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Boy Scouts First Camp Fire

<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> <h3>THE ACCUSATION MADE BY STEP-HEN.</h3> "Am I going to swell up any more, Thad; and will you just have to put hoops on me to keep me from bursting?" asked Bumpus, earnestly. The other fellows wanted to laugh, but to their credit be it said that they restrained this feeling. It would be heartless, with poor Bumpus looking so badly. "Oh! don't get that notion into your head," said the young leader; for as assistant scout-master, in the absence of Dr. Philander, Thad was supposed to take charge of the troop, and assume all his duties; "here, fellows, bring him along back to the spring. I've got something in my haversack the doctor gave me, that ought to help Bumpus." "Was it meant for ant bites, Thad, do you know?" asked the victim, as he allowed his comrades to urge him along slowly; while he rubbed, first one part of his person, and then another, as the various swellings stung in succession. "Well, he really said it was to be used in case[22] any of us got scratched by a wild animal, and there was danger of poisoning; but it strikes me it would be a good antiseptic, he called it, in this case." Having reached the spot where Bob White still faithfully stood guard over their few belongings, Thad hurriedly threw open his bundle, and took out a little package carefully wrapped up. It contained rolls of soft white linen to be used for bandages in case of need; adhesive plaster, also in small rolls; and a few common remedies such as camphor, arnica, and the like, intended for ailments boys may invite when overeating, or partaking too freely of green apples. "Here it is," he remarked, holding up a small bottle. "How purple it looks," observed Davy Jones, curiously; "and what's this on the label, here. 'Permaganate of Potash, No. 6; to be painted on the scratch; and used several times if necessary.' That's Doc. Philander's writing, sure." "It looks pretty tough," commented Giraffe. "The remedy is sometimes worse than the disease, they say," remarked Smithy. "You don't think it'll hurt much, do you, Thad?" asked the victim, trying to smile, but unable, on account of his swollen cheeks. "Not a bit, I understand," came the reassuring reply. "Besides, I should think that you wouldn't hold back, even if it did, Bumpus. You're in a bad[23] way, and I've just got to counteract that poison before your eyes close up." "Go on, use the whole bottle if you want to," urged the alarmed boy. "The only bad thing about it is that this stuff stains like fun, and you'll be apt to look like a wild Indian for a day or two," Thad observed, as he started to apply the potash with a small camel's hair brush brought for the purpose. "Little I care about that, so long as it does the business," replied Bumpus; and so the amateur doctor continued to dab each bite with the lavender-colored fluid until the patient looked as though he might be some strange freak intended for a dime museum. Of course that was too much for the other boys. They snickered behind their hands, and presently broke out into a yell that awoke the echoes. Bumpus only nodded his head at them, for he was a very good-natured fellow. "Laugh away and welcome, boys," he remarked, grimly. "Feels better already, Thad, and if the stuff will only do the business I don't care what happens. Besides, the fellows must have their fun. But they wouldn't think it a joke if any of them had climbed up, looking for a honey pot, and dropped through the rotten stuff that covered the hole in the top of that stump." "Well," said Step-hen, "if it had been our[24] monkey, now. He'd have had a great time climbing out; but Davy could have done it; he's more at home in a tree than on the ground." He said this because the Jones boy was as nimble as an ape when he found an opportunity to show off his gymnastics; he dearly loved to hang from a limb by his toes, and carry on like a circus athlete or trapeze performer. "Do we make a start now?" asked Bob White; "exactly fifteen minutes spent, suh, in rescuing our comrade in distress." "Are you able to walk with us, Bumpus?" asked Thad. "Oh! I guess I can amble along somehow," responded the fat boy; "but please detail a couple of scouts to keep near me, in case I begin to swell again. I'm sorry we haven't got a rope along; because I'd feel safer if I had one wrapped around me right now." "Where's my campaign hat?" burst out Step-hen just then; "anybody seen it layin' around loose? I declare to goodness it's queer how my things always seem to disappear. I often think there must be some magic about it." "Huh! the only trouble is you never keep a blessed thing where it belongs," declared Davy, in scorn. "Now, there's Smithy, who goes to just the opposite extreme; he's too particular, and wastes time, which a true scout should never do. The rest[25] of us try to be half-way decent; and you notice we seldom lose anything. There's your old hat right now, just where you flung it when we dropped down here." "Oh! thank you, Davy; perhaps I am just a little careless, as you say; but all the same it's funny how my things always go. Hope, now, I don't lose that splendid little aluminum compass I bought the other day, thinking that it might save me from getting lost in the woods some time." "Oh! come along, old slow-poke, we're going to start There's Bumpus trying to screw his lips into a pucker right now, so he can blow the bugle. Ain't he got the grit, though, to attend to his business with that swollen face?" Presently, after the inspiring notes of the bugle had sounded, the patrol once more took up its line of march. Each