CHAPTER IX.

OUT FOR A RECORD.

“Talk to me about luck, I’m having the greatest string of successes you ever heard of!” the enthusiastic photographer laughingly declared, as he saw the others staring hard at him.

“Well, of all the nerve I ever struck, Arthur,” said Billy solemnly, “you certainly take the cake! Why, you’ve got the artistic fever so bad that I believe if a big bear was chasing after us all, you’d want to stop and ask him to look pleasant while you snapped him off. There’s getting to be no limit to your——”

“Just hold on there, Billy,” broke in Hugh. “I think this time Arthur deserves the thanks of the whole Wolf patrol for his stick-at-it-tiveness, as Walter Osborne always calls stubbornness. Think of what a heap of satisfaction it’s going to be to all of us, when we look over some of these thrillers he’s snatched with that snapshot box of his! Leave Arthur alone. While we’re all making history, he’s going to be the one to keep it fresh in our hearts and eyes. We’re proud of him.”

“And I’m wondering, if these pictures turn out anything like the originals,” remarked Bud, “what Don Miller of the Foxes will say. You know he’s been going in strong of late along the same lines as our chum here; and they do say he shows more or less talent about taking queer things. But my stars! he never could even dream of such re-_mark_able stunts as have been crowding in on us of late, commencing with that storm yesterday!”

“Well, Blake Merton has done some good work for the Hawks, too, they tell me,” Arthur admitted, for he was a modest boy and always willing to give a friend credit when it was due. “I know that he’s been staying nights up on his uncle’s farm, just to be able to use a flashlight on the animals in that swamp. I own up that the idea of the thing came to me through him. Blake is all wool and a yard wide; nothing small about him. He said, ‘No matter who wins out, let’s get the greatest lot of queer pictures together that ever were.’”

“And I reckon we will,” declared Billy positively, “as long as you’re able to toddle around with us Wolves, Arthur.”

“I’m wondering what next we’ll run across,” remarked Bud reflectively, as they watched Hugh assisting the wounded aeronaut to gather his scattered traps together. “According to my mind it only needs a runaway horse, with a lovely child to be rescued, or a mad dog scare in town, with our Hugh getting in the limelight as the hero who stands in the breach and knocks the beast on the head with a baseball bat, to complete the whole schedule.”

“Oh! that would be too old-fashioned these days,” said Arthur, as he patted his beloved camera in its leather case, which he had slung by a strap over his shoulder. “To be up-to-date a rescue would have to be where, mounted on a motorcycle, you pursue a runaway car, and jump into it just before it reaches the crossing at the railroad, where a limited express is coming tearing along. I saw one like that at the movies the other night, and it glued me to my seat with both hands holding on to the rests at the sides, until it was over. I don’t believe I could even breathe for excitement.”

“Or else you’d have to chase an unmanageable aeroplane mounted on another sky flier and in some way bring it to a stop, just like the mounted police hold up runaway riding horses in Central Park,” Billy added, for he could be depended on to match one story with another every time.

“But here comes Hugh with the professor,” said Bud just then. “I reckon he has picked up all he wants to tote away with him. However do you think we’ll get to town with him, boys? He must feel pretty weak after what he went through, and his arm must pain him, too. We may have to make a litter and carry him.”

“Well, for one thing, let me tell you he’s got a heap of grit,” said Billy softly, for he did not want the others to hear what he was saying as they came up. “You bet every man that goes up in the clouds has got to be full to the brim of nerve. If we let him rest every little while, you’ll see that he’ll make the riffle, all correct. I’ve sized him up already.”

Hugh and the aeronaut now came up.

“I want to shake hands with each one of you boys,” the gentleman began promptly, “and tell you how much I feel indebted to you all for what you’ve done for me this day. Only for your gallant work, the chances are ten to one I would have lost my life in this hazardous pleasure sailing of mine.”

He went from one to the other, and from the vigorous way he squeezed each hand that was extended to him frankly, it seemed that he must still have considerable stored-up energy left in him.

“Oh! that wasn’t so much, Professor,” Billy said in return. “We’re scouts, you see, and it is one of the rules of the organization never to refuse to put out a helping hand to any one in trouble. I guess it is getting to be a disease with some of us, because we’re on the lookout most of the time for a chance to do something that’ll satisfy a sort of craving to be useful. So if you feel that thanks are due, sir, the whole troop ought to share ’em.”

“The whole troop wasn’t on hand this time to climb trees and lower a poor chap who had a broken arm and would have fallen sixty feet if he worked loose from that crotch,” the gentleman remarked with kindling eyes, as though this modesty on the part of the khaki-clad boys aroused his admiration more than ever. “And if no one had happened to see me meet with my accident, I’m afraid I’d have remained in that treetop until the end came.”

“When you feel like walking, sir,” Hugh told him, “we’ll set out for town. I know of a fine spring of cold water only half a mile away, and you’ll be refreshed after you get a good drink of that.”

