Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ A tense silence prevailed. Pee-wee gasped, speechless. Even the exuberant Roy stared. “What do—you—know—about—that!” Doc Carson whispered to Artie Van Arlen. As Westy had been staring spellbound all along, no turn in his thoughts was visible in his features. Warde Hollister, of all the boys in the troop, seemed unperturbed. Level-headed and sensible scout that he was, he had let the others do the hoping, and the shouting.
“We don’t get it,” whispered Dorry Benton.
“Look!” whispered Wig Weigand to Warde.
But the figure that came sauntering down the aisle was not Edwin Carlisle, the hero. ”

“ Wilde’s home truths. Here indeed was the land where men had fought with untamed Nature and won out.
It seemed to Westy that he had been swimming with a life preserver. He sat down on the car platform and rested his chin on his hands and gazed about. It was not a propitious mood for a boy to be in who was about to be shown the wonders of the Yellowstone National Park. He almost wished that he had not met that disturbing person, Mr. Wilde. He could not get Shining Sun out of his mind. To do anything on a little scale seemed contemptible to Westy. ”

“ Madison C. Wilde gave him a whimsical look and proceeded to draw forth from an inside pocket a mammoth wallet while the three boys stared speechless. Could this man be just fooling them? The wallet was formidable enough to stagger any grizzly. It was bulging with money, which to the boys seemed to confirm the stranger’s connection with the movies, where fabulous sums are possessed and handed about. Mr. Wilde was as deliberate with his wallet as any hunter of the woolly west could possibly have been with his gun. ”

“ A SHOT
A quick, sharp report rent the air. Followed several seconds of deathlike silence. Then the lesser sound of a twig falling in the still forest. Again silence. A silence, tense, portentous. Then the sound of foliage being disturbed and of some one running.
Westy Martin paused, every nerve on edge. It was odd that a boy who carried his own rifle slung over his shoulder should experience a kind of panic fear after the first shocking sound of a gunshot. He had many times heard the report of his own gun, but never where it could do harm. Never in the solemn depths of the forest. ”

“ Martin observed with undeniable truth, “I’ve known your father longer than you have. We must just say nothing and let the whole matter blow over. Very soon he’ll be angry about his income tax and then he’ll forget about this summer. He thinks that your Uncle Dick shouldn’t have such men about his place as that horrible Ira, as you call him. He blames that man more than you. He says that farms are hiding places for good-for-nothing scoundrels who can’t get employment elsewhere.”
“Ira isn’t a scoundrel,” said Westy. ”

“ But Westy was more than a sensitive boy, he was a scout. And a scout has ever a sense of responsibility. It was futile to consider what some stranger had done while this poor creature lay suffering. All that he had read and heard about hunting big game and all such stuff was forgotten in the consciousness of a present duty. ”

“ Westy recalled these words in the mammoth volume on the sitting room table at the farm. He had admired, even been thrilled at the heroic picture of the great hunter whose exploits in the Maine woods were so flatteringly recorded. It had not at the time occurred to him that the noble stag might have looked like a statue too. Well, here was the actual result of such flaunted heroism, and Westy did not like it. It was quite a different sort of picture.
Then, suddenly, it occurred to him that he was to blame for this pitiful spectacle. He who shoots does not always kill. ”

“ So Westy Martin, scout of the first class, did his good turn to this dumb creature in its dim forest home. The dumb creature did not know that Westy Martin was doing it a good turn. It seemed a queer sort of good turn. He could never write it down in his neat little scout record as a good turn. He would never, never think of it in that way. If the deer could only understand....
The way to do a thing is to do it. And it is not the part of a scout to dilly-dally. When a scout knows his duty he is not afraid. But if the deer could only know, could only understand.... ”

“ A queer enough figure he looked in that representative assemblage in his faded trousers and blue flannel shirt. Rough, uncouth and unaccustomed to such environment, he still bore a certain air of serene heedlessness to all this pomp and circumstance, as if he were concerned only with that which was really significant and vital. One could not say of him that he seemed at home, for that would be paying the place an unconscious tribute. His calm assurance and easy strength seemed to imply that the whole world was his home and that one place was much like another to him. ”

“ He regarded Shining Sun (or Stove Polish as he preferred to call him) as a rare discovery—a real, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, little scout, a scout whose skill and lore could be used in adventurous undertakings. Amateurs! Nice boys! And they were about to have their reward of merit for three exploits, the recital of which had not exactly staggered Mr. Wilde. They were going to drive around Yellowstone Park in autos and stop at the hotels and visit modern, well-equipped camps, and see the petrified forests and the geysers. ”

“ As a little boy, Westy had supposed it contained a skeleton (he never knew why he thought so) and that all his father’s worldly wealth was there secreted in an iron chest of the kind which has always been in vogue with pirates. Later, when he had learned of the existence of banks he had abandoned this belief and had come to know (he knew not how) that the closet contained books which had undergone parental censorship and been banned from the library shelves. Doris had never regarded this closet with the same reverential awe that Westy had shown for it ”

“ A boy, a gun, and a wild animal make a killing and that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, then let’s talk of something else,” said Mrs. Martin gently. “Don’t you think this ash tray is very pretty? Westy brought it to you, dear.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t use the word dear again, mother,” said Doris, munching her apple. “I’ve heard so much about deers——”
“And the boy’s lost a hundred dollars!” thundered Mr. Martin, ignoring his daughter. “When I was his age——”
“Well, he’s had his lesson,” said Doris sweetly. “A hundred dollars isn’t so much for a good lesson.” ”