scout had his staff in his hand, and carried a haversack on his back. Blankets they had none, for all those necessary things had been entrusted to the care of a farmer, whose route home from early market took him near the intended camping place on Lake Omega; a beautiful, if wild looking sheet of water some miles in length, and situated about ten from Cranford town. Allan and Thad headed the procession that soon straggled in couples along the side of the dusty road. "What made you mention the name of Brose[26] Griffin when you detailed Number Four to remain at the camp?" asked Allan, who had evidently been thinking about this same thing. "Well," replied the scout-master, "it flashed into my mind that these tough fellows might have dogged us up here, to play some of their tricks on us when in camp; and that holding Bumpus was meant to draw the rest off, so they could run away with our haversacks, which they knew must contain lots of things we couldn't well get on without in camp." "Smithy couldn't if his hair brush and his little whisk broom were missing," declared Allan, with a chuckle. "Why, that boy seems to only live to fight against dirt. He's the most particular fellow I ever knew." "Oh! wait and see how he gets over that before he's been a scout two months," said Thad, also laughing. "Nothing like the rough and ready life in camp and on the march to cure a boy of being over-clean. He'd never learn any different at home, you know, because his mother is the same way, and brought him up pretty much like a girl. But he's reached the point now where the true boy nature is beginning to get the better of that false pride." "But seriously, Thad, do you believe we'll see anything of Brose Griffin and his two shadows, Bangs and Hop?" "I certainly hope we won't," replied the other;[27] "but you know what they are; and I've been told that they went around asking all sorts of questions about where we intended to make our first camp-fire. It wouldn't surprise me much if they did try to give us trouble." "What will we do if it happens that way?" asked Allan. "Defend ourselves, to be sure," replied the scout-master, promptly, as he gave a weed a snap with his staff that cut its top off neatly. "But scouts are not supposed to fight; that is one of the principles of the organization," Allan remarked. "In a way you're right," replied the other, slowly; "that is, no true scout will ever seek a fight; but there may be times when he has to enter into one in order to defend himself, or save a comrade from being badly hurt. You know the twelve rules we all subscribed to when we joined the Silver Fox Patrol, Allan? Suppose you run them over right now?" "Oh! that's easy," laughed the second in command. "A scout must be trustworthy, loyal, helpful to others, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient to his superiors, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent." "Well, in order to be brave, and helpful to others, he may even have to fight; but he is expected only to resort to such extreme measures when every other[28] means fail. And if those three roughs come playing their jokes around our camp we'll try and speak decently with them first. Then, if that doesn't work, they'd better look out." The way Thad snapped his teeth shut when saying those last few words told what he would be apt to do if forced into the last ditch by circumstances over which he had no control. "I hope we can coax Giraffe to quit trying to make fires all the time," said Allan. "It's a dangerous thing to do in the woods. Why, up in Maine every hunter has to employ a licensed guide just to make sure he doesn't leave a camp-fire burning behind him when he breaks camp, which the rising wind would scatter into the brush, so that valuable timber would be burned, and heaps of damage done. I've stood my turn as a fire guard myself in the Fall, and was hired by the State too." "Listen, would you?" said Thad, just then; "what do you suppose is the matter between Bumpus and Step-hen now? The chances are he's gone and lost something again and is accusing poor old Bumpus of taking it. Let's wait for them here, and settle the trouble." The two in question brought up the van of the trailing patrol. As they came along Step-hen was venting his disgust as usual over the "mighty queer way" his things had of vanishing without anybody ever touching them.[29] "What's gone now, Step-hen?" asked Thad, as they came up, still wrangling. "Why, just to think," called out Bumpus, "he says I never gave him back that new compass of his, after he showed me how it worked, before we started on this hike; and I say I did. As if I'd want to take his silly compass, when I learned how to tell north from the mossy side of a tree, and the way the sun hangs out up there." "Well, I just can't find it on me anywhere," complained Step-hen; "and as I remembered showing it to Bumpus, I thought he was setting up a game on me by hiding it somewhere about him. He wouldn't let me look in his pack, either, you know." "Course I wouldn't!" cried the fat boy, indignantly; "because that'd look like I half admitted the charge. Guess I know enough about law to understand that. Just you think real hard, Step-hen, and p'raps you'll remember where you put it; but don't throw it up at me, please." The other grumbled something, but made no further charge. From the suspicious way in which he looked at Bumpus out of the corners of his eyes, it was plain that his mind was far from convinced, and that missing compass would be apt to make trouble during the whole trip.[30] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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