CHAPTER X.

THINGS CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

“Whoopee!”

That was Arthur shouting at the top of his voice, and the sound thrilled Gus in a wonderful manner. He realized that Arthur would not give vent to such a cry if he did not mean to infuse them with new hope.

Staring ahead, Gus discovered a light. Yes, it must be coming from one of the small windows of the bunk-house, where possibly Billy, good old Billy, had set a candle to burn with the idea of shedding hope abroad as well as he could manage it.

Perhaps Gus realized as never before what that old song really meant when it went on to tell about the “light in the window placed as a guide to wandering feet.”

At any rate, the sight gave Gus new strength and inspiration. He stumbled again and again, but would not allow himself to fall, neither could Arthur coax him to relinquish his end of the litter. Gus could be very stubborn when he wanted, and as this quality is closely allied with determination he was likely to amount to something, once he found his proper mission in the world.

Finally they arrived before the door of the bunk-house. Here their loud shouts must have been heard by Billy, for the door was suddenly thrown open and a bulky figure came rushing out, eager to assist in any way possible.

Two minutes later and the entire party had found shelter under the friendly roof of Mr. Merrivale’s big cabin, where Billy had kept the fire going merrily all the time.

Sam was immediately placed upon several blankets close to the fire, where the genial warmth would do much to restore his fast ebbing strength.

With the closing of the stout door much of the clamor of the storm that had been beating in their ears so long was deadened, so that talking became possible again without straining their voices unduly.

Sam Merrivale lay there, white of face, and with his eyes closed. Gus stared hard at his brother, and then looked pitifully toward Arthur. The latter did not need to be asked any question in order to understand what fear was gripping the heart of Gus.

“He’ll be feeling better shortly, when the warmth of the fire begins to get in its work,” he told the other.

After that Gus kept somewhat in the background, where he could see what went on and at the same time not be noticed by Sam, should the latter open his eyes and look at his rescuers.

This was the time for Billy to make his bid for recognition.

“Hugh,” he went on to say, confidingly buttonholing the scout master, “I went and heated up a can of mutton broth, thinking it might come in handy when you got the poor chap back here.”

“Bully for you, Billy!” exclaimed the other, slapping the broad back of the speaker with unction. “Just the thing to revive his energies. They always give mutton broth to invalids, because it gets in its work quicker than almost anything else going. Hurry it along in a tin cup, and don’t have it steaming hot, so it’ll scald his lips.”

Arthur meanwhile had succeeded in getting Sam into a half reclining position. He was talking to the late tramp, and in this way trying to arouse him.

“You’re all right now, Sam,” was the burden of Arthur’s communication. “No danger of your being left to the storm. See what a fine fire we’ve got here. Billy is coming right along with some jolly stuff that will warm your insides, and do you heaps of good. Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high, Sam. There’s your partner Casey, watching you, and see how glad he looks to be with us. Chances are Billy’s been and fed him to the limit while we were getting you here. This way, Billy, with that broth!”

Sam smiled wanly. How could he help but feel interested when treated so like an honored guest rather than a homeless tramp?

Just then Billy came up bearing the big tin cup full of steaming broth that gave out a most appetizing smell. Sam must have been pretty near half starved, for what did he do but reach out a trembling hand, help to guide the cup to his lips, and then proceed to gulp down the contents with the avidity of a hungry dog.

Presently the cup was empty. Billy looked at Arthur as much as to say there was more where that came from, if the “doctor” considered it wise that Sam be given a second helping.

“A little later on you can feed him the rest, Billy,” he was told. “Better not go too heavy all at once, or his stomach may reject it, and he’d lose the benefit.”

One thing sure, no person seemed to be taking any notice of the storm now. It could howl its worst, and turn bitter cold for that matter; so long as they had a stout roof over their heads, plenty of food to eat, and the ability to dash out, ax in hand, to cut a fresh supply of fuel, what did it matter?

