Woodcraft; Or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good

by Captain Alan Douglas

Dolph had come back into the cabin. He appeared to be listening from time to time, as though a little anxious himself concerning the nature of that strange call for assistance; for all he had pretended to treat it so lightly when his allies were present.

Dolph had dropped down upon a block of wood, and was examining something which he had taken from his pocket. Elmer was not able to get a good look at this article, but, knowing the desperate character of the man who sat there, and how he had now burned his bridges behind him when he kidnaped the child of the woman he had married and tortured, the boy could easily guess its nature.

It was what Lil Artha would call a "gun," otherwise a revolver of the bulldog type, dangerous enough in the hands of a reckless scoundrel who feared arrest.

Elmer was conscious of a new little thrill, but he mentally scorned the thought of this being any indication of fear. Indeed, to thoroughly disprove such a silly thing he even increased the pace with which he was creeping across the earthen floor of the cabin.

Dolph still sat there, his head bent low over the tool he was fondling, as he listened for any change in the cries from outside. If he would only kindly continue to hold that attitude for another full minute, Elmer believed he might be in a position to make an aggressive move.

Just then the scout leader became aware of something that gave him a momentary spasm of acute alarm. Ruth no longer had her face buried in her dress. Something had caused her to stop her silent weeping, and look up. Perhaps she, too, had been attracted by those wails for help which the Boy Scout fox was using as a means for "tolling" the two dangerous tramps away from the cabin.

But in raising her head Ruth had been made aware of some strange movement back of the bent-over figure of her stepfather. She was now staring with round-eyed wonder at the string of crawling figures that extended from the rear wall of the cabin.

Elmer raised his hand, and held up a warning finger. He hoped by this means to convince the girl that they were friends, and nothing was to be feared. But he also hoped that Matt Tubbs, whom he knew to be close at his side, might be doing something of the same kind; and that little Ruth would recognize her cousin.

Whether the child could have given utterance to some low bubbling cry of fear or joy, which reached the ears of the man, or he just happened to look up, and noticed how she was staring past him, no one ever knew.

Elmer became suddenly aware that Dolph had whirled around on his stool, and was looking in sheer amazement at the peculiar spectacle of eight figures worming their way across the earthen floor of the bunk-house and headed straight for the spot where he himself was seated.