CHAPTER XII.

WHEN THE RAIN CAME DOWN.

“Well, what do you think of that for devotion?” said Don Miller, as the bound boy came toward them, his face shining with happiness when he found that his fears were groundless, and that all his charges were safe in the care of the scouts.

“It’s sure a lesson for every one of us,” muttered Jack, who possibly realized then and there a few of his own shortcomings, and felt reproved.

“I told you the boy was a diamond in the rough,” said Hugh, winking very hard, as though the smoke may have been wafted into his eyes just then, or for some other reason. “When we get back home I’m meaning to have the entire troop working to better his condition somehow. He deserves the best there is.”

“That’s right,” said Jack. “Look at that little chap run to meet him, and how Peter takes him up in his arms? Now he’s coming to the other two, and their eyes are dancing with joy. You bet they think a heap of Peter.”

“What made you start back again when you were nearly played out?” asked the scout master, after they had seen the greeting the smaller children had for the boy who had come from the poor house to work for Farmer Barger.

Peter looked half frightened as though he feared he had done an unwise thing in disobeying orders.

“I just couldn’t help a-comin’,” he said. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t find ’em, or else that they’d stray away, though they did promise me solemn they wouldn’t budge a foot. But oh! I’m right glad to see ’em all agin, I am.”

He limped along beside them after another start was made, and persisted in holding the chubby hand of the smallest Barger youngster. Apparently a great load had been lifted from Peter’s faithful heart, and his own pains were utterly forgotten in his new happiness.

“There’s the wall!” announced Bud suddenly.

“Looks like an old friend to me,” said Don. “I know the farm-house isn’t far away now, and that means shelter from the rain in case it comes down—course I’m thinking of the kiddies here when I say that, you understand. A veteran scout has no need to be afraid of a little sprinkle, or even a ducking in the line of duty.”

Hugh was feeling unusually proud of his three chums. Perhaps it was partly on account of the fine way in which Jack and Bud persisted in “toting” those two babes, and declining to let either of the others “spell” them even once.

“It’s coming down faster now, boys!” declared Don.

There could be no doubt about that, for they could feel the drops pattering on their campaign hats. But then the farm-house with its attendant outbuildings could be plainly seen now, and the chances were they would soon be under shelter.

A rousing cheer attested to the fact that their approach had been discovered by some keen-eyed scout, who had communicated the pleasing intelligence to the others. There was good-hearted Mrs. Heffner waving her hand to them also, and evidently eagerly waiting to “mother” the children.

So, presently the boys arrived, and just in good time, too, for as they passed in at the kitchen door of the farm-house, the rain commenced to fall in good earnest. It beat an increasing tattoo upon the roof of that kitchen, and the sound was sweet music to the ears of those boys. They knew what an invaluable ally that downpour would prove to be to those farmers whose property would otherwise soon have been threatened by the forest fires.

“Go it, old rain!” shouted Monkey Stallings as he capered about after his usual nimble manner. “Do the thing right while you’re about it. We need lots and lots of that stuff right now! Don’t be a miser! Act generous! That’s something like it.”

“Gee! listen to it come down, will you?” burst out Billy, as he pushed forward to join the circle around the three children, for Billy was unusually fond of all little ones.

Mrs. Heffner had taken each of them in her motherly arms. Then, thinking they must be hungry, she hurried off to get some bread and milk, the latter to be warmed, for the air now began to feel chilly, since the rain had come.

“It’s a lucky thing it’s rain and not snow,” said Hugh, “though that would have helped some, I suppose. But after this there’s going to be no more fire fighting for Oakvale Troop, you can understand, this season, anyhow.”

“We’ve had our fill of it, all around, I should say,” remarked Ned Twyford.

Hugh cornered Arthur Cameron.

“How did you come to let Peter get away from you?” he asked the amateur surgeon.

At that Arthur chuckled.

“I guess he was a little too smart for me that time, Hugh,” he started to explain. “I looked after his burns, and eased them with some of that lotion that is so fine to draw the fire out. Then I happened to turn my back for just three minutes. When I came around again I missed Peter, and one of the boys told me he had seen him slip away.”

“Did you guess where he had gone?” asked the scout master.

“Well, it didn’t take me long to do that,” came the answer. “I had seen how nervous he was, and heard him saying to himself over and over: ‘I sure hope they find the kids.’ So I could size it up. Peter had disappeared and no one saw him go, but I felt pretty sure he’d come back with you; and I was right. He thinks a heap of the kiddies, Hugh.”

“Yes, and they do of Peter,” added Hugh. Whereupon he began to tell Arthur just what he and some of the others had decided they must do to try and make the bound boy’s path in life less thorny.

Unnoticed by either of the scouts, someone had drawn closer to them at the time they began chatting. It was the “hired man,” he whose face was so streaked with grime from the smoke and cinders that his best friend might have had more or less difficulty in recognizing him.

Evidently he had been drawn there by some subtle attraction. The subject of the boy’s conversation must have deeply interested him, too, for he could be seen to nod his head in the affirmative every time one of them made some remark that did him credit.

