CHAPTER XII LOST

The test of manhood is the ability to meet an emergency squarely, to put fear one side, think clearly and act sanely. The man who does not know fear may make no claim to bravery. Courage he may possess, courage that may lead to mighty deeds, but the spirit of true heroism is not his until he has tasted of the bitterness of fear and conquered it.

Of the two boys sitting with blanched faces under the first shock of realization that they were indeed lost in the great forest, with night fast closing in, Spud was some two years the older, stocky in build, well muscled, apparently fitted in every way to be the leader. Billy, on the other hand, was rather under size, wiry, quick moving, with the activity of nervous energy, and highly imaginative. The sudden fear that whitened Spud’s sun-browned face clutched at Billy’s heart as well and prompted him to leap to his feet and plunge after Spud in response to the latter’s [200] panic shaken, “Come on! We better keep going, and maybe we’ll come out somewhere!”

For a few minutes they tore along in frantic haste. Then Billy showed the stuff of which he was made. “Stop, Spud!” he yelled sharply.

It was the voice of authority. It cut through the terror of the fleeing boy in front and brought him up short. Billy had taken command. He began to speak rapidly.

“We’re a couple of idiots. This ain’t goin’ to get us nowhere unless it’s into more trouble, maybe. We’re doin’ just what always gets lost people into trouble and gets ’em more lost. The thing to do is to sit down and talk it over and try to decide just what we ought to do. Pretty Scouts we are, running like a couple of silly hens at the first scare! Wonder what the big chief would say if he could see us, after all the lectures he’s given on what to do when you get lost. Here we are, and the question is, What are we going to do about it? What do you say?”

“I—I don’t know,” confessed Spud miserably. He was shaking a bit. “They’ll send out searching parties when we fail to show up [201] to-night. Do you s’pose they’ll come over this way?”

Billy made a wry face that instantly resolved into a grimace of pain because of his swollen features. “No, I don’t,” he replied. “You see I let some of the fellers think that we was goin’ over toward Old Baldy, and you know some of ’em saw us start out on the Baldy trail. They’ll go huntin’ over that way. Spud, we might just as well make up our minds right now that we’ve got to spend the night in the woods. In the mornin’ we can shin up a tall tree and p’raps get our bearings. What we want to do now is to make ourselves as comfortable as we can, and the first thing I’m goin’ to do is to get some mud.”

“Mud! What for?” asked Spud in surprise.

“To plaster on these blamed stings,” replied Billy. “Jerusalem, how my face aches! Just a little bit back there we came across a swampy place. Come on and see if we can find it.”

Retracing their steps in the direction from which they had made their last mad flight they soon found the place Billy had noticed. [202] With hasty fingers he dug up the wet black muck and plastered it thick over his swollen face and on his hands and legs. Somewhat gingerly Spud followed his example. The cool, moist plasters brought almost instant relief, and with the easing of the smarting wounds a measure of steadiness returned to the shaken nerves. Spud even so far forgot his fears as to grin as he looked at Billy.

“Gee, you are a sight! Say, the fellows wouldn’t do a thing if they could see you now! The wild man of Borneo would be a beaut ’side of you.”

“Can’t have much on you,” replied Billy. “That eye of yours looks as if it was about closed up, and mud ain’t becoming to your style of beauty. Now let’s make camp before it gets so dark we can’t see nothin’.”

“Where’ll we make it, right here?” asked Spud.

“No,” replied Billy decidedly. “It’s too wet. We’ve got to get on higher ground.”

He stooped and began to make a big ball of mud.

“What’s that for?” demanded the puzzled Spud.

[203] “First aid for the injured. These beauty plasters are goin’ to dry out pretty quick and we’ll want some fresh ones. You’d better bring along some too,” replied Billy briefly.

The advice seemed good, and Spud followed Billy’s example. Then they pushed on for drier ground, Billy in the lead. Already his active imagination had seized upon their predicament as savoring of real adventure. He pictured their return to camp the next day as heroes rather than culprits who had disobeyed one of the most stringent rules of the camp. He saw himself the center of admiring groups of his fellows because of his superior scoutcraft in knowing just what to do and how to do it in so severe a test as spending a night lost in the woods. The anxiety which would be caused by their absence never entered his head, or if it did was dismissed as of little consequence. He would show them that he was a real Scout, able to take care of himself under any conditions.

