Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol

Title: Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol

Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Illustrator: Howard L. Hastings

Release date: June 22, 2013 [eBook #43011] Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43011

Credits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and Sue Clark

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh, Illustrated by Howard L. Hastings

ROY BLAKELEY’S SILVER FOX PATROL

HARRY SLUNG MR. RAGTIME OVER HIS SHOULDER AND WE STARTED BACK.

ROY BLAKELEY’S SILVER FOX PATROL

BY

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of

TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS,

TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS,

ROY BLAKELEY, ETC.

Illustrated by

HOWARD L. HASTINGS

Published with the approval of

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1920, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I—WE MAKE A DISCOVERY

CHAPTER II—WE READ THE LETTER

CHAPTER III—WE INSPECT PEE-WEE’S POCKETS

CHAPTER IV—WE MEET IN THE DEN, AT BENNETT’S

CHAPTER V—WE BEGIN OUR INVESTIGATION

CHAPTER VI—WE GET NEW LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY

CHAPTER VII—WE PLAN OUR TRIP

CHAPTER VIII—WE PLAN OUR ITINERARY

CHAPTER IX—WE HEAR ABOUT “EATS”

CHAPTER X—WE ATTEND A BLOWOUT

CHAPTER XI—WE MEET AGAIN

CHAPTER XII—WE GET THE CAR STARTED

CHAPTER XIII—WE ARE IMPLICATED

CHAPTER XIV—WE ARE CRIMINALS

CHAPTER XV—WE MEET SHERLOCK HOLMES

CHAPTER XVI—WE ASTONISH MR. HOLMES

CHAPTER XVII—WE LET OUR YOUNG HERO DO THE TALKING

CHAPTER XVIII—WE ARE IN SUSPENSE

CHAPTER XIX—WE LEARN THE WORST

CHAPTER XX—I DESCEND THE CLIFF

CHAPTER XXI—I’M LEFT IN DARKNESS

CHAPTER XXIII—WE BEGIN OUR SEARCH

CHAPTER XXIV—WE BEHOLD A GHASTLY SIGHT

CHAPTER XXV—WE ADD ONE MORE TO OUR PARTY

CHAPTER XXVI—WE ARE PURSUED

CHAPTER XXVII—WE ARE CAUGHT

CHAPTER XXVIII—OUR CASE IS DISMISSED

CHAPTER XXIX—WE HAVE AN ELECTION

CHAPTER XXX—WE SEE OUR FRIENDS

CHAPTER XXXI—WE RECEIVE DARK TIDINGS

CHAPTER XXXII—WE HIT THE TRAIL

CHAPTER XXXIII—WE MEET A FRIEND

CHAPTER XXXIV—WE CAMP UNDER THE TREE

CHAPTER XXXV—IT COMES TO A SHOWDOWN

ROY BLAKELEY’S

SILVER FOX PATROL

CHAPTER I—WE MAKE A DISCOVERY

While I was sitting on a rock down in our field eating a banana, I had a dandy thought, and I was going to begin this story by telling you about it, only now I forget what it was.

Anyway, Mr. Ellsworth says it’s best to begin a story with conversation. He says conversations are even better than bananas to begin with. But, gee whiz, I like bananas. If I began with conversation that means I have to begin it with Pee-wee Harris, because he always does the talking in our troop. He can even talk and eat a banana at the same time.

He said, “Do you mean to tell me a railroad car can’t have a dark past?”

“Sure,” I told him; “maybe it went through a tunnel. Anyway, it’s got a dark enough present with one kerosene lamp in it.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of darkness,” he said; “I mean the kind that secrets are. You know what a dark secret is, don’t you?”

“It’s one that’s all black,” little Alfred McCord said.

“Sure,” I said; “they’re all colors. My sister’s keeping one that’s a kind of pale lavender.”

Pee-wee said, “You’re crazy; black is the only color for secrets. Look at that pirate in the movie play. Didn’t it say he kept the dark secret about where the treasure was for years and years?”

“He kept it so long it faded,” I told him. “Dark secrets are all right for old sailing ships, Kid, but when it comes to railroad cars—nix.”

The three of us were sitting on the rock, looking at the old railroad car that had just been moved down to the field for us. Mr. Temple got that old car for us, so we could use it for a troop-room. The men had an awful job moving it from the siding at Bridgeboro Station. They ran it down to the river on movable tracks and brought it up on one of the barges. Getting it off into the field was the worst part. They had to leave it right close to the river. Jimmies, we didn’t mind that; the nearer the better, that’s what I said.

