The Boy Scouts' Mountain Camp

  THE BOY SCOUTS' MOUNTAIN CAMP

  by

  LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON

  Author of "The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol,""The Boy Scouts on the Range,""The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship," etc.

  With Four Original Illustrations by R. M. Brinkerhoff

  New YorkHurst & CompanyPublishers

  Copyright, 1912,byHurst & Company

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I. A Typical Boy Scout 5 II. Two Mysterious Men 16 III. The Major Explains 30 IV. The Narrative Continued 39 V. A Midnight Auto Dash 51 VI. In Direst Peril 66 VII. Adrift in the Storm 76 VIII. Eagles on the Trail 86 IX. What Scout Hopkins Did 97 X. A Rescue and a Bivouac 109 XI. The Mountain Camp 121 XII. Captured 132 XIII. Rob Finds a Ray of Hope 144 XIV. A Thrilling Escape 155 XV. Out of the Frying Pan 167 XVI. Into the Fire! 177 XVII. "We Want You." 187 XVIII. Jumbo Earns $500.00--and Loses It 197 XIX. The Forest Monarch 206 XX. The Canoes Found 216 XXI. "The Ruby Glow." 225 XXII. The Buccaneer's Cave 238 XXIII. Trapped in a Living Tomb 248 XXIV. Two Columns of Smoke 264 XXV. The Heart of the Mystery--Conclusion 276

  The Boy Scouts' Mountain Camp.

  CHAPTER I. A TYPICAL BOY SCOUT.

  "Hullo, Rob; what's up?"

  Merritt Crawford stopped on his way past the Hampton post-office, andhailed Rob Blake, the leader of the Eagle Patrol, of which Merritt wascorporal. Both lads wore the natty scout uniform.

  "Not a thing is up or down, either," rejoined Rob, with a laugh; "itlooks as if things had stopped happening in Hampton ever since thatschooner was blown up."

  "And Jack Curtiss's hopes of a fortune with it," added Merritt. "Well,I'm off home. Going that way?"

  "Yes, I'll be with you in a---- Hullo, what's happening?"

  From farther up the street, at one end of which lay the glistening sheetof water known as Hampton Inlet, there came excited shouts. Then,suddenly, into the field of vision there swept, with astonishingrapidity, a startling sight.

  A large automobile was coming toward them at a rapid rate. On thedriver's seat was a white-faced young girl, a cloud of fair hairstreaming out about her frightened countenance. She was gripping thesteering wheel, and seemed to be striving desperately to check the onrushof the machine. But her efforts were vain. The auto, instead ofdecreasing its rate of progress, appeared every minute to be gaining inspeed.

  It bumped and swayed wildly. A cloud of yellow dust arose about it.Behind the runaway machine could be perceived a crowd of townsfolkshouting incoherently.

  "Oh, stop it! I shall be killed! Stop it, please do!"

  The young girl was shrilly screaming in alarm, as the machine approachedthe two boys. So rapidly had events progressed since they first sightedit, that not a word had been exchanged between them. All at once, Merrittnoticed that he was alone. Rob had darted to the roadway. As the autodashed by, Merritt saw the young leader of the Hampton Boy Scouts give asudden flying leap upon the running-board. He shot up from the road as ifa steel spring had projected him.

  For one instant he hung between life and death--or, at least, seriousinjury. The speed with which the auto was going caused the lad's legs tofly out from it, as one of his hands caught the side door of the tonneau.But in a jiffy Rob's athletic training triumphed. By a supreme effort hemanaged to steady himself and secure a grip with his other hand. Then herapidly made his way forward along the running-board.

  But this move proved almost disastrous. The already panic-stricken girltook her attention from the steering-wheel for an instant. In thatmolecule of time, the auto, like a perverse live thing, got beyond hercontrol. It leaped wildly toward the sidewalk outside the Hampton candystore. A crowd of young folks--it was Saturday afternoon--had beenindulging in ice cream and other dainties, when the shouts occasioned bythe runaway machine had alarmed them.

  Instantly soda and candy counters were neglected, and a rush for thesidewalk ensued. But, as they poured out to see what was the matter, theywere faced by deadly peril.

  The auto, like a juggernaut, was careening straight at them. Its exhaustsroared like the nostrils of an excited beast.

  Young girls screamed, and boys tried to drag them out of harm's way. Buthad it not been for the fact that at that instant Rob gained the wheel,there might have been some serious accidents.

  The lad fairly wrenched it out of the hands of the girl driver, who washalf fainting at the imminence of the peril. A quick, savage twist, andthe car spun round and was on a straight course again. That danger, atleast, was over. But another, and a deadlier, threatened.

  Right ahead lay the spot where the road terminated in a long wharf, atwhich occasional steamers landed. Every second brought them closer to it.If Rob could not stop the machine before it reached the end of the wharf,it was bound to plunge over and into the sea. All this flashed throughthe boy's mind as he strove to find some means of stopping the car. Butthe auto was of a type unfamiliar to him. One experiment in checking itsmotion resulted instead in a still more furious burst of speed.

