UNDER
BOY SCOUT COLORS

UNDER BOY SCOUT COLORS

CHAPTER I
THE LIVE WIRE

Dale Tompkins slung the bulging bag of papers over one shoulder, and, turning away from the news-stand, walked briskly down the main street of Hillsgrove. The rain had ceased, and the wind that had howled fiercely all day long was shifting into the west, where it tore to tatters the banks of dun gray clouds, letting through gleams and patches of cold blue sky tinged with the pale, chill yellow of a typical autumn sunset.

The cold look of that sunset was well borne out by a keen nip in the air, but Dale was too thankful to have it clear at all to complain. Besides, he wasn’t exactly the complaining sort. Turning up the collar of a rather shabby coat, he thrust both hands deep into his trousers’ pockets and hurried whistling along, bent on delivering his papers in the quickest possible time.

“I ought to get home by seven, anyhow,” he thought calculatingly. “And if Mother’ll only give me a hurry-up snack, I’ll be in time for meeting.”

He rolled the last word under his tongue with the prideful accent of a novice. Then, with a sudden start, one hand jerked out of his pocket and slipped between the buttons of the thread-bare coat. For an anxious moment it groped there before the fingers closed over a metal badge, shaped like a trefoil, that was pinned securely to the flannel shirt. A somewhat sheepish grin overspread the freckled face, and through an open gate Dale shot a paper dexterously across the porch to land accurately in the middle of the door-mat.

“I’d hate to lose it the very first week,” he muttered, with a touch of apology. Mechanically he delivered another paper, and then he sighed. “Gee! A month sure seems an awful long time to wait when you know about all the tests already. I could even pass some of the first-class ones, I bet! That handbook’s a dandy, all right. I don’t guess there was ever another book printed with so much in it, exceptin’, maybe–”

The words froze on his lips, and he caught his breath with a sharp, hissing intake. From somewhere in the next block a scream rang out on the still air, so shrill, so sudden, so full of surprise and pain and utter terror that Dale’s blood turned cold within him, and the arm, half extended to toss a folded paper, halted in the middle of its swing, as if encountering an invisible obstacle. The pause was only momentary. Abruptly, as if two hands were pressed around a throbbing throat, the cry was cut off, and in the deathly silence that followed, Dale hurled the paper hastily, but accurately, from him, and turned and ran.

Eyes wide and face a little white, he tore across the road, splashing through puddles and slipping in the soft mud. Whirling around the corner into Pine Street, he saw a woman rush bareheaded out of a near-by house and two men come running down an adjacent alley. Rather, he noted them with that odd sense of observation which works intuitively, for his whole being was concentrated on the sight of that slight, boyish figure lying motionless in the roadway.

For a second Dale stared blankly, unable to understand. His first thought was that some human agency had done this thing, but almost as swiftly he realized that there was no one in sight who could have struck the child unconscious, nor had there been time for such an assailant to get away. Then, as he hurried closer through the gathering dusk, he caught sight of a trailing wire gripped convulsively in the small hands, and in a flash he realized the truth. In a flash, too, he realized that the body was not as motionless as he had supposed. A writhing, twisting movement, slight but ceaseless, quivered through the helpless victim, from his thin, black-stockinged legs to the blue lips. To the white-faced lad bending over him it seemed to tell of great suffering borne, perforce, in silence–and he was such a little kid!

From Dale’s own lips there burst a smothered, inarticulate cry. Every idea, save the vital need of tearing loose that killing grip, vanished from the older boy’s mind. Heedless of a warning shout from one of the men, he bent swiftly forward and caught the child by one shoulder.

What happened then Dale was never afterward able to describe clearly. It was as if some monstrous tingling force, greater, stranger than anything he had ever known, struck at him out of the air. In a twinkling it tore him from the boy on the ground and hurled him almost the width of the street. He crashed against the stone curbing and for a second or two lay there, dazed and blinking, then climbed painfully to his feet.

“I oughtn’t to have–touched him–with my bare hands,” he muttered uncertainly. “I must have got nearly the whole charge!”

He felt faint and sick and wobbly. From the horrified group gathered helplessly around the unconscious boy across the street, a woman’s hysterical cry beat on his brain with monotonous iteration: “What can we do? What can we do? It’s terrible! Oh, can’t you do something?”

“If we only had rubber gloves–” murmured one of the men, vaguely.

“Where’s a ’phone?” interrupted another. “I’m going to get ’em to shut off the current!”

“You can’t,” some one replied. People were constantly rushing up to gasp and exclaim, but do nothing. “The power-house is clear over at Medina. It’ll take too long to get the connection.”

“I’m going to try, anyhow,” was the sharp retort. “It’s better than doing nothing.”

As he dashed past Dale and disappeared into a neighboring house, the boy moved slowly forward. He splashed through a puddle, and something he had read, or heard, came back to him. Water was a perfect conductor, and he had been standing in a regular pool of it when he grabbed the child. No wonder he had been shocked.

“Insulation,” he murmured, his head still swimming. “That’s it! The handbook says–”

The bag of papers bumped against his thigh, and somehow Dale’s numbed brain began to clear swiftly. How could he have forgotten that paper was a non-conductor as well as silk or rubber? Rubber! Why, the bag itself was made of some kind of waterproof stuff. He thrust aside a half-grown, gaping youth.

“Give me a show, can’t you?” he cried almost fiercely. Thrilled, exhilarated with a sudden sense of power, he jerked the bag off his shoulder. “The kid’ll never live if he waits for you fellows to do something.” With extraordinary swiftness he pulled out several thicknesses of newspaper and wrapped them about one hand and arm. Similarly swathing the other, he dropped the rubber-coated bag to the ground and stepped squarely on it. His eyes were wide and almost black with excitement. “Oh, cut that out!” he snapped over one shoulder to a protesting bystander. “Don’t you s’pose I know what I’m doing? I’m a scout!”

A second later he had gripped the unconscious child again by an arm and shoulder. This time there was no shock, only a queer, vibratory tingling that Dale scarcely noticed, so intent was he on doing the right thing. He must not bungle now. He remembered perfectly what the book said about releasing a person in contact with a live wire. It must be done quickly and cleanly, without unnecessary tugging, or else the shock and burning would be greatly increased. Dale braced his feet and drew a long breath. Then, suddenly, he jerked backward with all the strength he could summon. The next thing he