CHAPTER VIII.

THE RESCUE.

“Hugh, he’s gone, don’t you see?” cried Gus, staring around helplessly in the dim light given by the moon that was hidden somewhere behind those heavy clouds overhead.

It chanced that the wind slackened its force for a brief spell just then, allowing, them an opportunity to exchange a few sentences, just as if the elements felt sorry for the misery of the poor fellow whose heart was full to overflowing.

“Yes, it looks like it,” Hugh admitted, “but if what Casey told us is true he must have been too weak to go far. We’ll find him, Gus, I hope.”

The other did not seem to be overconfident, even when he heard Hugh, whom he trusted as he did no other comrade, try to cheer him up in that way. A reaction was already setting in. Gus had been buoyed up much of the time by the hope that kept his heart warm, and now that this seemed gone a dreadful chill settled down upon him.

Hugh did not mean that this should be the end. He planned to bolster up the courage of his chum by prompt measures.

“Come,” he told the others, shouting aloud because the wind was rising again, with all those noises breaking forth around them once more, “what do we call ourselves scouts for if we can’t handle a little thing like this?”

“But what can we do, Hugh,” asked Gus. “Which way would we figure we’d better try and follow, when a dozen directions are open to him?”

“Stop and think,” said the other, quickly; “would a fellow who was weak, and ready to shrink from the storm, start out by _facing_ it, or going the other way?”

Gus gave vent to a cry. New hope immediately started to tug at his heartstrings. Surely, as a scout, he should likewise have reasoned out things. But then Gus found himself the prey to contending emotions, and in no condition to figure what the answer to a conundrum might be, as under more comfortable conditions he would possibly have done.

Yes, it was certainly plausible to believe that the weak and tottering steps of Sam would carry him with the wind, and not against it. His one desire, when he moved away from the spot where Casey had left him, must have simply been to better his condition; and so he would drift along, the sport of the elements.

Gus watched Hugh as a cat might a mouse upon which it meant to presently pounce. The scout master was moving slowly up the little gully in which the tramps had hidden themselves, meaning to go back to the cabin should the intruders leave the vicinity, sooner or later.

While the place had offered a certain amount of shelter before the coming of the storm, it was a mere apology of a camp, once that driving wind started in to whipping the last remaining dead leaves from the hard wood trees, and levelling many of the pines. Sam must have stood it as long as he could, and then yielded to the impulse to let the gale urge him along, in hopes of finding a better shelter.

Hugh was alert and watchful, because he knew that it was an easy thing to go wrong in a case like this. A false deduction in the beginning would send them on a wild-goose chase, and with it would go their last feeble hope of finding the lost tramp.

Hugh even got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl laboriously up the slight ascent of rocks. At first Gus was bothered to account for this action on the part of his chum, and even feared that Hugh may have been more fatigued than he cared to admit. On second thought Gus arrived at the true explanation of the mystery.

Hugh was acting on the old principle of putting himself in the other fellow’s place. He meant to try and do just what he imagined the weak and distressed Sam must have attempted when making this desperate move.

The gully was really nothing more nor less than a slight depression of the rocks. Its edges were not high enough in any place to effectually shut out the sweep of the wind. On this account it was likely to prove a poor sort of shelter, though, for one thing, the danger of falling trees was not so great here as in many other places, and Sam may have understood this.

Gus was using his eyes on his own account as they crept along up the rise in this slow and laborious fashion. In spite of their weak condition, owing to the wind and the gathering tears, he could manage to make out some object lying huddled just ahead of them, and toward which Hugh was moving steadily at the time.

As yet they could not tell exactly whether this might prove to be the object of their search, or simply an outcropping mass of rock. Another half minute would tell the tale, and therefore Gus shut his jaws firmly together, determined to prove himself a credit to his organization.

All doubt was quickly removed when Hugh, turning his head, called back:

“Here he is; we’ve found him!”

It was only natural that the first wild sense of exhilaration that swept through the breast of the eager brother should be instantly succeeded by another spasm of acute doubt. Was Sam still alive, or had he made his very last bid for existence when creeping away from the storm, as he believed?

Hugh was already bending over the recumbent figure that was huddled in a knot, as though in the endeavor to better resist the plucking fingers of the wind. Arthur, too, had pushed forward, his professional instinct aroused, since it seemed likely that poor Sam would be in need of more or less help.

Only Gus, who had much more at stake than either of his mates, hung back, consumed with mingled hopes and fears. He waited to hear whether good news or bad was coming, after Hugh had learned how matters stood. And so Gus Merrivale with clenched hands and set jaws held his breath, and felt his heart beating like mad in his bosom. What agonies the boy suffered, and how the few seconds must have seemed to him like long hours—afterwards, under far different conditions, when he allowed his thoughts to draw him back again to that dreadful moment he always shuddered at the recollection of what he passed through in so brief a period of time.

Then a spasm of supreme joy flitted through the heart of Gus. He saw the recumbent figure on the cold rocks move. Hugh, yes, and Arthur, too, bending over the tramp had managed to let him know assistance had arrived, though it must have been hard for him to understand it.

“We have come to try and help you get back to the cabin again,” was what Hugh was shouting in his ear. “You can’t stay here through the night, because the chances are this storm will turn into a blizzard before morning, and you’d freeze to death.”

The castaway upon the rocks seemed to try and stare at them. He doubtless had hard work convincing himself that he was not dreaming.

“How’d you know I was out here?” Hugh managed to hear him say, as though that strange fact impressed him most of all in his weakened condition.

“Casey told us,” said Hugh, thinking to humor him a little. “Casey is back there by the fire in the bunk-house, where we’ll have you in a jiffy. Do your best to help us, Sam Merrivale.”

“Who are you?” demanded the other, apparently staggered at hearing his name spoken by one of those boys whose faces he could just dimly see.

“Never mind about that now,” Hugh told him, with that old touch of authority in his voice that usually carried his point. “In good time you’ll know all about it. Let us help you get on your feet. You’re to lean on two of us, while we start back to the creek bed. After that it won’t be quite so hard going, for we can have the wind at our backs. Now, Arthur, give me a hand!”

It was really strange how Hugh managed to make himself heard in all that racket; but then he had one of those voices that carry in spite of all obstacles. Arthur needed no urging, for he was ever ready to perform the highest functions of a scout, and put himself to any amount of trouble in order to relieve distress, or succor a fainting heart.

Sam seemed stiff and weak. At first he could hardly do a thing for himself, and Hugh seriously considered whether they might not after all be compelled to carry him on some sort of a rude litter, fashioned on the spur of the moment.

After he had been enabled to work his limbs a little, however, it seemed as if some sense of initiative must have come back to the wanderer, for he even put out one foot and took his first step, without being urged by his attendants.

Slowly they moved along, down the slight grade, and facing the worst of the still bitter wind. Gus hovered close behind the others, feeling ever so much better, now that his worst fears had not been realized. If Sam could only be taken to the cozy cabin in the old lumber camp owned by his father, all might yet be well. Gus had great faith in the ability of Arthur to pull a fellow through when he seemed to be on his last legs. Yes, he certainly had cause for great rejoicing, and no doubt there was a song of thanksgiving welling up in his heart that could not wait for expression until the dawn of the National Day devoted to gratitude wherever true Americans are found, the world over.

Now they had managed to reach the creek at the second bend, and from this time on it might be expected they would find the going much easier, although bad enough at the best. The storm was at their back, and the haven of the bunk-house just a quarter of a mile away, as they made the turn, and pushed on resolutely, the two scouts who flanked Sam and gripped his arms, steadying his feeble steps.