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TELL HIM YOU ARE TO BE A DELAWARE”

“We are glad to have you as a member of Woodcraft Camp, and I hope we shall make a first-class scout and a thorough sportsman and woodsman of you. I will not add ‘gentleman,’ for we feel that every boy is that when he comes to us. If you are interested in any special branch of nature study come and consult me freely that I may aid you in its pursuit.

“Now you may report to Chief Woodhull, and tell him you are to be a Delaware. He will inform you as to the minor rules of the camp and our methods of learning the most from this close communion and association with nature. We want you to go home in the fall feeling that you have had the best time a red-blooded boy could have, and that the summer has been profitable as well.”

With a pleasant smile the doctor shook hands warmly once more and Walter started for the wigwam, secretly elated that he was to be under Woodhull, and that he was to be [52] a Delaware, the tribe of Uncas and Chingachgook. He found Woodhull waiting for him. The chief greeted him pleasantly.

“So the big chief (that’s what we call the doctor) has made a Delaware of you? I’m glad of that.”

“So am I,” responded Walter.

“Now the first thing,” the other continued, “is to get acquainted with the wigwam and stow away your duffle. The Delawares have the east side, and the Algonquins the west. Your number is the skiddoo number, twenty-three, for bunk and locker, and I hope you’ll make it a lucky number for the tribe. Stow your duffle in your locker, and I’ll show you around the camp and make you acquainted with some of the boys. By the way, Upton, do you go in for athletics, besides boxing?”

Walter admitted that he ran a little, being best at the mile, was fairly good at the running broad jump, had once won a boy’s canoe race, and had practiced a lot at a short range target with a small rifle.

His chief received the information with manifest pleasure. “You see,” he explained, “we have a big field day in August, and there [53] is a lot of rivalry between the tribes, and especially between the two wigwams. A mounted deer’s head is offered this year to the wigwam scoring the greatest number of points in woodcraft during the summer and in the field day sports, and we want it over our fireplace. The biggest fish caught each day counts five points and the biggest for the week fifteen points; the best photograph of wild animals or birds made during the summer counts twenty-five points; fifteen points each are scored for the rarest botanical specimen, best mineral specimen, largest number of birds positively identified, best collection of insects and largest number of trees identified. Any exceptional feat of woodcraft scores to the benefit of the wigwam. The championship banner goes to the tribe winning the largest number of points in the successful wigwam. The Hurons won it last year, but, son, the Delawares have got to get it this year. Then there are individual prizes well worth mentioning. We shall expect you to miss no opportunity to score for the honor of the tribe and wigwam. Our wigwam leads now, but the Algonquins have twenty points the best of the Delawares. It’s up to you to [54] do your prettiest to help us get their scalps. By the way, don’t be surprised if things are made some interesting for you to-night. Whatever happens, keep your nerve and don’t show the white feather.”

Beyond this mysterious hint Woodhull would vouchsafe no information, and Walter could only guess at what might be in store for him.

The tour of the camp included the big mess cabin, with the cook house in the rear, where they had a glimpse of Billy and the chip pile, and the cabin of the three guides, where they found Big Jim very much at home, the other two being out with fishing parties, and where Walter was introduced to Mr. Medcraft, the physical director, and to Mr. Burnham, a young Y. M. C. A. man who was Dr. Merriam’s assistant. These shared the cabin with the guides. They then went down to inspect the boats and canoes. Several fishing parties were just coming in, and Walter was introduced to some of his fellow tribesmen, as well as to members of the other tribes.

As they turned back to the wigwam the bugle sounded for noon mess, and boys [55] appeared as if by magic from every direction in a mad rush for the wash-house. Presently Walter found himself seated at a long table in the mess room, an agate-ware plate and cup before him, and an abundant supply of plain but well cooked food, in which deliciously browned trout were evidence of the practical lessons taught at Woodcraft Camp.

