Boy Scouts in Mexico
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G. Harvey Ralphson >> Boy Scouts in Mexico
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12 BOY SCOUTS IN MEXICO Or On Guard with Uncle Sam
By: Scout Master, G. Harvey Ralphson
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Planning a Vacation
II. A Member of the Wolf Patrol
III. The Wolf Advises Flight
IV. The Wolf Talks in Code
V. The Wolf in the Bear's Bed
VI. Two Black Bears in Trouble
VII. Signals on the Mountain
VIII. A Strange Disappearance
IX. About the Third Suspect
X. The Wolf Meets a Panther
XI. Black Bear and Diplomat
XII. Wolf and Panther after Bear
XIII. Captured the Wrong Boy
XIV. The Case is Well Stated
XV. Accusing Each Other
XVI. Wolves on the Mountain
XVII. Plenty of Black Bears
XVIII. Fremont and the Renegade
XIX. What was Found Underground
XX. Black Bears to the Rescue
XXI. Wolves Becoming Dangerous
XXII. The Call in the Rain
XXIII. Some Unexpected Arrivals
XXIV. The Story of the Crime
XXV. Ready for the Canal Zone
DEDICATION.
This book is dedicated to the Boys and Girls of America, in the
fond hope that herein they will find pleasure, instruction and
inspiration; that they may increase and grow in usefulness,
self-reliance, patriotism and unselfishness, and ever become
fonder and fonder of their country and its institutions, of
Nature and her ways, is the cherished hope and wish of the author.
G. Harvey Ralphson, Scout Master
BOY SCOUTS IN MEXICO; OR, ON GUARD WITH UNCLE SAM.
CHAPTER I.
PLANNING A VACATION.
"After all, it is what's in a fellow's head, and not what's
in his pocket, that counts in the long run."
"That's true enough! At least it proved so in our case.
That time in the South we had nothing worth mentioning
in our pockets, and yet we had the time of our lives."
"I don't think you ever told us about that."
"That was the time we went broke at Nashville, Tennessee.
We missed our checks, in some unaccountable way, yet we
had our heads with us, and we rode the Cumberland and Ohio
rivers down to the Mississippi at Cairo, in a houseboat of
our own construction."
The speaker, George Fremont, a slender boy of seventeen,
with spirited black eyes and a resolute face, sat back
in his chair and laughed at the memory of that impecunious
time, while the others gathered closer about him.
Fremont was ostensibly in the employ of James Cameron, the
wealthy speculator, but was regarded by that worthy gentleman
as an adopted son rather than merely as a worker in his office
force. Seven years before, Mr. Cameron had become interested
in the bright-faced newsboy, and had taken him into his own
home, where he had since been treated as a member of the family.
"Went broke in the South, did you?" asked one of the group
gathered before an open grate fire in the luxuriously furnished
clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, in the upper portion of a
handsome uptown residence, in the city of New York. "Go on and
tell us about it! What's the matter with the Tennessee river,
or the Rio Grande?"
"If you had no money, how did you get your houseboat?" asked
another member of the group. "Houseboats don't grow on bushes
down there, do they?"
"Oh, we had a little money," George Fremont replied, "but not
enough to take us to Chicago in Pullman coaches. The joint
purse was somewhere about $10. We built the houseboat ourselves,
of course."
"Must have been a strange experience, going broke like that!"
one of the others said. "Hurry up and tell us about it! I
believe it does a fellow good, once in a while, to get where
he's got to hustle for himself or go hungry!" he added,
glancing at the others for appreciation of the sentiment.
"I suppose it does seem funny for some other fellow to be broke
in a desolate land," said another voice, "but it isn't so funny
right there on the spot. Little Old New York looked a long way
off when we were in Nashville!"
The speaker, a boy of sixteen, short, and heavily built, left a
window from which he had been looking out on a wild March night
and joined the group before the fire. This was Frank Shaw,
familiarly known to his friends of the Black Bear Patrol, Boy
Scouts of America, as "Fatty" Shaw. He was the only son of a
wealthy newspaper owner of the big city, and in training to
succeed his father in the editorial chair.
"So, 'Fatty' was there!" exclaimed one of the group. "How did
you ever get him into a houseboat? Must have been a big one!"
"Yes, Frank was there," Fremont replied, with a friendly glance at
young Shaw. "His father sent him along to report the expedition."
"I haven't seen any book about it!" broke in another.
"Frank wrote four postal cards and nine letters," laughed Fremont.
"The cards were descriptive of the scenery, and the letters asked
for more money."