One of the men that moved that car said it was an old timer. Anyway, it wasn’t much good for a car any more, because the springs and the brakes and the couplings were all rusted away, and the roof leaked, only we fixed it with tar paper. Inside there was an old stove in the corner with a clumsy old high pipe railing around it. The windows were awful small and the plush seats were all old-fashioned and worn out. Up above the windows were old-fashioned wire cage things to put baggage in. The doors at the ends were round at the top and the little windows were that way, too. But, anyway, that old car would make one dandy meeting-place, that was one thing sure.

All the rest of the fellows had gone home to supper, and Skinny and Pee-wee and I were just sitting there looking at the car and thinking how we’d have a flag flying on it, and what color we’d paint it when we got money enough. We were thinking about the different things we’d bring down and put in it.

I said, “I wonder how old it is? It’s a ramshackle old pile of junk, but that makes it all the better, for a scout meeting-place.” Because maybe you don’t know it, but scouts don’t like things to be too civilized, like.

“Maybe it has romance,” Pee-wee said.

He got that word out of the movie play that had the old pirate ship in it. There was something in that play about the old ship being a monument of romance. I had to laugh, because it seemed so funny to talk that way about an old ramshackle railroad car.

“I mean adventures,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” I told him; “that car reminds me of an old Spanish Galleon, it’s so different. Maybe some buccaneers used to have their den in it, hey? When I look at that car it reminds me of King Arthur and all those old fellows. You’ve got romances and adventures and things on the brain since you’ve been going down to the Lyric. What’s puzzling me is how we’re going to fix lockers in it for our stuff, and where we’re going to hang our pictures.”

Just then little Alf piped up in that funny way he has and said, “My mother doesn’t believe in adventures.”

“Well,” I said “she’ll never pull much of a stroke with Scout Harris then.”

“They always end by somebody getting dead,” he said.

“Just the same,” Pee-wee shouted, “I bet that old car is fifty years old. I bet if it could talk it would have a tale to tell——”

“A which?” I said.

“How do we know where it has been?” he kept up. “Why can’t a railroad car have a-what-do-you-call it—a romantic past, just the same as a ship or an old house where—maybe where George Washington used to stay? How do we know?”

“Maybe it’s the very car that George Washington crossed the Delaware in,” I said, just to jolly him along.

“How about an old Indian stage coach?” he piped up.

“Kid,” I said; “old sailing ships and wrecks and Indian stage coaches are one thing, and wheelbarrows and bicycles and lawn mowers and sewing machines and railroad cars are another thing. You see pictures of shipwrecks, but you never see pictures of old railroad cars. You should worry. Come on inside and let’s measure for the lockers and then let’s go home; I’m tired out.”

Inside that car there was a funny kind of a smell like there always is in railroad cars. It was kind of like dust and kind of like plush and kind of like smoke. The floor was awful smooth and shiny, just from so many people walking on it for years and years and years. All the woodwork was walnut and that was a sign of the car being old. A lot of the seats were broken and there was one place where two close together were broken. So we had decided to take them away and build our lockers there.

I had told the fellows in the troop that I would measure for the lockers before I went home, so now I began doing that with the little six-inch rule that I always carry. All of a sudden it slipped out of my hand and fell down between the frame and the plush part of one of those seats.

“Butter fingers!” Pee-wee said; “I’ll get it for you.”

I said, “I guess your fingers are smaller than mine, even if you have a bigger tongue than I have.”

“My fingers are smaller than his,” little Alf said; “I’ll get it for you.”

Gee whiz, his fingers were little enough, and skinny enough, that was sure, because the poor little codger lived down in the slums and I guess he never had much to eat or much fun either, until he got in with us. That’s one thing we’re strong on—eats. Especially desserts.

But our young hero (that’s Pee-wee), brushed us both aside with one hand, while he was digging down between the wood and the plush with the other.

“Got a hairpin?” he shouted.

“What do you think I am? A Camp-fire Girl?” I asked him. “Here, will a lead pencil do?”

He began poking around in there with the lead pencil and pretty soon he managed to lift up the corner of my little steel rule and drew it out with his fingers.

“Bully for you,” I told him.

“There’s something else down in there,” he said. “Wait till I get it. It feels like a paper.”

