Project Gutenberg's Tom Slade at Black Lake, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
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Title: Tom Slade at Black Lake
Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh
Illustrator: Howard L. Hastings
Release Date: July 30, 2006 [EBook #18943]
Language: English
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[Illustration: TOM HAULED THE LOGS BY MEANS OF A BLOCK AND FALL.
Tom Slade at Black Lake--Frontispiece (Page 96)]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE
By
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
THE TOM SLADE AND THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
Illustrated by
HOWARD L. HASTINGS
Published with the approval of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers--New York
Made in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1920, by GROSSET & DUNLAP
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
Several persons have asked me when Tom Slade was ever going to grow up
and cease to be a Scout. The answer is that he is already grown up and
that he is never going to cease to be a Scout. Once a Scout, always a
Scout. To hear some people talk one would think that scouting is like
the measles; that you get over it and never have it any more.
Scouting is not a thing to play with, like a tin steam-engine, and then
to throw aside. If you once get caught in the net of scouting, you will
never disentangle yourself. A fellow may grow up and put on long
trousers and go and call on a girl and all that sort of thing, but if he
was a Scout, he will continue to be a Scout, and it will stick out all
over him. You'll find him back in the troop as assistant or scoutmaster
or something or other.
I think Tom Slade is a very good example. He left the troop to go and
work on a transport; he got into the motorcycle messenger service; he
became one of the greatest daredevils of the air; he came home quite
"grown up" as you would say, and knuckled down to be a big business man.
Then, when it came to a show down, what did he do? He found out that he
was just a plain Scout, shouldered his axe, and went off and did a big
scout job all alone. So there you are.
I am sorry for those who would have him too old for scouting, and who
seem to think that a fellow can lay aside all he has learned in the
woods and in the handbook, the same as he can lay aside his short
trousers. It isn't as easy as all that.
Did you suppose that Tom Slade was going to get acquainted with nature,
with the woods and streams and trees, and make them his friends, and
then repudiate these friends?
Do you think that a Scout is a quitter?
Tom Slade was always a queer sort of duck, and goodness only knows what
he will do next. He may go to the North Pole for all I know. But one
thing you may be sure of; he is still a Scout of the Scouts, and if you
think he is too old to be a Scout, then how about Buffalo Bill?
The fact is that Tom is just beginning to reap the real harvest of
scouting. The best is yet to come, as Pee-wee Harris usually observes,
just before dessert is served at dinner. If it is any satisfaction to
you to know it, Tom is more of a Scout than at any time in his career,
and there is a better chance of his being struck by lightening than his
drifting away from the troop whose adventures you have followed with
his.
It is true that Tom has grown faster than his companions and found it
necessary to go to work while they are still at school. And this very
circumstance will enable us to see what scouting has done for him.
Indeed if I could not show you that, then all of those eight stores of
his adventures would have been told to little purpose. The chief matter
of interest about a trail is where it leads to. It may be an easy trail
or a hard trail, but the question is, where does it go to?
It would be a fine piece of business, I think, to leave Tom sitting on a
rock near the end of the trail without giving you so much as a glimpse
of what is at the end of it.
So you may tell your parents and your teachers and your uncles and your
aunts not to worry about Tom Slade never growing up. He is just a trifle
over eighteen years old and very strong and husky. Confidentially, I
look upon him as nothing but a kid. I keep tabs on his age and when he
has to go on crutches and is of no more interest to you, I shall be the
first to know it. He is likely to have no end of adventures between
eighteen and twenty.
Meanwhile, don't worry about him. He's just a big overgrown kid and the
best Scout this side of Mars.
