GETTING IN A RUT.
"Great news, fellows!" called Hen Condit, as he gave the salute on seeing that the assistant scout master was with the party on motorcycles.
"What's that you say, Hen?" shouted Toby, making a flying jump from his saddle that caused him to land plump on hands and knees before the road house.
"Here, hold on, what d'ye think you're doing, Toby Jones?" called Nat, who was showing a little more deliberation in dismounting. "Guess you're dreaming about aeroplanes and all such tomfoolery. Think you can fly, eh? Well, grow a pair of real wings first!"
Toby's pet hobby lay in the line of aeronautics. He was forever studying up the mysteries of bird motion, and had the records of all the leading aeroplane drivers at his finger tips, so that he could tell instantly what was the highest point as yet reached by a bird-man; the fastest flight made singly and with a passenger; the longest distance traversed without alighting, and lots of other similar facts in which the average boy might not be greatly interested.
He had several times made a gallant attempt to fly, but thus far the machines he had constructed lacked some essential quality. At any rate Toby had suffered pretty much as did the Darius Green of whom we older fellows used to read in our earlier days; and perhaps can still remember declaiming the story of a vaulting ambition that took a tumble from the old barn roof.
Elmer gained the doorway where Hen Condit, one of the later recruits in the Hickory Ridge troop, awaited him. Hen had only received his new uniform on the preceding day, and hence he felt as proud as a peacock. His chest had never before been known to have anything like the fine appearance that it now presented. And only that morning his doting father had remarked that joining the scouts had done more for the Condit son and heir than years of pleading and scolding had effected, in so far as making him stand up, and throw his shoulders back.
"Now, what's the news, Number Eight?" asked Elmer; for the boy in the doorway belonged to the Wolf Patrol, though a real tenderfoot, in that he had only qualified for the lowest rung in the ladder by learning how to tie a number of knots, learning what the requirements of a scout consist of, and similar things.
"I just had news from up the road, sir," said Hen, eagerly.
"Good news, or bad?" asked Elmer, just as if his eyes did not tell him that.