Of course the swamp hunter made haste to explain.
“Yuh see, suh, these is a party o’ No’the’n boys as belong to the scouts. They kim down thisaway on a matter o’ bizness, an’ wanted tuh see what a reg’lar Louisiana swamp she looked like. So I ’grees tuh pilot ’em round a bit.”
“Do you mean the Boy Scouts, Tom?” demanded the sheriff, eagerly; “because, while we ain’t got so far along down heah as to have a troop o’ the same, I know what they stand fo’, an’ I surely am glad to meet up with some o’ the lot. If so be ye come ashore, I’d like to shake hands with ye, boys.”
“And we’ll count it a great honor, Mr. Sheriff,” said Giraffe, just as quick as he could speak, and taking the words right out of Thad’s mouth as it were; but then it was an old trick with Giraffe, and one he never could be cured of.
No one offered the slightest objection to paddling close up to the land, and going ashore. Bumpus was heard to mutter something to himself, however, and might be expected to keep an anxious eye on the two hounds that were straining at their rope leashes, as though wanting to either go on, or else make a closer acquaintance with these newcomers.
So the friendly sheriff proceeded to shake hands all around.
“Even down in this neck o’ the woods we done heah more or less about what’s goin’ on all over,” he remarked, as he came to Thad, in whom he seemed to recognize the leader of the little band; “and I often thought I’d like to meet up with some o’ these heah Boy Scouts. I got the manual they drill by, an’ it meets with my unqualified approval, I wants to say right heah. I hain’t got nary a boy, but if my five gals was sech, I’d want to start a patrol right away in my town. An’ meetin’ you chaps thisaway gets me more’n ever in the notion to try an’ see if we cain’t have a troop o’ our own.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Mr. Sheriff,” declared Thad; “if you’d care to take my address, and I could do anything at all to help you in the matter, you can depend upon it I will. You’re in something of a hurry just now, but perhaps later on we may happen to meet again when things are a little more quiet; and I’d like to tell you dozens of things that have happened to the Silver Fox Patrol, that you’d like to hear; and also what a big difference it’s made with some of our members.”
“That’s sure kind of you, my boy,” said the sheriff, while the crowd listened eagerly to all that was being said, and some of the younger elements began poking each other in the ribs, as though they saw good times coming should the officer ever put his contemplated plan into operation; for things must have been pretty dull for boys down in that region so far removed from the hurly burly of metropolitan life. “I hope now I’ll meet up with that chant, beca’se there’s a heap o’ things I’d like to ask you. But jest as you say, I’m up to my ears in business right now, and it wouldn’t be just the thing to pull up before this old swamp has been run over east and west, no’th and south, with a fine-tooth comb, till we gits every law-breaker it hides, or else chases ’em into the open, where they’ll be easy to corral.”
“Tom Smith has been telling us considerable about the way this place has been used for years and years to hide runaway slaves, escaped convicts from the camps, and all sorts of bad men; and it’ll be a blessing to the whole community, sir, if you succeed in exterminating the vicious breed,” said Smithy, assuming his most important air.