P. K. F.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Tom Looks at the Map 1
II. He Sends a Letter 5
III. The New Struggle 10
IV. "Lucky Luke" 16
V. About Seeing a Thing Through 24
VI. "The Woods Property" 29
VII. Just Nonsense 35
VIII. Five, Six, and Seven 45
IX. Roy's Nature 52
X. Tom Receives a Surprise 55
XI. Tom and Roy 59
XII. The Long Trail 66
XIII. Roy's Trail 73
XIV. The Really Hard Part 76
XV. A Letter From Barnard 80
XVI. The Episode in France 86
XVII. On the Long Trail 94
XVIII. Tom Lets the Cat Out of the Bag 101
XIX. The Spectre of Defeat 106
XX. The Friend in Need 110
XXI. Tom's Guest 117
XXII. An Accident 122
XXIII. Friends 132
XXIV. Tom Goes on an Errand 138
XXV. Two Letters 147
XXVI. Lucky Luke's Friend 152
XXVII. Thornton's Story 158
XXVIII. Red Thornton Learns Something About Scouts 170
XXIX. Tom Starts for Home 176
XXX. The Troop Arrives 182
XXXI. Archer 193
XXXII. Tom Loses 197
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE
CHAPTER I
TOM LOOKS AT THE MAP
Tom Slade, bending over the office table, scrutinized the big map of
Temple Camp. It was the first time he had really looked at it since his
return from France, and it made him homesick to see, even in its cold
outlines, the familiar things and scenes which he had so loved as a
scout. The hill trail was nothing but a dotted line, but Tom knew it for
more than that, for it was along its winding way into the dark recesses
of the mountains that he had qualified for the pathfinder's badge. Black
Lake was just an irregular circle, but in his mind's eye he saw there
the moonlight glinting up the water, and canoes gliding silently, and
heard the merry voices of scouts diving from the springboard at its
edge.
He liked this map better than maps of billets and trenches, and to him
the hill trail was more suggestive of adventure than the Hindenburg
Line. He had been very close to the Hindenburg Line and it had meant no
more to him than the equator. He had found the war to be like a
three-ringed circus--it was too big. Temple Camp was about the right
size.
Tom reached for a slip of paper and laying it upon the map just where
the trail went over the hilltop and off the camp territory altogether,
jotted down the numbers of three cabins which were indicated by little
squares.
"They're the only three together and kind of separate," he said to
himself.
Then he went over to the window and gazed out upon the busy scene, which
the city office of Temple Camp overlooked. He did this, not because
there was anything there which he wished particularly to see, but
because he contemplated doing something and was in some perplexity
about it. He was going to dictate a letter to Miss Margaret Ellison, the
stenographer.
Tom had seen cannons and machine guns and hand grenades and depth bombs,
but the thing in all this world that he was most afraid of was the long
sharply pointed pencil which Miss Margaret Ellison always held poised
above her open note book, waiting to record his words. Tom had always
fallen down at the last minute and told her what he wanted to say;
suggesting that she say it in her own sweet way. He did not say _sweet_
way, though he may have thought it.
So now he stood at the open window looking down upon Bridgeboro's
surging thoroughfare, while the breath of Spring permeated the Temple
Camp office. If he had been less susceptible of this gentle influence in
the very air, he would still have known it was Spring by the things in
the store windows across the way--straw hats and hammocks and tennis
rackets. There were moving vans, too, with furniture bulging out behind
them, which are just as certain signs of merry May as the flowers that
bloom in the Spring. There was something too, in the way that the sun
moved down which bespoke Spring.
But the surest sign of all was the flood of applications for cabin
accommodations at Temple Camp; that was just as sure and reliable as the
first croaking of the frogs or the softening of the rich, thick mud in
Barrel Alley, where Tom had spent his childhood.
He moved over to where Miss Margaret Ellison sat at her machine. Mr.
Burton, manager of the Temple Camp office, had told Tom that the only
way to acquire confidence and readiness of speech was to formulate what
he wished to say and to say it, without depending on any one else, and
to this good advice, Peewee Harris, mascot of Tom's Scout Troop had made
the additional suggestion, that it was good to say it whether you had
anything to say or not, on the theory, I suppose, that if you cannot
shoot bullets, it is better to shoot blank cartridges than nothing at
all.
CHAPTER II
HE SENDS A LETTER
"Help him, but encourage him to be self-confident; let him take
responsibilities. He understands everything well enough; all he needs is
to get a grip on himself." That is what Mr. Burton had told Margaret
Ellison, and Margaret Ellison, being a girl, understood better than all
the army surgeons in the country.
You see how it was; they had made a wreck of Tom Slade's nerves as a
trifling incidental to making the world safe for democracy. He started
at every little noise, he broke down in the middle of his talk, he
hesitated to cross the street alone, he shuddered at the report of a
bursting tire on some unlucky auto. He had never been at ease in the
presence of girls, and he was now less at ease than before he had gone
away.
He had fought for nearly two years and Uncle Sam liked him so much that
he could not bring himself to part company with him, until by hook or
crook, Mr. Burton and Mr. Temple managed to get him discharged and put
him in the way of finding himself at his old job in Temple Camp office.
It was a great relief to him not to have to salute lieutenants any more.
