CHAPTER XI

THE VALUE OF A GOOD REPUTATION

When Bud presently arrived at the appointed rendezvous neither of his comrades were in sight. He was nervously walking up and down when a few minutes later Blake put in an appearance.

Blake looked particularly woe-begone. Evidently all his efforts to pick up a promising clue to the solution of the great mystery had failed miserably. Seeing Bud’s nervous stride, he eyed him hungrily.

“Something ails you, Bud, I’m sure it does from the way you act!” he exclaimed, fresh hope struggling to gain a new grip on his heart. “Please tell me if you’ve found out anything at all, because I haven’t had the least bit of luck.”

“Well, I’ve nosed around like a regular bloodhound on the scent,” observed Bud, with perhaps a little pardonable pride, “and I reckon now I’ve got some _important_ news for Hugh when he shows up here.”

“Oh! have you found Felix?” burst from Blake, excitedly.

“Er, hardly as strong as that,” admitted the other, “but I’ve run across a man who saw Luther Gregory looking from the second-story window of a house not two miles from the border of this camp, and only this afternoon, in the bargain; which you’ll have to own up is some evidence that he knows what’s happened to your cousin.”

Blake proceeded forthwith to pump the hand of his wideawake chum as though in this fashion alone could he show his sincere appreciation of the wonderful news Bud had brought in.

“There comes Hugh right now,” added Bud, with the smile of conscious superiority spread across his face, “and there’ll be something doing soon, believe me.”

The scout master approached. He did not look particularly happy himself, for, to tell the truth, Hugh had failed to succeed in finding any conclusive evidence that promised to take them to where the absent Felix might be found. When he saw how his two comrades were beckoning to hasten his steps, and discovered their triumphant manner, Hugh lost no time in joining them.

“Glad to see that you’ve had more success this time than fell to my lot,” was his salutation as he came up; “now string it off, and tell me what’s happened to make you both look so oh-be-joyful.”

Bud waited for no second invitation. It did not happen every day that he was given such a splendid chance to shine in the limelight, and he would not have been a genuine boy had he failed to take advantage of the golden opportunity. So, in as terse terms as he could possibly summon to the front, he told the story of how, after a myriad of efforts, he had finally run across what seemed to be a most promising clue.

Hugh listened and made little comment until the story had been ended. Then he gripped the other’s hand.

“Bud, old man, I’m beginning to think that the luck of this deal is running strongly in your direction!” he exclaimed, heartily. “If that master schemer of a Luther Gregory is close by, the man he hired must know where to find him; and it stands to reason that if he succeeded in bundling Felix out of camp, even if no one is able to tell how it could be done, why the first thing he’d do would be to take him to that house.”

“Oh! and then all we’ve got to do,” broke in the delighted Blake, who was hardly able to keep from dancing on his tiptoes, such was his increasing happiness, “is to get a detail of the guardsmen, and go there to arrest the whole bunch.”

“Of course that’s our move,” admitted Hugh, “though we mustn’t be too fast about carrying it out. The whole night is before us, you know. They won’t hurt Felix, if our theory is correct. All they want to do is to keep him out of our reach for twenty-four hours.”

“But we ought to see Captain Barclay again, hadn’t we, Hugh?” questioned Bud.

“That would be our wisest move,” agreed the patrol leader, “because we’ll need some help to round up those rascals; and it can only be gotten through an order signed by our friend, the artillery captain.”

“No sleep for me tonight, I wager,” said Blake; but somehow he seemed to glory in the fact rather than put on a doleful expression. Action meant a fresh possibility for a successful ending of his search.

Hugh looked around him. The camp of the guardsmen still presented a wonderfully fascinating picture in his eyes, even though some of the tired militiamen had sought their tents in order to try and get a little sleep, having had their rest broken more or less since leaving their widely separated homes.

“There’s the captain heading this way now!” exclaimed Bud, with sudden zeal. “P’r’aps we had better tackle him while we have the chance, Hugh. He’s got a heap of camp duties to look after, and, according to military rules, they’d have to take precedence above any private business.”

“Come on, then, and we’ll start the ball rolling,” the scout master agreed.

When Captain Barclay saw his trio of boy friends from Oakvale heading toward him, he smiled amiably, and nodded his head.

“Any good news, boys?” he immediately asked, showing that he still remembered about their mission; “heard of Felix Gregory anywhere, and was he visiting in some other part of the camp?”

“No, sir, nothing can be learned about him from any of the men,” replied Hugh, and then immediately adding: “Our chum here, Bud Morgan, happened to learn something that we believe may offer a strong clue.”

“Tell me about it, then,” the officer commanded. “I’m very interested in the result of your noble mission; and this strange disappearance of an enlisted man from camp is bothering some of us. I haven’t mentioned it to any one higher up, but was just thinking of seeing the general about it. Things like that reflect upon the management of a military camp, where it is expected that discipline governs every movement, so that it would appear to be impossible for a single individual to drop out. Now proceed, please.”