"Why can't we get up a trip down the Rio Grande this spring?" was
asked. "The soldiers are on the border, and it would be sporty.
We can stand guard with Uncle Sam."
"I want to know how Fremont got his houseboat," said one of the
lads. "Perhaps we can get one in the same way. It would be fun
to build a boat. Anyhow, I'm for the Rio Grande trip this spring.
It would be glorious."
"We might build the boat up in New Mexico," said the other, "and
drop down to the Gulf. That is, I guess we could. The Rio Grande
is shallow, and large boats run only a short distance up the river,
but we might make it with a small one."
"Let Fremont tell how he built his boat and got his provisions."
"Well," Fremont began, "we were standing on the high bridge at
Nashville, one day, when Frank Shaw brought out the brilliant
thought. He was doing a thinking part just then, for there
was a fine chance of our getting good and hungry before our checks
got to us."
"Then he was thinking, all right!" a boy laughed.
"Frank explained," George continued, "that the Cumberland river
had been placed in the scenery for the sole purpose of providing
transportation for us to the Mississippi. Then he went on and
told how we could build a flat-boat with a cabin on it and beat
the railroads out of our fare to Cairo. So we counted our money,
right there, on the bridge, and started for a lumber yard."
"It was a sporty notion, all right! Just you wait until we get
a houseboat into the dirty waters of the Rio Grande!"
"When we got the lumber, we all turned to and built the boat.
We didn't know much about boat-building, but we used what few
brains we had and got the boards together in pretty good shape,
considering. Boy Scouts can do almost anything now, since
they're learning how to help themselves. There isn't a boy in
the room who can't build a fire with sticks and cook a good meal
on it. Also, we'll show, directly, that we can build a houseboat
on the Rio Grande."
"If we are as slow at building the boat as we are in getting this
story out of you, we won't get started toward the Gulf of Mexico
until cold weather next fall."
"We bought two pine planks sixteen feet long," Fremont went on,
with a smile at the impatience of the boys, "a foot wide, and two
inches thick. We sloped the end so the boat would be scow-shaped,
and bought matched flooring for the bottom. We put tar into all
the seams, joints and grooves to keep the water out. Then we
bought half-inch boards and built a cabin at the back end. That
never leaked, either. The boat was sixteen feet long and six feet
wide, and the bulliest craft that ever went anywhere. When we
got to Cairo we sold it for $6, and that helped some."
"Tell us about your eatings. We'll have to cook when we get down
to the Rio Grande. Where did you get your cook stove?"
"We nailed a piece of sheet-iron on the prowboard," laughed Fremont,
"and put the bottom section of an old-fashioned coal stove on that.
The hole where the magazine used to fit in made a place for the
frying pan, and the open doors in front, where the ashpan used
to be, took in the wood we collected along the river. Cook! We
could cook anything there."
"What about the sleepings?" was asked.
"That was easy. We bought an old bedtick and stuffed it with corn
husks, then a pair of back-number bed-springs, which we put on the
floor of the cabin. Sleep! We used to tie up nights and sleep
from nine o'clock until sunrise.
"With the money we had left we bought bacon, eggs, corn-meal, flour,
butter and coffee. There wasn't much of it, because we had little
money left, but we thought we might get fish on the way down. We
never got one. They wouldn't bite. Still, we had all we needed to
eat, and found our checks at Cairo. It took us eight days to float
to the Mississippi. We were told at Nashville that we would spill
out on the rapids, that river pirates would rob us, and that the
big boats would run us down or tip us over, but we never had any
trouble at all. We'll know better than to listen to such talk when
we set afloat on the Rio Grande this spring."
"It was better than walking," said Frank.
"Frank was frisky as a young colt all the way down," Fremont added.
"There are little trading places all along the river banks, kept
mostly by farmers. When you want to buy anything you ring a bell
left in view for that purpose, and the proprietor comes out of the
field and waits on you. Frank wanted a record of being the prize
bell-ringer, and once he got to the boat just a quarter of an inch
ahead of a bulldog with red eyes and bowlegs.
"He holds the world's record for speed," Fremont continued, with a
friendly glance at Frank. "The faster he runs the whiter he gets,
through fear, and he left white streaks behind him all along the
Cumberland river. Now, how many of you boys are ready for a trip
down the Rio Grande, and, possibly, over into Mexico?"
Every boy in the room shouted approval of the plan, and Frank said
he would go as war correspondent.
"It will be exciting, with the soldiers on the border," Frank said,
"and I may make a hit as special news writer."
