"That's so, Josh," George Kingsley remarked, wagging his head as though for once he actually agreed with something that had been said; "a simmering day often coaxes a storm along. It may hit us toward night-time, or even come on any hour afterwards when we're sleeping like babes in the woods."

"But what can we do for shelter?" asked Billy b.u.t.ton; "we haven't got even a rag for a tent; and once we get soaked it'll be a hard job to dry our suits, you know."

"Leave that to us, Billy," Tom told him, confidently. "First of all every scout has a rubber poncho; two of these fastened together will make what they call a dog tent, under which a couple of fellows can tuck themselves, and keep the upper part of their bodies dry. Soldiers always use them."

"Yes," added Rob Shaefer; "and if it looks like rain to-night we'll raise several brush shanties. By making use of the rubber blankets they can be kept as dry as a bone. Scouts must learn how to meet every possible condition that can rise up. That's a big part of the fun, once you've begun to play the game."

Billy seemed to be much impressed by this cheering intelligence; and even Horace smiled again, having recovered from his little panic.

It was almost three o'clock when the signal was given for a start. They took it slowly, and in the next two hours had probably covered little more than two miles. They were still loitering along the road that skirted the foot of the Big Bear Mountain.

"As we have some extra cooking to do to-night, boys," the scout master told them, "we had better pull up here where we can get fine water.

That's one of the things you must always look for when camping, remember."

Nothing pleased the scouts better than the prospect of stopping, and starting supper, for they were tired, and hungry in the bargain.

"If we didn't want to eat these fowls right away," Tom remarked, "I'd suggest that we bake them in a hot oven made in the ground. That's the original cooker, you know. But it takes a good many hours to do it."

"Another time, perhaps, when we're stopping several days in one camp we'll get some more chickens, Tom," said the scout master, "and have you show us just how it is done. I've heard of the old-time scheme, but never tasted anything cooked in a mud oven."

Everything looked calm and peaceful just then, but after all that was a deception and a snare. Even while the cooks were starting in to cut up the chickens so that the various parts might be placed in the two big frying-pans, after a certain amount of fat salt pork had been "tried out," and allowed to get fiercely hot, Josh, who happened to be seen coming from the spring with a coffee-pot of water called out:

"Well, here comes your storm cloud all right, Horace; only instead of a ducking we stand a chance of getting a licking from another enraged tiller of the soil!"

CHAPTER XV

NOT GUILTY

"Whew! but he looks even madder than Mr. Brush did!" exclaimed Billy b.u.t.ton, when he saw the advancing man snap his whip furiously, as though to warn them what to expect on his arrival.

Every scout was now on his feet and watching.

"There's his wagon over on the road," said Carl; "he must have been pa.s.sing and have seen us here. I wonder if we've trespa.s.sed on _his_ private property now. Mr. Witherspoon, you'd better get ready to hypnotize another mad farmer."

"He's got his eye on our chickens, let me tell you!" urged Josh, as he moved over a few paces, as though meaning to defend the antic.i.p.ated treat desperately if need be.

The man was a big brawny fellow, and very angry at that. Mr.

Witherspoon faced him without a sign of alarm, even smiling, because conscious of having given no reasonable cause for an a.s.sault.

"That cracking of his whip isn't going to scare us a bit," muttered the pugnacious Josh; "he'd better not lay it on me for one, or any of my chums, that's what!"

The man could hardly speak at first, from the effect of his anger, together with his hasty rush from the road up to the camp. Then holding his threatening whip in one hand he pointed a quivering finger straight toward the fowls that they were expecting to have for their supper, and which could no longer be concealed by Josh.

"So," bellowed the man, "now I know where the chickens that were stolen from my coop last night went. Raidin' the farms up this way, are you? I want to tell you it's going to be a bad job for every one of ye. I'll have the law on ye if I have to go to Lenox and look every boy in town over. And I'll know ye all again, if its a month from now."

He snapped the whip viciously as he stopped talking; but Mr.

Witherspoon did not seem to shrink back an inch. Looking the excited farmer squarely in the eye the scout master started to speak.

