The Boy Scouts' Victory

by George Durston

He was more attentive to his cousin than ever.

Only in the rare moments when he was alone and secure from observation did he allow himself to take off the mask of good nature and kindliness, and let those thin features of his twist into the wicked leer that well fitted them. He no longer saw himself in the part of hero. He was too eager to remove from his way the boy who stood between him and all the luxury he craved. But his common sense told him that at the present, at least, there was nothing to be done. He would have to await further developments. In the meantime he would gain his cousin’s confidence. That ought to be easy. Zaidos was the most friendly fellow he had ever seen. Velo resolved that if ever he came in for the Zaidos name and title, he would show them just how haughty and overbearing a young nobleman could be. But in the meantime, he thought it better to do as Zaidos commanded and say nothing about the family. Zaidos had elected to be known as a common soldier, and he would keep to his word. Velo realized that he himself could make no pretentions while Zaidos was about; he would not stand for that. So Velo acted in his best and oiliest manner, and waited on the nurse, and urged his services on the doctors, and wondered why they never acted at ease and friendly with him, as they all did with the laughing boy on the cot.

When they were sent ashore it dawned on Velo that now they would be separated. Zaidos would have to go to a hospital to wait for his leg to heal; but he was well, and would be set at some duty which would separate him from Zaidos. That would never do. He worried over it as they approached land, and finally took the matter to the doctor. He put the matter strongly. He had promised Zaidos’ dying father that he would not be separated from the boy. They were almost of an age, but he had always been the one to look out for Zaidos, and surely now if ever was the time to be true to his trust. He explained the manner of their enlistment, and reminded the doctor they were both listed among the drowned.

“You see I must remain near him,” he urged. “Just help me find a way.”

“The hospitals are all short handed,” mused the good-natured physician. “I think they would be glad to get you. There is lots of heavy lifting that tells on the nurses, and all that sort of thing, you know. It will be two weeks before Zaidos can be discharged. That bone is not knitting right. It was splintered, you see. I’ll do all I can for you, Velo, and I think it will work out nicely.”

So it came about that when the patients on the Red Cross ship were transferred to the land hospital within the English lines, Velo was there in full force, carrying one end of Zaidos’ stretcher. Of course it was the light end; Velo saw to that instinctively, but then it was Velo’s attention to just such little details that made life easy for him.

Zaidos soon improved so that he was allowed to hop about on crutches. The second day he used them, however, a brass pin somehow worked into the arm pad and scratched him badly before he knew that it was just where his weight would press it into his shoulder. It was very sore, and that same night, when he sat carefully on the edge of his narrow bed, waiting for Velo to come and help him undress, the bed went down and Zaidos was thrown to the floor. It hurt his leg again. Velo picked him up and was so sorry that for once Zaidos felt a twinge of remorse when he thought of the way he had guyed him.

But the nurse, who had been transferred to the land hospital also, pressed her lips tight together and thought hard. Zaidos was almost too unlucky. She took him under her own special care, although Velo protested and assured her that she must not burden herself while he was there to look out for his cousin.

“I don’t see why so many things keep happening to you,” she said to Zaidos while she dressed the place on his arm where the brass pin had made a bad sore.

“I am playing in hard luck, at that,” said Zaidos, smiling. “Every time I turn around I seem to bump myself somehow. I was on the football team, and had won my letter for running. Do you suppose I will ever get to run again?”