CHAPTER VIII
SMOKE SIGNALS ON THE MOUNTAIN
BEFORE Bill started on his trip he made up his mind that he would walk farther and do a bigger stunt than any of us. When Bill Wilson is for anything, he is for it. There is no halfway doings with him. He didn't take to the Scout business very well at first because he didn't know much about it and thought that Indians or bandits would be better. But as soon as he had joined he cared more than anybody.
Trying to do more than the other Scouts did was what got him into trouble. He started for North Adams, the same as Wallie, Benny, and myself, and he took with him a message for Mr. Jenks, as I have said. But a seven-mile walk and back again the next day was not good enough for Bill. He made up his mind that he would deliver the message first and then go on as far as Williamstown and stay all night there.
Williamstown is five or six miles west of North Adams. There is a big college there, called Williams College. I guess it was the name that made Bill think of going there.
Our valley runs north and south until it gets to North Adams and then turns west. Hoosac River turns with it. After flowing north all the time, which everybody knows is no way for a river to flow, it turns west, and so finally reaches the Hudson. Then, of course, its waters flow south in the Hudson and at last reach the Atlantic Ocean at New York.
After Bill had left Wallie the first morning of his trip, he walked along lively, knowing that he had a long way to go to Williamstown, and he did a lot of cawing on the road, just as Skinny thought. Nothing happened to him at all until he found himself almost to the Gingham Ground. Then he saw five or six members of the Gang playing ball near where he would pass.
That made him stop. Bill is brave, all right, but what is the good of being brave when they are six to your one, and the whole six have it in for you?
That is what Bill thought, anyhow, and he started to leave the road and try to work around out of sight through the woods and fields. Then he thought of something to do, which scared him at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do it.
Hoosac Valley, as I have said, swings off toward the west at North Adams. That brings Williamstown on the opposite side of Greylock from where we live.