CHAPTER VI.

“STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT!”

“It’s the queerest thing how it gives me the slip!” Walter was muttering when he came up to where the scout master was standing, watching the crowd drift past, and often waving his hand at some boy, or group of high school girls.

“What ails you, Walter; have you lost anything?” asked Hugh, laying a hand on the arm of the leader of the Hawk Patrol, of whom he was very fond.

“I must be getting along in my dotage, Hugh, when I can’t remember where I met a fellow, even when his face seems so familiar to me,” the other went on to say, with a frown on his usually placid brow.

“Oh, that isn’t such a queer thing,” Hugh assured him. “I’ve had it happen to me more than once. It always bothers me, and I get no peace till I’ve figured it out. I’ve even lain awake a night going over the alphabet from A to Z, and then failing to get it. In the morning the name would come to my mind just as easy as falling off a log.”

“Well, that may be the way with me,” said Walter. “I stood and watched that boy move around, and half a dozen times it seemed as though it must be on the tip of my tongue to say his name, yet I slipped connections. A little thing like that makes me mad. I tell you I’ll find out just who he is, if in the end I have to go up and ask him.”

“Perhaps, if you pointed him out to me, I might help you,” suggested Hugh, knowing how set in his way Walter could be.

“I could do that all right, Hugh,” replied the other scout. “Come to think of it he’s acting as if he mightn’t be engaged in the nicest kind of business going.”

“How about that?” demanded Hugh.

“Why,” came the reply, “from what I saw it struck me he must be connected with one of those fakirs who are trying to skin the simple country people of their dollars.”

Hugh arched his eyebrows, remembering what Billy had told him.

“Do you remember whether the man he was working with was a fake doctor who has a medicine he calls the Wonderful New Life Remedy at a dollar a bottle, worth ten to any one? Is he a man with a black pointed beard, and eyes that glitter like you’ve seen a badger’s or a snake’s do?”

Walter uttered an exclamation of wonderment.

“Why, I declare, Hugh, you’ve hit the right fakir to a dot,” he told the scout master. “Perhaps you’ve even noticed that boy?”

“Yes, I have,” Hugh remarked. “Billy called my attention to him.”

“Say, did Billy seem to think he’d met him somewhere, too?”

“No, but he did say he believed the boy was under some sort of queer spell, for he acted as if he’d like to break away from that fake doctor, but didn’t dare try it.”

“You don’t say, Hugh?” remarked Walter. “I didn’t seem to notice anything like that. But I’d give a heap just to remember where it was I ever met that boy before. I can’t seem to place him.”

“Billy said he called himself Cale,” observed Hugh; but Walter, after thinking it over for a brief period of time, shook his head in the negative.

“That doesn’t seem to help me any, Hugh,” he admitted.

“You don’t ever remember of knowing any one named Cale or Caleb, then?”

“Why, there was a Cale Warner I used to go with long ago, but then he had red hair and blue eyes, while this boy is as dark as a gypsy. Don’t seem able to scare up another Cale. Perhaps I never knew his name at all. Perhaps I only happened to meet him somewhere. But where was it, that’s the question?”

“I wish I could help you, Walter, because I know how it galls you to keep reaching out and almost getting it, and then feeling that you’re left. But it’ll come to you all of a sudden, see if it doesn’t. You’ll find yourself saying his name, or remembering where you met him.”

“I was wondering if it could have been that time we earned these bronze medals we’re wearing right now?” suggested Walter.

“You mean when we had the chance to help the wounded strikers,” said Hugh. “Well, it may have been, but I’m sure I never set eyes on that boy before to-day.”

“Do you know what this game makes me think of, Hugh?”

“Prisoners’ base, with the fellow you thought to grab slipping right out of your hands?” suggested the other.

“I was thinking of something else,” resumed Walter; “you know when you’re in the marsh at a certain time of year, and the night’s dark, often you’ll discover a queer light that dances just ahead of you. When you stretch out your hand and think to take hold, it disappears, only to bob up again somewhere else.”

“Yes, I know what you mean, Walter,” admitted Hugh. “They call it a Will-o’-the-wisp, or a jack-o’-lantern, and tell us it’s caused by some kind of phosphoric condition of the atmosphere. Standing on the deck of a moving steamboat and looking down into the water I’ve seen streaks like that shoot away as fish fled from the boat.”

“Well, that’s just the way this name keeps on eluding me,” Walter confessed.

Something came up then to call for Hugh’s attention, and the subject was dropped; but when Walter walked away later on, heading once more toward the amusement reservation, where the fakirs also held forth, his face looked unusually serious, as though he could not get that puzzle out of his mind.

The boys were called on to attend several more cases of necessity during the balance of that first afternoon. Fortunately none of these proved to be of a serious nature, however.