Hugh told the story, giving Bud due honors for having made the wonderful discovery that Luther Gregory was hovering near by, evidently bent on sharing some of the foul work with the man whom his money had hired.

Captain Barclay asked several sharp questions. It could be seen that he was intensely interested. Bud made haste to enlighten him on the points that did not appear to be quite clear in his mind.

“Just as you say, Hugh,” he finally remarked, decisively, “things begin to look promising. The chances are ten to one that if Felix has been coaxed or smuggled out of the camp here, he was taken to that lonely house on the road. I believe I can remember noticing the place as we passed from the station this afternoon, where I went to look after some additional baggage that had been shipped by rail from the home town.”

“You’ll help us, won’t you, Captain?”

“I certainly will, to the full extent of my power,” came the hearty response, “though before anything can really be done in the matter I must have a talk with my commanding officer at Headquarters. Fortunately there seems to be nothing of moment to demand my attention. So, if you will once more wait for me here, I’ll see the general again. He was interested in you before, after I had told him some things I knew, and how Oakvale held the scouts in such high esteem.”

“Oh! I hope he agrees to let you help us surround that house, and see if Felix is held a prisoner there,” remarked Blake.

“I don’t have the slightest doubt about the ultimate outcome,” said the officer, “so far as the general’s co-operation goes. Whether we find your cousin there or not is another thing; but I believe the chances are fairly good. Look for me inside of half an hour, boys.”

With that he hastened away, turning his back upon his comfortable tent with its inviting camp cot, which must have appealed strongly to a tired soldier.

“Half an hour he said, didn’t he?” sighed Blake. “Gee whiz! that’s a whole thirty long minutes. It’ll seem like a week to me, I guess. But what’s the use looking a gift horse in the mouth. I ought to be thanking my lucky stars that there’s such a bully chance ahead. I’m going to quit grumbling.”

“What do you expect he meant by saying the general was interested in us as scouts, Hugh?” asked Bud.

“Oh! just what he explained by telling us he’d mentioned some of the things we Oakvale scouts had hung up to our credit,” the patrol leader answered. “I suppose there are few troops in the East that can point with pride to a record like ours. We’ve been a whole lot lucky to have such chances to do things come along.”

“At a time like this,” Bud continued, a look of satisfaction covering his face, “it certainly does make a fellow feel good to know he hasn’t any reason to be ashamed of his past record.”

“There, I saw a soldier stop the captain and salute, after which he handed him something,” Blake burst out with, excitedly. “Now Captain Barclay is pointing straight toward us, boys; and see, he’s handed the thing back again. Looks to me as if he had ordered him to deliver the same to us. I wonder what under the sun it can be?”

“We’ll soon know,” advised Bud, “because here comes the soldier; and by the same token it’s Burch Shafter, Hugh, whom you got to join the battery after convincing his mother it was a duty he owed his country.”[3]

They watched the man in uniform approach them with growing interest. It struck the scouts as having some sort of connection with their mission in the mobilization camp. Perhaps the young fellow was bringing them fresh news—Blake even began to speculate upon the most improbable things, to the extent of wondering whether this might not be some audacious communication from Luther Gregory telling him that his quest would be fruitless, and that he might just as well return to Oakvale, since he could not find Felix within the given time.

Then the artilleryman arrived. Young Shafter recognized them all, and he looked particularly at Hugh with a gleam of affection in his eyes, because the scout master had been mainly instrumental in getting his mother’s consent to his enlistment. Nevertheless, he made a stiff military salute upon first arriving, and then dropped his hand at his side “at attention.”

“Huh! that doesn’t go among old friends, Burch,” chuckled Bud. “Nobody’s watching you now, so you c’n drop your camp manners, and be sociable.”

With that he clutched the other’s hand and shook it. The “rookie” laughed, and from that moment became companionable. Hugh and Blake in turn greeted him; for up to then they had not chanced to run across young Shafter, as he had been in another part of the camp, possibly sent on official business.

“Something was found in Felix Gregory’s tent, and they dispatched me with it to the captain,” he went on to explain. “When he looked it over he said Blake here ought to take charge of the same, and so I’m turning it over to him.”

When Blake glanced at the object that was placed in his hand he gave a cry of astonishment.

“Look here, Hugh, Bud!” he commenced to say, deeply moved, “it’s a letter written by Felix, and sealed; and, would you believe it, the same is directed to Uncle Reuben. Oh! I wonder now did Felix repent of his own accord of those ugly things he said in his hasty temper, and write to apologize? Wouldn’t that be a great thing, though, and a bully ending of the whole silly affair?”