"I don't!" snapped Buck Claxton. "Look here, if you Scouts think you're so much, I'll get together eight fellows who can beat you at baseball or football or track or anything else."
Though Bunny wished that Specs had spoken a little more modestly and in a great deal lower voice, he was not altogether sorry that the field meet had been arranged. Because a half-holiday had been declared, to enable the Citizens' Club of Elkana to inspect the new high school building, it was on Tuesday morning that the Scouts (plus Rodman Cree, to round out the eight mentioned in the challenge) clashed with the All-School team on field and track.
It was Bunny's idea that the field day might spread the Scout movement among the new fellows of the school, and especially among the following that Buck Claxton was rapidly acquiring. The leader of the Black Eagles felt, moreover, that they had been too much by themselves, and that a second patrol would not only wake them out of their clannishness, but that, in addition, it would keep them from sleeping on their laurels. And, of course, it was a splendid chance to see what they could do when pitted against boys slightly older and larger.
"That was some race!" chuckled Specs, after S. S. had broken the tape. He and Bunny were walking toward the competitors for the high jump. "Buck ran a good race, even if he was nosed out. How about taking him into the Black Eagle Patrol? He's crazy to get in, all right, no matter what he says. How do you feel about it?"
"What's the matter with Rodman Cree? He's acting as our eighth man to-day. Seems to me he should have first chance to join the patrol."
Specs wrinkled his forehead. "Y—yes. Oh, of course, he's all right. But he says himself that he just hit the ball by mistake yesterday morning; and you saw what happened just now in the half-mile."
Bunny threw back his shoulders. "I don't care whether Rodman Cree is any good at athletics or not. He's the right kind of a fellow; that's the main thing. Anyhow, I think he is. Besides, he may make good at one of these other events."
But wherever his abilities lay, it was plain that the red-headed boy had not been cut out by nature for a high jumper. Others skimmed the bar as lightly as swallows, but at the very outset Rodman began to flounder and fail. Twice, at three feet, he knocked off the crosspiece; the third time he came down on it squarely, smashing the wood to flinders.
"I'm no high-jumper, I guess," he laughed, as he quit the line of contestants. "I seem to be a pretty good faller—only there's no falling race."
While Specs frowned his disapproval, Bunny tried to hearten Rodman with a word of encouragement; for it seemed to him that under the boy's good nature there was a raw, sore spot.