The shot and shell he did not mind, but his arm was weary with saluting
lieutenants. It was the dream of Tom Slade's life never to see another
lieutenant as long as he lived.
He leaned against the table near Miss Margaret Ellison and said, "I--I
want--I have to send a letter to a troop that's in Ohio--in a place
called--called Dansburg. Shall I dic--shall I say what I want to tell
them?"
"Surely," she said cheerily.
"Maybe if it isn't just right you can fix it up," he said.
"You say it just the way you want to," she encouraged him.
"It's to the Second Dansburg Troop and the name of the scoutmaster is
William Barnard," Tom said, "and this is what I want to say...."
"Yes, say it in your own words," she reminded him.
"We got--I mean received," he dictated hesitatingly, "your letter and we
can give you--can give you--three cabins--three cabins together and kind
of separate like you say--numbers five, six, and seven. They are on the
hill and separate, and we hope to hear from you--soon--because there are
lots of troops asking for cabins, because now the season is beginning.
Yours truly."
"Is that all right?" he asked rather doubtfully.
"Surely it is," she said; "and don't forget what Mr. Burton told you
about going home early and resting. Remember, Mr. Burton is your
superior officer now."
"Are you going home soon?" he asked her.
"Not till half-past five," she said.
He hesitated as if he would like to say something more, then retreating
rather clumsily, he got his hat and said good-night, and left the
office.
The letter which he had dictated was not laid upon Mr. Burton's desk for
signature in exactly the phraseology which Tom had used, but Tom never
knew that. This is the way the letter read:
MR. WILLIAM BARNARD, Scoutmaster,
Second Dansburg Troop,
Dansburg, Ohio.
DEAR SIR:
Replying to your letter asking for accommodations for your three
patrols for month of August, we can assign you three cabins
(Numbers, 5,6 and 7) covering that time. These are in an isolated
spot, as you requested, being somewhat removed from the body of the
camp.
Circular of rates and particulars is enclosed. Kindly answer
promptly, as applications are numerous.
Yours truly,
The letter went out that night, and as it happened, a very considerable
series of adventures resulted.
Perhaps if Margaret Ellison had looked at the map or even stopped to
think, she would have consulted with Tom before typing that letter,
which was the cause of such momentous consequences. As for Mr. Burton,
he knew that Tom knew the camp like A. B. C. and he simply signed his
name to the letter and let it go at that.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW STRUGGLE
Tom did as he had promised Mr. Burton he would do; he went home and lay
down and rested. It was not much of a home, but it was better than a
dugout. That is, it was cleaner though not very much larger. But there
were no lieutenants.
It was a tiny hall-room in a boarding house, and the single window
afforded a beautiful view of back fences. It was all the home that Tom
Slade knew. He had no family, no relations, nothing.
He had been born in a tenement in Barrel Alley, where his mother had
died and from which his good-for-nothing father had disappeared. For a
while he had been a waif and a hoodlum, and by strict attention to the
code of Barrel Alley's gang, he had risen to be king of the hoodlums.
No one, not even Blokey Mattenburg himself, could throw a rock into a
trolley car with the precision of Tom Slade.
Then, on an evil day, he was tempted to watch the scouts and it proved
fatal. He was drawn head over ears into scouting, and became leader of
the new Elk Patrol in the First Bridgeboro Troop. For three seasons he
was a familiar, if rather odd figure, at Temple Camp, which Mr. John
Temple of Bridgeboro had founded in the Catskills, and when he was old
enough to work it seemed natural that these kindly gentlemen who had his
welfare at heart, should put him into the city office of the camp, which
he left to go to war, and to which he had but lately returned, suffering
from shell-shock.
He was now eighteen years old, and though no longer a scout in the
ordinary sense, he retained his connection with the troop in capacity of
assistant to Mr. Ellsworth, the troop's scoutmaster.
He had been rather older than the members of this troop when he made his
spectacular leap from hoodlumism to scouting, and hence while they were
still kicking their heels in the arena he had, as one might say, passed
outside it.
But his love for the boys and their splendid scoutmaster who had given
him a lift, was founded upon a rock. The camp and the troop room had
been his home, the scouts had been his brothers, and all the simple
associations of his new life were bound up with these three patrols.
Perhaps it was for this reason that among these boys, all younger than
himself, and with whom he had always mingled on such familiar terms, he
showed but few, and those not often, of the distressing symptoms which
bespoke his shattered nerves. Among them he found refuge and was at
peace with himself.
