As Raymond hurried back with it, he could see the wings of the big bird flapping in the fury of its murderous work. What was going on up there he could only picture in his mind’s eye, but the thought of that smaller bird hurrying on its harmless errand—homeward to its nest, perhaps—and waylaid and murdered up there in the lonely half darkness, troubled him and his hand trembled perceptibly as he handed the weapon to Jeb.

“You always hit ’em—fetch ’em—don’t you?” he asked, anxiously.

“Purty near.”

The sharp report rang out and echoed from the surrounding hills. Even before it died away there lay at Raymond’s feet a hawk, quite dead, while through the dim light in a pitiably futile effort to fly, the smaller bird, a vivid speck of white in the fading twilight, fluttered to the ground.

It proved to be a white pigeon, its feathers ruffled and stained with blood and several of the stiffer feathers of the tail were gone entirely. One wing drooped as the bird stumbled weakly about and an area of its neck was bare where the feathers had been torn away. It seemed odd to Raymond that the poor stricken thing should resume its clumsy strut, poking its head this way and that, even in its weakness, and after such a cruel experience.

But what he noticed particularly was a metal ring around the bird’s leg from which hung a little transparent tube, like a large medical capsule, with something inside it.

“Look, Jeb,” said he. “What’s that?”

Jeb lifted the bird carefully, folding the drooping wing into place, and removed the little tube.

“You fetched him anyway, didn’t you, Jeb?”

“’Cause I had ter—see?”

“We won’t have to kill it, will we, Jeb?”

“Reckon not. He don’t seem to be sufferin’ much uv any. Jes’ shook up, as the feller says. Lucky he fell amongst friends. Let’s see wot he’s brought us—he’s one of them carriers, son.”

Raymond said nothing, but watched eagerly as Jeb, leisurely and without any excitement, opened the tiny receptacle and unrolled a piece of paper. The boy knew well enough what carrier pigeons were and he was eager to know the purport of that little roll of script. But even in his excitement there lingered in his mind the picture of that faithful little messenger, intent upon its errand, struck down by the ruthless bandit of the air. He was glad the hawk was dead.

“Let’s hear wot he’s got ter say fer himself, son. You jes’ read it.”

The paper was thin and about the size of a dollar bill; it had been folded lengthwise and then rolled up. It read:

“Come right away. Governor hurt. Serious. Can’t leave. Will try to get to nearest village but am afraid to leave now. He fell and is bleeding bad. Think there’s something else the matter, too. Spotty died or would send.

Jeff.”

Raymond gazed for a moment at Jeb, then down at the dead hawk, then at the pigeon which Jeb still held, stroking it gently.

“It’ll never be delivered now, son, ’cause nobuddy ’cept this here little feller knows whar he come frum nor whar he wuz goin’—do they, Pidge?”

“But somebody’s dying,” said Raymond.

“Sure enough, but we don’t know who ’tis nor whar he is—nor whar his friends is neither. An’ this here messenger here won’t tell us—he’s got his own troubles. That thar hawk done more mischief than he thought for.”

For a few moments there was silence and Raymond gazed up into the trackless, darkening sky through which this urgent call for help had been borne. Where had it come from? For whom was it intended? Then he looked down at the limp body of the bird whose cruel, bloody work had snatched the last faint hope of succor from someone who lay dying.

“I—I’m glad you kil—fetched him, anyway——” said he.

The thought of those two unknown persons, the stricken one and his frightened companion, waiting all in vain for the help which that faithful messenger of the air should summon, and of that steadfast little emissary, on whom so much depended, fallen here into strange hands, sobered and yet agitated the boy, and he was silent in the utter helplessness of doing anything.

“Naow, if yer could ony tell whar yer wuz goin’ or whar yer wuz comin’ frum, Pidge, we’d be much obleeged,” said Jeb; “but you wouldn’t, would yer,” he added, stroking the bird, “’n’ I ain’t much uv a hand at pickin’ trails in th’air, bein’ as I growed up on th’hard ground.”

“Nobody can follow trails in the air,” said Raymond by way of comforting Jeb. “Gee, nobody could do that. But it’s terrible, isn’t it?”

He looked up into the sky again as if he hoped it might still show some sign of path or trail, and as he did so a loud bark, a sort of harsh Haa-Haa, came through the growing darkness from across the lake, and reverberated in swelling chorus from the frowning heights roundabout. Then there was a long, plaintive bellow which died away as softly and as gradually as the day itself dies, and this again was followed, as it seemed, by the happy music of applauding hands, as if in acknowledgment of the long echoed refrain.

“Oh, they’re here! They’re here!” cried Raymond. “That was the Silver Fox call—and the Elks—and Garry’s with them—he made that Beaver call to let me know——”

Just at that moment the dense brush across the lake parted and a boy, bareheaded and wearing a grey flannel shirt, emerged on the shore.

“Oh, Tom! It’s Tom Slade!” cried Raymond, forgetting all else in his ecstasy. “Hello, Tom, you big—you big——” But he couldn’t think of any epithet to fit the occasion.

CHAPTER II
TOM SURPRISES THE CAMP

“Believe me, it was good to get our feet on terra-cotta—I mean terra firma. I don’t want any more life on the ocean wave for at least two weeks. I’m sorry we didn’t christen that boat the Sardine Box. Good Turn—you can’t even turn around in it!”

“You shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” someone laughed.

“You can look a gift boat in the cabin, can’t you,” continued Roy. “We were crowded in the cabin, not a soul would dare to move. That boat is all right for three scouts like last year, but for three patrols—go-o-d night! There wasn’t even room to flop a rice cake over—we had to eat them browned on one side—there was a wrong and a right to them. Never again! What we want is a sump-tu-ous yacht like that one moored at Catskill Landing!”

“Wal, ye did hev quite a crowd aboard, sure enough,” laughed Jeb, who always enjoyed Roy’s nonsense.

“Sure, pick out the one you want and I’ll drown the rest,” said Roy; “except Pee-wee, we’re going to keep him till he gets his eyes open.”

Pee-wee Harris, Silver Fox and troop mascot, splashed the oar from his seat in an adjoining boat, giving Roy a gratuitous bath.

“Did you have any adventures?” Raymond managed to ask.

“Oceans of them—I mean rivers. We got three points out of our course and went twenty miles up a tributary.”

“That’s some word,” someone called.

“That’s a peach of a word, comes from the Greek word Bute, meaning beautiful, and the Irish word Terry. It was all on account of Pee-wee’s ignorance of geography. He thought the Hudson rose in Roseville, Pennsylvania.”

“What!”