The warm and strengthening mutton broth had already affected Sam wonderfully, as could be seen in the way he began to look around, and take notice of things. He even smiled at Casey, which fact appeared to give that individual more or less satisfaction, for he grinned broadly and nodded back, muttering something to the effect that the two of them had good cause to be grateful for the favors that had come to them when things looked blackest.

It was evident that Sam was puzzled. Hugh could see his eyes, no longer dim with weakness and lack of energy, roving around. First he would stare at bulky Billy, who beamed down upon him good-naturedly; then he would turn his gaze on Hugh himself, and finally Arthur came in for a share of his attention. He gazed at them all long and steadily.

“I seem to be dreaming,” he told Hugh, when that worthy bent down closer to him. “There’s something about you all I seem to know, but when I try to place you my mind gets in a whirl again, and I think I’m seeing things like I did the time I was down with fever, and father——”

He stopped as he inadvertently said that word, which possibly had not passed his lips for a long time. Hugh saw a flash of color mount into his white cheeks as some bitter memory gripped his soul.

Wishing to change the subject as quickly as he could, Hugh hastened to say:

“You’re not dreaming after all, Sam; you ought to remember all of us here, for you used to know us some years back. I’m Hugh Hardin, this is Arthur Cameron, and the kind chap who looked after your appetite is Billy Worth!”

Sam uttered a cry. He seemed startled, and even tried to raise himself on one arm as though to stare around him.

“Oh! the boys from Oakvale, where I used to once live!” he exclaimed, weakly. “How strange for you to be up here, just when I needed help as I never did before in all my life. What brought you up in this region? Is that a fair question, Hugh?”

He had hold of the scout master’s hand, and was patting it as though the mere contact gave him fresh courage; for like many another fellow Sam had recognized in Hugh a source of new strength.

Hugh knew that Gus was hovering close behind him, fairly quivering with eagerness. He also felt that it was high time Sam understood to whom he had been so heavily indebted for the saving of his life.

“We came up here on the invitation of one of our chums who wanted us to help him find something that was lost,” was the way Hugh put it.

“Yes, there _was_ a fourth scout with you, I remember now,” said Sam, trying to discover the object of his solicitude, but as Gus kept behind Hugh he failed in doing this. “Where has he gone to, Hugh? I’d like to thank him, too, for all that’s been done for such a worthless fellow as I.”

“You’ll get the chance soon, Sam, never fear,” assured Hugh. “It was this chum who really saved your life, for if he hadn’t thought to fetch the hatchet along with him we couldn’t have made that litter, and carrying you here would have been a risky job. I’m afraid you would never have stood the trip. Then again he held one end of the stretcher every foot of the way, and wouldn’t let Arthur here take hold. You owe that chum the heaviest debt of gratitude going, Sam. There’s nothing you could do that would cancel your load to him.”

“But tell me, why should he do all this for a poor dog like me that’s down in the gutter, and almost out?” cried Sam, excitedly.

With that Hugh swung Gus around so that he faced the one upon the blankets, and at the same instant exclaimed:

“Because he’s your own brother, Sam, the little Gus you left at home when you went away after quarreling with your father! He’s been sent up here through the love your mother still bears you, to try for the last time to bring you to your senses, and fetch you to your knees asking pardon. Now you know why we’re in the old logging camp, Sam. Your mother learned that _you_ were here; she would have come herself if she had been able; but in her place she sent a messenger in Gus.”

The young fellow on the blankets stared at Gus as though he could hardly believe his ears and eyes. The bitter thoughts that had held possession of his mind all these years struggled desperately to keep possession of his soul, but the hour had come when their knell was to strike.

He thrust out and seized the eager hand of his younger brother, which he pressed to his lips. Nor was Hugh at all surprised to see him burst into tears, as though the long-pent-up emotions had suddenly swept everything before them.