All was now excitement in the room, the story of the trip down to
the Mississippi having stirred the lads' love of out-of-door adventure
to the sizzling point. They capered about the handsome room in a most
undignified manner, and counted the days that would elapse before they
could be on their way.
The club-room was in the residence of Henry Bosworth, whose son, Jack,
was one of the liveliest members of the Black Bear Patrol. The walls
of the apartment were hung with guns, paddles, bows, arrows, foils,
boxing-gloves, and such trophies as the members of the patrol had
been able to bring from field and forest. Above the door was a red
shield, nearly a yard in diameter, from the raised center of which a
Black Bear pointed an inquisitive nose. The boys were all proud of
their black bear badge, especially as no Boy Scout patrol was so well
known in New York for the character and athletic standing of its members.
On this stormy March night-one long to be remembered by every member
of the party--there were only five members of the Black Bear Patrol
present. These were Harry Stevens, son of a manufacturer of automobiles;
Glen Howard, son of a well-known board of trade man; Jack Bosworth, son
of a leading attorney; George Fremont, adopted son of James Cameron; and
Frank Shaw, son of a newspaper owner.
They had been planning a trip to the South all winter, and now, as has
been said, the mention of the journey down the Cumberland and Ohio rivers
to the Mississippi had so fired their enthusiasm for the great out-of-doors
that they were ready to start at short notice. They took down maps and
hunted up books descriptive of Mexico, and so busied themselves with the
details of the proposed trip that it was after eleven when their minds
came back to the common things of life.
"Well," Harry Stevens said, then, "I've got to go home, but I'll be here
to-morrow night to talk it over. As Glen says, the Rio Grande del Norte
is a funny kind of a stream, like all the waterways in that section of the
country, bottom full of sand, and all that, but I presume we can float a
houseboat on it."
"Of course we can," Glen put in. "It doesn't take much water to run a
houseboat. If we get stuck, you can wire your father to send a motor car
down after us."
"He would do it, all right," replied Harry. "We'll take an auto trip
across the continent, some day. Good night, fellows."
"I must go right now," George Fremont said. "Mr. Cameron is at the
office, working over the Tolford estate papers, and he asked me to call
at the rooms and go home with him. He's always nervous when working
over that case. The heirs are troublesome, and threatening, I guess."
Frank Shaw walked with George to the nearest corner, where the latter
decided to wait for a taxicab. The night had cleared, but the wind
off the Bay was still strong and cold.
"I've a notion to ride down to the office with you," Frank said, as
they waited. "You could leave me at home on the way up."
"I wish you would," Fremont said. "Skyscrapers are uncanny after
dark, and the elevator will not be running. Mr. Cameron will be
glad to see you. Come on!"
Frank hesitated a minute, and then decided to go on home, so the
boys shook hands and parted for the night. Many and many a time
after that night they both had good cause to remember how different
the immediate future of one of their number would have been had
Frank obeyed his first impulse and gone to the Cameron building
with his friend.
When, at last, Fremont was whirled up to the front of the Cameron
building he saw that there were lights in the Cameron suite.
Believing that his benefactor would be there at his work, Fremont
let himself in at the big door with a key and started up the long
climb to the sixth floor.
The vacant corridors, as he passed them one by one, seemed to him
to be strangely still. Even the people employed at night to clean
the halls and offices were not in sight. The boy started suddenly
half a dozen times on the way up, started involuntarily, as if some
uncanny thing were spying out upon him from the shadows.
Then he came to the Cameron suite and thrust his key into the lock
of the door. He had been told that he would find the door locked
from the inside. Then, his premonition of approaching evil by no
means cast aside, he pushed the door open and looked in upon a
sight he was by no means prepared to see.
CHAPTER II.
A MEMBER OF THE WOLF PATROL.
When Fremont opened the door of the Cameron suite, facing the
Great White Way, he saw that the room before him was dark and
in disorder. The place was dimly illuminated from the
high-lights on Broadway, and the noises of the street came
stridently up, still, there seemed to the boy to be a shadowy
and brooding hush over the place.
Remembering his subconscious impressions of some indefinable evil
at hand, the boy shivered with a strange dread as he switched on
the electrics, half afraid of what they might reveal. Why was
the room so dark and silent? The lights had been burning when
he looked up from below, and he had not met Mr. Cameron on his
way up. Where was the man he had come to meet? What evil had
befallen him?
At the left of the apartment, from which two others opened, to
right and left, was a small safe, used privately by Mr. Cameron.
