A Scout of To-day

by Isabel Hornibrook

  CHAPTER XIV

  A RIVER DUEL

  With the enlisting of Godey and his gang, who mainly representedwhatever tendency there might be to youthful rowdyism in the demurelittle town, the whole vicinity of the tidal river was won over to theBoy Scout Movement.

  The new recruits, those who gave in their names on Christmas Eve aswould-be scouts, together with one or two later additions, were formedinto a second patrol, of which Godey became patrol leader, called theFoxes in honor of the commonest animal of moderate size to be found intheir woods; the red fox being prevalent, too, among the whitesand-hills, the Sugarloaf Dunes, that formed part of the wild coast nearthe mouth of the Exmouth River.

  Those milky dunes, formed of pale sand which was popularly supposed tohave drifted down from New Hampshire to the sea and to have been sweptin here by the winds and tides of ages, were a sort of El Dorado to theboys of the little town far up the tidal river.

  Pirates' treasure was confidently believed to be buried there; each ladwho made the trip by steam launch, motor-boat, or plodding rowboatdownstream for several miles to the dunes, was certain that if he couldonly hit upon the right sand-hill and dig deep enough, he would find itswhiteness richly inlaid with gold.

  Other wild tales centred about the romantic dunes, of smugglers andtheir lawless doings in earlier and less law-enforcing times than thebeginning of the twentieth century.

  It was even hinted that within recent years there had been unlawfulimportations at rare intervals of certain dutiable commodities, such asintoxicating liquors and cigars, by means of a rowboat that would lie upduring the day in the sandy pocket of some little creek that intersectedthe marshes near the white dunes, stealing forth at night into the bayto meet a mysterious vessel.

  The latest report connected the name of Dave Baldwin, the _vaurien_, asToiney contemptuously called him, with this species of petty smuggling.

  Wiseacres, such as Captain Andy and the doctor, were of opinion that nosuch lawless work could be carried on to-day under the Argus eyes ofrevenue officers. But it was known that Dave spent most of his vagrantdays hanging round the milky dunes and their neighborhood, sleeping onwinter nights in some empty camp or deserted summer cottage, andoccasionally varying the pale monotony of the dunes by sojourning in thewoods at the opposite side of the river.

  The possibility of running across him during a visit to the SugarloafSand-Hills, or of seeing his "pocketed" boat reposing in some littlecreek where the mottled mother-seal secreted her solitary young one, hadlittle interest for the boy scouts.

  Toiney's contempt for the skulking vagrant who had caused his mother'sheart to "break in pieces," had communicated itself to them. They weremuch more interested in the prospect of pursuing acquaintance with thespotted harbor seal, once the floundering despot of the tidal river, nowscarcer and more shy.

  As winter merged into spring a third patrol of boy scouts was formed,composed of boys from farms down the river, who had recourse to thisharbor mammal for a name and called themselves the Seals.

  Thus when April swelled the buds upon the trees, and the salt-marsheswere all feathery with new green, there were three patrols of boyscouts who met in the little town hall of Exmouth, forming a completescout troop, to plan for hikes and summer camps; and to go on theircheery way out of meeting, ofttimes creating spring in the heart ofwinter by doing the regulation good turn for somebody.

  In especial, good turns toward the sorrow-bowed old woman, Ma'amBaldwin, were in vogue that season, because a first-rate recipe forsympathy is to perform a service for its object. The greater and morerisky the service, the broader the stream of good will that flows fromit!

  So it was with the four members of the Owl Patrol who had received theboy scout medal for life-saving--the silver cross suspended from a blueribbon, awarded to the scout who saves life with considerable risk tohimself--for their gallant work in rescuing the old woman's grandsonfrom the frozen waters of the tidal river. Their own moved feelings atthat the finest moment of their young lives were thereafter as a shiningmantle veiling the peculiarities of her who, solitary and defenseless,had once been regarded as fair game for their most merciless teasing.