One elderly woman fainted, and was speedily brought to her senses with the help of a sprinkling of cold water, and some ammonia held under her nostrils. A boy had his finger cut by handling something he had no business to touch, and they brought him, crying, to the emergency tent, where Arthur soon stopped the bleeding, and did the finger up in such a neat way that even the kid was soon smiling through his tears.

The aëroplane exhibition had passed off successfully, and as usual it gave considerable satisfaction, because everybody was showing great interest in the modern methods of harnessing the air currents to the use of mankind.

It was now getting on toward closing time, which had been placed at sharp six o’clock every evening. County fairs as a rule do not pretend to keep open nights, as they are mostly outdoor shows, and the means for illuminating the exhibits would be found sadly lacking.

By degrees the scouts were gathering in their camps, and making preparations looking to going home to a good hot supper. Most of the boys were furiously hungry, for it had been a long afternoon, and they had certainly covered a good deal of territory in carrying out their plan of campaign.

“Of course we meet here again to-morrow afternoon, as soon as we can get a bite of lunch at home?” remarked Spike Welling, brushing his leggings free from dust, for Spike had been one of the most industrious guides on the grounds ever since arriving.

“That’s understood without any further orders,” Hugh told him. “The programme we laid out for to-day will carry over to-morrow as well. I want to say to you now that every fellow has done himself and the troop proud by his work to-day. I’m sure the people of Oakvale appreciate what we’ve tried to do for the success of the County Fair.”

“Here comes President Truesdale, Hugh,” interrupted Alec Sands.

“And I bet you he’s heading this way to give us the glad hand, too,” added Billy, immediately beginning to swell out his ample chest as though in anticipation of the bouquets that would soon be passing around.

The head man of the Association, as he drew near, was pleased to see the scouts line up like magic, and give him the proper salute. Evidently he had been hearing pretty favorable reports of their doings, because there was a smile on his face as he surveyed that double khaki-clad line of bright eager faces.

“Thank you, boys,” the President said, warmly, as he acknowledged this salute in his honor by a wave of his hand. “I couldn’t leave the grounds this evening until I had come over here to your camp to tell you how well satisfied we all are with the great help you have given the management in carrying out their arduous duties. I’ve heard great reports of you in a dozen different ways. If this Fair is a success beyond any previous exhibition, part of the credit will justly fall to the Oakvale Troop of Boy Scouts.”

“Hurrah!” cried Billy Worth, and three lusty cheers were given with a will.

Hugh never knew what impelled him to say what he did. Perhaps the matter was on his mind, and somehow he just felt that the opportunity was too good to be entirely lost. He was afterward rather surprised at his own audacity; but then the President happened to be a congenial gentleman who felt warmly toward the wearers of the khaki, so Hugh decided to “strike while the iron is hot.”

“We are very much obliged to you for saying what you have, sir,” Hugh spoke up. “It makes us feel proud to know that what little we’ve done pleases you. If you will excuse me for being so bold, I’d like to say that there’s only one thing wrong with the whole Fair, as we see it.”

“What might that be, my boy?” asked the gentleman, raising his eyebrows as if rather taken aback at hearing Hugh speak so fearlessly.

“It’s about those fakirs, and some of the side-show humbugs, sir,” continued the scout master, while his chums held their breath in mingled admiration. “They are a disgrace to Oakvale. They are here to deceive the public, and take as much money away as they can, using all sorts of deception. We’ve been told that next year it’s going to be different, and we all hope that’s a fact.”

The gentleman stood there and eyed Hugh under his heavy brows. They could not exactly tell whether he might feel angry at being spoken to so boldly, or only amused. Hugh himself was beginning to suspect that he may have done an unwise thing, and offended the President. His fears, however, proved groundless, for presently the other spoke again.

“I agree with every word you have said, Hugh. It was a great mistake to bind ourselves by contract to allow these disgraces this year. All of my colleagues realize it now, and take my word for it, nothing like it will ever happen again. We know it is necessary to have some way of amusing the majority of people who attend these fairs; but we’ll find a way to do that without allowing them to be fleeced by a gang of legalized robbers.”

“Hurrah!” called Billy again, just as though he had been made cheer captain for the whole troop. Nearly a score of lusty young voices rang out once, twice, three times in unison.

Some of the retiring people hurrying toward the gates, at hearing the vociferous cheers, glanced that way, and seeing the scouts, smiled; for in nearly every quarter Hugh and his comrades had won golden opinions on account of their universal desire to be of assistance, with their unfailing courtesy toward strangers, as well as to those whom they knew.

So the President of the Association went away with a last happy nod toward the khaki boys. Having laced both tents securely so that their goods might be reasonably safe, Hugh led his troop out of the grounds in regular marching order, with the flag and the bugler in front, and the others following two abreast.

As they were separating, Walter managed to whisper to the scout master:

“I’m going to knock my head to-night and see if I can’t just remember where it was I met that boy; tell you how I got on when I see you to-morrow afternoon.”