The Boy Scouts of the Naval Reserve — Key Ideas to Explore

CHAPTER I. THE TRAIL UP CEDAR HILL.

This weird sound, supposed to be very much like the mournful howl of the timber wolf heard on a wintry night in the wilderness, caused the boy on the bicycle to laugh softly to himself as he looked up.

After running an errand for his mother to one of the farmers’ wives, he had been pedaling carelessly along up the dusty road.

A couple of fellows of about his own age, one of whom was inclined to be rather stout, were coming along a side road, making frantic motions for him to wait until they arrived; the boy chuckled again.

“Seems like Billy is getting that signal cry of the Wolf Patrol down pretty pat,” he told himself, as he dropped off his wheel at the junction of the two roads to await the arrival of his friends, both of whom wore the well-known khaki uniforms of the scouts, just as the lone rider did.

A minute later and they, too, dismounted, one gracefully, and the other with the awkwardness that usually accompanies the heavy-weight boy. Both of them were apparently pleased at having run across their comrade at just that particular time.

“Hello! Hugh!” called out the stout boy, “we stopped in at your house, and they told us you’d gone out to Farmer Benton’s on an errand for your mother. So Arthur said we might run across you heading for home, which we sure have done.”

“That’s right, Chief,” added the more slender lad who had been called Arthur. “We want you to come along with us and pass judgment on my contraption of a wireless outfit that I’ve rigged out up on Cedar Hill. I finished the work yesterday morning, and meant to get some of you fellows up there in the afternoon, but things kept on happening over at our house one after the other, till it was too late to bother. You’ll go along, I hope, Chief?”

These three lads were all members of the well-known Wolf Patrol of the local troop of Boy Scouts. They had been chiefly instrumental in starting the popular movement in town; and had passed through many rather remarkable scenes in common, most of which have been described at length in previous stories of the Series.

Hugh Hardin had early been made the patrol leader, and when the assistant scout master of the troop had lately been compelled to resign, Hugh, as the most popular fellow among the scouts, had been elected to take his place. It is necessary that the boy who would take upon himself the responsibility of being an assistant scout master should above all be a first-class scout; secondly, he must be elected to the office by his mates; and last of all be recommended by the chief scout officers of that district. Only when these conditions have been met will the coveted certificate be sent out from Boy Scout Headquarters in New York City.

Hugh had received approval some weeks before, and a few of the boys had come to calling him “Chief” when off by themselves for a good time. Of course, when the regular scout master, Lieutenant Denmead, a retired United States army officer, was along, Hugh would expect to be treated with the same courtesy that was extended to that gentleman, and insist upon the usual scout salute at meeting.

Billy Worth had always been a great admirer and chum of Hugh. He believed the other to be the best all-round boy in that whole country. Consequently he had seemed more concerned than Hugh himself when Alec Sands, the son of the rich railroad magnate, and in many ways a spoiled boy, had on various occasions tried to get the better of Hugh. Alec was the leader of the wideawake Otter Patrol, a clever scout, and with a small following of his own; but he was none too popular among the members of the Fox and Hawk patrols. This had accounted for his failure to be elected to the office of assistant scout master at the time he and Hugh locked horns while running for the position.

Arthur Cameron had been the last one to join the Wolf Patrol, completing its roster of eight members, and for some time he had been called the “tenderfoot.” Hugh, however, managed to arouse his interest in the wonderful secrets of Nature a scout who keeps his eyes and ears wide open may learn, especially when in the woods. From that day on Arthur had striven to perfect himself in the knowledge of those things which a boy must know in order to climb the ladder of scout preferment.