CHAPTER XVI
THE PUP-SEAL’S CREEK
The music of “Taps” was eclipsed by the blither music of “Reveille,” the morning blast blown by Leon standing in front of the white tents, the sands beneath his feet jeweled by the early sunshine, the blue ribbon attached to his bugle flirting with the breeze that capered among the plumy hillocks.
The tide which had ebbed and flowed again since midnight—when the last excited scout had fallen asleep lulled by its full purr—broke high upon the beach, where the white sands gleamed through its translucent flood like milk in a crystal vase.
Far away in dim distance, higher up the tidal river upon its other side, beyond the plains of water, the woods which enclosed Varney’s Paintpot and the cave called the Bear’s Den smiled remotely through a pearly veil of haze.
And all the waking glee of tide, dunes, and woods was personified in the boy bugler’s face.
The sight of him as he stood there, face to the tents where his comrades scrambled up from cot or ground, his brown eyes snapping and flashing under the scout’s broad hat, with the delight of having found an absorbing interest which stimulated and turned to good account every budding activity within him—that sight would have made the veriest old Seek-sorrow among men take heart and feel that a new era of chivalry was in flower among the Scouts of the U.S.A.