"Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as some old duffer
said."
The wooded hill sloped upward behind the camp for a distance of some
hundred yards, where it was broken by a sheer precipice forming one side
of a deep gully. This was the work of man, having once been a railroad
cut, but it had been in disuse for many years and was now covered with
vegetation. You could walk up the hill till you came to the brink of
this almost vertical chasm, but you could no more scramble down it than
you could scramble down a well. On the opposite side of the cut the hill
continued upward and the bridging of the chasm by the scouts themselves
had been a subject of much discussion; but up to the present time
nothing had been done and there was no way to continue one's ascent of
the hill except to follow along the edge of the cut to a point where the
precipice was low enough to allow one to scramble down--a walk of
several miles.
Right on the brink of this old overgrown cut was a shack which had
probably once been used by the workmen. Although on the Camp property it
was rather too far removed from the other buildings to be altogether
convenient as a living place, but its isolated situation had attracted
the boys, and the idea of calling it Hero Cabin was an inspiration of
Roy's. Mr. Keller, one of the trustees, had fallen in with the notion
and while deprecating the use of this remote shack for regular living
quarters, had good-naturedly given his consent that it be used as the
honored domicile of any troop a member of which had won an honor medal.
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