  She was not so solitary now. Much shaken by the accident to hergrandchild, she was in no fit state to return to her baldfaced house onChristmas Eve or for many days after; so Public Opinion at length tookthe matter into its own hands and decreed that henceforth she must finda home with her daughter.

  There, in a little dwelling on the outskirts of the town, she oftenwatched the khaki-clad scouts march by. Invariably they saluted her. AndJack, the rescued nine-year-old, would strut and stretch and stamp in avain attempt to hasten the advent of his twelfth birthday when he mightenlist as a tenderfoot.

  The Saturday spring hikes were varied by trips down the river when eachpatrol in turn was taken on an excursion in Captain Andy's motor-boat.It was on such an occasion that Nixon Warren, who had begun his scoutservice as a member of the Peewit Patrol of Philadelphia, obtained hiscoveted chance of seeing Spotty Seal at close quarters.

  "You stay round Exmouth during the spring an' summer, Nix, and I'll takeyou where you'll see a seal close enough for you to shake his flipper,"promised the sea-captain; and he kept his word, though the pledge wasfulfilled after a fashion not in accordance with his intentions.

  It was a glorious day, when the power-boat Aviator, owned by CaptainAndy, left the town wharf with six of the Owls aboard in charge of theassistant scoutmaster, Toiney Leduc, and with the absurd little rowboatthat danced attendance upon the Aviator, and which was jocosely namedthe Pill, bobbing behind them on the tidal ripples at the end of asix-foot towrope.

  Spring was on the river to-day. Spring was in the clear call of thegreater yellow-legs as it skimmed over the marshes, in the lightningdart of the kingfisher, in the wave of the tall black grass fringingeach marshy bank, showered with diamonds by the advance and retreat of avery high tide tickled into laughter by the April breeze.

  And spring was in the scouts' hearts, focusing all Nature's joy-thrills,as they glided down the river.

  "_Houp-e-la!_ I'll t'ink heem prett' good day for go on reever, me,"announced Assistant Scoutmaster Toiney, his black eyes dancing.

  And he presently woke the echoes, while they wound in and out betweenthe feathery marshes, with a gay "Tra-la!" or "Rond'! Rond'! Rond'!"that seemed the very voice of Spring herself bursting into song.

  "Goodness! I can hardly wait for the end of August when our scoutmasterwill get his vacation and we're to camp out on the Sugarloaf Dunes,"said Leon Chase. "You can see the white dunes from here, Nix. It's agreat old Sugarloaf, isn't it?" pointing across broad, pearly plains ofwater which at high tide spread out on either side of the central tidalchannel, at the crystalline sand-pillar, guarding the mouth of the tidalriver.

  "The other sand-hills look like a row of tall, snowy breakers at thisdistance. Whew! aren't they splendid--with that bright blue sky-linebehind them? I expect we'll just have the 'time of our lives' when wecamp out there!" came in blissful accents from the patrol leader.

  "Well! we're not going to land on the dunes to-day," said Captain Andy,who was standing up forward, steering the gasolene launch, his keen eyesscanning the plains of water from under his visored cap, in search ofSpotty Seal's sleek dog-like head cleaving the ripples as he swam, withhis strong hind-flippers propelling him along.

  "Whoo'! Whoo'! she threw the water a bit that time; didn't she, lads?"alluding to his motor-boat, as the April breeze plucked a crisp sheet ofspray from the breast of the high tide, like a white leaf from a book,and laughingly threw it at the occupants of the launch. "But that'snothing!" went on the old skipper. "Bless ye, boys, I've been down thisriver in a rowboat when the seas would come tumbling in on me from thebay, each looking big as a house as it shoved its white comb along!'Twould rear itself like a glassy roof over the boat and I'd think itmeant 'day, day!' to me, but I'd crawl out somehow. An' I've lived totell the tale.

  "But I'm gettin' too old
for such scrapes now," went on the oldsea-fighter. "I'm going to turn 'Hayseed!' You mayn't believe it, but Iam!" glowering at the laughing, incredulous scouts. "I'm about buying apiece o' land that's only half cleared o' timber yet, up Exmouth way;going to start a farm. But, great sailor! how'll I ever get along with acow. That's what stumps me."

