Produced by Richard Prairie, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island
The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island
Three boys stood impatiently kicking the dew off the tall grass inRing's back yard, only pausing from their scanning of the beclouded,dawn-hinting sky to peer through the lightening dusk toward the clumpof cedars that hid the Fulton house.
"He's not up yet, or there'd be a light showing," grumbled the short,stocky one of the three.
"Humph—it's so late now he wouldn't be needing a light. Tod neverfailed us yet, Frank, and he told me last night that he'd be right ondeck."
"We'd ought to have gone down right off, Jerry, when we saw he wasn'there. Frank and I would have stopped off for him, only we was so surehe'd be the first one here—especially when you two were elected to digthe worms."
"We dug the worms last night—a lard pail half full—down back of hiscabbage patch. And while we were sitting on the porch along comes hisfather—you know how absent-minded he is—and reaches down into thebucket and says, 'Guess I'll help myself to some of your berries,boys.'"
"Bet you that's why Tod isn't here, then."
"Why, Frank Ellery, seventh son of a seventh son? Coming so early inthe morning, your short-circuit brain shockers make us ordinary folksdizzy. This double-action——"
"Double-action nothing, Dave Thomas! I heard Mr. Fulton tell Todyesterday he was to pick four quarts of blackberries and take them overto your Aunt Jen. Tod forgot, and so his dad wouldn't let him gofishing, that's all."
"Sun's up," announced Jerry Ring.
"So's Tod!" exclaimed Dave Thomas, who had climbed to the first highlimbs of a near-by elm and now slid suddenly down into the midst of thepiled-up fishing paraphernalia. "I just saw him coming in from theberry patch—here he comes now."
A lanky, good-natured looking sixteen-year-old boy, in loose-fittingoveralls and pale blue shirt open at the throat, came loping down thepath.
"Gee, fellows," he panted, "I expect you're cussing mad—but I had topick those berries before I went, and it took me so long to grouch outthe green ones after it got light."
"I see you brought the very greenest one of all along," observed Davedryly.
"Oh, you here, too, little one?" as if seeing him for the first time."I didn't know kindergarten was closed for the day. I make one guesswho tipped