“Talk to me about luck, I’m having the greatest string of successes you ever heard of!” the enthusiastic photographer laughingly declared, as he saw the others staring hard at him.
“Well, of all the nerve I ever struck, Arthur,” said Billy solemnly, “you certainly take the cake! Why, you’ve got the artistic fever so bad that I believe if a big bear was chasing after us all, you’d want to stop and ask him to look pleasant while you snapped him off. There’s getting to be no limit to your——”
“Just hold on there, Billy,” broke in Hugh. “I think this time Arthur deserves the thanks of the whole Wolf patrol for his stick-at-it-tiveness, as Walter Osborne always calls stubbornness. Think of what a heap of satisfaction it’s going to be to all of us, when we look over some of these thrillers he’s snatched with that snapshot box of his! Leave Arthur alone. While we’re all making history, he’s going to be the one to keep it fresh in our hearts and eyes. We’re proud of him.”
“And I’m wondering, if these pictures turn out anything like the originals,” remarked Bud, “what Don Miller of the Foxes will say. You know he’s been going in strong of late along the same lines as our chum here; and they do say he shows more or less talent about taking queer things. But my stars! he never could even dream of such re-markable stunts as have been crowding in on us of late, commencing with that storm yesterday!”
“Well, Blake Merton has done some good work for the Hawks, too, they tell me,” Arthur admitted, for he was a modest boy and always willing to give a friend credit when it was due. “I know that he’s been staying nights up on his uncle’s farm, just to be able to use a flashlight on the animals in that swamp. I own up that the idea of the thing came to me through him. Blake is all wool and a yard wide; nothing small about him. He said, ‘No matter who wins out, let’s get the greatest lot of queer pictures together that ever were.’”
“And I reckon we will,” declared Billy positively, “as long as you’re able to toddle around with us Wolves, Arthur.”
“I’m wondering what next we’ll run across,” remarked Bud reflectively, as they watched Hugh assisting the wounded aeronaut to gather his scattered traps together. “According to my mind it only needs a runaway horse, with a lovely child to be rescued, or a mad dog scare in town, with our Hugh getting in the limelight as the hero who stands in the breach and knocks the beast on the head with a baseball bat, to complete the whole schedule.”
“Oh! that would be too old-fashioned these days,” said Arthur, as he patted his beloved camera in its leather case, which he had slung by a strap over his shoulder. “To be up-to-date a rescue would have to be where, mounted on a motorcycle, you pursue a runaway car, and jump into it just before it reaches the crossing at the railroad, where a limited express is coming tearing along. I saw one like that at the movies the other night, and it glued me to my seat with both hands holding on to the rests at the sides, until it was over. I don’t believe I could even breathe for excitement.”
“Or else you’d have to chase an unmanageable aeroplane mounted on another sky flier and in some way bring it to a stop, just like the mounted police hold up runaway riding horses in Central Park,” Billy added, for he could be depended on to match one story with another every time.
“But here comes Hugh with the professor,” said Bud just then. “I reckon he has picked up all he wants to tote away with him. However do you think we’ll get to town with him, boys? He must feel pretty weak after what he went through, and his arm must pain him, too. We may have to make a litter and carry him.”