"Well, you fellows have about put all the available candidates on the list," declared Ty, laughing because he himself figured in the same. "Elmer is out of the running because he got a thorn in his foot a day or two ago, and is limping to beat the band. His best chum, Mark Cummings, might enter, but it happens he's out of town and may not be back for a week. But what's all this talk going to amount to, anyhow?"
"We ought to have thith important question thettled, boyth!" declared Ted.
"There's been a heap of hot air circulating for a month past about who is the best all-round walker in the troop," remarked Jasper; "and seems to me that matter ought to be threshed out, once and for all!"
"Hurrah, that's the talk, Jasper!" cried Chatz, throwing an apple at the other.
"Bully boy!" called Ty. "Go on and make a suggestion, Jasper. You've got something in your noodle after all. Keep it up, my boy, and success to you."
"That's right, Jasper," said Landy, stretching around to pick several tempting yellow beauties that seemed just beyond the reach of his rather short arm. "Tell us what you've been thinking about. Is it a big hike for the best walkers and runners of the celebrated Hickory Ridge troop?"
Jasper swelled with importance. It was not often he found himself in the lime light, and his opinion in demand. The experience seemed delightful, and he was not in too great a hurry to satisfy the demand for information; since once they had his views the discussion must become general, and he would only stand on an equal footing with the rest.
"Well, to tell the truth I was thinking about suggesting a great hike, with, say a limit of half a dozen fellows connected with the troop as contestants. Perhaps you noticed that I mentioned a twenty-four-hour consecutive tramp as the basis of the test. Each fellow could be bound by a solemn promise not to accept a lift on the way, under penalty of displacement. And several others, like Elmer for instance, might keep tabs on the bunch by following them on their wheels."
"Listen to him, will you? Hasn't Jasper got it down pat?" cried Landy, again exerting himself to the utmost to gather in another lot of unusually tempting pippins.
"He's going to fill a long-felt want," declared Chatz. "We need an organizer, some one who could take the responsibility of fixing up these meets from the over-burdened shoulders of Elmer. And, suh, I suspect Jasper is going to develop into a master of ceremonies."
"Then you rather like the idea, fellows?" asked the small scout, pleased beyond measure.
"It's just the thing," declared Ty.
"We'll take the thame up at wunth, and have the affair arranged in a jiffy," Ted announced.
"Hey, take care there, Landy, your ladder's slipping! Quick, grab hold of something, or you're a goner!" shouted Ty, suddenly.
Landy tried to wriggle himself back again, but his stretch had been fatal to all chances for maintaining his position. The top of the long ladder lost its grip in the swaying crotch and slid from under him. There was a rattle of apples thudding down on the ground twenty feet below; but Landy had, on the spur of the moment, seized hold of the outer branches, so that there he hung, swinging back and forth; afraid to let go, and yet incapable of long maintaining his frantic grip.
CHAPTER II.
JASPER'S IDEA TAKES ROOT
"Hoop-la, somebody grab me before I drop!" shouted Landy, as he kept trying to get a grip with his fat legs on the foliage of the outer branches which seemed to take particular delight in evading his ambitious designs.
"Get a feather bed under him!" shrieked Ty, although at the same time he was changing his position in the tree with all possible haste, meaning to assist the clinging boy, if it could possibly be done.
"Oh, save me first, and joke about it afterward!" cried Landy, who was really alarmed and under a tremendous strain, both bodily and mentally.
"If I only had a rope with a loop in it, I could lasso him!" declared Jasper.
"But you haven't, you see," cried Landy. "Think up something else! Hurry along, boys; I can't hold out much longer. I'm no Elmer as a gymnast. I'm slipping right now, I tell you. Wow! Is that measly old ladder under me, and will I come down with a splash on it?"
He panted as he uttered this complaint, and the boys saw that his face resembled the setting sun, as he looked up to them almost piteously. But who could reach him there? On the very outer edge of the big tree, with the ground fully twenty feet below, and nothing to break his fall, it began to look like a serious business for poor Landy.
Dr. Ted realized that there was real danger of the boy getting a broken leg if he fell that distance. Landy was not like agile Lil Artha, or some other members of the troop. His weight made him solid, and being without any spring, he would likely come down with a dull, sickening thud.
"Hold on as long as you can, Landy!" yelled Ted, even neglecting to lisp in his great excitement.
He was slipping down the tree like a "greased pig," as Jasper termed it, though what that sort of animal would be doing up in an apple tree he never took the trouble to explain.
Ty saw what the idea was. He had been about to try and reach Landy by standing far out on a limb; but the prospect of success was very small. And so he followed Ted down the tree, slipping from limb to limb with the agility that some boys can only display when the owner of the orchard is seen coming on the full run with a ferocious bulldog at his heels.
"Oh, hurry! hurry! I'm near gone, and can't hold out much longer! What're you doing down there to help me, boys?" wailed the one whose legs swung back and forth like a couple of pendulums, as they vainly sought for a chance to grip something that would ease the strain on his arms above.
"The ladder! They've gone to set it up again, Landy! Just hold on half a minute longer. And there's Elmer jumped off his bicycle; and he's already raising it up. Set your teeth, Landy; take a fresh grip, and it's going to be all right!"
So the excited Jasper shouted as he sat there in the tree, unable to lend a helping hand, but at least capable of offering good advice.
A boy who had been coming toward the place on a wheel, seeing the state of affairs, had instantly sized up the situation; and even while those in the tree were shouting back and forth, and before they could get started, Elmer Chenowith, jumping from his saddle, had limped forward to where the unlucky ladder lay.
By the time Ted, followed by Ty, landed on the ground, he had raised it single-handed, and with a readiness that told of long familiarity with ladders; for one not accustomed to such things would never know the secret of bracing the bottom against some root and then lifting rapidly.
So just in the nick of time the treacherous ladder was dropped against the outer branches of the tree, alongside the hanging boy. Elmer himself flew up the rounds, for he feared that Landy, always more or less clumsy, might not be able to swing his form around, and take advantage of the opening.
But desperation gave Landy new abilities, and he managed by a violent effort to roll around to the outer side of the leaning ladder. Utterly exhausted by the strain he had been under, the fat boy must have slipped helplessly down only that Elmer managed to clutch him.
Step by step the gasping Landy was lowered until he reached the bottom round. He was no longer furiously red, but had turned a sickly white.
"Here, let him down on the ground," said Dr. Ted, taking command at that point as though it were his acknowledged right. "He's only getting the reaction now. I'll fix him up, boys, and he'll be picking apples again before ten minutes, believe me."
He was as good as his word, for Landy soon recovered; but it was noticed that from that moment the fat boy showed great caution how he climbed up that ladder, by which he had once been betrayed.
"What was all that talk going on as I passed?" asked Elmer, a bright, wide-awake young fellow, whose year out on a Canadian ranch belonging to an uncle was proving of considerable value to him in his experience as a scout.
"What did you hear?" asked Jasper, assuming a little of his former importance.
"Seemed