Of course the talk was pretty much all upon the subject of rescuing persons who were in danger of being drowned; and also of resuscitating those who had been pulled out of the water apparently far gone.
Thad, as usual, did not let the chance slip to deliver a few telling remarks connected with a knowledge of certain kinds which all scouts are required to attain before they can become shining lights in the profession, or hope to rise to the position of second or first class scouts.
“If there’s one splendid thing this scout business has done for boys above another,” he went on to say, as they sat around the fire, “I think it is the fact that every tenderfoot has to learn how to swim during his first season in camp. How many thousands of lives might have been saved in the past if all boys over eight years of age had been taught how to keep themselves afloat in the water. If the movement had never done a single thing more than that it would deserve to be reckoned the finest thing that ever happened for American youth.”
“Yes,” Giraffe went on to add, “and think how many a fellow has been saved from drowning, just as little Johnny here was, first by being taken from the water, and then in having the spark of life coaxed back. You worked that as fine as anything I ever saw, Allan, and the rest of you. Thad and me felt so shivery cold I’m afraid we couldn’t have done it alone by ourselves. A whole lot of the credit goes to the rest of you, and we want you to know that. It was a patrol rescue, and something the boys of the Silver Fox can be proud of always.”
That was just like Giraffe, who could be one of the most generous-hearted fellows ever known when he wanted to. That he felt considerable remorse because of his reckless way of sending poor Bumpus into that field with the angry mother cow had been patent to Thad early that morning, when he saw Giraffe asking Bumpus to lean on him, after the stout scout had mentioned the fact that he was feeling somewhat stiff following his unusual exertions of the previous day.
“According to my notion,” Step Hen broke in with, “no boy should ever be allowed to go out in a boat on the water unless he knows how to swim.”
“I agree with you there, Step Hen,” the patrol leader added; “and yet how often you see boys taking the greatest kind of chances, when if an upset comes along they’re as helpless as babies. That mother has learned a lesson; and chances are Johnny never goes in a boat again till he can swim like a fish.”
“But boys are not the only ones who take such chances,” Allan argued; “why, in the days gone by when nearly all ships were sailing vessels, and not steamers, it wasn’t a strange thing to find dozens of old jack tars who had spent their whole lives at sea, and yet never swam a stroke. It seems queer, and hard to believe, but I’ve heard men tell that who knew.”
“Things are going to be different after this, then,” said Davy, “because every Boy Scout has got to learn how to swim, or he’ll stay a tenderfoot all his days; and no one wants to do that, you know.”
“What happened to the boat; none of you thought to rescue that at the same time?” Smithy wanted to know.