Its usual place was against the wall, but it had been wheeled
about so that it fronted the windows. The door was open, and,
although no violence seemed to have been used, Fremont saw that
the interior was in a mess, papers and books being scattered
about in confusion.
At the right of the room, and near the doorway opening into the
north room, stood a large flat-topped desk, most of the drawers
of which were now open. One of the drawers lay on its side on
the floor, and was empty. The articles on the desk's top gave
evidence of rough handling. Papers appeared to be dripping
from filecases, and a black pool of ink lay on the shining
surface of the desk.
A swivel-chair which had stood in front of the desk was
overturned, and its back now rested on the rug while its
polished castors stuck up in the air. At first glance,
there seemed to be no human being in the suite save the
frightened boy.
With his mind filled with thoughts of robbery, George was
about to rush out into the corridor and summon assistance,
when a slight sound coming from the north room attracted his
attention. He hastened thither, and was soon bending over
an office couch upon which lay a still figure.
There was no longer doubt in the mind of the boy as to what
had taken place there. Mr. Cameron had been attacked and
the suite ransacked. The boy recalled the fact that the
rooms had been lighted from within when he stood on the
pavement, and wondered if it would not be possible, by
acting promptly, to capture the assassin, as he must still
be in the building, possibly hiding in some of the dark corners.
First, however, it was necessary that the injured man should
receive medical help. Fremont saw a wound on the head,
probably dealt with some blunt instrument, and then moved
toward the telephone in the outer room. As he did so the
corridor door was opened and a boy of perhaps fifteen years
looked in. When the intruder saw that Fremont was observing
him, he advanced to the connecting doorway.
For quite a minute the boys, standing within a yard of each
other, remained silent. Fremont would have spoken, but the
accusing look on the face of the other stopped him. The
intruder glanced keenly about the two rooms which lay under
his gaze and finally rested on the figure on the leather
office couch. Then, while Fremont watched him curiously,
he went back to the corridor door and stood against it.
"You've got your nerve!" he said, then. "You're nervy, but
you ain't got good sense, doin' a think like that with the
shades up, the lights on, an' the door unlocked. What did
you go an' do it for?"
The sinister meaning of the words took form in the mind of
the boy instantly. For the first time he realized that he
would be accused of the crime, and that circumstances would
be against him. If Mr. Cameron should never recover
sufficiently to give a true account of what had taken place,
he would be arrested and locked up as the guilty one.
If his benefactor should die without regaining consciousness,
he might even be sent to the electric chair, and always his
name would be mentioned with horror. While these thoughts
were passing through the dazed mind of the boy, there came,
also, the keen regret that Frank Shaw had not accompanied
him to the building. That would have changed everything--just
one witness.
"What did you go an' do it for?" repeated the intruder. "What
had Mr. Cameron ever done to you?"
"You think I did it?" said Fremont, as cooly as his excitement
would permit of. "You think I struck Mr. Cameron and robbed
the office?"
"What about all this?" asked the boy, swinging a hand over the
littered rooms, "and the man on the couch?" he added. "Who did
it if you didn't?"
"I understand that circumstances are against me," Fremont said,
presently. "It looks bad for me, but I didn't do it. I came
here to accompany Mr. Cameron home, and found everything just
as you see it now."
A smile of disbelief flitted over the other's face, but he did
not speak.
"I hadn't been in here half a minute when you came in," Fremont
went on. "I had just switched on the lights when I heard a noise
in here and there Mr. Cameron lay. I was going to the 'phone
when you entered."
"Tell it to the judge," the other said, grimly.
Fremont dropped into a chair and put a hand to his head. Of
course. There would be a judge, and a jury, and a crowded
court room, and columns in the newspapers. He had read of such
cases, and knew how reporters convicted the accused in advance of
action by the courts.
"Where did you get that badge?" the intruder demanded, stepping
forward as Fremont lifted his arm. "The arrow-head badge with
the lettered scroll, I mean."
"I earned it," replied Fremont, covering the scroll with one hand.
"Can you tell me," he continued, "what the letters on the scroll say?"
"Be prepared," was the reply.
"Be prepared for what?"
"To do your duty, and to face danger in order to help others."
"What is the name of your patrol?"
"The Wolf. And your's is the Black Bear. I've heard a lot
about the boys of that patrol, a lot that was good."
"And never anything that was bad?"
"Not a thing."
"Well then" said Fremont, extending his hand, which the other
hastened to take, "you've got to help me now. You've got to
stand by me. It is your duty."
"If you belong to the Black Bear Patrol," began the boy, "and
have all the fine things you want--as the members of that patrol
do--what did you want to go an' do this thing for? What's your name?"
