Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/193

 chalk, made a line on the edge, and dropped back again to the boards. By the time the four figures were blocked in sufficiently to be recognized, the Scout Master came back to Jamie and from a breast pocket of the shirt produced a genuine police whistle through the ring of which a leather string was knotted that passed around the neck. Lifting the whistle, the little Scout blew a shrill note, and bounding past bushes and over flowers, from different directions came the Scouts. Each of them was armed with a gaudily trimmed bow, a leather quiver on the back filled with crudely fashioned arrows. Most of the arrows were roughly dressed splinters of wood.

The Scout Master saluted.

“Scout One, my weapons!”

The imperative command was instantly answered by Angel Face. He saluted before the Scout Master and offered an extra bow and quiver of arrows. Gravely, the arrow pouch was slung over the shoulder and the strap fastened on the breast. Gravely, the bow was taken possession of and the sword sheathed.

“Scout Two!”

Fat Ole Bill grinned the salute he could not make as he appeared around a lilac bush his arm loaded with big, dead-ripe tomatoes.

“Scout Two, advance and do your duty!” came the command, and Fat Ole Bill waddled to the fence and set a big red tomato on the girder exactly where the heart might have been supposed to be in the anatomy of each crudely drawn Indian.