CHAPTER 8 DAN’S SAND PAINTING

After school the next night, all the Cubs took turns using Mr. Hallowell’s canoe and practicing their strokes.

While Dan, Midge and Chips worked on the sand painting, the other boys received instructions in water safety. Because Brad and Dan were the most proficient with a paddle, their practice session came last.

The two paddled across the river and back, carefully timing their strokes. Deep, even thrusts sent the craft fairly skimming through the water.

“How you coming on the sand painting, Dan?” the older boy asked from the stern seat.

“About two-thirds,” Dan replied. He rested a moment on his paddle, glancing at the overcast sky. “Think it will rain?”

“Oh, I doubt it at this time of year.”

“A hard rain could ruin our picture. Mr. Hatfield is covering it with canvas tonight—just in case. The covering will protect it from a light shower. But if it pours, the canvas probably wouldn’t keep the colors from running.”

“You fuss over that sand picture as if it were a baby, Dan!”

“Well, I want Den 2 to win the pow-wow handicraft contest.”

“Sure, but no use making yourself a nervous wreck about it. The canoe race is just as important. Mr. Hatfield told me this afternoon, he’s definitely decided to put you and me in as the contestants.”

“No foolin’?” At this information, Dan began stroking faster again. “I thought maybe he’d select Midge instead of me.”

“Midge is good,” Brad conceded. “But you have a little the edge over him. I’m glad you’re going to be my partner.”

Dan warmed to the praise, for he knew that the Den Chief always meant his words. The canoe moved through a patch of water lilies.

“Say, wait a second!” Dan cried, lifting his paddle. “Mom would like some of those lilies! I want to get a handful of ’em for her.”

Brad obediently backed water, holding the craft steady in the lily patch.

Resting his own paddle across the gunwales, Dan reached out to seize one of the flowers.

“Hey, be careful!” Brad warned.

The flower root was long and tough. As Dan tugged, the canoe rocked dangerously.

“You’ll upset us!” Brad exclaimed. “Hey, watch that paddle!”

The canoe had given a convulsive movement. Before Dan could snatch the paddle, it slid into the river.

“There it goes!” Brad declared in disgust. “Of all the dumb tricks! A fine example we’re setting the other Cubs in water safety. I just hope they didn’t see that!”

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Dan apologized. “I know Mr. Holloway told us never to lay a paddle across the canoe, but I was in such a hurry to get that water lily, I forgot.”

“We’ll lose the paddle, if we don’t fish it out of the river pretty fast. Wow! Look at it travel down stream!”

The paddle had cleared the lily pads and reeds and was floating free. Apparently, it was caught in a fast-moving current, for it traveled down river at an astonishing rate.

Brad dipped in his paddle, heading the canoe in pursuit. A few firm strokes brought him alongside.

However, as Dan reached out to scoop in the runaway, it again moved beyond his grasp.

“Say, we are in a fast current!” he agreed.

Brad paddled again, and after another miscalculation, managed to rescue the truant paddle.

“A nice exhibition!” he grinned. “I hope that teaches me a lesson.”

Brad did not chide his friend for carelessness. In fact, he was thinking more about the current than he was of the manner in which the paddle had been lost.

“Wonder what causes such a fast movement in this particular part of the river?” he speculated. “It gives me the idea—”

What the idea was, Dan never learned. For just then, Mr. Hatfield yelled across the water, motioning for the boys to come in.

“He saw me drop that paddle all right,” Dan said ruefully.

Mr. Hatfield did not scold the two boys, merely reminding them again that safety rules must be observed at all times.

“You’re both swimmers,” he said, “but even so, you can’t afford to take chances. Besides, you must set examples for the other Cubs.”

“It won’t happen again, Mr. Hatfield,” Dan promised. “I just had a mental lapse, that’s all.”

The Cub leader told the boys that the Indian pow-wow definitely had been set for the following Saturday.

“That doesn’t give us much time,” Brad said anxiously. “Think you can get the sand painting finished in time, Dan?”

“Tomorrow night probably.”