Presently they became aware that the ground was gradually sloping up. It was firm and dry under foot. By this time it was [204] so dark that it was with difficulty they could make out their surroundings. In front of two trees standing some ten feet apart Billy stopped.

“We’ll camp here,” he said.

Carefully putting his precious ball of mud at the foot of one of the trees he singled out a tall two-inch sapling. “Here, Spud, you bend this over as far as you can,” he commanded.

“What for?” asked Spud.

“Never you mind; just get busy!” replied Billy.

By this time Spud had accepted Billy’s leadership without question and he meekly obeyed. With his stout scout knife Billy made a straight cut across the sapling at the point where the strain was greatest. The strained fibers of the wood yielded to the first pressure of the keen blade and in less than half a minute he had the tree in his hands with a clean square cut base.

“You can cut down a big tree with a penknife if you can only bend the tree over far enough,” said he as he trimmed the sapling. When he had finished he had a pole perhaps twelve feet long. Fishing some stout twine [205] from one of his capacious pockets he lashed the pole firmly to the two trees about six feet from the ground.

“Now hustle and get a lot of sticks ’bout ten feet long,” he commanded.

These were not so easily obtained, but by dint of much feeling around and effort on the part of the two boys enough sticks and young saplings were secured to answer Billy’s purpose. These were arranged with butts on the ground and other ends supported on the cross-bar between the two trees, all slanting evenly in the same direction.

“Now heap up all the brush and leaves you can scrape up,” commanded the young architect, bringing up an armful of spruce boughs he had obtained from a nearby windfall. Thatched in this way the rude lean-to was soon completed. It was a rough but effective shelter, and with a few balsam boughs spread on the ground beneath it Billy felt that they could spend the night with a reasonable degree of comfort.

“Now if we only had a fire this wouldn’t be half bad,” he muttered. “Got any matches, Spud?”

[206] “What do you take me for? You know the rules,” growled Spud.

Billy knew. Matches were absolutely tabooed in Woodcraft Camp, that there might be no chance of a forest fire from the carelessness of just such reckless youngsters as Billy.

“Wish I’d brought my fire stick,” grumbled Billy.

“I’ve got mine,” said Spud.

“What! You blink-eyed owl! Why didn’t you say so before?” whooped Billy. “Trot it out!”

The cautious Spud demurred. “You know the rules, Billy, and that building a fire without permission means expulsion,” he protested.

“Expulsion nothin’!” replied Billy. “Do you s’pose the big chief’s goin’ to fire us for keepin’ from freezin’ to death? We’ll be ’bout frozen by morning without blankets nor nothin’. Here, you give it to me. You needn’t have anything to do with makin’ the fire. I’ll make it, and tell the doctor so when we get in. There ain’t any danger, ’cause one of us will be on watch all the time.”
Showing a fire-drill and bow, and how they are put together for use

Billy’s Apparatus for Making Fire

Reluctantly Spud produced from an inner [208] pocket a little block of wood having in the middle a shallow pit, already charred with use. From this pit a V shape groove extended to the edge. From around his neck under his coat he unslung a small bow having a slack leather thong for a string. With this was a straight stick pointed at both ends. Lastly he brought forth a small oval piece of wood having a shallow pit in the center, and a little bag of finely ground cedar bark.

All of these things he turned over to Billy. The latter first carefully cleared the ground of all leaves and rubbish for a considerable space in front of the shelter. He then felt around until he had gathered a little bundle of dry twigs and some shreds of bark from a fallen birch nearby.

Resting the block of wood or fire-board on a piece of bark he ordered Spud to hold it steady. Taking up the straight stick already mentioned he rested one pointed end in the hollow of the fire-board, looped the bow thong around it and, fitting the oval piece to the upper end of the straight stick by means of the hollow in the center, he was ready for business. Holding the oval piece in his left hand [209] he bore down lightly, at the same time grasping the bow in his right hand and moving it rapidly back and forth. This caused the straight stick or drill, as Scouts call it, to revolve rapidly.

It was too dark to see, but almost at once the boys smelled smoke, and a few seconds later a tiny coal glowed on the piece of bark on the edge of which the fire-board rested. Dropping his tools Billy picked up the piece of bark, and covered the coal with cedar bark from Spud’s bag, while he gently blew upon it. The bark was really tinder, prepared as the Indians prepared it before ever the white man brought his own first crude fire-making methods to startle the Red Men. The smoke increased in volume. A tiny flame flickered, disappeared, flickered again, then hungrily licked at the edge of a strip of birch bark that Billy held to it.

