Chapter XXV: The Path of Glory

The affair of the kidnapping created quite a sensation at camp, partly, no doubt, because stories of missing people always arouse the interest of scouts, but chiefly perhaps because the thing was brought so close to them.

Catskill Landing was the station for Temple Camp. It was there that arriving troops alighted from boat or train. It was the frequent destination of their hikes. It was there that they bought sodas and ice cream cones. Scouts from "up ter camp" were familiar sights at Catskill, and they overran the village in the summertime.

Of course it was only by reason of trainman Hanlon's doubtful clew that the village figured at all in the sensational affair. At all events if the Harrington child and its desperate companions had actually alighted there, all trace of them was lost at that point.

The next morning after the newspaper accounts were published a group of scouts hiked down to Catskill to look over the ground, hoping to root out some information or discover some fresh clew. They wound up in Warner's Drug Store and had a round of ice cream sodas and that was all the good their sleuthing did them.

On the way back they propounded various ingenious theories of the escape and whereabouts of Master Harrington's captors. Pee-wee Harris suggested that they probably waited somewhere till dark and proceeded to parts unknown in an airplane. A more plausible inspiration was that they had crossed the Hudson in a boat in order to baffle the authorities and proceeded either southward to New York or northward on a New York Central train.

The likeliest theory was that of Westy Martin of Roy's troop, that an automobile with confederates had waited for the party at Catskill. That would insure privacy for the balance of the journey.

The theory of one scout that the party had gone aboard a cabin cruiser was tenable, and this means of hiding and confounding the searchers, seemed likely to succeed. The general opinion was that ere long the child would be forthcoming in response to a stupendous ransom. But this means of recovering the little fellow did not appeal to the scouts.

Perhaps if Tom Slade, alias Sherlock Nobody Holmes, had accompanied the group down to the riverside village, he would have learned or discovered something which they missed. But Sherlock Nobody Holmes had other business on hand that morning.

"Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it?" little Skinny had asked him. "Do you want to see those tracks I found? Do you want to see me follow them again? Do you want to see how I did it--do you?" And Tom had given Skinny to understand that it was the dream of his life to see those famous tracks, which had proved a path of glory to the golden gates which opened into the exalted second-class of scouting.

"I'll show them to you! I'll show them to you!" Skinny had said eagerly. "I'll show you where I began. Maybe if we wait till it rains they'll get not to be there any more maybe."

So Tom went with him to the rock close by the lake shore where the path to glory began, and starting here, they followed the tracks, now becoming somewhat obscure, up into the woods.

"Before I started I made sure," Skinny panted, as he trotted proudly along beside his famous companion. "The scouts they said you'd be too busy to go with me, they did. But you ain't, are you?"

"That's what," said Tom.

"I bet you don't shake all over when Mr. Temple speaks to you, do you?"

"Not so you'd notice it."

"I bet he's got as much as a hundred dollars, hasn't he?"

"You said it."

"Maybe if I wasn't a-scared I'd ask him to look at the tracks too, hey? First off I was a-scared to ask _you?_"

"Tracks are my middle name, Alf."

"Now I can prove I'm a second-class scout by my badge, can't I?"

"That's what you can. But you've got it pinned on the wrong side, Alf. Here, let me fix it for you."

"Everybody'll be sure to see it, won't they?"

"That's what they will."

"Hervey Willetts, he's a hero, isn't he?"

"You bet."

"I'd like to be like him, I would."

"He's kind of reckless, Alf. It's bad to be too reckless."

"I wouldn't let you talk against him--I wouldn't."

Tom smiled. "That's right, Alf, you stand up for him."

"Maybe you don't know what kind of an animal made these tracks, maybe, hey?"

Indeed Tom did not know. But one thing he knew which amused him greatly. They were following the path of glory the wrong way. Not that it made any particular difference, but it seemed so like Skinny. He had not actually tracked an animal at all, since the animal had come toward the lake. He had followed tracks, to be sure, but he had not tracked an animal. Hervey must have known this but he had not mentioned it. The thought thrilled even stolid Tom with fresh admiration for that young adventurer. Hervey Willetts was no handbook scout, but Tom would not have him different than he was--no, not by a hair. He thought how Skinny's beginning at the wrong end was like his pinning of the badge on the wrong side of his breast. Poor little Skinny....

And he thought of that other scout coming down through those woods, tracking that mysterious animal indeed, and stopping short, and sitting down on a log and throwing away his triumph like chaff before the wind. Then there arose in his mind the picture of that bright-eyed, irresponsible youngster with his hat cocked sideways on his head, off upon some new adventure or bent on some new stunt. Not a very good scout delegate perhaps, but the bulliest scout that ever tore a gaping hole in his stocking....

Tom was aroused from his meditation by Skinny's eager voice. "Here's the log where he talked to me," he said; "here's just the very same place we sat down and he said he'd be my witness. He said I was old top, that's what he called me."

"Old top, hey?" said Tom, smiling.