  "We'll come out an' milk her for you, Captain Andy," volunteered withone breath the boy scouts, their merry voices ringing out over themother-of-pearl plains of water, bounded on one side by the headlands ofa bold shore, on the other by green peninsulas of salt-marsh, insulatedat high water by the winding creeks that burrowed among them, andfarther on by the radiant dunes.

  "I'll t'ink he no lak' for be tie to cow, me!" Toiney noddedmischievously at the sea-captain. Then, all of a sudden, his voiceexploded gutturally like a bomb: "_Gard' donc!_ _Gard' donc_, de grosseal! _Sapre tonnere!_ _deux_ gros seal. Two beeg seal! _V'la V'la!_shes jomp right out o' reever--engh!"

  The excited Canadian's gesticulating hands drew every eye in thedirection he indicated, which was a little to the left of the centraltidal channel, between them and the straying creeks.

  And the scouts' excitement fairly fizzed like a burning fuse as, mingledwith Toiney's cry, sounded a hoarse bark, wafted across the plains ofwater, the harsh "Beow!" or "Weow!" according as the semi-distant earmight translate it, of an angry bull-seal.

  Each boy's heart leaped into his distended throat at the sound, but notso high as leaped the bull-seal, to whom the other term significant ofhis male gender--that of dog-seal--hardly applied, for he outweighedhalf a dozen good-sized dogs.

  Breathlessly gazing, the scouts saw him jump clear out of the water notquarter of a mile from them, his sleek, dark bulk sheathed in crystalarmor, wrought of brine and sunbeams--his flippers dripping rainbows!Down he came again with a wrathful splash that sent the foam flying, andstruck his companion, an apparently smaller animal whose head alone wasvisible, a furious blow on that sleek head with one of his clawedflippers.

  "_Gard' donc!_ _Gard' donc_, les gros seal _qui se battent_! De beegseal dat fights--dat strike heem oder, engh?" exploded Toiney again.

  "So they are--fighting! Goodness! that big fellow is pitching into theone in the water. Going for him like fury, for some reason!" broke fromthe excited boys, as they stared, open-mouthed, while this belligerentperformance was repeated, accompanied once or twice by the grunting barkof the larger seal.

  "Great guns! he's a snorter, isn't he? You could hear that battle-cry ofhis nearly a mile off, at night, when the weather is decently calm asto-day," came from Captain Andy while he slowed down the pantingmotor-boat in order that the scouts might have a good view of the angrysea-calf--another name for the harbor seal--which Nixon yearned to see,and which was so absorbed in wreaking vengeance on a flippered rivalthat it paid no attention at all to the approaching launch.

  "Gee whiz! isn't he a monster?"--"Must be five or six feetlong!"--"Can't he make the foam fly, though?"--"You'd think he owned theriver!" came at intervals from the gasping spectators.

  "_Nom-de-tonnerre!_ she's _gros_ seal: shes mak de watere go lak'scramble de egg--engh?" gurgled Toiney, mixing up his pronouns inguttural excitement over this river duel, such as he had witnessed oncebefore, when two male seals contested for the favor of some marbledsweetheart.

  In this case the duelists were evidently unevenly matched, for presentlya wild cry came from Scout Nixon:--

  "See! See! he has him by the throat now. That big fellow has his fangsin the other seal's throat! Must have! For he's dragging him along tothat little creek! He's going to kill him."

  "_Mille tonnerres!_ I'll t'ink shes go for choke heem, me: dat's de tamhe'll go deaded sure--engh?" Thus Toiney came gutturally in on theexcited duet, as seven strained faces peered over the motor-boat's sideat the one-sided battle.

  "_Mille tonnerres_"--"a thousand thunders"--were being launched,indeed, upon the spotted head of the weaker animal, half stunned by thefurious blows rained on him by the clawed hind-flippers of hisadversary, and now finding himself dragged, willy-nilly, through thewater into the secluded creek, like a prisoner to the block.