And the boys, intent upon their own pursuits, knew nothing of the brave
struggle he was making at the office where his days were spent, and in
the poor little shabbily furnished room where he would lie down on his
iron bed and try to rest and forget the war and not hear the noises
outside.
How he longed for Friday nights when the troop met, and when he could
forget himself in those diverting games!
Since the first few days of his return from France, he had seen but
little of the troop, except upon those gala nights. The boys were in
school and he at the office, and it seemed as if their two ways had
parted, after all his hopes that his return might find them reunited and
more intimate than ever before. But after the first joyous welcome, it
had not been so. It could not be so.
Of course, if they had known how he loved to just sit and listen to them
jolly the life out of Peewee Harris, they would doubtless have arranged
to do this every night for his amusement, for it made no difference to
them how much they jollied Peewee. If they had had the slightest inkling
that it helped him just to listen to Roy Blakeley's nonsense, they would
probably have arranged with Roy for a continuous performance, for so far
as Roy was concerned, there was no danger of a shortage of nonsense. But
you see they did not think of these things.
They did much for wounded soldiers, but Tom Slade was not a wounded
soldier. And so it befell that the very thing which he most needed was
the thing he did not have, and that was just the riot of banter and
absurdity which they called their meetings. At all this he would just
sit and smile and forget to interlace his fingers and jerk his head. And
sometimes he would even laugh outright.
I am afraid that everything was managed wrong from the first. It would
have been better if Mr. Burton or Mr. Ellsworth or somebody or other had
told the troop the full truth about Tom's condition. I suppose they
refrained for fear the boys would stare at him and treat him as one
stricken, and thereby, perhaps make his struggle harder.
At all events, it was hard enough. And little they knew of this new and
frightful war that he was struggling through with all the power of his
brave, dogged nature. Little they knew how he lay awake night after
night, starting at every chime of the city's clock, of how he did the
best he could each day, waiting and longing for Friday night, hoping,
_hoping_ that Peewee and Roy would surely be there. Poor, distracted,
shell-shocked fighter that he was, he was fighting still, and they were
his only hope and they did not know it. No one knew it. He would not let
them know.
For that was Tom Slade.
CHAPTER IV
"LUCKY LUKE"
Next morning Tom had his breakfast in a dingy little restaurant and then
started along Terrace Avenue for the bank building, in which was the
Temple Camp office.
He still wore the shabby khaki uniform which had seen service at the
front. He was of that physique called thick-set and his face was of the
square type, denoting doggedness and endurance, and a stolid
temperament.
There had never been anything suggestive of the natty or agile about him
when he had been a scout, and army life, contrary to its reputation, had
not spruced and straightened him up at all. He was about as awkward
looking as a piece of field artillery, and he was just about as reliable
and effective. He was not built on the lines of a rifle, but rather on
the lines of a cannon, or perhaps of a tank. His mouth was long and his
lips set tight, but it twitched nervously at one end, especially when he
waited at the street crossing just before he reached the bank building,
watching the traffic with a kind of fearful, bewildered look.
Twice, thrice, he made the effort to cross and returned to his place on
the curb, interlacing his fingers distractedly. And yet this young
fellow had pushed through barbed wire entanglements and gone across No
Man's Land, without so much as a shudder in the very face of hostile
fire.
He always dreaded this street corner in the mornings and was thankful
when he was safe up in his beloved Temple Camp office. If he had been on
crutches some grateful citizen would have helped him across, and
patriotic young ladies would have paused to watch the returned hero and
some one might even have removed his hat in the soldier's presence; for
they did those things--for a while.
But such honors were only for those who were fortunate enough to have
had a leg or an arm shot off or to have been paralyzed. For the hero who
had had his nerves all shot to pieces there were no such spontaneous
tributes.
And that was the way it had always been with Tom Slade. He had always
made good, but somehow, the applause and the grateful tributes had gone
to others. Nature had not made him prepossessing and he did not know how
to talk; he was just slow and dogged and stolid, like a British tank, as
I said, and just about as homely. You could hardly expect a girl to make
much fuss over a young fellow who is like a British tank, when there are
young fellows like shining machine guns, and soaring airplanes--to say
nothing of poison gas.
