CHAPTER XI.

ROB DELIVERS THE GOODS.

“What’s that splendid looking arch over there meant to represent, Rob?” asked Andy, as he pointed to the right.

“They call it the Arch of the Setting Sun,” replied the scout leader.

“A mighty good name, considering how we’re at the jumping-off place of the United States. Seems to me, Rob, that the Far West has always gone by the name of the Land of the Setting Sun.”

“That’s why the arch has been built,” Rob told him. “You see, in pioneer days the constant drift was always this way. Men who founded homes in what was then the wilderness along the Ohio kept hearing wonderful stories about the richness of the soil farther west, and what unlimited fur-bearing animals were to be captured by those daring enough to take the risk.”

“And so they kept pushing farther and farther, year in and year out. In this way settlers finally overran the prairies, and crossed the Rockies?” asked Andy, as he surveyed the beautiful arch that had been raised to commemorate the dreams of the men who blazed the way of civilization through the wilderness.

“Yes, and here along the shore of the Pacific lay the end of the dream,” explained the scout leader. “California represented the foot of the rainbow of promise those hardy men had seen painted in the sky. The western sun meant a whole lot in those days; it shone over the Land of Promise; it was the hope and ambition of almost every settler. No one drifted East; it was always into the mysterious and beckoning West that families emigrated.”

Around them were crowds of eager sight-seers. At times they jostled elbows with representatives of numerous foreign nations.

“But there are not near so many foreigners visiting the Panama-Pacific Exposition as there would have been only for the terrible European war that’s raging across the ocean,” Rob happened to remark a little later when the other scout called his attention to a group of dark-featured men wearing the red fezzes of Orientals, and passing along as though viewing the wonders of the exhibition with a lively interest.

“I suppose the building erected by California is reckoned the largest one of all on the grounds, isn’t it, Rob? How much space does it cover, do you know?”

“They say five acres, Andy, which you must own is a shack of some size.”

“We haven’t been in it yet,” said Andy, “but I should imagine it must hold about everything connected with the life of the big State. Why, it would take a whole day to get around there, and see half of the things on exhibition.”

“Plenty of time for all that when we settle down to the business of sight-seeing,” Rob told him. “First of all I want to get this load off my hands,” and he moved the suitcase as he spoke; “not that it’s very heavy, you understand, only it weighs on my mind; but what it holds means sleepless nights for our good friend, Professor McEwen, until he gets my wire that it has been safely delivered.”

“I declare if those two girls over there don’t make me think of Lucy Mainwaring and Sue Clifford away back in Hampton!” exclaimed Andy suddenly. “Oh! excuse me, Rob, I didn’t mean to give you a start by mentioning Lucy’s name. Of course it’s only a chance resemblance, for neither of the girls we’ve left behind us could be here at the Exposition. But I’m a great fellow, you remember, to imagine people look like some I’ve known.”

“Yes, and lots of times that failing has gotten you into a peck of trouble, too, Andy,” Rob remarked, laughingly; “there was that boy in scout uniform this very morning that you rushed up to with outstretched hand, and calling him Sim Jeffords. I nearly took a fit to see the blank look on your face when he drew himself up and gave you the cold stare.”

“Yes, that’s a fact, Rob, he did freeze me. Chances are to this minute that boy thinks I was a fraud, perhaps some new sort of confidence operator. I saw him grab at his watch-chain in a hurry. He backed away, too, and never gave me half a chance to explain.”

“I’m expecting right along,” Rob told him, “to have you discover some of our old enemies hovering around, and waiting for a chance to give us a jolt on account of the grudge they bear us. There’s Jared Applegate, for instance, the last we ever saw of him was at the time he was down in Mexico, having been compelled to run away from home after getting himself into a scrape by using some money that didn’t belong to him.”

Andy, instead of appearing dejected while Rob was “rubbing it into him” after this fashion, really seemed to enter into the joke himself.

“Well,” he went on to say with a snicker, “honest to goodness a little while ago I did see two fellows walking along who made me think of Max Ramsay and his pal, Hodge Berry, the two meanest boys of our home town. Gave me something of a thrill, too, and I even had a sneaking notion to run over and shake hands with them; though back home I would cross the street rather than meet them face to face.”

“Yes,” said Rob, “that’s always the case with people who’re away from home. They get so tired of seeing strange faces that the sight of one they know makes them friendly. But I suppose you’ve noticed that the scouts seem to have quite a share in the running of things at this Big Show?”

“For a fact I’ve seen quite a number of them about, and it strikes me they are a busy lot in the bargain,” Andy admitted.

“I understand they have a permanent camp on the grounds,” Rob explained, “which later on we must visit, and make acquaintances. They seem to be a hustling lot, and a credit to the khaki they wear.”

“But what d’ye suppose they’re doing here?” asked the other.