Feeling that not an hour should be wasted, Dan called Midge and Chips and the three again went to work.

On the east side of the picture, Dan made a circle to represent the sun, filling it in with colored sand.

He was hard at work when Brad called to say that the other Cubs were hiking to the cliff to see if any more work had been done on the carved face.

Chips and Midge, tired of working on the sand design, quickly joined those who were leaving with Mr. Hatfield and Mr. Holloway.

“Coming, Dan?” the Cub leader called to him.

“No, go on without me,” Dan answered, absorbed in the sand painting. “I want to get this thing finished before we leave here tonight.”

“Sure you don’t want to come along?”

Dan shook his head. Chips and Midge offered to stay with him, but he told them it wouldn’t be necessary.

“I can finish it alone,” he insisted. “Shouldn’t take me much longer now.”

Left to himself, Dan kept steadily at work. The picture now had taken on both form and color, with pleasing symbols in blue, black, yellow and red.

Carefully, he sifted the sand, trying not to blur edges of the outlines. Often, however, the capricious wind would snatch the grains from his fingers, blowing them helter-skelter.

Dan lost all count of time as he worked. Finally, the last outline had been filled with yellow sand, and the job was done.

Tired, but thoroughly pleased, the boy rocked back on his heels to survey the picture.

“Not bad—not half bad,” he remarked aloud.

Dan suddenly realized that the hour had grown late, for both the river and the nearby forest were darkening. The Cubs, he knew, had been gone a long while. At any moment, they should be returning to camp.

“They’ll be surprised to find the picture finished!” he thought proudly.

Dan stood back to survey the sand picture. The edges were blowing and he was a little worried lest the outlines be ruined by the wind.

“I’ll have Brad help me cover it up with canvas as soon as he gets back,” he thought. “Wish he’d hurry.”

Dan glanced toward the forest in the direction the Cubs had gone. None of the boys were in sight. What was keeping them so long at the ravine?

Deciding to wash his hands, Dan sauntered down to the river. As he crossed the rippled sand he was startled to see a moccasin print near the overturned canoe.

Rather alarmed by the discovery, the boy bent to examine the print carefully. It was much too large to have been made by one of the Cubs. At any rate, they all wore rubber-soled shoes.

Searching near the water’s edge close to the canoe, Dan found other similar moccasin marks.

“Someone’s been sneaking around here since Mr. Hatfield left,” he thought uneasily.

More than ever, Dan now wished that the Cubs would return to camp. Though not afraid to remain alone, he could not rid himself of an uncomfortable feeling that at this very moment he was being watched from the nearby woods.

His mind dwelt upon the unpleasant recollection that a painted paddle, food and a highly valuable blanket had disappeared from camp. Now it seemed someone had designs upon the canoe!

The trail of moccasin prints could not be traced beyond the beach. Yet Dan was almost certain that their maker, perhaps one of the Indians he had met, had taken refuge in the woods.

“Nothing I can do except warn Mr. Hatfield,” he told himself. “A nice thing when one can’t leave anything lying around without having it disappear!”

Dan went down to the water’s edge to wash his hands. The river looked very dark and menacing, an indication that a storm might be brewing.

Overhead, black clouds were traveling rapidly across the sky.

“Storm’s coming up fast,” Dan thought uneasily. “I hope the Cubs get back before it breaks!”

Even as he straightened up from washing his hands, a strong breath of air stirred the trees. Waves began to pile up on the beach.

Fearful that the canoe might be washed away, Dan pulled it farther back on shore.

Unexpectedly, a great gust of wind swept the beach. Sand was flung in Dan’s face, causing him to cough and choke.

The wind blew hard for a minute or two and then subsided. A few large drops of rain splashed down.

Deciding to seek the shelter of the hogan, Dan scrambled up the slope to the camp.

Pausing an instant to catch his breath, he gazed down on the cleared square of beach where only a few minutes before he had completed the sand painting.

A gasp of dismay escaped his lips. For where the picture had been, there was now only a hodge-podge of wildly mixed colors!