So they talked over the pros and cons of the proposed undertaking, taking account of all they had learned of woodcraft, and gloating over the surprise they would give Red Deer and the two patrols, until finally, from mere excess of enthusiasm, they sat silent, contemplating the variety of opportunities which the expedition would present for the testing of their resource and woodcraft skill.
“Kid,” said Harry Arnold, “the troop can be found wherever they are. We can reduce the area a good deal by deduction at the very start. We know they’ll be on the New York shore not far from the lake. It’ll be the greatest thing in the world for us to go up there and find them, and by the powers, I’m going to do it if I—”
“Oh, Harry, let’s start to-night!” said Gordon.
CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE AT THE HAYSTACK
Harry Arnold was eighteen years old, and, as you may have noted from the position of his badge and the color of his scarf, he was leader of the Beaver patrol. He was tall, lithe, and active, and, without being exactly an athlete, he gave the impression of being athletic.
There was a certain indescribable something in his appearance which suggested the out-of-door life rather than a gymnasium training, and it is a fact that he seldom did a thing simply and solely because it would make him strong. There was nothing of the athletic faddist about him, and it was said by some of the Oakwood boys that he was not much of a sport. Of course, that depends on what you call sporting, but it must be confessed that he took but slight interest in games—as such. He liked to see a good kick on the gridiron, a good ball pitched; he enjoyed seeing a boy catch a “sky-scraper” or watching a home run. But whether the pitcher, runner, or catcher wore a white suit or a blue suit or a red suit, or the initial A or B or any other letter, made little difference to him.
He was not much given to talking (his friend Gordon attended to that), but he was fond of saying, “The question is, what can a fellow do, not whom can he beat?” He was not particularly fond of either football or baseball but, if I can make the distinction clear, he was fond of each feature of these games for its own sake independently of results. It made several of his companions quite impatient when he calmly protested, on his way home from the baseball field one day, that the visiting team which had just been beaten by the Oakwood High School had really done the best work.
“Well, we beat them anyway, and that’s how I judge,” said Collins. And that, indeed, is the way most boys judge. But Arnold had watched each individual play apart from its connection with the game as a whole, and he persisted that the visitors had done the best work.
Perhaps we can get at it best by saying that he had the true sporting instinct, but lacked the spirit of the contestant. He saw a difference between the word “success” and the word “victory.” It was a grand, inspiring thing to see a home run—never mind which side scored.
He cared nothing for dumb-bells, Indian clubs, elastic exercisers, and such. He loved the woods and the water, and the things he loved to do made him strong and enduring. “You cannot get up much of an affection for dumb-bells and Indian clubs,” he said; “so they don’t do you much good.”