And after two years of service in the thick of danger, with bombs and
bullets flying all about him; after four months' detention in an enemy
prison camp and six weeks of trench fever, to say nothing of frightful
risks, stolidly ignored, in perilous secret missions, this young chunk
of the old rock of Gibraltar had come home with his life, just because
it had pleased God not to accept the proffer of it, and because Fritzie
shot wild where Tom was concerned. He couldn't help coming back with his
life--it wasn't his fault. It was just because he was the same old Lucky
Luke, that's all.
That had been Roy Blakeley's name for him--Lucky Luke; and he had been
known as Lucky Luke to all of his scout comrades.
You see it was this way: if Tom was going to win a scout award by
finding a certain bird's nest in a certain tree, when he got to the
place he would find that the tree had been chopped down. Once he was
going to win the pathfinder's badge by trailing a burglar, and he
trailed him seven miles through the woods and found that the burglar was
his own good-for-nothing father. So he did not go back and claim the
award. You see? Lucky Luke.
Once (oh, this happened several years before) he helped a boy in his
patrol to become an Eagle Scout. It was the talk of Temple Camp how,
one more merit badge (astronomy) and Will O'Connor would be an Eagle
Scout and Tom Slade, leader of the Elks, would have the only Eagle Scout
at Camp in his patrol. He didn't care so much about being an Eagle Scout
himself, but he wanted Will O'Connor to be an Eagle Scout; he wanted to
have an Eagle Scout in his patrol.
Then, just before Will O'Connor qualified for the Astronomy Badge, he
went to live with his uncle in Cincinnati and the Buffalo Patrol of the
Third Cincinnati Troop pretty soon had an Eagle Scout among their
number, and the Cincinnati troop got its name into _Scouting_ and _Boy's
Life_. Lucky Luke!
It was characteristic of Tom Slade that he did not show any
disappointment at this sequel of all his striving. Much less had he any
jealousy, for he did not know there was such a word in the dictionary.
He just started in again to make Bert McAlpin an Eagle Scout and when he
had jammed Bert through all the stunts but two, Uncle Sam deliberately
went into the war and Tom started off to work on a transport. So you see
how it worked out; Connie Bennett, new leader of the Elks presently had
an Eagle Scout in his patrol and Tom got himself torpedoed. Mind, I
don't say that Uncle Sam went into the war just to spite Tom Slade. The
point is that Tom Slade didn't get anything, except that he got
torpedoed.
One thing he did win for himself as a scout and that was the Gold Cross
for life saving, but he didn't know how to wear it, and it was Margaret
Eillson who pinned it on for him properly. I think she had a sneaking
liking for Tom.
Poor Tom, sometime or other in his stumbling career he had probably
gotten out of the wrong side of his bed, or perhaps he was born on a
Friday. That was what Roy and the scouts always said.
And so you see, here he was back from the big scrap with nothing to show
for it but a case of shell-shock, and you don't have bandages or
crutches for shell-shock. There was young Lieut. Rossie Bent who worked
downstairs in the bank, who had come home with two fingers missing and
all of the girls had fallen at his feet and Tom had had to salute him.
But there was nothing missing about Tom--except his wits and his grip on
himself, sometimes.
But no one noticed this particularly, unless it was Mr. Burton and
Margaret Ellison, and certainly no one made a fuss over him on account
of it. Why should anybody make a hero of a young fellow just because he
is not quite sure of himself in crossing the street, and because his
mouth twitches? Boy scouts are both observant and patriotic, but they
could not see that there was anything _missing_ about Tom. All they had
noticed was that in resuming his duties at the office he had seemed to
be drifting away from them--from the troop. And when he came on Friday
nights, just to sit and hear Roy jolly Peewee and to enjoy their simple
nonsense, they thought he was "different since he had come back from
France"--perhaps just a little, you know, _uppish_.
It would have been a lucky thing for Tom, and for everybody concerned,
if Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster, had been at home instead of away on a
business trip; for he would have understood.
But of course, things couldn't have gone that way--not with Lucky Luke.
CHAPTER V
ABOUT SEEING A THING THROUGH
But there was one lucky thing that Tom had done, once upon a time. He
had hit Pete Connegan plunk on the head with a rotten tomato.
That was before the war; oh, long, long before. It was a young war all
by itself. It happened when Tom was a hoodlum and lived with his drunken
father in Barrel Alley. And in that little affair Tom Slade made a
stand. Filthy little hoodlum that he was, instead of running when Pete
Connegan got down out of his truck and started after him, he turned and
compressed his big mouth and stood there upon his two bare feet,
waiting. It was Tom Slade all over--Barrel Alley or No Man's Land--_he
didn't run_.
