“I should say you do, if any one could, sir,” observed Hugh, admiringly.
“On this present unfortunate occasion, I have been quietly trying to pass entirely across the continent, from the shore of the Pacific to the Atlantic, by a series of dashes. I’d hardly like to tell you how many failures I made of it, and what a series of thrilling, hair-breadth escapes I had, before I was finally able to cross over the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains; but I finally managed to do it, and the rest of my journey was like a tame picnic until now, just when I expected to make the coast and was wrecked near port.”
“That was a shame!” burst out Billy impulsively.
“Oh! not at all,” laughed the gentleman, partly to hide the pain he suffered as he chanced to move his broken arm a little too abruptly. “We men who pit ourselves against the forces of Nature, learn to take the good with the bad and call it all a day’s work. I’ve really accomplished what I set out to perform, because only for a change of wind I’d have dropped down on the coast before this hour. You’ll not hear me complain. And now tell me something about yourselves and your Wolf patrol. If the other four members are anything like the ones I’ve come to know, it must be what a friend of mine would call a hummer.”
The boys were already quite won by the genial aeronaut, who, suffering as he was, could show such a deep interest in their affairs.
In the chatter that followed, he learned a great deal about what had happened to the members of the troop since the first patrol was organized. And of course, among other things, he was told of the wonderful prize pennant and the adventures of the preceding day, when Hugh’s thoughtfulness had in all probability saved their lives.
The aeronaut was plainly aroused by the vivid description given of their feelings at discovering that hollow oak lying there, shattered by the bolt of lightning.
“I have not appreciated what a helpful thing this scout movement could be until now,” he exclaimed. “If it continues to spread as fast as it seems to be doing now, I can see where the coming American young man will be many times over better fitted and equipped for the battle of life than those that are in the field to-day, fighting for a living. But it is too bad if my coming causes you boys to go back to town without trying out those cliff-climbing stunts that Hugh had in mind. If you set me on the trail, I’ve no doubt I could follow it, somehow, till I got to the road; and then some farmer would give me a lift.”
This raised an immediate storm of protest, which made evident that the boys did not believe in doing things halfway.
“We couldn’t think of it, Mr. Perkins,” said Hugh resolutely. “You’ve been badly hurt, and we would never forgive ourselves if anything happened to you. Make up your mind that we’re going to see you safely into the doctor’s office, where that arm can have the right kind of attention.”