Boy Scouts in the Blue Ridge; Or, Marooned Among the Moonshiners Read online

  CHAPTER XII.

  AN HONORED GUEST.

  THE boys looked at the moonshiner, who returned their stares withinterest. He seemed utterly indifferent as to whether they chose toreceive him either as a friend or a foe. From this Thad was almostcertain that there must be other fierce mountaineers close by, ready toback up their chief, should he provoke a quarrel with the strange boysin uniform.

  That fact meant serious trouble for the scouts, if it happened to cometo pass. Thad knew that these lawless men of the mountains, who snaptheir fingers at the authority of the courts, and feel safe in thesecurity of their secret fastnesses, deep in the unknown regions back ofthe trodden trails, think very little of human life. They are usuallyengaged in some vendetta between rival factions, or families, and bloodis frequently shed.

  Understanding how thin was the ice upon which he and his comrades wereskating, the patrol leader felt that he could not be too careful how heprovoked this man of strong passions to violence.

  A little to his surprise Phin Dady wheeled, and faced him directly. Butthen the mountaineer was gifted with a sharp vision, and he couldreadily guess which one of the scouts served in the capacity of leader.Perhaps there was that in the manner of Thad to tell him this fact. Orhe might have been watching and listening long enough to see how theothers all deferred to Thad's judgment.

  "I gut yer letter O. K.," he said, simply.

  Thad's anxious face brightened up instantly; he saw that for the timebeing the other meant to put aside his hostility. Curiosity hadsupplanted enmity. He wanted to learn more about what that term "BoyScouts," used in the message left in the cleft of the stick, might mean.

  "And I hope you read what we wrote, Phin Dady?" the boy asked, eagerly.

  A whimsical smile flashed athwart the thin face of the mountaineer.

  "As fur me, I ain't much o' a hand ter read, any more'n I am ter write;but thar chanced ter be a feller along as hed sum schoolin'; an' him an'me, we managed ter figger it out. Thort as how I'd like ter run up aginye all, an' larn wat all this hyar bizness consarnin' Boy Scouts be.Heerd tell 'bout sich, but never cud find anythin' but a cold trail. SoI kim over ter see ye; an' p'raps now ye'd open up an' 'xplain."

  "I'll be only too glad to do that, if you'll take a seat at ourcamp-fire here for a little while, Phin Dady," Thad remarked, making amovement with his hand to indicate where the other could find acomfortable spot to rest.

  The man looked closely at the speaker; then turned his head, anddeliberately made a motion with his hand, that must have been intendedfor some concealed confederate. After which he stepped over, and took aseat, but not the one Thad had indicated as the post of honor.

  "Reckon I'll sit hyar, ef so be it's all ther same ter you-uns," hesaid, as he dropped down, and swung his rifle across his knees. "Yuhsee, I likes ter look at everybody w'en I gets ter talkin'. It's moresociable like."

  But Thad knew better. The gleam in those beady eyes told him what thetrue meaning of this action must be. When a man has been hunted, in andout of season, for the better part of his long life, he naturally becomemost suspicious of every stranger, young and old. Many had been theshrewd games engineered by the revenue men to catch this old weaselasleep. He trusted no one all the way, even his best friends, who mightbe tempted to betray him because of the reward that was offered for hiscapture.

  But although Thad had guessed just why the other chose the seat he hadtaken, it would have been most unwise on his part to have shown anyresentment; or even to let Phin Dady know that he understood.

  "You see," Thad began, simply, "we were warned to be careful before weleft Asheville, because people said that the fact of our wearinguniforms might make the mountain folks think we had something to do withthe army. I was explaining all about what the Boy Scouts represent toMr. Reuben Sparks only a short time ago, and he was greatly interested.If you'll listen, then, I'll go back, and tell what we aim to do; andwhy we have left our homes to take a long hike through a mountainousregion, for up where we live we have no such big hills as these."

  So Thad began, and told in as simple language as he could find just whatobjects were kept in mind among all troops of Boy Scouts, whether inAmerica, England, Australia, South Africa, Germany, France or any othercountry on the face of the globe.

  Fortunately Thad was a good talker. He knew how to make use of a wholelot of little things in order to arouse the interest of the one who waslistening; and he certainly had a subject worthy of his best efforts inthis explanation of what the Boy Scout movement stood for.

  And the mountain man was deeply interested too. He proved this by theway he hung upon the words of the boy. Now and then his suspiciousnature would show itself in a cautious look around, as though he wantedto make sure that no shrewd game were being engineered, while thespeaker kept his attention engaged.