The slime of the tomato has long since been washed off Pete Connegan's
face and the tomato is forgotten. But the way that Tom Slade stood there
waiting--that meant something. It was worth all the rotten tomatoes in
Schmitt's Grocery, where Tom had "acquired" that particular one.
"Phwat are ye standin' there for?" Pete had roared in righteous fury.
Probably he thought that at least Tom might have paid him that tribute
of respect of fleeing from his wrath.
"'Cause I ain't a goin' ter run, that's why," Tom had said.
Strange to relate, Pete Connegan did not kill him. For a moment he stood
staring at his ragged assailant and then he said, "Be gorry, ye got some
nerve, annyhow."
"If I done a thing I'd see it through, I would; I ain't scared," Tom had
answered.
"If ye'll dance ye'll pay the fiddler, hey?" his victim had asked in
undisguised admiration....
Oh well, it was all a long time ago and the only points worth
remembering about it are that Tom Slade didn't run, that he was ready
to see the thing through no matter if it left him sprawling in the
gutter, and that he and the burly truck driver had thereafter been good
friends. Now Tom was an ex-scout and a returned soldier and Pete was
janitor of the big bank building.
He was sweeping off the walk in front of the bank as Tom passed in.
"Hello, Tommy boy," he said cheerily. "How are ye these days?"
"I'm pretty well," Tom said, in the dull matter-of-fact way that he had,
"only I get mixed up sometimes and sometimes I forget."
"Phwill ye evver fergit how you soaked me with the tomater?" Pete asked,
leaning on his broom.
"It wasn't hard, because I was standing so near," Tom said, always
anxious to belittle his own skill.
"Yer got a mimory twinty miles long," Pete said, by way of discounting
Tom's doubts of himself. "I'm thinkin' ye don't go round with the scout
boys enough."
"I go Friday nights," Tom said.
"Fer why don't ye go up ter Blakeley's?"
"I don't know," Tom said.
"That kid is enough ter make annybody well," Pete said.
"His folks are rich," Tom said.
That was just it. He was an odd number among these boys and he knew it.
Fond of them as he had always been, and proud to be among them, he had
always been different, and he knew it. It was the difference between
Barrel Alley and Terrace Hill. He knew it. It had not counted for so
much when he had been a boy scout with them; good scouts that they were,
they had taken care of that end of it. But, you see, he had gone away a
scout and come back not only a soldier, but a young man, and he could
not (even in his present great need) go to Roy's house, or Grove
Bronson's house, or up to the big Bennett place on just the same
familiar terms as before. They thought he didn't want to when in fact he
didn't know how to.
"Phwen I hurd ye wuz in the war," Pete said, "I says ter meself, I
says, 'that there lad'll make a stand.' I says it ter me ould woman. I
says, says I, 'phwat he starts he'll finish if he has ter clane up the
whole uv France.' That's phwat I said. I says if he makes a bull he'll
turrn the whole wurrld upside down to straighten things out. I got yer
number all roight, Tommy. Get along witcher upstairs and take the advice
of Doctor Pete Connegan--get out amongst them kids more."
I dare say it was good advice, but the trouble was that Lucky Luke was
probably born on a Friday, and there was no straightening _that_ out.
As to whether he would turn the world upside down to straighten out some
little error, perhaps Pete was right there, too. Roy Blakeley had once
said that if Tom dropped his scout badge out of a ten-story window, he'd
jump out after it. Indeed that _would_ have been something like Tom.
Anyway the saying was very much like Roy.
CHAPTER VI
"THE WOODS PROPERTY"
When Tom reached the office he took a few matters in to Mr. Burton.
"Well, how are things coming on?" his superior asked him cheerily.
"Getting back in line, all right? This early spring weather ought to be
a tonic to an old scout like you. Here--here's a reminder of spring and
camping for you. Here's the deed for the woods property at last--a
hundred and ninety acres more for Temple Camp. We'll be as big as New
York pretty soon, when we get some of that timber down, and some new
cabins up.
"I'm glad we got it," Tom said.
"Well, I should hope," Mr. Burton came back at him. "That's off the
Archer farm, you know. Gift from Mr. Temple. Runs right up to the peak
of the hill--see?"
Tom looked at the map of the new Temple Camp property, which almost
doubled the size of the camp and at the deed which showed the latest
generous act of the camp's benevolent founder.
