When they reached the spot where the bicycles had been hidden these were brought out, and it was found that the stretcher could be rested on the handle bars of two of the wheels. By taking care, there was little danger of an upset. So presently a queer procession was passing along the road. Everything seemed to work so nicely that while they met several farmers going home from market, the boys declined the offer when they proposed turning back so as to carry the wounded Russian to the hospital.
Perhaps there was a little vein of pride about it, and the scouts wanted to let scoffers see how well they were able to manage when a sudden emergency confronted them. They were only boys after all, and felt that they had a perfect right to be proud of the way they had managed.
Hugh at such times as they paused—once to rest and again to give the injured man a drink from a spring that bubbled up near the road—managed to converse a little with the grateful fellow. He told the boy, whom he now looked upon as a good and tried friend, that he did have a little cache among the rocks on the side of Stormberg, where he kept his savings, being afraid to trust banks, and knowing what danger there must always be of his being robbed if he carried all his money along with him in his erratic wanderings. For three years he had come back here late every summer and in the early spring to add secretly to his hoard.
On the present occasion it had been his intention to carry his accumulations away with him, for he meant to sail across the sea to his old home, where he could live in what he considered comfort on the amount he had saved. Misfortune had overtaken him, however, and with a broken leg he must delay his departure a long time.
They reached the town limits at length, and great was the surprise of the good citizens when this queer ambulance took its way along the main street, headed for the hospital. As the excitement spread, people rushed out of stores and dwelling houses, and upon every tongue could be heard praises of the Boy Scouts.
“What won’t they be doing next?” men asked each other as they noted how splendidly Hugh and his two chums had made that stretcher for the wounded man, and how cleverly they were utilizing their wheels in place of a wagon in order to convey him from a distance to the town hospital. “It certainly was the best thing that ever happened for the boys of this country when that scout movement started here, and it has spread like wildfire. Why, it was only lately that they rescued that aeronaut, and the doctor said they’d fix his broken arm about as well as he could have done the job himself under the same conditions. If your boy doesn’t belong already, you can’t coax him to be a scout any too soon, believe me, neighbor.”
Having seen the wounded man safely cared for, and received his thanks, uttered in broken English it is true, but just as heartfelt for all that, Hugh next thought of the bear, left there in the hills. He hunted up a lot more of the scouts who were of a stripe to enjoy any lark of that kind, and armed with plenty of rope they started forth.
In the end they succeeded in bringing the trained bear all the way back to town, and as Hugh had been thoughtful enough to take along a supply of food for the animal, the task proved much easier than any of them had anticipated. All they had to do was to keep him well roped from several quarters, and then tempt him to shuffle along by holding some of the food so he could see it.
Their arrival created another furore. People once more came flocking to the streets to watch the little procession pass by. They were telling each other that nowadays there hardly seemed to arise any sort of necessity but what somehow the Boy Scouts were being counted on to meet and overcome the difficulty,—from finding a lost child to rescuing a wrecked balloon pilot or saving the life of a poor foreigner who had fallen over a precipice and broken his leg.
All of which must have been so intensely gratifying to Hugh and his chums that the fatigue caused by their strenuous exertions was for the time being quite forgotten.