The Boy Scouts Under Fire in Mexico

by John Henry Goldfrap

It was all arranged that they start early on the following morning. Mardo was ready to do whatever they asked; and Tubby expressed himself as decidedly anxious to meet General Villa with as little delay as possible. He felt just as Uncle Mark had declared it might be, that the rebel commander in Chihuahua would by now believe he had done all that could be expected of him in serving the man who years before had saved his life, and who had been also a friend of the lamented President Madero. And as Villa's army needed rations and money desperately, possibly he would be planning either to kill off the fine steers on the Matthews Ranch, or else sell them to some enterprising American speculator for shipment across the line.

Perhaps none of the boys expected to sleep any too soundly that night, thinking of what a novel experience was before them; though all of them were tired after their long train ride.

Not a great while after supper, however, a soldier came to the inn and asked for Rob. He bore a message from the commandant to the effect that he would be pleased to have another little chat with the young assistant scout master to hear how his plans were coming on.

This decided interest which the general seemed to take in their enterprise gave Rob considerable pleasure. He eagerly availed himself of the privilege of meeting the soldier once more, and only regretted that his three chums had not been included in the invitation.

And Rob spent a very satisfactory half hour with the general, to whom he confided all his plans. He told so much about the previous experiences of the Eagle scouts, also, that the interested soldier felt reluctant to terminate the interview.

"I could go on chatting with you for hours, my son," he said, shaking hands as he dismissed the boy, "because I am so deeply interested in your ambitions and in what you have already gone through, you and your fine comrades. But I have appointed a meeting with some of my officers to plan for the new emergencies that are continually arising. Believe me, you have my best wishes, and if I do not see you again on your return—for something tells me you will return, and after successfully carrying out your mission, too,—let me hear from you. It will give me great pleasure to reply."

This sort of talk was encouraging, to say the least. It gave Rob renewed ambition to push on along the course he had mapped out.

Of course, when he arrived at the inn he found the other boys still sitting up waiting for him; so that by degrees everything that the general had said had to be repeated before they consented to go to bed.

With the coming of morning they were all up. Tubby kept declaring that he did not have a wink of sleep all night on account of the hard bed and the various strange noises that came from without. But Andy returned that every time he waked up, and it must have been in the neighborhood of a dozen separate occasions, he had particularly noticed that Tubby was sprawled over two-thirds of their bed, and snoring "to beat the band." After that Tubby closed up, possibly under the impression that the others would call him a fake.

As soon as they had had breakfast they found the guide waiting, mounted on his own horse; and then the bustle of preparation began. Tubby had to be helped more than a few times, for he became so excited that he could not remember where he had left a number of important things. Andy finally declared that it was lucky that the fat scout's head was firmly attached to his body, for otherwise he would be losing that also!