The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition
TextCHAPTER XXV
HOMEWARD BOUND
On the following day, at the appointed hour, Hiram and his three chums turned up at the offices of the Golden Gate Aviation Supply Company, where the final exchanges were made. Hiram handed over his papers to the new owners of his invention, and received their check for the balance of the purchase price.
At Rob’s solicitation he proceeded to the city and opened an account at a bank, against which he could check from time to time as he needed cash in pursuing his work.
Then, having now relieved themselves of all source of worry and anxiety, the four Eagle Patrol members gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of their holiday.
What wonders they continued to see as they daily visited the great Fair, would take volumes to describe. New and amazing things were constantly cropping up as they prowled hither and thither through devious ways that up to then they possibly did not know existed. There was a constant succession of surprises awaiting them with each new day.
“Why, I honestly believe,” Tubby declared many times as they discovered some display that up to then had eluded them, “everything that was thought of in the whole world must be included in the exhibits inside this enclosure. I’ll never get over being thankful to Uncle Mark for fetching me here. And to think that I was given a chance to be with the dearest chums any scout ever had – that’s a whole lot the best thing of it all. Oh, it was certainly my lucky day when I decided to go up on that Aëroscope, because only for that we never might have met at all; and just think what I would have missed.”
“The sight of Hiram here winning his prize for one thing; that was a spectacle for sore eyes, let me tell you!” remarked Andy. “We’re all proud of him, and we want him to know it too.”
“Then there was that fire scare,” said Hiram, “when Rob got the blaze smothered with that little extinguisher before the regular department arrived on the spot – don’t forget to count that as something, Tubby.”
“And the mad dog chase, with our leader again demonstrating what a scout should be able to do when an emergency arises,” Andy added. “The poor dog got shot, but there was no human being injured in the panic, which there might have been only for the handsome way Rob coaxed the cur to slip inside that inclosure.”
“Yes,” added Tubby, anxious to display his view, “and we don’t want to forget about Jared Applegate, either. He gave us something of a racket, you remember, by sneaking into that room at the hotel, and hiding under your bed when he heard us coming along the hall.”
“It makes me laugh when I remember how he almost licked Rob’s hand, and promised to be good if only he was let go,” said Hiram, rather disdainfully.
“That sounds as if you didn’t have much faith in Jared’s promises to reform?” said Rob, smilingly.
“He never meant a word of it, and I know it!” declared Hiram. “I could see the nasty snap in his eyes just like they used to be. Haven’t we known him to crawl and make all sorts of big promises before, but always to break the same the first chance he had? Huh! that money in his pocket was never earned honestly, I’d like to wager; and it won’t be used either to carry him back home.”
“Oh, well, he’s left the hotel, which is one good thing,” said Rob. “I thought it was my business to find out this morning, for as we knew him to be a thief it hardly seemed fair to keep quiet, and not put a flea in the ear of the management here.”
“He saved you the trouble then by skipping out?” remarked Andy.
“Yes, I suppose he imagined we might tell on him as a duty, and thought he had better leave between two days,” Rob explained. “Of course, when I learned he had thrown up his job, been paid off, and was gone, I concluded it was no use saying anything more about it.”
“Like as not Jared’s been doing more than one shady job since he came here,” suggested Hiram, shrewdly, “and he was afraid they’d take him to task for the same, p’r’aps shut him up in a cell; so he concluded to get away while the going was good. Well, here’s hoping we may never run across the snake again.”
“I don’t know,” ventured Tubby. “Seems like there’s some queer fatality about it, but we do come on that scamp in the most remarkable ways. There he was down in Mexico, and before that at Panama. To think that he’d be out here where the Big Show’s going on, and of all places acting as a porter in the very hotel where we took up our quarters.”
“‘The pitcher that goes once too often to the well comes to grief,’ they say,” mentioned Rob. “If Jared keeps on bobbing up as he has been doing, and getting in our way, he’ll rue it some time or other.”
As the days came and went, Rob and his three chums certainly managed to have the time of their lives. If there was one part of that mammoth Exposition that they failed to investigate it was not because they wasted any of their time; at least this could be said for Rob and Tubby, who were most energetic in making the grand rounds.