I said, “Don’t bother; probably it’s a time table.”

“Maybe it’s somebody’s commutation ticket,” he said.

Because that old car had been used as a way station up at Brewster’s Centre until the railroad built a regular station, and I guess he thought that maybe some one might have dropped a ticket down in that crevice in the seat.

With the lead pencil Pee-wee kept pushing around down there between the plush and the wood and waving us away with the other hand, because I was after my pencil.

“Come on, Kid,” I said; “It’s getting late. You should worry.”

Just then a little corner of yellow paper came up with the pencil and slipped down again.

“Now you see,” he said; “I almost had it.”

“What good would an old last month’s commutation ticket be now?” I asked him.

“Shut up,” he said, all the while waving us back and wriggling the pencil up sideways in the crack; “I’ve got it, I’ve——”

“Foiled again!” I said, just as the paper slipped down. “Blackbeard, the pirate chief, refuses to give up the paper telling where the treasure is concealed. Sir Harris gnashes his teeth in rage!” That was just the way it was in the photo-play.

All the while, Pee-wee was very carefully moving the pencil so as to lift the paper, and each time the paper slipped down again. And all the while he kept waving us back. At last he got hold of the corner of it with his fingers and hauled it out.

“Ha, ha!” I said, rolling my voice kind of-you know. “Sir Harris wrenches the tell-tale paper from——”

“It’s dated before you were born!” Pee-wee fairly shouted. “It’s a letter! Now you see! You said it was a time table. Look what it says in it—look!”

Gee whiz, he couldn’t have half read it when he handed it to me. There wasn’t any envelope, only an old sheet of paper, all yellow, and it had been folded so long that it almost fell apart where it was creased. It was filled with writing in lead pencil and it was so old and dirty that I could hardly read what it said. I guess Pee-wee would have stumbled through it himself, except that one thing that his eye happened to hit first of all, knocked him out.

“Now you see!” he said, all out of breath, he was so excited; “now you see! Look there!”

He pointed the pencil to one part of the letter where it said, bags of gold.

“And look there, too,” he panted out, all the while pointing with the pencil, “‘dropped in his tracks with a mortal wound.’ So now; you think you’re so smart, with your wheelbarrows and sewing machines! You don’t—you don’t find bags of gold in time tables and commutation tickets—do you? You make me tired! This is a—a—deep laid plot, that’s what it is. You know what mortal wounds are, I hope!”

“All right, Kid,” I said; “you win. Only don’t stab me a mortal wound with the lead pencil, and give me a chance to read it.”

“If—if—if bags of gold aren’t romance,” he shouted; “then, what is? Tell me that.”

Honest, that kid would find some kind of plots and adventures in a vacuum cleaner.

CHAPTER II—WE READ THE LETTER

It was pretty hard to read that writing, because it was so old and kind of smeary, and it took the three of us to make the letter out. Even we had to make up some words to fit into places where the creases were. But anyway, this is what the letter said:

March 7th, 1895

Dear Ann:—

This to tell you how I am robbed of two bags of gold by train robbers that derailed this train north of Steuben Junction and have slight injury to arm from bullet of one scoundrel. Two of our company are here dead, the one being brakeman who received mortal wound in making brave defence of life and property. This … that I am lucky not to fare worse, for gentleman of Boston is here dying while train speeds with all steam for Watertown where is hospital but … little hope. There will have wound dressed and stay if doctors require but no danger. But so this will delay me in my return I write to say don’t worry, and will mail in Watertown at latest, but likely in village before as … to get doctor.

So I have lost all I have of fortune by this outrage of scoundrels who I have made to pay dearly, shooting one and putting end to him as he dropped in his tracks with a mortal wound. This from car window. This other scoundrel would shoot back to revenge, his bullet hitting below my window sill and going through car to my left arm. But I paid him in good measure with a bullet in his leg, but conductor would not listen to stopping train after starting so I must be satisfied to let this scoundrel drag himself in forest with my two bags of my fortune. This because train must make steam for Watertown to care for dying. So … say I am rough diamond but … human life sacred even more than gold.

So I will come back to you and home with no riches for all this work but much love which no scoundrel can steal … better … to be thankful. The best reason I would pay this scoundrel … in one of those same bags … for you to plant. So you will know how you will now see me again without riches that was the same as you said and you are right. And now it is over like you say nuthing but an adventure. I think more about how we can’t have our bench under our Dahadinee Poplar thanks to these scoundrels. But I remembered that you said as you can easy see.

