the three winners of the rotary club award were not altogether cheered by the talk of their traveling acquaintance. they felt a trifle ashamed and dissatisfied with themselves. here was a brisk, resourceful, adventurous man whose vocation seemed a very dream of romance. and he looked upon them as nice boys playing an interesting game. he did not take them seriously.
he regarded shining sun (or stove polish as he preferred to call him) as a rare discovery—a real, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, little scout, a scout whose skill and lore could be used in adventurous undertakings. amateurs! nice boys! and they were about to have their reward of merit for three exploits, the recital of which had not exactly staggered mr. wilde. they were going to drive around yellowstone park in autos and stop at the hotels and visit modern, well-equipped camps, and see the petrified forests and the geysers.
and meanwhile an indian boy was going into the unfrequented depths of the vast park to do for white men what they could not do for themselves. descendent of savages though he was, and with the primitive vein persisting in him, they took him seriously, these men; he was a real little scout. not a boy scout.
these were the thoughts, the reflections, of westy martin as he arose saying in a rather disheartened tone, “come on, let’s go out on the platform and watch the scenery.”
the three boys staggered through the aisle of the car holding to the seat backs as the rushing train swerved in its winding course among the mountains. they had been but visitors in the smoking car and now in the one next it they came to their own seats, which at night had been transformed into berths.
on one of the seats lay a duffel bag containing the few camping utensils which they had brought against the unlikely prospect of a night’s bivouac in the open. westy was glad that they had not exposed these up-to-date devices to their acquaintance in the next car. he might have commented flippantly on the collapsible or the folding frying pan. in a previous encounter with that philistine of the smoking car he had inquired about the meaning of westy’s treasured pathfinder’s badge, and had said that when he was a boy he had often played hares and hounds and hide-and-seek.
“come on out in back,” said warde.
they staggered on through the train holding the backs of seats to steady their progress. all the passengers seemed weary, the cars littered and hot and stuffy. discarded newspapers and magazines lay on the seats and floor. the passengers sprawled lazily in postures far from elegant. only the train seemed wide-awake and bent upon some definite purpose. it roared and rattled and whistled and now and again a faint answering whistle was heard from the distant mountains as if the ghost of some locomotive long dead were concealed there.
in one of the cars a litter of sticky bits of tissue paper filled the aisle in company of an empty box which had contained somebody or other’s fresh lemon-drops. westy was not the scout to pass by such a litter, he had cleared up the luncheon rubbish after too many motoring parties for that. but he did not stoop to this worthy task of the scout now. he was not in the mood to be a menial, a housemaid scout; not with the exploits of shining sun so fresh in his mind. he was thoroughly dissatisfied with himself and he passed the litter by in proud disdain of it.
“don’t you be a lemon-drop scout,” he said sneeringly to warde, who was just behind him.
“how did you know i was going to stoop?” warde asked.
ah, that was the question. it was because westy martin was a better scout than he knew and like the true woodsman had eyes in the back of his head.
“i’m kind of sorry we didn’t ask him if he’d let us go up in the forest with him,” warde said.
“a tall chance,” said westy disconsolately.