Hastily setting down the piece of bark holding the tiny fire he arranged the dry twigs over it in a loose pile and had the satisfaction of seeing the blaze leap up merrily. Larger sticks were laid over the pile, and in a few minutes the dancing flames were making a [210] circle of cheerful light that flooded the lean-to with warmth and cast weird shadows among the trees.

By the light from the fire the boys were able to gather a supply of wood wherewith to keep it going through the night and under its cheering influence their spirits rose wonderfully.

“If we only had something to eat——” began Billy.

“Shut up!” interrupted Spud. “I’ll be chewin’ pine-needles in a few minutes.”

Billy had a sudden inspiration. Fishing the bee box from his coat pocket he extracted the piece of syrup-soaked bread with which it had been baited and eyed it critically. “There’s just half a bite apiece, and a swallow of syrup for each of us in the bottle,” said he. “Shall we have it now or wait till morning?”

“I wouldn’t trust you with it till mornin’. We’ll have it now,” grunted Spud.

The night had settled down still, and with a chill in the air that made the warmth of the fire very welcome. Beyond the zone of the firelight a wall of blackness hemmed them in. Now that camp had been made and there [211] was nothing to do but wait for daylight the loneliness of their situation weighed upon their spirits. They drew closer together on an old log which they had drawn before the fire for a seat. Suddenly Billy raised a warning hand.

“What is it?” whispered Spud, edging a bit nearer.

“I thought I heard a shot,” replied Billy.

With straining ears the boys sat and waited what seemed an interminable length of time before they caught the faint sound of three shots fired in quick succession. Spud sprang to his feet.

“They’re lookin’ for us, Billy. Let’s give ’em a yell,” he cried.

First one, then the other, then both together they yelled at the top of their lungs until their throats were strained and raw. Then they realized the futility of wasting breath in this way.

“’Tain’t no use, not a bit. May as well save our breath. We can’t hear those shots plain enough to tell what direction they come from, so of course nobody can hear us,” said Billy, disconsolately resuming his seat by the fire.

For a while they heard shots from time to [212] time, and somehow they brought a certain amount of comfort. It seemed less lonely to know that others were abroad in the forest looking for them, even though they were miles away. But the shots ceased finally, and the brooding mystery of the night settled over and took possession of them. They said little, but sat absorbed each in his own thoughts or listening to the strange sounds and uncanny voices of the night.

A pathetic picture they presented had any one been there to see, huddled together on the old log, their swollen, mud-smeared faces still further distorted by the uncertain flicker of the firelight. A stick snapping off in the darkness produced an answering jump in overwrought nerves, and the sudden scurry of a rabbit brought a startled “What was that?” from Spud.

Presently the physical strain and excitement they had been under began to tell, and despite their strange surroundings both boys began to nod, while the fire died down to glowing embers. It was then that some evil genius prompted a great horned owl to take up his watch on a dead pine not fifty feet [213] away and startle the woodland with his fierce hunting call:

“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!”

The sleepers awoke in a panic, frantically clutching each other. “D-d-did you hear that?” whispered Spud, his teeth chattering.

As if in reply again the fierce hunting call rang through the woods:

“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!”

Billy gave vent to a hysterical little laugh of relief. “Nothin’ but an owl,” said he as he heaped more wood on the fire. “He certainly got my goat that first time, though. Say, Spud, we’re a couple of ninnies to both be sittin’ out here asleep. What’d we build that lean-to for? You turn in there and sleep for a couple of hours and then you watch and I’ll sleep. Ain’t any need of either of us keepin’ watch so far as any danger is concerned, I s’pose, for there’s nothin’ in these woods to harm us, but we ought not to leave the fire burnin’ without some one to watch it.”

This was sound advice, and Spud stretched out on the fragrant balsam boughs in the lean-to and soon was sound asleep. Billy began his lonely vigil. At first it was easy [214] enough to keep awake. Later an almost irresistible drowsiness took possession of him, and it was only by tramping back and forth or hunting fire-wood within the circle of light from the fire that he managed to keep awake. At the end of two hours he roused Spud, and wearily threw himself in the latter’s place on the balsam bed.