"Next summer, if we have the price, we'll put up a couple of dozen new
cabins on that hill and make a bid for troops from South Africa and
China; what do you say? This should be put in the safe and, let's see,
here are some new applications--Michigan, Virginia--Temple Camp is
getting some reputation in the land."
"I had an application from Ohio yesterday," Tom said; "a three-patrol
troop. I gave them the cabins on the hill. They're a season troop."
Mr. Burton glanced suddenly at Tom, then began whistling and drumming
his fingers on the desk. He seemed on the point of saying something in
this connection, but all he did say was, "You find pleasure and
relaxation in the work, Tom?"
"It's next to camping to be here," Tom said.
"Well, that's what I thought," Mr. Burton said encouragingly. "You must
go slow and take it easy and pretty soon you'll be fit and trim."
"I got to thank you," Tom said with his characteristic blunt simplicity.
"I don't know what we should do in the spring rush without your familiar
knowledge of the camp, Tom," Mr. Burton said.
"I think he thinks more of the office than he does of the scouts,"
Margaret ventured to observe. She was sitting alongside Mr. Burton's
desk awaiting his leisure, and Tom was standing awkwardly close by.
"I suppose it's because they don't grow fast enough," Mr. Burton
laughed; "they can't keep up with him. To my certain knowledge young
Peewee, as they call him, hasn't grown a half an inch in two years. It
isn't because he doesn't eat, either, because I observed him personally
when I visited camp."
"Oh, he eats _terrifically_," Margaret said.
"I like the troop better than anything else," Tom said.
"Well, I guess that's right, Tom," Mr. Burton observed; "old friends are
the best."
He gathered up an armful of papers and handed them to Tom who went about
his duties.
The day was long and the routine work tedious. The typewriter machine
rattled drowsily and continuously on, telling troops here and there that
they could have camp accommodations on this or that date. Tom pored over
the big map, jotting down assignments and stumblingly dictated brief
letters which Miss Ellison's readier skill turned out in improved form.
He was sorry that it was not Friday so that he might go to troop meeting
that night. It was only Tuesday and so there were three long, barren
nights ahead of him, and to him they seemed like twenty nights. All the
next day he worked, making a duplicate of the big map for use at the
camp, but his fingers were not steady and the strain was hard upon his
eyes. He went home (if a hall-room in a boarding house may be called
home) with a splitting headache.
On Wednesday he worked on the map and made the last assignment of tent
accommodations. Temple Camp was booked up for the season. It was going
to be a lively summer up there, evidently. One troop was coming all the
way from Idaho--to see Peewee Harris eat pie, perhaps. I can't think for
what other reason they would have made such a journey.
"And _you_ will live in the pavilion in all your glory, won't you?"
Margaret teased him. "I suppose you'll be very proud to be assistant to
Uncle Jeb. I don't suppose you'll notice poor _me_ if I come up there."
"I'll take you for a row on the lake," Tom said. That was saying a good
deal, for _him_.
On Thursday he sent an order for fifteen thousand wooden plates, which
will give you an idea of how they eat at Temple Camp. He attended to
getting the licenses for the two launches and sent a letter up to old
Uncle Jeb telling him to have a new springboard put up and notifying him
that the woods property now belonged to the camp. It was a long slow day
and a longer, slower night.
Once, and only once, since his return, he had tried the movies. The
picture showed soldiers in the trenches and the jerky scenes and figures
made his eyes ache and set his poor sick nerves on edge. Once he had
_almost_ asked Margaret if he might go over to East Bridgeboro and see
her. He was glad when Friday morning came, and the day passed quickly
and gayly, because of the troop meeting that night. He counted the hours
until eight o'clock.
When at last he set out for the troop room he found that he had
forgotten his scout badge and went back after it. He was particular
always to wear this at meetings, because he wished to emphasize there,
that he was still a scout. He was always forgetting something these
days. It was one of the features of shell-shock. It was like a wound,
only you could not _see_ it....
CHAPTER VII
JUST NONSENSE
How should those scouts know that Tom Slade had been counting the days
and hours, waiting for that Friday night? They were not mind readers.
They knew that Tom Slade, big business man that he was, had much to
occupy him.
