They walked over through the croquet field and were presented to twelve ladies and two lonely gentlemen, all of whom showed a lively interest in them, as people usually do in boy scouts. Then to the tennis court, where Miss Crosby and Harry played a lively game, while Gordon sat on a rustic seat and gorged himself with apples. Between games she made a hasty trip to her mother on the croquet ground, and presently that lady strolled over and insisted that the boys remain to dinner.
Gordon’s eye was on Harry, and he did not dare decline. They found the summer guests a cordial set, who were only too glad to vary the daily routine of alternate croquet and bridge by entertaining them and plying them with questions.
Early in the afternoon they set forth for Bulwagga Mountain. Miss Crosby had acquired a lively interest in their enterprise and had made them promise, at parting, that they would call again if they could possibly manage it, “and show me some more deducing” she had said, with an injured look.
And she added that she would “certainly stay up until midnight, and try to discover smoke, and if she did discover it, she would know that they had seen it too, and would be with their friends in the morning, and wouldn’t that be just dear?”
Harry said it certainly would, but that it was too good to be true.
“Now, Harry,” said Gordon, as they started into a clump of woods in the direction of the great Bulwagga Mountain, “the trouble with you is that you don’t recount your adventures. That’s the only trouble with you, Harry. You should have recounted your adventures. There was your chance to recount them to a maiden.”
“A what?”
“A maiden—it’s the same as a girl. And you’ve got the very best kind of an adventure, too—rescuing some one from drowning—it’s always a winner. Why, Harry, a maiden always marries a fellow that saves her from drowning—always! It’s all right to have adventures, but if you want to be a real hero, you’ve got to recount them. They always do in books. ‘After he recounted his adventures—’”
“Well, that shows I’m not much of a hero, Kid, doesn’t it?”
“I know, but you might be. You’ve got the adventures all right, only you don’t recount them. I’m not blaming you, Harry, because you don’t know much about girls. Now there was a fellow in a play, named Othello, and oh, cracky, Harry, but he was a peacherino! He used to recount his adventures all the time—to a maiden. And he made a great hit, too. And you could do the same thing, Harry. There’s no kind of an adventure like a rescue from drowning. Of course, I don’t say anything against pulling a maiden off the railroad track, especially if she’s bound with cruel thongs, because that’s a winner, too. But a rescue from drowning catches them every time. Why, don’t you suppose that Alger, and Henry, and men like that, know? You bet they do! ’Most all their heroes save people from drowning, and that’s how they win her hand. If I had an adventure like that, I’d recount it to maidens, you can bet! But I’m not saying you didn’t make a hit, Harry.”