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[Illustration: "Say" Cried Frank, "That's a child's face up there!"]


The Boy Scout Camera Club

or

The Confession of a Photograph


By


Scout Master G. Harvey Ralphson



CHAPTER

    I  LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!

   II  THE HOLE IN THE ATTIC FLOOR

  III  WHAT THE BOX CONTAINED

   IV  A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAIN

    V  JIMMIE AND TEDDY MISS A MEAL

   VI  SIGNALS IN THE CANYON

  VII  A MINT IN THE MOUNTAINS

 VIII  UNCLE IKE PRESENTS HIMSELF

   IX  A LANK MULE AS A DECOY

    X  "PACKED AWAY LIKE SARDINES"

   XI  JACK'S ELEGANT CHICKEN PIE

  XII  THE BLACK HAND GAME

 XIII  THREE DAYS TO MOVE IN

  XIV  POINTING OUT THE TRAIL

   XV  A NIGHT ON THE SUMMIT

  XVI  THE CALL OF THE PACK

 XVII  JUST A LITTLE DARK WASH

XVIII  BRADLEY BECOMES INDIGNANT

  XIX  NED PLAYS THE MIND-READER

   XX  SHOOTING ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE

  XXI  TOLD BY THE PICTURES

 XXII  A RECRUIT FROM THE ENEMY

XXIII  RACING MOTORS ON THE WAY

 XXIV  THE MAN-TRAP IS SET

  XXV  THE CONFESSION OF A PHOTOGRAPH




The Boy Scout Camera Club

or

The Confession of a Photograph




CHAPTER I

LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!


"Two Black Bears!"

"Two Wolves!"

"Three Eagles!"

"Five Moose!"

"Quite a mixture of wild creatures to be found in a splendid clubroom
in the city of New York!" exclaimed Ned Nestor, a handsome, muscular
boy of seventeen. "How many of these denizens of the forests are
ready to join the Boy Scout Camera Club?"

"You may put my name down twice--in red ink!" shouted Jimmie McGraw,
of the Wolf Patrol. "I wouldn't miss it to be president of the United
States!"

"One Wolf," Ned said, writing the name down.

"Two Wolves!" cried Jimmie, red-headed, freckled of face and as
active as a red squirrel, "two wolves! You're a Wolf yourself, Ned
Nestor!"

"Two Wolves, then!" laughed Ned. "Of course Jimmie and I can form a
club all by ourselves, and he can be the officers and I can be the
members, but we'd rather have a menagerie of large size, as we are
going into the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina,
Kentucky and Tennessee."

The boys who had not yet spoken were on their feet in an instant, all
clamoring for membership in the Boy Scout Camera Club. Ned lifted a
hand for silence.

"Why this present rush?" he asked. "I've been thinking that Jimmie
and I would have to go to the mountains alone! Why this impetuosity?"

"The mountains!" shouted Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol. "It is
the mountains that get us! We've been thinking that the club you were
organizing wouldn't get outside of little old New York, but would
loaf around taking snap-shots of the slums and the trees in the
parks. But when you mention mountains, why--"

"I'm going right down stairs and pack my camera!" Jack Bosworth, of
the Black Bear Patrol, declared. "When it comes to mountains!"

The clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol was on the top floor of the
handsome residence of Jack's father, who was a famous corporation
lawyer, and the boys persuaded Jack to wait until they had completed
the organization of the Camera Club before he started in packing for
the journey to the mountains!

"You'll want an Eagle, if you're going to the mountains!" shouted
Teddy Green, of the Eagle Patrol. "I'll fly home and get my wardrobe
right now!"

Teddy Green was the son of a Harvard professor, and was inclined to
follow in the footsteps of his father in the matter of learning--after
he had first climbed to all the high spots of the world and
descended into all the low ones! He insisted on exploring the earth
before he learned by rote what others had written about it!

"All right!" Ned grinned. "We'll need an Eagle!"

"And a Bull Moose!" yelled Oliver Yentsch, of the Moose Patrol.
"You've got to have a Moose along with you!"

Oliver was the son of a ship builder, and had a launch and a yacht of
his own. He was liked by all his associates in spite of his tendency
to grumble at trifles. However, if he complained at small things, he
met large troubles with a smile on his bright face. He now seized
Teddy about the waist and waltzed around the room with him.

"And that's all!" Ned decided, closing the book. "We can't take more
than six."

A wail went up from the others, but they were promised a chance at
the next "hike" into the hills, and soon departed, leaving the six
members of the Camera Club to perfect arrangements for their
departure. It was a warm May night, still Ned closed the door leading
out into the wide corridor which ran through the house on that floor.

"We can't afford to take others into our plans," he said, "for this
is to be another Secret Service expedition."

"For the Government?" demanded Frank Shaw. "Then," he added, without
waiting for a reply, "I'll call up dad's editorial rooms and have a
reporter sent up here. Top of column, first page, illustrated! That's
our Camera Club in the morning newspaper!"

Frank's father was owner and editor of one of the big New York
dailies, and the boy always took along, on his trips, plenty of blank
paper for "copy," but never sent in a line! His letters to his
father's newspaper were usually addressed to the financial
department, upon which he had permission to draw at will!

"Huh!" Jimmie commented, wrinkling his freckled nose, "if you should
ever furnish an item for your daddy's newspaper he'd never live it
down! You've been on all our trips with Ned, and never wired in a
word!"

The Boy Scouts of the Black Bear and Wolf Patrols had been through
many exciting experiences with Ned Nestor, who, young as he was, was
often in the employ of the Secret Service department of the United
States government. Frank, as Jimmie said, had been with Ned from the
start, and had never sent in a line of "copy" for the paper.

"I'm going to furnish a column a day this trip!" Frank declared,
making a motion to seize Jimmie. "We're going to take pictures,
aren't we? We'll take 'em by the acre, and dad's newspaper is going
to catch every one of them."

"Huh!" Jimmie declared, with a freckled nose in the air. "I'm a
newspaper man, too. You needn't think you're the only cherry in the
pie! I used to sell newspapers before I got into the Secret Service
with Ned!"

From his earliest years Jimmie had indeed been a newsboy on the
Bowery. He had never had a home except that provided by himself, and
this, in the early days of his life, had as often been a box or
barrel in an alley as anything else.

"Why the mountains?" asked Frank Shaw, presently. "Do you have to go
to the hills on this trip? I'm glad if you do, of course, but I'd
like to know something about it before we start. Dad will have to be
shown this time, I reckon! He