“Oh! there are dozens of things Boy Scouts can find to do at a monster Fair like this,” said the patrol leader. “I think some of them are acting as guides to parties of women and children. Others run messages for the department heads, because there must be a tremendous lot of that sort of thing that has to be done here. I saw one batch of scouts carrying a man on a litter, and from that I concluded they must have a scout emergency hospital somewhere on the grounds, where those who have been taken suddenly sick or become exhausted from the heat in the machinery buildings could receive first aid to the injured.”

Andy’s face took on a look of pride. He even tenderly stroked the sleeve of his khaki coat and touched the badge on his lapel as though he considered it a great honor to be wearing that insignia of his rank in the troop to which he belonged.

That is one of the finest things about scout membership; it stimulates boys to aspire to emulate those who are striving to help others, or alleviate suffering in some way.

“We ought to be nearing that building you spoke about, Rob,” Andy remarked, after more time had elapsed. “Seems to me we’ve covered miles since we saw Hiram streaking off for the aviation field and the Hall of Inventions.”

“I think that is it on our left; but to make sure I’ll ask this scout hurrying along as though the whole show would have to close its doors unless he managed to do the important errand he’s sent on.”

“I’ll hang back while you do,” suggested Andy jokingly. “Seems like they think I’m a sort of suspicious looking person, though nobody ever told me so in Hampton.”

The messenger condescended to slacken his speed sufficiently to catch the question which Rob asked. After saluting, as became a fellow scout, he nodded his head in the affirmative, being apparently too winded to say even a single word.

Accordingly the two boys entered the building and threading their way among a multitude of exhibits, with a sprinkling of people examining the same, most of them rather sober-looking in appearance, they managed to find where the offices of the director were located.

“We wish to see Professor Marsh, who is in charge of this building,” was what Rob said to an active little man wearing large glasses, and with all the earmarks of a scientist.

“That happens to be my name, son; what can I do for you?” replied the other, as he bent a pair of exceedingly penetrating eyes upon the scouts.

“We have come to you,” Rob explained, “from Professor Andrew McEwen, of Edinburgh University, who met with an accident while visiting an old friend near our home, on Long Island, New York State, and while not seriously injured could not finish his journey across the continent.”

The little man immediately showed signs of tremendous excitement. He glued his eyes on the suitcase Rob was carrying.

“Yes, yes, glad to hear that he is not seriously injured. Professor McEwen is one of the most famous of his class, and the world could ill afford to lose him at this interesting stage of events. But he was to bring with him a collection too precious to trust to ordinary channels. I sincerely trust that it was not harmed when he met with his accident?”

“Oh! no, sir,” exclaimed Rob, hastily, “not in the least, since he did not have it with him at the time. But he grieved to think it might be delayed in reaching you, and so he intrusted it to the keeping of myself and my comrade here, as we happened to be of some assistance to him at the time.”

The scientist seemed to be actually dumfounded. He stared from Rob to Andy, and then looked hard at the suitcase.

“Can it be possible that Professor McEwen intrusted those priceless papyrus relics to the care of two mere boys? I am astounded, and likewise worried. Oh! I hope you have taken great care with them. Give me the bag, and let me see for myself. It would be a shock indeed if anything had happened to destroy the labor of years, and caused such a dreadful loss to science.”

He almost snatched the suitcase from Rob’s hand and vanished like a streak through a door that led to another room, leaving the two boys exchanging amused glances.

“Whew! I’m sorry for you if anything _has_ gone wrong with those rolls, Rob,” said Andy, making a wry face. “We’re apt to go out of this building faster than we came in, I’m afraid.”

“No danger,” Rob told him; “they were prepared to resist ordinary shocks in transit, and we’ve handled them as carefully as Professor McEwen himself could have done. But he did look actually frightened, for a fact.”

“Isn’t it queer what a pile these learned scientists think of things that other people wouldn’t give five cents for?” remarked Andy.

“Oh! well,” said Rob, “that’s because we’re in the dark concerning their real value. Look in through the half-open door and you can see several men like Professor Marsh undoing those same rolls with trembling hands.”

“Yes, and notice the awed look on their faces, will you, Rob? The director is shaking hands all around now, and beaming on his colleagues, so I guess he’s found things O. K. and hunky dory. Here he comes out to tell us so.”

The look of deep anxiety on Professor Marsh’s face had vanished, and there was a trace of a pleased smile there when he again confronted the two scouts.

“The letter inclosed from Professor McEwen speaks in the highest terms of you young gentlemen,” he said, effusively, as he stretched out both hands. “He writes that you were instruments in the hands of Providence of saving his life; and for that let me remark that you deserve the heartfelt thanks of all who are interested in the work that distinguished gentleman is doing for science. I am proud to shake you by the hand. To think that you have come three thousand miles bearing those priceless rolls, and delivered them to us here without the slightest damage. And this very night I shall write to Professor McEwen to that effect.”

“We are instructed to wire him in your name with your permission, professor, that you have received them intact,” ventured Rob.

“I will sign any message you choose to send him, son,” declared the happy director of the building devoted to the interests of science.

“And now, sir,” said Rob, “would you mind returning my suitcase?”