“And when it comes to the law,” continued Gordon, “you just want to read up General Baden-Powell—what he says about chivalry. It’s a scout’s duty to recount his adventures to maidens.”
“Well, if I’d recounted a thrilling adventure like a rescue, she might have cried, Kid.”
“Maidens don’t cry—they weep.”
“Well, this mutiny has got to be put down, anyway,” said Harry. “I order you to dig a hole and bury this refuse, as per camping regulations of the Boy Scouts.”
The odds and ends of breakfast (and they were not many) were soon disposed of “as per,” and Harry outlined his idea for exhausting all the possibilities of spying which the mountain afforded, before, like the famous Duke of Yorkshire, they marched down again.
Despite the drizzling rain, they made their way to where the little neighboring rivulet formed a pool with a bright, pebbly bottom, and here they scooped up minnows almost by the handful, until their pail was thick with the little, darting, silvery fishes.
These Harry fried in cracker crumbs, and they sat under their little shelter and enjoyed them, Gordon keeping up a running comment on their tastiness and flavor. And I can tell you that if you happen to be on a lonely mountain on a drizzly day, you cannot do better than arrange yourself comfortably under your shelter, enjoy the remoteness, the wildness, laugh at the weather, and eat fried minnows.
In the afternoon Harry, who was a true philosopher, took both camp cushions, which they had filled with balsam the night before, spread his blanket, pressed all available clothing into service to form a means of reclining, and settled back comfortably with a paper copy of “Kidnapped,” which he had taken the precaution to bring against the possibility of just such weather as this.
“If any one calls, Kid, I’m not at home—office hours after six.”
Gordon knew what that meant. He hated Robert Louis Stevenson as a rival. As sure as a rainy day came, Harry would double up in a corner somewhere,—in his room, in the library, in the troop room,—and be dead to the world. At such times Gordon was powerless, nothing could rouse his friend. He had hoped that Harry might get through with this trip without an attack of the kind. But now it had come. Stevenson, like rheumatism, was always to be counted on in bad weather.