So now after such battle with theeving villens as you never see I am coming home and send this so you do not worry that I must stop in Watertown even if it is days and with much love.

Thor.

CHAPTER III—WE INSPECT PEE-WEE’S POCKETS

Pee-wee went jumping and dancing around like a cat having a fit, all the while waving the letter in the air.

“What is this? Some new kind of wig-wag signalling?” I asked him.

“Now you see! Now you see!” he started shouting. “Talk about your pirate ships! One fellow dropped in his tracks—what more do you want? Another one was wounded; see? Now!” I said, “Oh, I’m not complaining. Six would have been better, but one is better than nothing. You win, Kid. This old piece of rolling junk has had a past; I admit it. It’s been through adventures.”

“My mother doesn’t believe in adventures, because somebody gets dead,” little Alf piped up in that funny way he has.

“Well somebody got dead here, all right,” I told him. “I wish we knew all about it.”

“Look—look here!!” Pee-wee fairly yelled. “Here’s the hole!”

He had pulled a little wooden button, something like a cork, out of the woodwork at the side of the car, just a little below the window-sill, and was wriggling his finger in a little round hole that the daylight showed through.

“Now you see!” he shouted. “Talk about dark pasts——”

“You’re right, Kid,” I said; “we have to take off our hats to this old car. It has Blackhead’s old schooner Mary Ann beaten twenty ways. You win.”

“We’ve got to—you know—what do you call—it—fathom the mystery,” he said.

“I guess there isn’t any mystery, Kid,” I told him. “But there must have been some wild scene, all right.”

Honest, I can’t tell you which had me more interested, that little round hole or the letter. Anyway, it seemed as if one proved the other. I could just see how the bullet had come in there and hit that fellow’s arm, and kind of, I could see him leaning out of the window and I could see one of those fellows dead and the other one trying to limp away, and the train starting with two men dead on it, and another one dying. You bet, Pee-wee was right; if that old car could only talk….

“It happened before we were born,” Pee-wee said.

“Yop,” I said; “jiminy, you can’t stop thinking about it, can you? This very same old car that we’re sitting in was rattling along maybe a mile a minute, to get to a place where there was a hospital.”

Gee whiz, we forgot all about measuring for the lockers, and just sat there in the car, gaping around. It seemed kind of different than before, on account of what we knew had happened in it. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about that.

“Do you know what I think?” I said, all the while looking around. “I think there’s a lot more about this car, too. I think it must have been in a wreck once; look at those shutters.”

There were about half a dozen shutters that we hadn’t been able to pull down, but the men had done it for us, and now I could see why it was they had stuck so. It was because they were all smashed and knocked out of shape. And besides that there was a long board fitted into the side of the car that hadn’t always been there, because it was soft wood, not like the regular wood of the car.

“What shall we do about it?” Pee-wee asked me.

“Nothing, as far as I can see,” I told him. “I don’t see that there’s anything to fathom. I’ll paste the letter in the troop-book, after we’ve shown it to the fellows.”

Pee-wee looked terribly disappointed. I guess he had a wild idea that that robber was still beating it and that we could catch him if we hurried up. He seemed to think that he was on the trail of something or other.

That night we had our first troop meeting in the old car, and Mr. Ellsworth read the letter to all the fellows. He said it was very interesting to hear these shots out of the past (that was the way he said it), and how we could always think of our quaint meeting-place, as the scene of a truly remarkable adventure of days gone by. He uses dandy big words, Mr. Ellsworth does.

Then the troop settled down to making plans for going up to Temple Camp, because that’s where we always go in vacation. Poor Pee-wee and his letter had to take a back seat. Mr. Ellsworth said that after all, up-to-date adventures are better than old stale ones, and that we should worry about pirates boarding ships and robbers stopping trains and shooting and things like that, that happened a long while ago. He said that, because he’s down on the movies, especially Wild West stuff, and he’s always trying to keep us thinking about scouting. I’ve got his number, all right.

But, anyway, Pee-wee wouldn’t let me paste that old letter in our troop-book. He just hung on to it. I don’t know what he was thinking about, but I guess he had an idea that something would be revealed. That’s his favorite word—revealed.

On the way home from troop-meeting, he gave me a free lecture. Gee, I wish you could have heard him.