“Come on, I’ll show you where he is, he chased us.”
Before Mr. Wilde had recovered from the sight of Ed Carlyle, Westy stood before him, conspicuous in the clustering, vociferous throng, a fine picture of rags and tatters. Warde, standing close to him, had forcibly loosened his comrade’s rolled-up sleeve so that on the loose hanging khaki the stalker’s badge and the pathfinder’s badge were exposed. Westy’s other arm, with a long scratch on it where he had let it slide against the bark of the big elm, was at his side, hand in pocket, clutching the treasure that was there.
Not so much as one vestige remained about Westy of the trim boy scout whom Mr. Wilde had “jollied” on the train; only his two badges exposed by his patrol mate and rendered clearer to view by Ed Carlyle as he smoothed down his companion’s wrinkled sleeve.
“Mr. Wilde,” said Westy, pulling his scarred arm out of his pocket, “here’s your wallet; it’s got your money and your permit all safe. I took it away from Bloodhound Pete and—and——”
“The pleasure is entirely ours,” Ed Carlyle concluded for him.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE POLISH OF SHINING SUN
Westy told his story simply, modestly, while a swelling crowd clustered about. It seemed that he and his comrades had not been missed from the train during the short run after they had been left behind. Doubtless the excitement caused by the train robbery had sufficiently extinguished any curiosity among their chance acquaintance en route. Indeed, Mr. Wilde very frankly observed, “You kids were the least of my troubles; I was thinking of my wallet. I was trying to write out some descriptive stuff about wild animals and hoping you wouldn’t come back again when the train stopped and a woman screamed and the next thing I knew I was handing my writing tablet to Bill Hart and telling another woman to shut up. Never gave you kids another thought.”
Westy and his comrades were greatly relieved to learn that no word of their non-appearance had been wired to Bridgeboro. It is true that they had only just escaped with their little adventure and saved themselves from prosaic complications, for the gentleman who was to have received them at Gardiner had been in communication with Livingston and had engineered the dispatch of an auto over the road to pick them up. But fate was kind to them and somehow they had not encountered the rescue car, which (to make matters worse) was a Ford sedan.
So it befell that the three award boys, in despite of all modern claptrap, crossed the boundary of Yellowstone National Park as some scout or trapper of old might have crossed it, having safely eluded two western desperadoes and a Ford sedan. But it was a narrow escape.
“Could we see Shining Sun? Is he here?” Westy asked almost in a reverend whisper.