“ Westy remembered something his scoutmaster had once said. Everything that happens has a cause. Little things may mean big things. Nine boys out of ten would not have noticed this trivial thing, or having noticed it would not have thought twice about it. But Westy approached and felt of the leaves and as he did so, he felt his foot sinking into swampy water. He tried to lift it out but could not. Then, he felt the other foot sinking too. He hardly knew how it happened, but in ten seconds he was down to his knees in the swamp. ”

“ It is sometimes easier to follow tracks than to find them. No doubt the fugitive had been some distance from the deer when he had shot it. Where had he been then? Near enough for Westy to hear the patter of his footfalls, that was certain. Also another thought occurred to him. The man’s shot had not been a good one, at least it had not proved fatal. He was either a very poor marksman or else he had fired from a considerable distance.
Westy’s mind worked quickly and logically now. He had easily the best mind of any scout in his troop. Not the most sprightly mind, but the best. ”

“ Every troop in the county has a right to vote who did the biggest good turn in the troop and then they send the name of that scout to the Rotary Club and those men have a committee to read the reports sent from all the different troops and then they decide which scout out of all those scouts did the biggest good turn. All the good turns are big ones because if they’re not they don’t get to the league and they decide which is the biggest of all the big ones and then—listen! ”

“ Ira puffed his horrible pipe in silence for a few moments, and in that restful interval could be heard the sound of the bars being let down so that the cows might return to their pasture. The bell on one wayward cow sounded farther and farther off as Uncle Dick, all innocent of the little tragedy, drove the patient beasts into the upper meadow.
The clanking bell reminded poor Aunt Mira to say, “You told him he couldn’t even shoot a cow, you did, Iry.”
“He’s just about the best kid that ever was,” was all that Ira answered. ”

“ To kidnap a barbarous king was certainly not the act of a gentleman (as Westy’s mother had observed) but it was not mean....
The nearest that Ira’s cogitations brought him to the truth was his suspicion that somehow or other Westy and Luke Meadows had both been involved in the lawless act of killing and that Westy (being the financier of the pair) had been frightened into taking the blame. In this case it seemed likely enough that Luke (aware of his dubious reputation) would depart before Westy should have time to weaken and incriminate him. ”

“ As all of us know, the Rotary Club of Bridgeboro has done a very splendid and public-spirited thing. This organization has offered a reward to the scout of Rockvale County who shall be selected as the one who has done the most conspicuous good turn during the summer. This award, as we know, is a free trip to the Yellowstone National Park, where a national jamboree for Boy Scouts is to be held.
“Special stress was laid upon one or two requirements which would lift the good turn out of the class of simple every-day kindness and helpfulness to others. ”

“ She shouldn’t say that a hundred dollars isn’t a great deal of money, for it is. Maybe it isn’t a great deal for Charlie Westcott and those friends of hers, but it’s a good deal for you, dear.”
Westy sat on the edge of the bed half listening, his eyes brimming. And it is odd, when you come to think of it, that no one save a rough farm hand with an exceedingly varied and checkered career, had ever taken particular notice of a certain quality in those gray eyes. ”

“ Well, sir, that kid could call like a hawk and bring the hawk near enough so he could drop it with a stone—absolutely. Beaver Pete told me that when he found that kid in the trapping season he was wearing a bearskin from a bear he had caught and killed without so much as a bean-shooter. Nature couldn’t freeze him or starve him. He could find water by instinct same as an animal does. You see, boys, what you have to do you can do. There is no such thing as scouting in the midst of civilization or in neighbor Smith’s woods. ”

“ Westy did not answer, only arose in a rather disgruntled way and stepped off the platform. He strolled forward alone along the outside of the car, kicking a stone as he went and watching it intently. When he raised his eyes he had almost reached the other end of the car. The car stood on a siding quite alone; the train was rushing away among the mountains.
Westy Martin was at last face to face with something real and big. He and his companions were quite alone in the Rocky Mountains. The Boy Scouts of America and the heedless, cruel, monster Nature had come to an issue at last. ”

“ Martin had indeed lost some faith in Westy’s ability to keep his promise where a gun was concerned, but his confidence in his son had not diminished to a point where he believed Westy would invade that forbidden closet. Probably Doris expressed her father’s mental state accurately enough when she said later to her mother, “He isn’t afraid that Westy will break in, he’s afraid that the gun will break out. The rifle has got father’s goat as well as somebody or other’s deer.” ”

“ The geysers jump up when they see you coming; the grizzly bears hug you to death. (Laughter.) You can shoot the rapids but you can’t shoot anything else. You can leave your gun at home, young fellow, because that wonderland belongs to the deer just as much as it belongs to you. You can’t kill deer in the Yellowstone.”
Westy winced. Was the speaker looking at him? Of course not—foolish, sensitive boy....
“Now, one of you scouts is going out to the Yellowstone next summer, on the Rotary Club of Bridgeboro. The amount of money you will have to take is just not one cent! ”

“ If you haven’t got a gun the only way you can catch a bird is to fool him. So he knows how to fool them. You fellows are scouts because you want to have a lot of fun. But Stove Polish is a scout because he wants to live; he has to be one, or he did have to up to a year or two ago. He knows how to run without making a sound because if he made a sound it would be all up with him. ”