“Zing-a-zing! Bom! Bom!” roared the Wolves as they hit the table with each “Bom! Bom!”
With this came another song of defiance that all had been shouting for days.
“He’s a Coyote! He’s a Coyote!” Connie would yell.
“Yes! he’s better’n that; he’s a hippo-hippo-hippopotamus!” came the chorus.
That afternoon the routine of a regular Boy Scout camp began. In full it ran in this way: 6.30 A. M., turn out, air bedding, coffee and crackers; 7 to 7.30 A. M., parade for exercise and instruction; 7.30 A. M., clean up tents and wash; 8 A. M., breakfast; 9 A. M., scouting practice; 11 A. M., crackers and milk; 11 A. M. to 1.30 P. M., scouting games; 1.30 P. M., dinner; 2 to 3 P. M., compulsory rest, no movement or talking in camp; 3 to 5.30 P. M., scouting games; 5.30 P. M., tea; 6 to 7.30 P. M., recreation and camp games; 7.30 to 9 P. M., camp fire or 8 to 11 P. M., night practice; 9 P. M., crackers and milk and turn in; 9.30 P. M., lights out.
This program was interrupted Friday afternoon when Connie selected the team of ten for the next day’s struggle. Then, in a body, with a chart of the “hide out” territory, the Wolves spent three hours in a careful survey of the scene of the coming conflict. Nothing was to be left to chance. Using their best skill and all their ingenuity the older boys selected each of the ten hiding places. And they were scattered from one end of the district to the other.
One boy was shown how to curl himself up on the top platform of a windmill. Colly Craighead was to hurry to the Little Green River Bridge and secrete himself on the lower crossbeams over the water. Willie Bonner suggested the clever scheme of dressing himself in a scarecrow’s ragged garments, but this had to be vetoed on the ground that it was a disguise. Two boys were assigned to heavily foliaged trees; one to a deep hole in a gravel pit; one to a hollow tree and one to the sewer pipes making a road culvert.
These “hide outs” took care of Wart Ware, Sammy Addington, Phil Abercrombie, Lew Ashwood, Colly Craighead, Paul Corbett and Davy Cooke. The other boys of the ten selected, Leader Conyers, Art and Willie Bonner, undertook to shift for themselves. Connie on the theory that the pursuers would, in the main, hurry at once to the far limits of the “hide out” territory, meant to stick closer to the camp until the rush was over and then sneak home.
Art planned to use his legs to reach Bradner’s mill before the Coyotes took the field and to hide in the stream which, above the bridge, was wide and from six to ten feet deep. Bonner was to go with him but the young aviator was to make a bluff at hiding.
Under pretense of dodging the Coyotes, Bonner was to remain always within hail of Art. On the approach of any Coyote to the river bank Bonner would give the Wolf signal and Art would disappear under the water. To make this possible Art was to push ahead of himself all the time a heavy bit of driftwood. His body wholly under the water, he would raise his mouth and nose on the far side of the driftwood to breathe and either tread water or float idly until danger had passed.