The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 1 The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Boy Scouts Book of Stories Author: Various Editor: Franklin Mathiews Illustrator: Walt Louderback Arthur D. Scott The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 2 Release Date: May 8, 2009 [EBook #28726] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES *** Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES [Illustration: THE BUTCHER LOOKED DOWN AT THE FUNNY FACE AND SAW THE KINDLY MOTIVE UNDER THE EXAGGERATED BLUFFNESS [PAGE 12]] THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS CHIEF SCOUT LIBRARIAN BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA PUBLISHED FOR THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA [Illustration] ILLUSTRATED BY WALT LOUDERBACK DECORATIONS BY ARTHUR D. SCOTT The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 3 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION So much of my time is given to reading boys' books that, when I read books for grown-ups, now and again I find myself saying, "What a bully story for boys to read!" Latterly, I have been putting down the titles of such stories. When the list began to lengthen, it occurred to me, why not make a book for boys containing stories like that: stories written for grown-ups but also of interest to boys in their early teens. Such a collection of stories could not be made, however, without the consent of the authors and publishers, but since everybody loves a boy, I didn't have much trouble in convincing them they ought to grant permission to use their stories for such a purpose and, as a result, I am pleased to present to the boy readers of our country the BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES. Looking over the list, I find it covers pretty well the reading interests of boys. There are stories about boy scouts, school stories, stories of the sea and "wild west" stories, detective and mystery stories; most of all, though, a goodly number of humorous stories, and I am willing to hazard the guess there will be no regrets on the part of readers because the selections happen to abound in stories of the latter sort. How about it, boys? CONTENTS PAGE I. THE GREAT BIG MAN Owen Johnson 1 The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 4 II. A TWILIGHT ADVENTURE Melville Davisson Post 27 III. TAD SHELDON, SECOND CLASS SCOUT John Fleming Wilson 45 IV. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE Arthur Conan Doyle 71 V. THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF O. Henry 108 VI. THE HONK-HONK BREED Stewart Edward White 125 VII. THE DEVIL-FISH Norman Duncan 140 VIII. THE JUMPING FROG Mark Twain 155 IX. BINGISM Booth Tarkington 165 X. CONCHO CURLY AT THE OP'RA Edward Beecher Bronson 191 XI. THE LIE Hermann Hagedorn 206 XII. STORY OF THE BANDBOX Robert Louis Stevenson 229 XIII. THE HERO AND THE COWBOY Joseph C. Lincoln 265 XIV. THE DOLLAR Morgan Robertson 289 XV. THE MASCOT OF "TROOP 1" Stephen Chalmers 315 XVI. THE LION'S SMILE Thomas W. Hanshew 330 XVII. THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF A. T. Quiller-Couch 361 XVIII. THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton 386 ILLUSTRATIONS The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 5 Facing Page The butcher looked down at the funny face and saw the kindly motive under the exaggerated bluffness Frontispiece "Some of the men stood about; behind them two men sat on their horses, their elbows strapped to their bodies" 32 "I went to leeward and there found me bould Tad launchin' the little dingy" 64 The black scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in his side 120 "'Tis the devil-fish!" screamed Bobby 140 "But before he could lite on her with his knife, I hopped out of my close-pen into the cañon" 204 He woke and gave a low cry. Some one was sitting on his bed 224 "For a second it left off rainin' sand, and there was a typhoon of mud and spray" 272 [Illustration] I.--The Great Big Man[A] By Owen Johnson THE noon bell was about to ring, the one glorious spring note of that inexorable "Gym" bell that ruled the school with its iron tongue. For at noon, on the first liberating stroke, the long winter term died and the Easter vacation became a fact. Inside Memorial Hall the impatient classes stirred nervously, counting off the minutes, sitting gingerly on the seat-edges for fear of wrinkling the The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 6 carefully pressed suits or shifting solicitously the sharpened trousers in peril of a bagging at the knees. Heavens! how interminable the hour was, sitting there in a planked shirt and a fashion-high collar--and what a recitation! Would Easter ever begin, that long-coveted vacation when the growing boy, according to theory, goes home to rest from the fatiguing draining of his brain, but in reality returns exhausted by dinners, dances, and theaters, with perhaps a little touch of the measles to exchange with his neighbors. Even the masters droned through the perfunctory exercises, flunking the boys by twos and threes, by groups, by long rows, but without malice or emotion. Outside, in the roadway, by the steps, waited a long, incongruous line of vehicles, scraped together from every stable in the countryside, forty-odd. A few buggies for nabobs in the Upper House, two-seated rigs (holding eight), country buckboards, excursion wagons to be filled according to capacity at twenty-five cents the trip, hacks from Trenton, and the regulation stage-coach--all piled high with bags and suitcases, waiting for the bell that would start them on the scramble for the Trenton station, five miles away. At the horses' heads the lazy negroes lolled, drawing languid puffs from their cigarettes, unconcerned. Suddenly the bell rang out, and the supine teamsters, galvanizing into life, jumped to their seats. The next moment, down the steps, pell-mell, scrambling and scuffling, swarming over the carriages, with joyful clamor, the school arrived. In an instant the first buggies were off, with whips frantically plied, disputing at a gallop the race to Trenton. Then the air was filled with shouts. "Where's Butsey?" "Oh, you, Red Dog!" "Where's my bag?" "Jump in!" The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 7 "Oh, we'll never get there!" "Drive on!" "Don't wait!" "Where's Jack?" "Hurry up, you loafer!" "Hurry up, you butter-fingers!" "Get in!" "Pile in!" "Haul him in!" "We're off!" "Hurrah!" Wagon after wagon, crammed with joyful boyhood, disappeared in a cloud of dust, while back returned a confused uproar of broken cheers, snatches of songs, with whoops and shrieks for more speed dominating the whole. The last load rollicked away to join the mad race, where far ahead a dozen buggies, with foam-flecked horses, vied with one another, their youthful jockeys waving their hats, hurling defiance back and forth, or shrieking with delight as each antagonist was caught and left behind. The sounds of striving died away, the campus grew still once more. The few who had elected to wait until after luncheon scattered hurriedly about the circle and disappeared in the houses, to fling last armfuls into the already bursting trunks. The Boy Scouts Book of Stories, by Various 8 On top of Memorial steps the Great Big Man remained, solitary and marooned, gazing over the fields, down the road to Trenton, where still the rising dust-clouds showed the struggle toward vacation. He stood like a monument, gazing fixedly, struggling with all the might of his twelve years to conquer the awful feeling of homesickness that came to him. Homesickness--the very word was an anomaly: what home had he to go to? An orphan without ever having known his father, scarcely remembering his mother in the hazy reflections of years, little Joshua Tibbets had arrived at the school at the beginning of the winter term, to enter the shell,[B] and gradually pass through the forms in six or seven years. The boys of the Dickinson, after a glance at his funny little body and his plaintive, doglike face, had baptized him the "Great Big Man" (Big Man for short), and had elected him the child of the house. He had never known what homesickness was before. He had had a premonition of it, perhaps, from time to time during the last week, wondering a little in the classroom as each day Snorky Green, beside him, calculated the days until Easter, then the hours, then the minutes. He had watched him with an amused, uncomprehending interest. Why was he so anxious to be off? After all, he, the Big Man, found it a pleasant place, after the wearisome life from hotel to hotel. He liked the boys; they were kind to him, and looked after his moral and spiritual welfare with bluff but affectionate solicitude.