  He tried diving, to loosen those cruel fangs, but was mercilessly forcedto the surface again by his big rival.

  "Well! I think this fight has gone on long enough; I'm going to separatethem," cried Captain Andy. "I guess the tide is high enough for us tooverhaul them in that little creek, without danger of being pocketed, orhung up aground, there!"

  And with a warning _chug! chug!_ the power-boat Aviator made straightfor the bubbling mouth of the creek, across the foamy wake left by thefighting seals, and dashed in after them.

  Not until it was almost upon them did the triumphant male tear his fourfangs from his rival's throat. Then, startled at last, he swam off a fewstrokes in a wild flurry, and dove, while Captain Andy drove histhrobbing boat in between the combatants.

  For a thrilling minute the scouts found themselves at the centre of agrand old mix-up that churned the waters of the creek; the weaker seal,now half dead, was right beneath the boat. Presently his head appearedupon the surface a few yards ahead of it. Swimming feebly a shortdistance, he crawled out of the water a little higher up the creek andlay upon the marshy bank entirely played out.

  His merciless rival reappeared too, to the rear of the boat, strong asever, swimming rapidly for the creek's mouth and the open water beyondit.

  "That seal is 'all in';" Nixon pointed to the victim. "If we could go onto the head of the creek, we might step out on the bank and have a goodlook at him."

  "I can't land you from the power-boat, but you can get into the littlePill if you like, an' row up 'longside him." Captain Andy pointed to thetubby rowboat bobbing astern. "No! only three of you may go, more mightcapsize her; she ain't much of a boat, though she's a slick bit o' woodfor her size! Easy there now! Steady!"

  The sturdy Pill was drawn alongside. Scouts Warren and Chase, with onebrother Owl, stepped into her, and rowed to the head of the creek,whence they had a near view of the half-throttled creature as he lay,mouth open, stretched out upon the marshy bank, his strong hind-flippersextended behind him, their brown claws glistening with brine.

  "Whew! he's spotted like a sandpiper's egg," said Nixon, looking at thehead and back of the marbled seal. "Seems to me he's of a lighter colorthan the big fellow who nearly did for him; _he_ looked almost black outof water--but then he was all wet. And what a funny little tail this onehas, not bigger than a pair of spectacles!"

  "See his black nose an' short fore-flippers!" whispered Leon. "Don't hiseyes stick out? They're a kind o' blue-black an' glazy. There! he'snoticing us now. He's trying to flounder off--with that funny, teeteringkind o' wabble they have! Say! hadn't we better row back to CaptainAndy, and leave him to recover? He's all used up; that big one gave himan awful licking."

  And this merciful consideration from Starrie Chase, who, prior to hisscout days, would have had no thought save how to finish the cruel workof the big bully and put an end to the beaten rival!

  "Well! you did see a harbor seal, Nix, 'most near enough to shake hisflipper, eh?" challenged Captain Andy as the three scrambled back aboardthe motor-boat, and made the little Pill fast astern by its shorttowrope, while the Aviator bore out of the blue creek, to head upstreamtoward the town again.

  "Yes! I'd have tried to do it too, if he hadn't been so completely 'allin,'" laughed the scout. "I suppose we'll have plenty of opportunitiesto see seals and listen to their barking when we camp out on the whitedunes during the last days of August and the beginning of September.They say the young ones make a kind of cooing noise, much like aturtle-dove, only stronger; I'm bent on capturing a pup-seal, to tamehim!"

  "Oh! you'd have no trouble about the taming, only you couldn't feed him!But you'll see seals a-plenty an' hear 'em, too, next summer. They justlove to lie out on a reef o' rocks in the sun, when the tide's low,especially if the wind's a little from the no'thwest," said theex-skipper. "A lonely reef, a warm sun, and light no
'thwesterly breezemake up the harbor-seal's heaven, I guess!"