"Sure you want Doctor Ted along," sneered George; "you know which side of your bread's buttered, don't you, Toby? If a cog slips in your wheels, and you take a hard tumble you'll find his being on hand mighty acceptable. I'd carry splints and bandages in plenty, Ted. And if I have time I think I'll start to shaping up some kind of crutch while you're away. Things like that come in handy sometimes. This is going to be one of those times, I'm afraid."
"Rats! you old croaker, nothing would ever be accomplished in this world if everybody was like you. They'd be afraid to take a chance. Things that their ancestors used 'd be good enough for them, like the Chinese.
But thank goodness there are _some_ progressive people livin' these days, like Edison, Marconi, and a few others."
"Jones, f'r instance!" chuckled George. "Well, if I don't show up at the exhibition good luck to you, Toby. I hope it won't be anything worse than a leg, or your collarbone, or five teeth knocked out. I wish you great success. Tell me all about it when you get back. And I'm in dead earnest about that crutch, too. I think I know how to shape one out of a thick wild grapevine, if I can only find the right sort."
There was no use trying to talk George down, once he got started, and no one knew this better than Toby, who had been worsted in many a verbal encounter before now, so he only jerked his head contemptuously, and lifting his burden, called out to the others:
"Come along, boys, if you've decided to be witnesses to my triumph.
Mebbe your names will go ringing down the ages too, as being present when the glorious test was made that marked the end of aviators'
perils."
"One thing I think we'd better do, Toby," suggested Ty.
"Well, name it," the other threw over his shoulder as he tramped sturdily along, carrying his wonderful parachute ready for business.
"When you say you're all ready for the jump I'm going to give the wolf call, so Elmer, Lil Artha and Chatz can have a chance to come around, and share the honor with us of being living witnesses of your work."
Toby seemed to ponder this for half a minute; and then remarked:
"I guess that would only be fair, because Elmer might feel huffed if I jumped into glory, and him not there to see it. Yes, I'll get up on the tower and when I say the word you give the '_how--oooo_' call that'll fetch 'em running."
"Consider that a bargain then, Toby," Ty told him; "and remember, don't you go to making your jump till they come up. Elmer might be provoked, and believe you sneaked off unbeknown to him to try the same. They're likely somewhere close by, I reckon, and we're apt to run across the trackers hard at work while we're on our way to the haunted house right now."
But they did not, although they caught the sound of voices through the aisles of the dense woods, and knew that Elmer with his comrades must be somewhere, not far away.
The old building stood there just as they had seen it before. Landy and Ty had not been along when the nutting party met with their first adventure here; but on the preceding afternoon they had surveyed the wreck of a house, so that their only experience had not been the one at midnight.
Besides, now that the halo of mystery had been removed, so that they knew the white object they had seen was only a poor crazy fellow and not a ghost from the other world, the boys experienced far less timidity about approaching the house.
"We'll stay down here, Toby," said Ty, as he took up a position that was directly underneath the tower.
Ted had carried a burden along with him also. This he now threw upon the ground, and it proved to be one of the stout camping blankets. Toby only chuckled when he saw that.
"Please yourselves, fellows," he assured his comrades, "but you won't need anything like that. I'm going to float like a thistledown. It'll be the triumph of the age, and don't you forget it. Watch what I do, now, everybody!"
With that Toby boldly entered the house, and started to make his way up to the tower. Apparently he must have noticed how one could reach that elevated region, though as yet none of them had thought to go there.
Inside of five minutes the boys below saw him looking down at them from far above.
"Wait till I get my parachute ready, fellows!" he called; "and there's Elmer and the rest hurrying up, waving their hands like they wanted me to hold on till they got here. Mebbe I will; the more the merrier!
Stretchin' out your old blanket, are you? Well, take my word for it you won't need to grab me any. I'm staking a heap on this thing to hold me up easy. Wow! what's this? Let go, there, you don't get that precious thing away from me! Hey! fellows, here's that crazy man tackled me! He's wantin' to grab everything! Quit pushin' or you'll have us both tumblin'
over the edge! Whoop! somebody come up here and help, or he'll get me!"
The two boys below heard all this shouted at the top of Toby's voice; although of course they had but slight glimpses of the struggling figures above. A desperate wrestling for the possession of the parachute was evidently going on, for they could hear the sound of scuffling feet; and besides, Elmer and the others who were fast coming on the run, seemed to be shouting at the top of their voices, as though under the impression that by the noise of their yells they might alarm the man who was out of his mind and had attacked the scout, believing him an enemy.
CHAPTER XVI
HOMEWARD BOUND--CONCLUSION
"HELP! Let go of me! Hi! Elmer, he's up here! Come quick, I can't hold him any longer!"
