Lucky, the Boy Scout

by Elmer Sherwood

He learned to ride a horse in quick time. Red Mack felt that it was up to him to give the boy the rudiments of the rancher’s education. Ted could not have had a better teacher in the whole of western Canada.

The time passed very quickly in this way. Mrs. Dean attended to Ted’s education and each day he had to give three to four hours to study. At other times you could see him, sometimes with Smiles, sometimes with Al or Pete, but mostly with Red. Wherever he went, Wolf was at his heels. Wolf never would be a wolf, but he was growing and he was beginning to hold his own. The West seemed to be the place for him.

But if Ted spent most of his time while in action with the three men mentioned, he also liked to sit and listen to Pop, who had taken a deep interest in the boy. The cowboys had seen how much it had affected the older man when Ted came. They thought that perhaps Pop might have had a boy of that age and so it had brought memories. But they forebore to discuss or to question Pop, for, after all, it was his own affair.

There was, however, a good deal more to it than that. When Pop had heard the boy introduced as Ted Marsh, a curtain seemed to have been drawn aside—a curtain that had hidden about fourteen years of his life. And from what Pop heard of the boy’s history through Dean and as related by Ted himself, he realized that Fate had played a rather queer trick. There came a great hope to Pop, or, rather, Dick Smith, as he was known on the ranch. He dared to think that perhaps he could come through and that Ted would be the means.

For Pop, as the reader may realize, was the long lost father of Ted. He was the Bill Marsh that had disappeared and for whom Mrs. Marsh still mourned, not knowing whether he was dead or alive.

The hard times of the Marsh family, many years before, had worried Bill even more than Mrs. Marsh. A strong man, he brooded over his inability to make things go, and gradually, as he grew more and more despondent, took to drink. Then there had been a quarrel between husband and wife, and the man had felt that he was useless. Mrs. Marsh had been the one who had supported the family and this made the man morose and bitter. He left home, intent upon getting what he could not earn. He had been drinking heavily.

The only thing he remembered the next morning was that he had had a terrific fight sometime during the night. If he had not remembered it, he would have been sure to have known of it because of the condition he was in. He had been sentenced to sixty days. He knew that he must not let it be known who he was, as he did not want to disgrace his wife and daughter. It was while he was in the workhouse that he decided he would be of the greatest help to his family by dropping out altogether. He felt that his wife never could have any further use for him. So he had gone west and gradually had found things as satisfactory as anything could be under the circumstances at the Double X. He had sworn off drinking.

Now Ted, the babe that was born after he had left Chicago, was here.

He decided not to say anything, but let events develop. He must not force himself back into his family, for they seemed happy and contented as they were. But he was bound up in the boy. From him the boy also learned much. To him, also, the boy often spoke of the folks at home, because, instinctively, he felt that the man was interested.

The winter came on and Ted found many new things to interest him. There was skiing, skating, and then there would be times when, wrapped up in warm clothes, they would go off in sleighs to great distances. It was often 50 degrees below zero. Ted grew strong and Wolf especially seemed to acclimate himself.