The Boy Scouts of the Naval Reserve

BY SCOUT MASTER ROBERT SHALER
AUTHOR OF “THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS,” “THE BOY SCOUTS OF PIONEER CAMP,” “THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,” “THE BOY SCOUTS ON PICKET DUTY,” ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1914, BY HURST & COMPANY
“ How-oo-ooo! ”
This weird sound, supposed to be very much like the mournful howl of the timber wolf heard on a wintry night in the wilderness, caused the boy on the bicycle to laugh softly to himself as he looked up.
After running an errand for his mother to one of the farmers’ wives, he had been pedaling carelessly along up the dusty road.
A couple of fellows of about his own age, one of whom was inclined to be rather stout, were coming along a side road, making frantic motions for him to wait until they arrived; the boy chuckled again.
“Seems like Billy is getting that signal cry of the Wolf Patrol down pretty pat,” he told himself, as he dropped off his wheel at the junction of the two roads to await the arrival of his friends, both of whom wore the well-known khaki uniforms of the scouts, just as the lone rider did.
A minute later and they, too, dismounted, one gracefully, and the other with the awkwardness that usually accompanies the heavy-weight boy. Both of them were apparently pleased at having run across their comrade at just that particular time.
“Hello! Hugh!” called out the stout boy, “we stopped in at your house, and they told us you’d gone out to Farmer Benton’s on an errand for your mother. So Arthur said we might run across you heading for home, which we sure have done.”
“That’s right, Chief,” added the more slender lad who had been called Arthur. “We want you to come along with us and pass judgment on my contraption of a wireless outfit that I’ve rigged out up on Cedar Hill. I finished the work yesterday morning, and meant to get some of you fellows up there in the afternoon, but things kept on happening over at our house one after the other, till it was too late to bother. You’ll go along, I hope, Chief?”