  Like objects seen in a nightmare, the stores, the white faces of thealarmed townsfolk, and the other familiar objects of the village street,streaked by in a gray blur.

  "I must stop it! I must!" breathed Rob.

  But how? Where had the manufacturer of the car concealed his emergencybrake? The lever controlling it seemed to be mysteriously out of sight.Suddenly the motion of the car changed. It no longer bumped. It ranterribly smoothly and swiftly.

  From the street it had passed out upon the even surface of the plankedwharf. Only a few seconds now in which to gain control of it!

  "The emergency brake!" shouted Rob aloud in his extremity.

  "Your foot! It works with your foot, I think!"

  The voice, faint as a whisper over a long-distance telephone, came to theears of the striving boy. It belonged to the girl beside him. Glancingdown, Rob now saw what he would have observed at first, if he had hadtime to look about him--a metal pedal projected through the floor of thecar. With an inward prayer, he jammed his foot down upon it. Would itwork?

  The end of the pier was terribly close now. The water gleamed blue andintense. It seemed awaiting the fatal plunge overboard.

  But that plunge was not taken. There was a grinding sound, like a harshpurr, the speed of the car decreased, and, finally, it came to astop--just in time.

  From the landward end of the pier a crowd came running. In front were twoor three khaki-uniformed members of the Eagle Patrol. Behind them severalof the Hawks were mingled with the crowd.

  Beyond all the confusion, Rob, as he turned his head, could see anotherautomobile coming. It had two passengers in it. As the crowd surged aboutthe boy and the g
irl, who had not yet alighted, and poured out questionsin a rapid fusillade, the second car came "honking" up.

  A murmur of "Mr. Blake" ran through the throng, as a tall, ruddy-facedman descended, followed by a military-looking gentleman, whose face wasstrongly agitated. Mr. Blake was Rob's father, and, as readers of othervolumes of this series know, the banker and scout patron of the littlecommunity. It was his car in which he had just driven up with hiscompanion.

  The latter hesitated not a moment, but in a few long strides gained theside of the car which Rob's efforts had stopped just in time.

  "Bravely done, my lad; bravely done," he cried, and then, to the girl,"good heavens, Alice, what an experience! Child, you might have beenkilled if it had not been for this lad's pluck! Mr. Blake," as the bankercame up, "I congratulate you on your son."

  "And I," rejoined the banker gravely, "feel that I am not egotistical inaccepting that congratulation. Rob, this is my friend, Major RogerDangerfield, from up the State."

  "And this," said the major, returning Rob's salutation and turning to thegirl who was clinging to him, "is my daughter, Alice, whose firstexperience with the operation of an automobile nearly came to adisastrous ending."

  Rob Blake, whose heroic action has just been described, was--as readersof The Boy Scout Series are aware--the leader of the Eagle Patrol, anorganization of patriotic, clean-lived lads, attracted by the high idealsof the Boy Scout movement.

  The patrol, while of comparatively recent organization, had been throughsome stirring adventures. In _The Boy Scouts of The Eagle Patrol_, forinstance, we read how Rob and his followers defeated the machinations ofcertain jealous and unworthy enemies. They repaid evil with good, as isthe scout way, but several despicable tricks, and worse, were played onthem. In this book was related how Joe Digby in the camp of the Eagles,was kidnaped and imprisoned on a barren island, and how smoke signalingand quick wit saved his life. The boys solved a mystery and had severalexciting trials of skill, including an aeroplane contest, which wasalmost spoiled by the trickery of their enemy, Jack Curtiss.

  In the second volume, _The Boy Scouts on the Range_, we followed ouryoung friends to the Far West. Here they distinguished themselves, andformed a mounted patrol, known as _The Ranger Patrol_. The pony ridershad some exciting incidents befall them. These included capture byhostile Indians and a queer adventure in the haunted caves, in whichTubby almost lost his life.

  In this volume, Jack Curtiss and his gang were again encountered, butalthough their trickery prevailed for a time, in the end they wererouted. A noteworthy feature of this book was the story of the career andend of Silver Tip, a giant grizzly bear of sinister reputation in thatpart of the country.

  _The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship_, brought the lads into a new andvital field of endeavor. They met an army officer, who was conductingsecret tests of an aeroplane, and were enabled to aid him in many ways.In all the thrilling situations with which this book abounds, the boysare found always living up to the scout motto of "Be prepared."

  How they checkmated the efforts of Stonington Hunt, an unscrupulousfinancier, to rob a poor boy of the fruits of his inventive genius--awork in which he was aided by his unworthy son, Freeman Hunt--must beread to be appreciated. In doing this work, however, they earned Hunt'sundying hatred, and, although they thought they were through with himwhen he slunk disgraced out of Hampton, they had not seen the last ofhim.

  As the present story progresses, we shall learn how Stonington Hunt andhis son tried to avenge themselves for their fancied wrongs at the handsof the Boy Scouts.