For some reason all of them were feeling more or less interest in the man who walked with a cane. Perhaps this arose from the fact that of late they had become enthusiastic over everything connected with woodcraft. And the fact that Mr. Henderson was acquainted with a thousand secrets about the interesting things to be discovered in the Great Outdoors appealed strongly to them.
“These are my chums, Mr. Henderson,” said Tom, when the others came up; and as the name of each one was mentioned the hermit of Bear Mountain grasped his hand, giving a squeeze that made some of the boys wince.
“I’m glad to meet you all,” he said, heartily. “It was worth being attacked by that lot of rowdies just to get acquainted with such a fine lot of boys. And I want to say that you gave them all the punishment they deserved. I counted hits until I lost all track of the number.”
“Yes,” said Felix, with a grin on his freckled face; “they’re rubbing many a sore spot right now, I reckon. Josh here, who’s our star pitcher on the nine, never wasted a single ball. And I could hear the same fairly whistle through the air.”
“Gosh all hemlock! Felix,” objected the boy mentioned, “you’re stretching things pretty wide, aren’t you? Now I guess the rest of you did your share in the good work, just as much as I.”
“All the same I’m thankful for your coming to my assistance,” said Mr. Henderson. “My rheumatism kept me from being as spry in dodging their cannonade as I might have been some years ago. And one ball that broke against that tree had a stone inside it, I’m sorry to say. We would have called that unsportsmanlike in my young days.”
“Only the meanest kind of a fellow would descend to such a trick!” exclaimed the indignant Josh; “but then Tony Pollock and his crowd are ready to do anything low-down and crooked. They’ll never be able to join our scout troop, after we get it started.”
“What’s that you are saying?” asked the old man, showing sudden interest.
“Why, you see, sir,” explained Josh, always ready to do his share of talking if given half a chance, “our chum here, Tom Chesney, was visiting his cousins over in Freeport, and got interested in their scout troop. So we’ve taken the thing up, and expect to start the ball rolling right away.”
“It happens,” Tom went on, “that there is a young man in town who once served as scout master in a troop, and I’ve just had him promise to come around to-night and tell us what we’ve got to do to get the necessary charter from scout headquarters.”