“Not a half bad idea,” agreed Cavanaugh. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t do it, either. We’ll have to take it up with the chief on Friday and see what he says.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE LOG CABIN FUND
It was not difficult to arouse Mr. Wendell’s interest in the project. Always a firm believer in over night hikes and camping trips as the best possible means of carrying out the scouting program, he realized at once the value of such a place as this which could be made use of at all seasons of the year.
With some of the discoverers and a number of other scouts whose interest had been stirred up by the tales of that first party, he made a trip up the mountain. The cabin was viewed from every standpoint and it was unanimously decided that there were far too many attractive possibilities in the building to allow it to stand there deserted and unused. Not long afterward Mr. Wendell and two of the troop committee visited the owner of the land—old Morford, the builder, had been merely a squatter—and by dint of persuasive argument obtained permission to use the cabin as a scout headquarters.
It was too far from town to be turned into a regular meeting place, but the troop decided to furnish it and use it as an objective for hikes and brief winter camping trips. It was Cavanaugh who conceived the brilliant idea of using it also as a place of entertainment for some of the many soldiers from the big new Government training camp located in the neighborhood, who constantly thronged the town.
The presence of that camp and the frequent sight of the soldiers thrilled the scouts as nothing else could have done. It did not take them long to know many men by sight and a few of them intimately. The crowd first in training happened to include a number of Western boys who had no friends in this part of the country and were too far from home to go back on furlough. The scouts got into the habit, therefore, of bringing some of these home with them for stays of varying length, and several of the young men who had been scouts themselves not so very long ago, revived their interest in the movement, frequently attending the troop meetings and even helping the busy scoutmaster in looking after the boys.
From these the scouts kept secret the existence of the cabin. They wanted to furnish and equip it thoroughly, and then have a grand surprise party and house warming for the soldiers. But unfortunately all this took a good deal of time. They might easily have filled it with odds and ends of discarded furniture from their own homes, but the majority voted against this. The cabin had become the pride of their hearts, and they wanted, as they expressed it, to do the thing right. And so, for many weeks they worked like beavers at every possible chore and occupation which would bring in money for the fund, until at length the latter reached a very decent total.
Bill McBride was treasurer and there were few waking hours that he did not think with pride and pleasure of the growing size of that canvas bag which held their hard earned dimes and nickels. It was in his mind one morning late in November as he caught up sweater and books and dashed out of the front door.
The air was chill, and overhead the clouds were dark and lowering with a hint of snow in them. But Micky was not considering the weather as he sped along, nor was he even thinking of the Thanksgiving holiday which loomed so pleasantly near.
“We’ve got over sixty dollars,” he said to himself as he hastened up the street, “and I don’t see why we shouldn’t begin pretty soon. If we don’t, Jack Farren and Harley and all the rest of that corking bunch will be ordered across and never see the cabin at all. You can get a lot of stuff for sixty dollars.”