CHAPTER IV THE INITIATION

Mess over, Woodhull and Seaforth took their stand at either side of the door, and Walter noted that as each boy passed out he saluted the two chiefs with the Scout’s salute, and was saluted in return. It was a point of etiquette which he learned was never omitted, and which did much to maintain discipline and to instil the principles of respect for superior officers. Once outside the mess room Walter was free to inspect the camp in detail and at his leisure for, it being his first day, he was not assigned to any of the duty squads.

There were fifty-two boys in camp, including the four leaders, or chiefs, and they were from all quarters, two being from as far west as Chicago. They represented all classes in the social scale. A few were from homes of extreme wealth and one, according to Billy, was a Boston newsboy in whom the doctor [57] took a personal interest. But in accordance with Scout ideals all were on equal footing in the camp, and the most democratic spirit prevailed. Achievement in scoutcraft alone furnished a basis for distinction.

The camp had been established three years before the Boy Scouts of America came into existence, but Dr. Merriam had been quick to perceive the value of the new movement, the principles of which are, in fact, the very ones he had been seeking to inculcate in his unique school. This year the camp had been placed under Scout regulations, and it was the doctor’s desire to send every one of his boys home at the end of the summer as qualified Scouts of the first class, fitted to take the leadership of home patrols.

Approaching from behind the wood-pile, where Buxby’s assignment to duty was keeping him busy, Walter heard his own name and paused, uncertain whether to go on or not. Billy was regaling the cook with an account of Walter’s exploit of the morning as he had wormed it out of Big Jim.

“Pretty spry with his fists, they say,” concluded the talkative Billy. Then he added [58] as an afterthought, “Bet they’ll get his goat to-night, though.”

Walter waited to hear no more. He had not been wholly unconscious of the sly looks and mysterious winks passed between some of the boys he had met, and, though he did not allow it to show outwardly, he was inwardly not a little perturbed by the thought of the initiatory ordeal he felt sure he must undergo. Chief Woodhull’s hint, together with the frequent exchange of meaning glances which he had intercepted, could mean but one thing—that his nerve and courage were to be put to some strange and crucial test.

Therefore it was with some trepidation that with the sounding of taps that night Walter sought his bunk and turned in. In five minutes lights were out, and apparently the camp had settled down for the night. Walter lay listening in suspense for some sound which would indicate that secret designs concerning himself were afoot, but nothing but the regular breathing of twenty-five healthy, tired boys rewarded his vigilance. It had been a long, strenuous day, with little rest the night before, and in spite of himself he soon fell asleep.

[59] He was awakened by the sudden removal of his blanket. Despite his struggles he was bound and gagged. Then his arms were loosed enough for his flannel shirt to be slipped on. His trousers and shoes followed, and then he was rolled in his blanket, picked up bodily and carried forth into the night. In absolute silence his captors bore him along what appeared to be a rough, little used trail. Occasionally a dew-damp twig brushed his face. Through the tangle of interlacing branches overhead he caught glimpses of the stars. The number of his captors he had no means of knowing. He was carried by relays, and though there were frequent changes he could not tell whether each time a new team of bearers took him or two teams alternated.

Once his bearers stumbled and nearly dropped him. Once they seemed to lose the trail, stopping to hold a whispered consultation of which the victim could catch only a word here and there. After what seemed like an interminable length of time Walter heard in the distance the tremolo of a screech-owl, answered by a similar call close at hand. A few minutes later they emerged in an opening.

[60] “Are the canoes ready?” asked a subdued but sepulchral voice.

“They are, chief,” was the guarded reply.

“Then let them be manned,” was the order.

Walter was carefully placed in a canoe amidship. He felt it gently shoved off, and then it floated idly while, to judge by the sounds, the other canoes were hastily put in the water. Presently, at a low command from the rear of his own craft, there was the dip of many paddles and he felt the light craft shoot forward.

Flat on his back, he could see little but the star-sprinkled heavens. It seemed to him that never had he seen the stars so bright or apparently so near. By straining up and forward he caught the shadowy outline of the bow man’s back, but the second time he tried it he was warned to desist. Out of the tail of his left eye he sometimes caught the arm and paddle of the stern man on the forward reach. But thus far there had been nothing to give him the slightest idea whether he was in the hands of members of his own tribe or a captive of one of the rival tribes.

