The Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril - Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones

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      Starting the Adventure

       Table of Contents

      Layout 4

      ​

      The Boy Scouts of the Air

       At Cape Peril

       Table of Contents

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      STARTING THE ADVENTURE

       In the second car of an electric train racketing on its way to the seashore, sat three boys in scout costume. Two sat side by side, while the third, twisted around in the seat just in front, was facing them and talking with an animation that arrested the attention and excited the merriment of the non-scout passengers near him.

      "I say, it's a shame to make a catfish travel on a motorcycle while you two landlubbers take the Seaboard Airline to Cape Peril."

      The speaker's fascinatingly homely face was almost sliced in two by a capacious mouth, which, when open, revealed snaggly teeth with gaps ​between, the whole effect offering a ludicrous resemblance to the denizen of the deep he had just mentioned.

      "Well, we matched for the airplane rides, didn't we?" retorted a round-eyed, smooth-cheeked youngster, whose slender figure, when erect, must have been at least six feet one. "Take your medicine like a scout and close up that Mammoth Cave of yours."

      "That's right, Legs, hand it to him good and straight," approved the companion by his side, dark of hair, swarthy of complexion, stocky in build, and a good foot and a half shorter than the other. "Nothing's ever settled with Cat Miller. Might know his daddy was a politician. Button up your mouth, Cat, button up your mouth."

      Regardless of this admonition, Cat grinned like a Billikin and then came back, "That's all right, Legs Hatton, you and Jimmy Todd, you better take a lesson from my dad and from me too. I got you fellows this trip, didn't I?"

      "Doggone right you did," conceded Jimmy, speedily changing his tone to one of appreciation, "and, Cat, old boy, you're some getter! ​A fellow doesn't get a treat like this every day. Gee! It's great to go camping without having to take a thing along except one little knapsack full, and to be able to chase around all day with nothing on but trunks! We'll be regular Indians. Won't take us long to look as sweet as we did when we got home from school after scrapping through that Paradise Alley gang. Remember that bunch, Cat?" Jimmy grinned at his friend.

      "Do I? Well, I should smile. Look here, see this little souvenir over my left eye one of those suckers handed me with a brickbat? I reckon I do remember 'em."

      "Ye-ah, and I tried to stop the blood with a piece of brown paper while you were yelling like murder," returned Jimmy, glowing with these memories of his early youth, "and gee! When I got home, Mother wanted to know why in thunder I was so bloody, and I asked her how she expected a fellow to keep clean when he had to fight his way from school every day through a gang of hoboes. Gosh! those Paradise Alleycats were lulus. A white collar and a clean shirt set those guys wild, same as a ​red rag does a bull. Redhot times those were, you bet."

      "Pretty lively times now," remarked Legs soberly. "Going up in an airplane ain't so slow. Say, Cat, pity about you!"

      Cat winked one eye and then the other and grinned knowingly as if he were possessed of an important and highly amusing secret which he was inwardly enjoying.

      "Look here, fellows," he said finally, "I'm not sore because you two drew the plane this time." And then he added in a low and mysterious tone, "Know sumpthin'? I've been up in one already."

      "Yes, you have!" returned Jimmy sarcastically. "Over the left!"

      "Yes, I have," affirmed Cat staunchly. "I cross my heart, and I can prove it just as soon as we get back to town."

      Jimmy snorted derision.

      "Come off, Cat," objected Legs. "You know you couldn't have kept that secret five minutes."

      "Believe it or not, I don't give a hang," snapped Cat sourly, "but listen to this, will you?"

      ​"Shoot!" directed Jimmy, who began to be interested despite his incredulity.

      Legs cocked his head on one side and screwed up his eyes as if to hear a Munchausen fable.

      "Know that guy that flew people over town for fifteen bucks a fly? Well, every afternoon I used to trot out to his field and hang around watching him. After a while, I got to talking planes and, when he found I wasn't any bonehead on flyers, he gave me a lot of new dope. I'd spent 'bout ten afternoons hanging around when he said day before yesterday, 'Look here, young fellow, how'd you like to take a little sky ride? Business seems to be slack, so I might as well make you happy.' My heart turned a somerset, but I looked kind of shy and said, 'Haven't got the price, but I'd give my head to go up.' 'How much have you in your jeans?' he asked me. Then I said, 'Two bits and a jit.' All right,' he said, 'I'll take that. Come along.' Course he was just fooling about the dough. Then he remembered and wanted to know if I could get permission from home right quick. Quick as lightning, I reached down in my pants and fished out a note from the ​old man saying I could go any old time I got a chance. He laughed like the mischief, and said I was some slick kid and wouldn't have to have anybody to lead me 'round the world. You see, fellows, I knew I was going to work it sooner or later, so, to save time, I got dad the first night to write me a note saying I could go. Gee! You ought to have seen him grin, and he said if I could get a fifteen dollar ride for a little scrap of paper, I sure would make a killing as a lawyer when I grew up. Well, I got my fly, and great day, man! Talk about fun!"

      As Cat paused at this point for the applause of his audience, he gave Jimmy a chance to get in a word.

      "Swear this is so?"

      "If it's not, I hope I may be struck dead right this minute. What would I want to fool you for?"

      "Gee, man!" was Legs's fervent exclamation.

      "Well," declared Jimmy, "you sure did do us a dirty trick not telling us sooner. We fellows might have pulled off that stunt like you did."

      ​"I don't see how that big mouthed buzzard managed to keep it in this long, that's what gets my goat," observed Legs.

      Cat grinned. "You bet I'd 'a

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