When finally the two boys moved away the man stood there for some time as though lost in reflection. Then he laughed softly to himself as though he considered that there was a joke on somebody.

It was just then that the kitchen door was flung wide open and a dripping figure of a man came staggering into the room. Hugh instantly guessed who it must be even before he heard one of the children cry out:

“Daddy!”

Immediately the man was passionately kissing the babes of the woods, only refraining from taking them in his arms because of his soaked condition. Hugh saw that Mr. Barger was still a fine-looking man. He also noticed that Mrs. Heffner seemed strangely moved at seeing him, though at the time he did not exactly understand why.

Later on Hugh learned the whole story of how years before Mr. Barger had been courting Sally Slavin, but an unfortunate quarrel had separated them. Both had married and lost their partners. Since the death of Mr. Heffner, the widower had tried to renew his attentions. Though Mrs. Heffner cared for him, she had resolutely declined to encourage him as a suitor on account of his bad habits, which he seemed loth to give up.

The man was trembling like a leaf. Hugh believed he had had a serious shock, and so he was not surprised to hear him say to Mrs. Heffner:

“When I heard about the fire up this way I hurried my team as fast as a whip could make them tear. Leaving the horses on the road I made my way through the fire to where my house had stood. It was a heap of ruins. Money can replace that, but my terrible fear was that my children had perished. Sally, right then and there I got down on my knees and promised Heaven that if only I could find those babes again unharmed, never would a drop of the vile stuff pass my lips again. Sally, I mean to keep that vow as long as I live, you understand?”

Hugh wondered why the widow should blush so, and snatching up the smallest of the waifs press the little one to her heart. He knew all about it later on, and could rejoice in that those motherless babes would no longer lack the care they needed.

“Things seem to be turning out first-class, eh, Hugh?” remarked Billy, as he and the scout master stood watching all this transpiring. “It’s too bad Mr. Barger lost his house, though. Perhaps Mrs. Heffner will shelter the kids till he can put up another one.”

“She’s got plenty of room for them all here in her house,” remarked Hugh, with something so suggestive in his manner that even Billy noticed it and managed to give a guess as to what it meant.

“Whew! is that the way the tide sets, do you think?” he muttered. “Well, he’s a pretty fine looking fellow, and she’s as good as gold. Say, that must have been what he meant when he told about giving up his bad habits. Well, it would be a fine thing all around. This farm requires a man’s care; and his babes need a mother to look after them, though Peter tries to do the best he can.”

“If it does turn out that way,” remarked Hugh, with a low laugh, “what becomes of all our big plans to better Peter’s condition? He could find his home here and be well looked after, besides staying with the children he loves so much.”

“It’s all coming out like one of those old fairy tales we used to read when we were kids,” remarked Billy, as though that time were ages and ages ago in place of a very few years; but then when a boy dons the khaki of a scout he jumps far ahead of his years, and the dim past seems to be spanned by a bridge longer than any ever built with mortal hands.

“Peter looks pleased enough, you can see,” said Hugh.

Indeed, the bound boy was smiling all over as he stood back and watched. When Mr. Barger hearing what wonderful good care Peter had taken of his babies, came over and squeezed his hand, the boy’s happiness knew no bounds. If his life had not been all that it might in the past, he realized now a new day had dawned on his calendar, and that the future promised much.

“I suppose we’ll be getting down home some time to-day,” suggested Billy. “Though if this rain keeps up, we’ll be a pretty well soaked lot of scouts when we strike Oakvale. But who cares for expenses? Haven’t we all got on our oldest duds, and what’s a wetting to a scout, anyway?”

“No use bothering about that yet awhile,” Hugh assured him. “The rain may let up, and we’ll get back with dry jackets. Then again I noticed a big wagon with a canvas waterproof top out there in the barn. If it comes to the worst perhaps Mrs. Heffner might have her horses hitched to that, and we could all pile in like sardines.”

“Well, there’s another way,” said Billy. “You know some of the people up along the road have got telephone communication with Oakvale. Now a scout could make his way over to the road and call up the livery at Oakvale, so as to have covered rigs come up after us. Mr. Prentice said he’d stand for the expense, if there was any.”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Hugh. “Why do you say Mr. Prentice, I’d like to know?”

“Well, I declare!” cried Billy, “I clean forgot that you were away when he told us who he was. I never would have known him with all that black on his face, and his clothes burned in ever so many places. Why, the one we took for the hired man is Mr. Prentice, you see! He had come up here to fetch the last note for Mrs. Heffner to pay on her mortgage, when the fire coming closer kept him here. Then he had to help her fight it off, which I reckon he did all right.”

“Mr. Prentice!” repeated Hugh. “To think that it should be Addison’s father of all men who happened to be up here when we were showing what scouts were made of!”

“Yes, and Hugh,” said one, coming up behind the two boys, “I want to confess right here and now that I never was so glad of anything in my life!”