“Oh! what wouldn’t I give to be able to see her again!” he cried. “No fellow ever had a better mother than she always was to me; and how basely I treated her. I’ve been sorry so many times, but in shame I didn’t dare write to her. And so it’s to my own brother Gus I owe my life, do I? Well, it was worth coming all the way from the West to learn that they do still think of me at home—some of them.”

He would not let go of the hand he had taken. Hugh and the others were intensely interested in everything that was said, though the scout master had a little suspicion that it might not be the best thing they could do to let Sam excite himself so much in his present weakened condition.

“Oh! no danger of his feeling it,” Arthur told him when he mentioned something of his fears in this respect. “He’s buoyed up now by a new hope that’s going to do more toward bringing him around than all the cordials or broths he could take. See how the color’s come to his face, will you? And his eyes fairly sparkle. Joy seldom kills, you must know, Hugh. Sam is already beginning to get glimpses of a new life. It’s all right, and don’t stop Gus from talking all he wants to about home and mother. He knows what he was sent up here to do. It’s all for a purpose.”

“We’d about given up hope of hearing from you again, Sam,” Gus was saying. “It must have been all of three years since you wrote that last letter in which you said you meant to try your luck up in Alaska. Day after day, and month after month, mother would watch for the mails until even her dear heart grew sick with the suspense. Why didn’t you let her hear from you once in months, Sam?”

“I was a wretch not to do it,” admitted the other, contritely; “but I had vowed I wouldn’t let any of the home folks hear from me again until I had won out, conquered my evil nature, and actually done something to show father I wasn’t the good-for-nothing he called me. So I made my way to the mines up in Alaska, and began work at the bottom. In a year I bought a piece of ground of my own, a mine that was supposed to be played out. Then later on I struck it rich, and began to hug myself in thinking how I would appear before you all a wealthy man. Then there came a claimant for my property. The court decided against me, and I lost all I had believed I owned. I fell sick after that, and it was an uphill fight; finally I gave it all up and came back to the States as poorly off as I started.”

Sam looked very dejected when he reached this point in his brief story. Gus, however, seemed to see the circumstance in a different light.

“But you did stick at it as long as any fellow could, you see, Sam,” he hurriedly observed, with a touch of pride in his voice. “That shows you’ve got it in you to do the right thing when you get another chance. Mother wants to see you. She has something to give you, Sam, money that will start you going in some business, away from Oakvale. She has saved it dollar by dollar, doing without things she had expected to buy for herself. Oh! you ought to buckle down and make a man of yourself for her sake, Sam—our mother!”

“I can, and I will, Gus,” said the other, firmly. “I told you I’d managed to throw off my bad habits, and there’s no danger of them ever getting the better of me again. If I have just one more chance to make good you’ll see how I can lie awake nights trying to get there. I’d give ten years of my life just to prove to father that I had it in me to do things worth while.”

Gus looked around toward the others. His eyes were moist, and it was evident that the boy was laboring under a tremendous strain. Still, through it all he could give Hugh a happy smile.

“Tell him what he needs to do to get there, Hugh,” he pleaded. “You can do it better than any one else I know. Things seem to be working out right, don’t they, Hugh, when just a little while ago it looked so terribly gloomy?”

“They’re going to get just where you and your mother have been hoping would be the case, Gus,” said Hugh. “And I must say that it would spur almost any sort of a fellow on to doing his level best if he had such a loyal mother as you’ve got, Sam. As for telling you what’s best to do, what’s the use, when you know deep down in your heart there’s only one way you can repay her for all her love and prayers. I firmly believe you will make good, Sam Merrivale, and if I can do anything to help out, you can count on my services. Gus is a particular chum of ours, and scouts always stand up for each other, you know.”

Sam was nearly overcome at such hearty offers of assistance.

“I’m going to get well in a hurry, don’t you see?” he told them. “Why, even now I feel a thousand per cent better than I did before I skipped out of this place when Casey told me we’d have to leave as there was danger staying here. By the time you’re ready to go back home I’ll be fit to meet my mother and tackle anything she wants me to do so as to wipe out the shame I’ve brought on her.”