"George Fremont. What is yours?"
"Jimmie McGraw," was the reply. "I'm second assistant to the
private secretary to the woman who scrubs here nights. She'll
be docking me if I don't get busy," he added, with a mischievous
twinkle in his keen gray eyes. "Or, worse, she'll be comin'
in here an' findin' out what's goin' on."
"Why didn't one of you come in here before I got to the top of
the stairs?" asked Fremont, illogically. "Why did you just
happen in here in time to accuse me of doing this thing?"
"I was just beginnin' on this floor," the boy replied. "I wish now
that I hadn't come in here at all. You know what I've got to do?"
"You mean call the police?" asked Fremont.
"That's what I've got to do."
"I didn't do it. I wasn't here when it was done," exclaimed Fremont.
"You've got to listen to me. You've got to listen to me, and believe
what I say. It is your duty to do so."
"What did you want to go and be a Boy Scout an' do such a thing for?"
demanded the boy. "Boy Scouts don't protect robbers, or murderers.
You know I've got to go an' call the police. There ain't nothin'
else I can do."
"If you call the police now," Fremont urged, "you'll rob me of every
chance to prove that I am innocent. They will lock me up in the
Tombs and I'll have no show at all. Mrs. Cameron will believe that
I did it, and won't come near me. If he dies I'll be sent to the
electric chair--and you'll be my murderer."
"What am I goin' to do, then?" demanded Jimmie. "I can't go out
of the room and testify that I know nothing about it when the police
do come. I can't do that for you, even if you do belong to the Black
Bear Patrol. I wish I'd never come here to-night. I wish I'd never
worked for the scrubwoman."
"To face danger in order to help others," Fremont repeated, significantly.
"Oh, I know--I know," said Jimmie, flinging his arms out in a gesture
of despair. "I've heard that before, but what am I to do?"
"Who's your patrol leader?" asked Fremont. "Go and ask him, or the
scoutmaster. One of them ought to be able to tell you what you ought
to do."
"And you'll take to your legs while I'm gone " replied Jimmie, with
a grin. "Good idea that. For you."
"Here," said Fremont, tossing out his key to the door, "go on away
and lock me in. I couldn't get away if I wanted to, and I give you
my honor that I won't try. Go and find some one you can talk this
thing over with."
Jimmie's eyes brightened with sudden recollection of his patrol
leader's love for mysterious cases--his great liking for detective work.
"Say," he said, presently, "I'll go an' bring Ned Nestor. He's my
patrol leader, and the bulliest boy in New York. He'll know what to
do. I'll bet he'll come here when he knows what the trouble is.
And I'll do just as he says."
Jimmie turned toward the door, fingering the key, his eyes blinking
rapidly, then he turned and faced Fremont.
"If Ned Nestor tells me it ain't no use," he said, slowly, reluctantly,
"I'll have to bring the police. I'll have to do it anyway, if he tells me to."
"You'll find me here, whoever you bring," Fremont replied. "I won't run
away. What would be the use of that? They'd find me and bring me back.
Go on out and bring in anyone you want to. I guess I'll never make the
trip to the Rio Grande we were planning to-night--just before I came here."
"The Black Bears?" asked Jimmie. "Were they planning a trip to the
Rio Grande?"
Fremont nodded and pointed toward the door.
"Anyway," he said, "you can get me out of this suspense. You can let me
know, if you want to, whether I am going to the Rio Grande or to the Tombs."
"Jere! What a trip that would be."
Without waiting for any further words, Jimmie darted out of the door
and then his steps were heard on the staircase. Fremont had never
in all his life had a key turned on him before. He threw himself
into a chair, then, realizing how selfish he was, he hastened to
the north room and again bent over the injured man.
There appeared to be little change in Mr. Cameron's condition. He
moved restlessly at intervals. Fremont brought water and used it
freely, but its application did not produce any immediate effect.
Realizing that a surgeon should be summoned at once, the boy moved
toward the telephone.
However, he found himself unable to bring himself to the point of
communicating with the surgeon he had in mind. Questions would be
asked, and he would be suspected, and the intervention of the Boy
Scouts could do him no good. He understood now that his every hope
for the future centered in the little lad who was hurrying through
the night in quest of Ned Nestor, his patrol leader. If these boys
of the Wolf Patrol should decide against him, and the injured man
should not recover, there was the end of life and of hope. And only
an hour ago he had planned the wonderful excursion down the Rio Grande.
That time seemed farther away to him now than the birth of Adam.
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