“Let me sit here about ten minutes, Hugh,” said the gentleman, and his mention of the young leader’s name showed that he had already asked questions and learned who they all were; “then I think I’ll be equal to the task of starting. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you who I am, and what I was aiming to do with my balloon when I met with a crowning disaster. I also want to hear all about your patrol, and why you came up here on this particular day, when it was fated you should be of such vital assistance to me.”

This suited the boys, for they had a natural curiosity to learn something about the ambitions of a daring aeronaut. Accordingly, they found as comfortable seats as they could, after fixing for Mr. Perkins, as he gave his name, a seat of hemlock browse that was hastily pulled from a neighboring tree.

“In the first place,” said the gentleman, “I’m not a professional aeronaut. That is, I never have made a flight for money, because I have not felt the necessity. But my fancy for such things has been gradually growing into a craze, and possibly my name is among a few who have worked hard to advance the sport of balloon ascents. I’ve taken part in numerous long distance races, and held the record for several years. Yes, they call me Professor, though I hardly deserve the title.”

“I should say you do, if any one could, sir,” observed Hugh, admiringly.

“On this present unfortunate occasion, I have been quietly trying to pass entirely across the continent, from the shore of the Pacific to the Atlantic, by a series of dashes. I’d hardly like to tell you how many failures I made of it, and what a series of thrilling, hair-breadth escapes I had, before I was finally able to cross over the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains; but I finally managed to do it, and the rest of my journey was like a tame picnic until now, just when I expected to make the coast and was wrecked near port.”

“That was a shame!” burst out Billy impulsively.

“Oh! not at all,” laughed the gentleman, partly to hide the pain he suffered as he chanced to move his broken arm a little too abruptly. “We men who pit ourselves against the forces of Nature, learn to take the good with the bad and call it all a day’s work. I’ve really accomplished what I set out to perform, because only for a change of wind I’d have dropped down on the coast before this hour. You’ll not hear me complain. And now tell me something about yourselves and your Wolf patrol. If the other four members are anything like the ones I’ve come to know, it must be what a friend of mine would call a hummer.”

The boys were already quite won by the genial aeronaut, who, suffering as he was, could show such a deep interest in their affairs.

In the chatter that followed, he learned a great deal about what had happened to the members of the troop since the first patrol was organized. And of course, among other things, he was told of the wonderful prize pennant and the adventures of the preceding day, when Hugh’s thoughtfulness had in all probability saved their lives.

The aeronaut was plainly aroused by the vivid description given of their feelings at discovering that hollow oak lying there, shattered by the bolt of lightning.

“I have not appreciated what a helpful thing this scout movement could be until now,” he exclaimed. “If it continues to spread as fast as it seems to be doing now, I can see where the coming American young man will be many times over better fitted and equipped for the battle of life than those that are in the field to-day, fighting for a living. But it is too bad if my coming causes you boys to go back to town without trying out those cliff-climbing stunts that Hugh had in mind. If you set me on the trail, I’ve no doubt I could follow it, somehow, till I got to the road; and then some farmer would give me a lift.”

This raised an immediate storm of protest, which made evident that the boys did not believe in doing things halfway.

“We couldn’t think of it, Mr. Perkins,” said Hugh resolutely. “You’ve been badly hurt, and we would never forgive ourselves if anything happened to you. Make up your mind that we’re going to see you safely into the doctor’s office, where that arm can have the right kind of attention.”

“Permit me to say, however, my dear boy, that from the way it feels and from the appearance of the splint and the neat bandage you’ve put around it, it would have been hard for any surgeon to improve on the work under such crude conditions as those up here in the woods.”

“So say we all of us, Mr. Perkins!” burst out Billy. “We think our assistant scout master is about right when it comes to first aid to the injured. If you could have seen how he brought one of the boys to, when we all believed he was surely a goner, after being under water so long, you’d understand our feelings. I guess we were ready to stop the artificial pumping to induce respiration, but Hugh ordered us to keep on and on. He would not give up hope. And the boy is alive and kicking, as big as ever to-day. They sent Hugh a medal from Scout Headquarters down in little old New York.”

“He ought to be proud of that medal,” said the gentleman, with considerable feeling. “And you can depend on it that every one of you will be wearing a similar one before long. I happen to know several of the head men who are deeply interested in this scout movement, and I shall see them personally. You have aroused my interest, and I’m feeling inclined to give up the dangerous sport of ballooning for something that will benefit my fellow men more, and this Boy Scout movement strikes me as just what would fill the bill.”

“That makes us feel happier than ever, sir,” said Hugh. “If we have made a new friend for the movement by what we happened to do to-day we shouldn’t ask any better reward.”

“Just leave that to me, Hugh, that is my affair,” said the gentleman, as he made a movement with his well arm to signify that he desired assistance in gaining his feet. “Now I’m feeling rested, and perhaps we had better be making a start. We can do our talking as we move along. I’m hankering after a drink from that cold spring you were telling me about, too.”