That was what Toby was shrieking excitedly, as he struggled with the poor demented Spanish War veteran. Then there came answering shouts from Elmer, now close at hand; but of course Toby could not carry out any directions that were fired at him.
Presently those below saw the two figures topple over the edge, Toby still frantically clutching his beloved parachute, which was extended to its fullest dimensions, and the other evidently fiercely trying to hold on to his supposed enemy.
The extended blanket was torn from the grasp of the two boys, despite their earnest attempt to hold it taut; but at the same time it must have helped break the fall of the pair. The parachute had not been built for two, and could not be expected to bear their combined weight, in spite of Toby's boasts about half a ton not being too much.
One of the recumbent figures instantly sprang to his knees. It was Toby, and he still gripped the rod of his parachute with a determined hold.
"Never hurt me a teenty bit!" he shrilled, in his excitement; and then he suddenly stilled his ardor, for on looking down he saw the crazy man, dressed in that soiled white uniform brought from Cuba, lying there with the blood trickling down the side of his head, and the sight shocked Toby into repressing his exultation.
But Elmer was coming on the run, and already Doctor Ted had knelt beside Ralph Oxley, with his professional instincts all aroused. He sent one of the boys racing to the camp for his medicine case; and Elmer on his arrival suggested that they carry the unconscious young man to where the fire burned.
Being scouts, and accustomed to making a good litter out of almost anything, they speedily arranged it so that between four of them the victim of the fall was borne to the camp. On the way they met Lil Artha and George, hurrying toward the house; but of course these parties now returned with them, since the medicine case was needed in camp.
Ted first of all washed the wound in the young soldier's head with cold water, and then applied a cloth soaked in soothing balm, that would assist in stopping the bleeding.
"Oh! I hope he isn't going to die on us," said Toby, who seemed to feel that in some way his desire to test his parachute life-saving appliance from the tower of the old house had brought this near-tragedy about, and hence he felt unusually sorry.
"I don't think tho," Doctor Ted hastened to tell him; "he got a nathty cwack on the head, and it's fwactured it thome, but right now he theems to be coming out of the daze. There, did you thee his eyeth open and thut again? Next time he'll keep them open, believe me, fellowth."
Imagine the amazement and consternation of the boys when a minute later Ralph Oxley not only opened his eyes, but stared all around at each one in turn, then at the tents and the burning camp fire.
"Where am I?" he stammered, weakly. "What's all this mean? Are we still at the front? Where's my khaki uniform like the ones you're wearing, and why have you put this old white one on me? It's a Spanish suit. I know because I've got one like it home. Who are you? I don't seem to recognize any of you boys."
What seemed next door to a miracle had been wrought! Elmer and Ted stared eagerly at each other as though they could hardly believe their senses.
"He's got his mind back again!" exclaimed Chatz, wildly exultant. "It must have been the crack on the head did it. I've heard of such things, but never thought I'd ever run up against a case. Why, he's as sensible as any of us, fellows!"
Elmer rushed forward, and stood over the recumbent man, who looked at him with a puzzled air.
"Your name is Ralph Oxley, isn't it?" asked the scout master, quietly.
"Yes, it is, but--" began the other, when Elmer raised his hand to stop him.
"I'll explain as near as I can to you," he went on to say. "You were hurt on the head a few years ago, and went out of your mind. Ever since your folks have kept you at home because they said you were not dangerous, but there was an attendant employed to look after you. Some weeks ago you escaped, and nobody has ever found where you went. They feared you had been drowned somewhere. But you must have had the idea you were a Spanish soldier escaped from an American prison, for you have been in hiding up here at the old Cartaret house, and getting what food you could by raiding the farms all around. We are Boy Scouts belonging at Hickory Ridge, and the other day when we were up here we thought we glimpsed somebody, but a few of my chums believed it was a ghost. Now we've come to spend our Thanksgiving holidays in camp. You had a bad tumble, striking your head again, and cutting it; but somehow it has brought you back to your right mind, Ralph Oxley."
The young man, who could hardly have been more than thirty-five years of age, though a veteran of the Spanish war, put up his hand, and felt of his head, wincing with the pain the contact gave him. A tinge of color was creeping back into his pale face, which Elmer was delighted to see.
"It is all a mystery to me," Ralph Oxley told them, shaking his head.
"I have no recollection of doing anything like you say. In fact, the last thing I remember seems to be of riding out to look over a new farm my father had bought, and of my horse running away when some one shot close by the road. After that it is all a dead blank; and yet you say some years have passed since then?"
He seemed awed by the thought.