervey, I understand you thoroughly. You're a wizard for stunts, but you're weak on responsibility. Now you've got some new stunt on your mind, and the troop doesn't count. Am I right?"

Hervey did not answer.

"And now the chance has nearly passed. Tomorrow we all go to the college regatta on the Hudson, the next day is camp clean-up and we've all got to work, and the next night, awards. Even if you were to do the unexpected now, I don't know whether we could get the matter through and passed on for Saturday night. I'm disappointed with you, Hervey, and so are the boys. We all expected to see Mr. Temple hand you the Eagle badge on Saturday night. I expected to send your father a wire. Walley has been planning to take our picture as an Eagle troop."

"Well, and you'll all be disappointed," said Hervey with a kind of heedlessness that nettled his scoutmaster. "And if anybody should ask you about it, any of the troop, you can just say that I found out something and that I'm not so stuck on the Eagle award, after all. That's what you can tell them."

"Well, I will tell them no such thing, for I would be ashamed to tell them that. I think we all know what the highest honor is. Perhaps the boys are not such reckless young adventurers as you, but they know what the highest scout honor is. And I think if you will be perfectly honest with me, Hervey, you'll acknowledge that something new has caught your fancy. Come now, isn't that right?"

"Right the first time," said Hervey with a gayety that quite disgusted his scoutmaster.

"Well, go your way, Hervey," he said coldly.