“Ye-es,” fibbed Blue Heron, spreading her dainty nostrils toward the broad sandy acres of up-hill and down-hill which separated the trio from the camp fire—that was later to be a Council Fire—on the beach.
“Bacon!” The victim stirred; a hungry shudder shook him that gave way to a renewed shiver of despair; he stretched out an arm to recover his book.
“No, you sha’n’t have it! You’re not going to die and leave your ‘busted mandolin.’... He! He! He! Hi!” Penelope’s giggle rang out shrilly. “How long is it since you swallowed the poison? You haven’t told yet how you came to take it!”
“I’ll tell you,” struck in another voice. A manly-looking Boy Scout appeared suddenly from behind the basswood, his broad hat pushed back from a haggard face. “I went off to get help for him,” he explained. “I saw some camps, but they were a good way off. I thought I’d come back and haul him over there, where I could give him an antidote, you know, whites of eggs or salt an’ water—or something somebody would let me have.”
“We have got all those things at our camp,” suggested Olive eagerly.
“You see, I don’t know how much he really is poisoned.” This older Scout looked down upon the fat victim. “It all happened this way: We’re camping with a whole lot of other Scouts in that Boy Scout camp among the dunes on the opposite side of the river. Well! to-day our Scoutmaster said that Fatty an’ I might take the rowboat—we call him that—his name is Tommy Orr——”
“Most times they call me the Astronomer, because they say I’m always looking up,” mildly interjected the poisoned one.
“So you are; fat boys who have short necks mostly do; they can’t look at you straight!” threw in Penelope.
“Ha! Indeed! Is that so?” The victim straightened himself more than he had done yet, to glare at her sarcastically, then collapsed into a huddle again. “Well, go on, Kenjo, tell them about the dead chewink with the blackberry in its beak,” he sighed. “We call him Kenjo Red,” with a fat wave of the hand toward his brother Scout, “because we don’t need a fire in camp while we have his head.”
The newcomer, whose scalp-locks escaping from under his broad hat were indeed of the firiest hue, only smiled in a tired way and hastily took up the tale of woe where he dropped it.