“Only this,” the other continued sadly, and angrily as well. “I’m down-town now,—came early to gloat over our work,—but would you believe it, everything has been turned out of the trash cans and scattered all over the park again!”
CHAPTER V.
REPAIRING DAMAGES.
“What’s that?” Hugh demanded hastily as though considerably aroused. “Say it over again, Alec, please.”
“All our hard work went for nothing, Hugh, because after we left, some miserable skunks,—and we can guess who they must have been,—kicked over the trash cans we’d filled and scattered the stuff all about the park.”
“That’s pretty rough on our boys,” said the assistant scout master, trying evidently to restrain his righteous anger and thinking more of his comrades than of himself.
“I should say it was a hard knock on you, most of all, and that’s what it was intended for,” Alec continued over the wire. “Some of that Corbley gang hate you just about as they say Old Satan hates holy water. They must have been watching us as we worked, and I bet you we weren’t halfway home before they started in to do the wrecking business! Say, what are we going to do about it, Hugh?”
“Do?” echoed the other instantly. “Why, there’s only one thing we can do, and that’s start in and clean the park up again! Scouts are made of stuff that doesn’t let little accidents like this upset them. Every time they’re knocked down, it’s only to get up again and sail in harder than ever. Scouts never say die as long as they can put one foot in front of another!”
“Bully for you, Hugh!” said Alec joyously. “Those are my sentiments to a dot; and I ought to have known that you’d talk that way. Tell me what to do to start the ball rolling, and you’ll find me Johnny-on-the-spot.”
“Get Billy on the wire, and tell him to pass the word along to the next one. We’ll gather at the church, and every fellow fetch along whatever he had with him last night, broom, hoe, rake or shovel. This thing is going to be fought out to a finish, if it takes all winter!”
“Bully! I’m on. Shall I ring up Billy now?”