more than the original break. I’m going to fix that leg as best I can, and wrap it up with the fresh surgeons’ tape I happen to be carrying with me.”

There was really no “happen” about it, for Hugh always made it a point to carry a small supply of that useful bandage tape with him all the time. It is one of those things which when required at all is needed badly. On several previous occasions the scout master had found cause to thank his forethought in thus going prepared for emergencies. Boys take so many desperate chances in their rough play that they are in constant danger of meeting with some accident.

The man seemed to understand that he was in the hands of Good Samaritans, though it doubtless hurt him keenly when Hugh worked; he stifled many a groan, he gritted his teeth, and managed to keep from fainting under the strain.

“There, that’s all done, and as good a job as anything I ever tackled,” Hugh finally declared, as he arose and stretched his cramped limbs. “And now the next thing is to get him up out of here. Suppose both of you try taking him by the shoulders while I look after his legs. I know how to handle him with as little pain as can be done. We can move him a little way, and then rest, till we’re up on the level again. Ready, boys?”

The others understood what Hugh had in mind. They had practiced carrying a helpless person in some of their “first aid to the injured” lessons; and hence were quite competent to attend to their end. Hugh knew that the wounded man was in for more painful experiences, but then there was no other way of getting him out of that deep gully.

Resting as many as half a dozen times, the three scouts finally reached the level ground again. All of them were panting heavily, for the man was no light weight, and climbing the steep side of the ravine under such conditions was a much more difficult task than they had found when descending.

“And now what?” asked Billy as he looked to Hugh to lay out a plan.

“We must make a litter or stretcher, just as we’ve done more than a few times when practicing this game of carrying a wounded comrade,” the scout master told them.

“That would be easy enough if only we had some sort of hatchet along,” Arthur declared, “but you see, none of us dreamed we’d need such a thing. Now, I’ve got an old one hidden near where my wireless masts stand up on the top of Cedar Hill, if only you’d wait till I could go there and back.”

“No need,” observed Hugh, who had as usual been keeping his eyes on the alert, and made a few discoveries. “Here are all the poles we’ll need, lying in a bunch. Probably some fellow had been gathering them for bean poles or something like that, and then forgot to take them away.”

“Talk to me about luck, we get it in hunks, don’t we?” cried Billy. “Why, where could we have run across better poles to make a stretcher? All we want is some stout cord to fasten the ends together, so they won’t slip.”

“Here’s a piece of rope the bear man seemed to have been carrying along with him for some purpose or other,” said Hugh. “I picked it up near where he lay, knowing we might make use of it some way. By unwinding these strands we’ll have more than all the cord we need to tie the poles across each other.”

All of them immediately busied themselves, and so well had their lesson been learned that in a very short time they had fashioned a splendid litter. The wounded man watched them work with a sparkle of gratitude in his eyes. He must have realized by now that those khaki uniforms which these boys wore meant succor for him, and it is greatly to the credit of Boy Scouts everywhere that seldom does this confidence in their willingness to give aid in times of distress meet with disappointment.

After the litter had been finished, they laid enough hemlock browse upon it to make a pretty soft mattress. As Billy felt of that and scented the delightful piney odor, he nodded his head and remarked:

“I only hope that if ever I break a leg and have to be carried to the doctor’s, I’ll be lucky enough to lie on as fine a stretcher as this, that’s all I can say.”

Hugh took hold of one end, and Billy started at the other. They meant to take turns and in this way “rest up,” as Billy called it.

“You’re heading so as to reach the road, I take it?” remarked Arthur presently.

“Just what I’m doing,” the scout master replied. “We ought to make use of our wheels in some way to take off most of the strain of carrying this man to town.”

“Who’d ever have thought of that but you, Chief?” cried Billy, who was looking a little tired. The task of stumbling along, bearing half of that weight over rough ground, was far from an easy one.

When they reached the spot where the bicycles had been hidden these were brought out, and it was found that the stretcher could be rested on the handle bars of two of the wheels. By taking care, there was little danger of an upset. So presently a queer procession was passing along the road. Everything seemed to work so nicely that while they met several farmers going home from market, the boys declined the offer when they proposed turning back so as to carry the wounded Russian to the hospital.

Perhaps there was a little vein of pride about it, and the scouts wanted to let scoffers see how well they were able to manage when a sudden emergency confronted them. They were only boys after all, and felt that they had a perfect right to be proud of the way they had managed.

Hugh at such times as they paused—once to rest and again to give the injured man a drink from a spring that bubbled up near the road—managed to converse a little with the grateful fellow. He told the boy, whom he now looked upon as a good and tried friend, that he did have a little cache among the rocks on the side of Stormberg, where he kept his savings, being afraid to trust banks, and knowing what danger there must always be of his being robbed if he carried all his money along with him in his erratic wanderings. For three years he had come back here late every summer and in the early spring to add secretly to his hoard.

On the present occasion it had been his intention to carry his accumulations away with him, for he meant to sail across the sea to his old home, where he could live in what he considered comfort on the amount he had saved. Misfortune had overtaken him, however, and with a broken leg he must delay his departure a long time.

They reached the town limits at length, and great was the surprise of the good citizens when this queer ambulance took its way along the main street, headed for the hospital. As the excitement spread, people rushed out of stores and dwelling houses, and upon every tongue could be heard praises of the Boy Scouts.

“What won’t they be doing next?” men asked each other as they noted how splendidly Hugh and his two chums had made that stretcher for the wounded man, and how cleverly they were utilizing their wheels in place of a wagon in order to convey him from a distance to the town hospital. “It certainly was the best thing that ever happened for the boys of this country when that scout movement started here, and it has spread like wildfire. Why, it was only lately that they rescued that aeronaut, and the doctor said they’d fix his broken arm about as well as he could have done the job himself under the same conditions. If your boy doesn’t belong already, you can’t coax him to be a scout any too soon, believe me,