[61] Swiftly, silently, save for the light splash of paddles and the gurgling ripple at the bow, the canoe sped on. Never will Walter forget the spell of that mysterious night ride on that lonely lake in the heart of the great north woods. His gag had been removed and, but for inability to move hand or foot, he was not uncomfortable. All the witchery of night in the forest was enhanced an hundredfold by the mystery of his abduction and the unknown trials awaiting him.

A mighty chorus of frogs denoted low, marshy land somewhere in the vicinity. Strange voices of furtive wild things floated across from the shore. Once a heavy splash close to the canoe set his heart to thumping fiercely until he rightly surmised that it was made by a startled muskrat, surprised at his nocturnal feast of mussels. Again, as they slipped through the heavy shadows close along shore, there was a crash in the underbrush which might or might not have been a deer. It was weird, uncanny, trying in the extreme, yet sending little electric thrills of fascination through the nerves of the city boy.

How long the journey lasted Walter could [62] not tell, but he judged that it was at least half an hour before there suddenly broke out ahead a cry, so human yet so wild, that he felt the very roots of his hair crawl. Once more it rang over the lake, a high-pitched, maniacal laugh that rolled across the water and was flung back in crazy echoes from the shores. In a flash it came to Walter that this must be the cry of the loon, the Great Northern Diver, of which he had often read. This time it was answered from the rear. A few minutes later the canoe grated on the shore. Walter was lifted out, his eyes bandaged, the bonds removed from his legs and, with a captor on either side, he was led for some distance along what seemed like an old corduroy logging road.

On signal from the leader a halt was made and the bandage was removed from the captive’s eyes. Curiously he glanced about, but in the faint light could make out little. Apparently they were in the middle of a small opening in the forest. On all sides a seemingly unbroken wall of blackness, the forest, hemmed them in. In a half circle before him squatted some two dozen blanketed forms.

One of these now arose and stepped forward. [63] He was tall and rather slender. In the uncertain light his features appeared to be those of an Indian. A single feather in his scalp lock was silhouetted against the sky. A blanket was loosely but gracefully draped about his figure. Standing in front of the captive he drew himself up proudly to his full height and, leveling a long bare arm at the prisoner, addressed him in a deep guttural.

“Paleface, dweller in wigwams of brick and stone, it is made known to us that your heart turns from the settlements to the heart of the great forest, and that you desire to become a child of the Lenape, whose totem is the tortoise, to be adopted by the Delawares, the tribe of Uncas and Chingachgook; that you long to follow the trail of the red deer and to spread your blanket beside the sweet waters; to read the message of the blowing wind, and interpret aright the meaning of every fallen leaf.

“You have come among us, paleface, not unheralded. Our ears have been filled with a tale of valor. It has warmed the hearts of the Delawares and their brothers, the Algonquins. Our young men have had their ears to the [64] ground; they have followed your trail, and they yearn to make a place for you at their council fire. But, lest the tales to which they have listened prove to be but the chirping of a singing bird, it has been decided in secret council that you must undergo the test of the spirits.

“Alone in the wigwam of the spirits, where, it is said, on the fifth night in every month the spirit of a departed brave, stricken in the prime of his manhood, comes seeking the red hand of his slayer,—here alone you shall keep watch through the black hours of the night. Thus shall we know if your heart be indeed the heart of the Lenape; if you are of the stuff of which Delaware warriors are made; if our ears have heard truly or if they have indeed been filled with the foolish chatter of a Whisky Jack (Canada jay).

“If you meet this trial as a warrior should, making neither sign nor sound, whate’er befall, then will the Delawares receive you with open arms, no longer a paleface, but a true son of the Tortoise, a blood brother, for whom a place in the council chamber is even now ready.”

[65] Turning to the shadowy group squatting in silence he threw out both arms dramatically.

“Sons of the Lenape, do I speak truly?” he demanded.

A chorus of guttural grunts signified assent. Turning once more to the captive the speaker asked:

“Paleface, are you prepared to stand the test?”