  Several times he broke in on Thad to ask questions. He could not get itthrough his head, for instance, why boys any more than men, should setabout doing all the work that scouts attempt, without pay. In thisregion of the hookworm, where men never dream of working until driven toit by actual hunger, they think others must be crazy to voluntarily takeupon themselves huge tasks that try both brain and muscle.

  "But sure the Gov'ment pays yuh!" he said three separate times, asthough he felt positive there must be some secret connection between theBoy Scout movement, and the authorities at Washington; else why shouldthey be wearing the uniform he and his fellow-moonshiners had come tolook on as the mark of the oppressor; for several times the army hadbeen called into the field to hunt down the elusive law breakers, whosimply vanished utterly from view, and remained in hiding until the raidwas over.

  "Not one cent do we get from anybody," Thad assured him, positively."Why, even our uniforms have to be bought with money we've each oneearned. We're not allowed to accept them as a gift from any man, or anysource. So you see, we're under no obligations to anybody."

  Again Phin Dady asked a series of questions which would indicate that hewas at least interested in all Thad told him, though possibly hebelieved only a small part of the whole.

  When Thad repeated to him the twelve cardinal features of a Boy Scout'svow, taken when he joined a troop, Phin shook his head helplessly, asthough it were beyond his power of understanding. Indeed, that was wherethe trouble lay; he possessed so shallow a nature that he was utterlyunable to grasp the full significance of the scheme. There must be somesort of recompense, in dollars and cents, to make it worth while for anyperson to do things that called for labor. And that was why hecontinued to keep his weapon across his knees as he sat and listened,and asked an occasional question. Phin Dady was not going to be lulledto sleep by any interesting yarn that sounded very "fishy" in his ears.

  Of course, the other scouts had discreetly remained silent while allthis was going on. They were content to let Thad do the talking, fornone of them could equal the patrol leader in explaining what thebenefits were, which boys might expect to obtain when they joined ascout patrol.

  Several of them just sat there, and stared in open-mouthed wonder at theman, of whom they had heard more or less lately, and whose defiance ofthe authorities had been a matter of many years' standing.

  Phin Dady might boast of no education whatever; and his knowledge of theworld, outside the confines of the Big Smokies, was doubtless extremelylimited; but he did possess what served him far better in the warfare inwhich he was continually engaged with revenue agents--a naturalshrewdness such as the wily fox of the forest shows, and by means ofwhich he outwits his pursuers.

  "An' yuh kim 'way down this away jest tuh climb the mountings, an' seewot yuh cud do acampin' out without ary tents er blankets, did yuh?" themountaineer went on, surveying the boyish faces that formed a halfcircle around him. "Wall, I jest reckons ye'll know a heap more by thertime ye gits back ter yer homes'n yuh did w'en yuh started out."

  He chuckled as he said that. Thad wondered whether there could be anyhidden meaning back of the words. When dealing with such a slipp
erycustomer as this hunted moonshiner, it was always necessary to keep onthe watch. The man who always suspected others of double dealing mightbe in the same class himself.

  "Oh! we're quite sure of that," said the patrol leader, with a pleasantsmile. "Already those among us who had never climbed a mountain slopebefore, have had their leg muscles stiffened, and can do better workthan in the start. We expect to have a pretty good time all around. Andwe wrote you that message, Phin Dady, because we believed you wereordering us out of these mountains under a mistake that we meant to doyou, or some of your friends, harm. We want you to feel that we neverdreamed of that when we started in here."

  "Then I hopes as how yuh beant changin' o' yer minds sence yuh kim,"remarked the moonshiner, just as though he knew what the subject oftheir recent conversations might have been.

  Before Thad could decide just what sort of an answer he ought to make,if any at all, the manner of the other changed as if by magic. His facetook on a fierce expression, and he looked along the row of boyishfaces by which he was confronted, as though one of them had donesomething to arouse his hot anger.

  The click of the hammer of his gun could be heard as his thumb drew itback; and the scouts shrank away in dismay when they saw the flame inhis small eyes.

  "Quick! tell me you'uns, whar be the other one? Thar was sure eight w'enwe counted yuh from the side o' the mounting. An' it mout pay yuh ter'member thet Ole Phin, he beant the man ter fool with. Eight thar was;whar be the other right now?"

  And Thad realized that the ice was indeed getting desperately thin undertheir feet at that particular moment.