The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill A Sequel to 'The Bob's Hill Braves'

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

"THE BAND" AND THE CAVE

BLACKINTON'S barn is exactly at the foot of Bob's Hill. Phillips's is, too, and so is our garden; but I am not telling about those now. Beyond the barns are apple orchards, reaching halfway up the hill, as you know, if you have read about the doings of the Band.

When they built Blackinton's barn they cut into the hill, so that the roof of the stable slopes clear down to the ground, on the hill side in the orchard. It makes a fine place for us boys to sit and talk about things.

Mrs. Blackinton, who owns the barn, says that maybe climbing around on a roof isn't the best thing in the world for shingles but boys have got to do something and she is willing to take a chance; only to be as careful as we can, and not to eat any more apples than are necessary to our happiness and well being.

Anyhow, seven of us Bob's Hill boys sat there one Saturday afternoon in May, planning what to do in the long vacation. Every member of the Band was there, not counting Tom Chapin, except Skinny Miller; and we were expecting him every minute.

He was late then, and every little while one of us would stick his head around the edge of the barn to see if he wasn't coming up the driveway from Park Street. We might as well have sat still, for you never can tell which way he will come.

Pa says that Skinny is like the wind, which bloweth whither it listeth. I don't exactly know what he meant but that is what he said, or something like that.

It was quiet in the orchard. There was hardly a sound except the buzzing of insects in the sunshine, and somehow that only seemed to make it more quiet and dreamy.

Suddenly Bill Wilson stood up on the sloping shingles and gave such a warwhoop that it almost made the bark rattle on the trees. When Bill turns his voice loose it is something awful.

We looked up to see what it all was about. He had grabbed Benny Wade by the hair and, giving another yell louder than the first, was pretending to scalp him. Bill always likes to play Indian.

Benny didn't want to be scalped. Although he is two years younger and not nearly so big, he grabbed Bill around the legs and held on until they both slipped and went tumbling down the steep roof to the ground, where they sat, with the rest of us laughing down at them.

Just then we heard another warwhoop, sounding from up the hill somewhere, beyond the orchard. Bill and Benny scrambled to their feet, and we all looked and listened.

We saw nothing for a minute or two. Then something darted through the gate, which leads into the orchard from the hill; dropped down out of sight behind the fence, and commenced crawling backward toward the nearest apple tree. Every few seconds, it would raise up long enough to point something, which looked like a gun, at the enemy.

"Great snakes!" whispered Bill. "What's that?"

But we could tell in a minute without asking, for when it reached the tree it stood up and peered around the trunk, aiming a stick and pretending to fire. We knew then that Skinny was on the way....