It seemed to him that he had hardly closed his eyes when he felt Spud shaking him. “Go ’way,” he murmured sleepily. “What you waking me up now for?”

“It’s your turn again to watch,” Spud growled, unceremoniously hauling Billy off the boughs.

If it had been hard and lonely work before it was doubly so now. It was past midnight, at the hour when vital forces and courage are at their lowest ebb. Billy was stiff and sore. Every movement was painful. He had never felt so utterly miserable in all his life. As he afterward expressed it, every bit of sand had run out.

He piled fuel on the fire, and then sat down on the log and gave himself over to his misery. How long he had sat there he could not tell [215] when he was brought out of a semi-drowse by a slight noise back of the lean-to. In an instant he was wide awake, straining his ears for a repetition of the sound.

The fire had burned low and the circle of light had narrowed to a faint glow of but a few feet in diameter. Billy held his breath. Had he imagined it? No, there was a rustle of leaves back of the lean-to. Something was moving there. Then there followed a decided and pronounced sniff! Billy felt his scalp prickle as if each individual hair was rising on end. With a wild yell he grabbed a glowing ember from the fire and hurled it in the direction of the sound. There was a startled “whoof,” and the sound of a heavy animal lumbering off through the brush.

Spud came tumbling out of the lean-to white and shaky. “For heaven’s sake, Billy, what’s the matter?” he gasped.

Billy’s teeth were chattering so that he could hardly speak. “I—I—I th-think it wa-was a bear,” he finally managed to get out.

“Go on, what you givin’ us!” said Spud.

[216] Billy had by now so far recovered himself that he could give a connected account of what he had heard, and both agreed that their visitor could have been nothing less than bruin. Needless to say there was no more sleep for either that night. They piled fresh fuel on the fire and kept watch together, starting nervously at the smallest sound.

It was with a sigh of profound relief that they noted the gray of dawn stealing through the trees, and with the coming of the light their spirits rose perceptibly.

“What shall we do now, make a break out of here?” asked Spud when day had fairly broken.

“Not on your tintype!” replied Billy. “I’m lost all I’m goin’ to be. You get busy and build another fire over there about fifty feet. When it gets goin’ good heap on a lot of green leaves and rotten wood to make a smoke. I’ll do the same thing with this fire. There ain’t a breath of wind; those two smokes will go straight up, and you know two smokes means ‘lost.’ Some one will be up at the lookout on the top of Old Scraggy the first thing this morning, and he’ll see the smokes. [217] Then he’ll get word to camp and a party will come out and find us.”

Wise Billy. He had decided upon just the right course of action. After the return of the unsuccessful searching parties Dr. Merriam had spent an anxious night. Before daybreak he had dispatched Seaforth with one of the guides to the top of Old Scraggy. They had seen the signal smokes at once and heliographed the location of them to camp. A party led by Big Jim and Louis Woodhull had started immediately, and as soon as they reached the clearing where the boys had begun their bee hunt they saw the smoke lazily curling above the tree tops about a mile beyond.

Firing signal shots and stopping every few minutes to send a whoop ringing through the woods they pushed on and presently, guided by answering whoops from the two victims, found the camp.

“Mother of saints!” exclaimed Big Jim as he caught a glimpse of the swollen and mud-stained faces of the two boys.

Billy smiled feebly, for the effort was painful. “We found a bee tree,” he said.

[218] “Found a bee tree! Found a bee tree!” echoed the guide. “’Pears to me thet them bees did some findin’ on their own account.”

Then seeing what really pitiful condition the two youngsters were in he called an abrupt halt to all jollying by the rescuers and at once prepared for the return to camp. One of the party was sent on ahead to relieve the doctor of his worry, and the rest slowly worked their way out, for Billy was too stiff and sore to hurry much.

At the first brook a halt was made and the faces of the two victims were tenderly bathed and made a little more presentable to enter camp. Billy’s volatile spirits were already back to normal. He was full of the bee tree and the bear and already laying plans for getting the honey.

At mention of the bear Big Jim smiled. “Folks thet git lost in th’ woods most generally meet up with a bar,” he remarked dryly. “Didn’t give yer a lock o’ his hair fer a soovineer, did he, son?”

Billy tried to make a face at the guide, but winced with pain. “I tell you there was a [219] bear, and he came right up to our lean-to,” he sputtered indignantly.

And so they came into camp where in front of the office Dr. Merriam stood gravely awaiting them.