As was to be expected, the other two were so wedded to their idols that it was not an easy task to tear them away; and at times Rob had to insist on their accompanying himself and Tubby to other parts of the inclosure.
Andy never tired of watching the quaint scenes in the Zone, where the tides of humanity from all over the world ebbed and flowed through all the hours of the day and evening. He dearly loved to just imagine himself in far-distant lands, close in touch with these brown or yellow people. And the resolution to become a world traveler when he grew to manhood seized hold of Andy with renewed vigor.
As for Hiram, he could not be blamed for haunting that section where his heart found the greatest charm of the entire Exposition. Here he pored over the various ingenious inventions fashioned in the clever brains of the foremost among the nation’s talented men and women, from Edison down to the most humble.
And Hiram, having already reaped the fruits of his first venture in this fascinating field of human endeavor, naturally looked forward to the time when perhaps his name, too, might be linked with those for which he felt such reverence.
When Tubby’s uncle returned he was well satisfied to go East alone and leave his nephew in such good hands.
During the remainder of their stay in San Francisco the boys never once caught a glimpse of Jared Applegate. If he still remained in the City he made it a point to religiously avoid meeting any of his former school companions.
Rob had determined that he might let the crabbed old farmer and his wife know they had met Jared while on the Coast, so as to ease their minds, if they had not heard from their bad son for a long while, though he decided he would say nothing about the deplorable circumstances under which the meeting had taken place.
“I never liked the old farmer and his wife,” Rob had said to the others, when they were discussing the matter their last evening at the Fair, sitting at their ease, disposing of some ice cream, and watching the throng pass by. “But I suppose they have feelings like the rest of us, and in their own way, care for their boy. It would only give them a new stab to be told that Jared was as bad as ever, and do no good; so I hope none of you will whisper anything about that little episode.”
Being true scouts, and with malice toward none, the others readily agreed to do as Rob asked. They could easily afford to forget that unpleasant adventure, since things had turned out so wonderfully well for them.
“And to think that this is our last night at the Exposition,” said Tubby, with a vein of despondency in his voice. “I tell you I’m awfully sorry, much as I want to see the folks at home again. I’ll never, never forget all I’ve seen out here, let me tell you; for even if half of the civilized world is at war and killing each other off by tens of thousands each day, you’d never know it in this beautiful land of peace and plenty.”
“Hear! hear! Tubby’s getting poetical!” exclaimed Andy, pretending to pound on the table with his fist.
“Well, it’s enough to stir anybody up that’s got a soul for things besides old fakers with red fezzes and turbans, who make out to be fortune-tellers from Egypt and such places, when the fact is they were born in Cork or Hoboken!” the other shot back at him.
“It is the greatest Fair that ever was held,” said Rob. “When we get back home to Hampton we’ll tell every boy we know that if he has a chance to come out here and fails to take advantage of the same, he’s missing the treat of his life, barring none!”
“We all can subscribe to what you say, Rob,” agreed Tubby.
“And that isn’t all,” continued the scout leader. “Think of the things we’ve been allowed to put through. There was the fetching of that fragile exhibit all the way across the continent, without any accident. And Hiram here has struck the first round on the ladder of fame. Even that doesn’t exhaust the list of our pleasures, because we’ve still got another treat before us.”
“Meaning the homeward trip, I guess?” ventured Hiram.
“Yes, when we find ourselves among the mighty Rocky Mountains that the Canadian Pacific Railroad climbs in passing from Vancouver to the East, we can feast our eyes on the grandest natural mountain scenery of the world. As for me, I’m anxious for the time to come when we’ll be enjoying it.”
As they were starting for Vancouver in the morning, with the intention of passing over the railroad line that pierced the famous Selkirks, it would seem that Rob would not have long to possess his soul in patience.
And since they finished with the Great Panama-Pacific Exposition on going to their hotel that night, it would seem that this is the proper place for us to say good-by to the four chums. But while our story must end here, there can be no telling what the future may have in store for Rob and his comrades of the Eagle Patrol; and if fortune is kind enough to throw them in the way of further adventures and triumphs, we hope ours may be the pen selected to place these events before the readers who have so long accompanied them in their numerous journeys.