CHAPTER VI.
THE DUTY OF A SCOUT.
Hugh’s first act was to throw a reassuring arm across the shoulders of Gus Merrivale. The action was intended to quiet his fears and revive hope. Somehow it seemed as though mere personal contact with so magnetic a fellow as Hugh Hardin was usually enough to generate a new feeling of ambition in a despairing scout, for undoubtedly Gus immediately began to show signs of fresh anticipation.
“What do you mean by saying your pal is a goner?” demanded Hugh, looking down at the tramp as he spoke.
The man lifted one of his arms, though the effort caused him to groan with pain.
“Hark to that howling blast, will ye?” he called out. “It’s by far the worst storm I ever stacked up against, and I’ve seen some in my time. The trees, they’re just goin’ over like ten-pins in a bowling alley. It’s awful, that’s what it is, and there’s a mighty slim chance poor Sam could pull through such a fiendish gale if it near did for a strong man like me, and him that weak.”
“You deserted him then, did you?” demanded Billy, filled with indignation.
If such a thing as shame could ever make its presence felt in so hard a face as that of the so-called Casey, it did at that moment.
“Listen, gents!” he called out so as to be heard above the noise with which the storm was beating against the end of the bunk-house. “I stuck by Sam till I knowed it was no more use. I couldn’t lift a hand to help him along any further. So I made up my mind I’d try to find me way back here and get help for me pal. That’s gospel truth, every word of it. Even then I believed I was sticking my own silly neck in danger comin’ back—well, never mind why I thought that way.”
Hugh was looking straight into the man’s face as he said this. Somehow the scout master felt that Casey might actually be telling the truth. Men like him have been known to do wonderfully fine deeds once in a while, though no one would ever expect to find such a diamond in the rough.
He remembered the famous poem of Jim Bludsoe, which only the other day he had been reading—Jim, it may be remembered, was only a rough Mississippi steamboat pilot who might be set down as a fair sample of his kind, and looked upon as a swearing type of river man; yet when the Belle took fire he manfully stuck to his wheel and held the nose of the boat against the bank until every “galoot” had jumped to safety on the bank. Jim lost his own life, it is true, but the memory of his glorious deed has thrilled tens of thousands ever since it was recorded in verse.