"Is he alive or dead?" she demanded, hysterically. "Tell me the worst!"

Her inquiry was for Connover, of course, and upon being told that his only trouble was a case of utter fright, she said, "Oh, my poor boy!"

She followed the trail to Camp Ellsworth, hurrying along the beaten path which the scouts had made, until glimpses of their homelike little settlement were visible through the trees.

As she approached it she noticed, even in her anxiety, wide bands of bright red high up on the tree-trunks at intervals. She learned later that these were to indicate the path as well as might be, for a distance on either side of it so that no arrow or missile of any sort should be shot across it. It was one of several precautions to guard against the breaking of this inviolable rule. The path was sacred territory.

Mrs. Bennett was now within the outskirts of the camp and could smell the savory odor of cooking. She pa.s.sed the tree where the Silver Foxes had spiked a piece of birch-bark with S. F. chalked upon it to indicate that the boys of that patrol were watching the industrious activities of a certain squirrel which patronized that particular tree. Another trunk bore a similar card with R. on it, showing that the Ravens were spying on the private affairs of an oriole which nested above. Little that oriole knew that seven photographs of him were pasted in the Troop Book.

At camp a Red Cross flag had been raised above Mr. Ellsworth's own tent and except for the quiet comings and going of the scoutmaster himself and Doc Carson, all was quiet here. Mrs. Bennett had expected to find the camp a scene of commotion.

"_Good_ evening, Mrs. Bennett," said the scoutmaster, in a tone of pleasant surprise. The spider was in his web at last, but he concealed his feeling of elation. "You are just in time to grace the festive board. We're going to have corn wiggles; did you ever eat a corn wiggle, Mrs. Bennett?"

"Where is my boy?" she demanded.

"Sit down, won't you? He's over there learning how to tell a mushroom from a toadstool--something every boy ought to know."

"And this other boy?" she added, glancing inside the tent.

"Fine-doing fine. One of our boys hiked it to town for a doctor, and I thought you were he when the sentinel told me someone was coming."

"You saw me coming?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. BENNETT "COMES ACROSS"]

"No, we heard you long before we saw you. I wish now that Connover's sense of hearing were a little more acute. Then he'd have been able to distinguish the locality of a human voice. But there's no use crying over spilled milk."

Mrs. Bennett listened breathlessly while he repeated the story of the afternoon's occurrences. While he was talking a scout approached, removed his hat, saluted Mr. Ellsworth, and handed him a paper. It was a memorandum of the temperature of the river water, an amateur forecast of the weather for the next day, and a "stunt" proposition for O. K.

The scoutmaster asked one or two questions and dismissed the messenger.

Mrs. Bennett was a little surprised to notice that the questions seemed to bear with practical sense and foresight upon the physical welfare of the boys.

"Do you give your approval to everything?" she asked.

"No--not always," he laughed.

"And what then? You can't _watch_ them _all_."

"Oh, dear, no; I just give my veto and forget it."

"You take the temperature of the river?"

"Yes, and test it for impurities twice a week. Doc attends to that.

Come inside, Mrs. Bennett."

She greeted the reclining O'Connor boy and smoothed his forehead tenderly.

"Have his parents been notified?"

"No, I'm going to town myself this evening," said Mr. Ellsworth. "I'll tell them. My idea is to have him remain with us."

"And who will care for him while you are gone?"

Mr. Ellsworth laughed. "Oh, Doc will be glad to get rid of me," said he. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"You bathed it with carbolic, did you?"

"No, Doc tells me carbolic is a little out of date. How about that, Doc?"

Doc a.s.sented and there was something so eloquently suggestive of efficiency about Doc that, although Mrs. Bennett sniffed audibly, she did not venture to ask what antiseptic had been used. She had supposed that antiseptics of all kinds would be quite unheard of in a camp of boys, and here out in the woods she was being told by a quiet, respectful young fellow in a khaki suit that her favorite antiseptic was "out of date."

She received the blow with fort.i.tude.

At a little distance from the tent several boys were engaged in the preparation of supper and the setting of the long board under the trees. Others were busy with various forms of house-keeping, or rather camp-keeping, and her domestic instinct prompted her to cast an occasional shrewd look at the systematic and apparently routine work which was going on. What she could not help noticing was the general aspect of orderliness which the camp displayed. Not a paper box nor a tin can was to be seen. She had always a.s.sociated camping with a sort of rough-and-tumble life and with carelessness in everything pertaining to one's physical welfare. Cleanliness was, to her notion, quite incompatible with life in tents and cooking out of doors.

Her casual discovery of the practice of testing the river water at stated intervals was in the nature of a knock-out blow. She felt a little bewildered as she watched the comings and goings of the troop members. She did not altogether like the realization that the water which had never been tested for her own son's bathing was regularly tested for this "Wild West crew."

"What is that?" she asked.

"That's our bulletin-board. Let me show you about the camp, Mrs.

Bennett. You see, you are not our only visitor; we have a delegation from Barrel Alley, as well."

A little way from the roaring fire, whence emanated a most savory odor, the gallant representatives of Bridgeboro's East End were watching the preparations for supper. They had proved faithless to the excursionists and Mr. Ellsworth had invited them to dine at camp, supplementing the invitation with an offer to pay their way home by train, they having come gratuitously on a "freight." Mr. Ellsworth looked far into the future, but just at that moment Mrs. Bennett was his game.

"Here, you see, is one of the patrol tents and over here is the other.

We're hoping for still a third. Here's our wireless apparatus. The boys have just discovered that Mr. Berry, the storekeeper over in the village, has an outfit, so they're in high hopes of having a little chat with him. Here, you see, are the drain ditches, so that the camp is free from dampness and stagnant water. We'll be lowering the colors presently. Dorry, my boy, bring the Troop Book over so Mrs. Bennett can see it--and the Troop Alb.u.m also. Ah, here's Connie now."

From among the group about the fire Connover came guiltily forward.

Mrs. Bennett put her arm about him although she said nothing and seemed not altogether pleased. The recollection of his disobedience was now beginning to supplant her fear and anxiety. A little group of scouts, all on the alert for service, and anxious to advertise the details and features of their camp life, accompanied the trio about.

"What are those?" Mrs. Bennett asked.

"Spears," said Roy.

"Do you throw them at animals?"

"No, indeed," laughed another boy. "We spear papers with them, like this." He speared a fallen leaf to show her.

"Camp is cleared every morning," said Mr. Ellsworth, "and here is our first aid outfit--our special pride," he added as they re-entered his own little tent. "We have better facilities for the care of an injured person than are to be had in the village."

"What were those signs I saw on the trees as I came?"

"Just stalking notes; we study and photograph the wild life."

There was a moment's pause. "It is certainly nice to encourage a feeling of friendship for the forest life," she conceded.

"It is not so much a feeling of friendship as of kinship, Mrs.

Bennett."

She turned about and looked sharply at one of the scouts who stood near by. "You are not the Slade boy?" she said.