"I judge from what you say, sir, that you have had the misfortune to lose some of your poultry lately? I'm sorry to hear of it, but when you come and accuse us of being the guilty parties you are making a serious mistake, sir."

"Oh, am I?" demanded the other, still as furious as ever, though the boys noticed that he made no effort to use the dreadful whip he carried. "I lost some fowls, and you're expecting to have some chickens for dinner. Anybody with hoss sense could put them facts together, couldn't they? I ain't to be blarnied so easy, let me tell you."

"You seem to talk as though no one owned chickens up this Bear Mountain way but yourself, sir," said Mr. Witherspoon, calmly. "These lads are Boy Scouts. They are a part of the Lenox Troop, and I can vouch for every one of them as being honest, and incapable of stealing any man's fowls."

"You don't say, mister?" sneered the man; "but tell me, who's a-goin'

to vouch for you, now?"

"My name is Robert Witherspoon," replied the scout master, showing wonderful self-control the boys thought, considering the insulting manner of the angry farmer. "I am a civil engineer and surveyor. I love boys every way I find them; and it is a pleasure to me to act as their scout master, accompanying them on their hikes when possible, and seeing that they behave themselves in every way. You can find out about my standing from Judge Jerome, Doctor Lawson or Pastor Hotchkiss in Lenox."

The man still looked in Mr. Witherspoon's calm eyes. What he saw there seemed to have an influence upon his aroused feelings, for while he still shook his head skeptically there was not so much of menace in his manner now.

"Boys will be boys, no matter whether they have scout uniforms on or overalls," he said sullenly. "I've suffered mor'n once from raids on my orchards and chicken coops, and found it was some town boys, off on what they called a lark, that made other people suffer."

"But I a.s.sure you there is not the slightest possibility of any boy here having taken your chickens, sir," continued the scout master.

"We've been on the move all day long," added Tom, "and only arrived here half an hour back. Last night we were several miles away in camp."

"But--you got chickens, and I was robbed last night," faltered the farmer, as though that fact impressed him as evidence that no argument could keep down.

"If we could prove to you," continued Mr. Witherspoon, "that we came by these four fowls honestly, I hope you will be frank enough to apologize to my boys for unjustly suspecting them of being hen thieves?"

"Go on then and do it, mister; but I warn you I'm sot in my ways, and hard to convince. It's got to be a mighty likely yarn that'll fotch me over."

"You've lived around here some time, I take it?" asked Mr. Witherspoon.

"Man and boy forty-seven years," came the reply.

"Then you must know Ezra Brush, for he was born in the farm house he occupies to this day?" suggested the scout master.

"I know Ezra like a book. Him and me have always been good friends, except for that boundary dispute which took us to court; but I reckon Ezra don't hold no grudge agin me 'cause I won out.

"We had Mr. Brush sitting beside our campfire for two hours last night, while I told him all about the things Boy Scouts are taught. He means to have his three boys join the troop at the next meeting; for he knows now that if his little Jim and some of his companions had been scouts, the boy's life in all probability would have been saved last summer."

"It might have been," admitted the farmer, "if them other lads had knowed what to do, but before a man got there it was too late. And Ezra certainly sot some store by that bright-faced little Jim; everybody keered for him, he was so winnin' in his ways."

"Well," continued Mr. Witherspoon with a smile, for he was certain of his ground by this time, and the whip hung listlessly alongside the farmer's leg; "we made so good an impression on Mr. Brush that early this morning his man Bill came over with a basket, and also this note.

Please read it, sir."

He placed the paper in the other's hand; and leaning down so that the waning light of the setting sun might fall on the writing the farmer seemed to take in the contents of the note.

When he looked up he no longer scowled, but let his eyes rove around at the faces of the scouts, all filled with eager antic.i.p.ation.

"Well, I was wrong to say what I did, I owns up," he commenced, making a wry face, as though it was rather an unusual thing for him to admit being anything but right; "and since I promised to apologize to ye, boys I'm ready to do it. Chickens all looks alike after they've been plucked and the heads cut off; but 'cordin' to what that note reads these here are Brush fowls and not from the Perkins coop."