And they too, had much to occupy them. For with the coming of Spring
came preparations for the sojourn up to camp where they were wont to
spent the month of August. At Temple Camp troops were ever coming and
going and there were new faces each summer, but the Bridgeboro Troop was
an institution there. It was because of his interest in this troop, and
particularly in Tom's reformation, that Mr. John Temple of Bridgeboro,
had founded the big camp in the Catskills. There was no such thing as
favoritism there, of course, but it was natural enough that these boys,
hailing from Mr. Temple's own town, where the business office of the
camp was maintained, should enjoy a kind of prestige there. Their two
chief exhibits (A and B) that is, Roy Blakeley and Peewee Harris
strengthened this prestige somewhat, and their nonsense and banter were
among the chief features of camp entertainment.
Temple Camp without P. Harris, some one had once said, would be like
mince pie without any mince. And surely Peewee had no use for mince pie
without any mince.
"Oh, look who's here!" Roy Blakeley shouted, as Tom quietly took a seat
on the long bench, which always stood against the wall. "Tomasso, as I
live! I thought you'd be down at the Opera House to-night."
"I don't care thirty cents about the movies," Tom said, soberly.
"You should say thirty-three cents, Tomasso," Roy shot back at him:
"don't forget the three cents war tax."
"Are you going to play that geography game?" Tom asked hopefully.
"Posilutely," said Roy; "we'll start with me. Who discovered America?
Ohio. Correct."
"What?" yelled Peewee.
"Columbus is in Ohio; it's the same thing--only different," said Roy;
"you should worry. How about it, Tomasso?"
Tom was laughing already. It would have done Mr. Burton and Mr.
Ellsworth good to see him.
"We were having a hot argument about the army, before you came in,"
Connie Bennett said. "Peewee claims the infantry is composed of
infants...."
"Sure," Roy vociferated, "just the same as the quartermaster is the man
who has charge of all the twenty-five cent pieces. Am I right, Lucky
Luke? Hear what Lucky Luke says? I'm right. Correct."
"Who's going to boss the meeting to-night?" Doc Carson asked.
"How about you, Tom?" Grove Bronson inquired.
Tom smiled and shook his head. "I just like to watch you," said he.
"It's your job," Doc persisted, "as long as Mr. Ellsworth is away."
There was just the suggestion of an uncomfortable pause, while the
scouts, or most of them, waited. For just a second even Roy became
sober, looking inquiringly at Tom.
"I'd rather just watch you," Tom said, uneasily.
"He doesn't care anything about the scouts any more," Dorry Benton piped
up.
"Since he's a magnet," Peewee shouted.
"You mean a magnate," Doc said.
"What difference does it make what I mean?" the irrepressible Peewee
yelled.
"As long as you don't mean anything," Roy shouted. "Away dull care;
let's get down to business. To-morrow is Saturday, there's no school."
"There's a school, only we don't go to it," Peewee shouted.
"For that take a slap on the wrist and repeat the scout law nineteen
times backward," Roy said. "Who's going to boss this meeting?
"I won't let anybody boss me," Peewee yelled.
Roy vaulted upon the table, while the others crowded about, Tom all the
while laughing silently. This was just what he liked.
"Owing to the absence of our beloved scoutmaster," Roy shouted, "and the
sudden rise in the world of Tomasso Slade, alias Lucky Luke, alias
Sherlock Nobody Holmes, and his unwillingness to run this show, because
he saw General Pershing and is too chesty, I nominate for boss and
vice-boss of this meeting, Blakeley and Harris, with a platform...."
"We don't need any platform," Peewee shouted; "haven't we got the
table?"
"It's better to stand on the table than to stand on ceremonies," Dorry
Benton vociferated.
"Sure, or to stand on our dignity like Tomasso Slade," Westy Martin
shouted.
"Put away your hammer, stop knocking," Doc said. "Are we going to hike
to-morrow or are we going to the city?"
"Answered in the affirmative," Roy said.
"Which are we going to do?" Peewee yelled.
"We are!" shouted Roy.
"Do we go to the city?" Doc asked seriously.
"Posilutely," said Roy; "that's why I'm asking who's boss of this
meeting; so we can take up a collection."
"All right, go ahead and be boss as long as you're up there," Connie
Bennett said, "only don't stand on the cake."
"Don't slip on the icing," Westy shouted.
"I'll slip on your neck if you don't shut up," Roy called. "If I'm boss,
I'd like to have some silence."
"Don't look at me, _I_ haven't got any," Peewee piped up.
"Thou never spak'st a truer word," Westy observed.
"I would like to have a large chunk of silence," said Roy; "enough to
last for at least thirty seconds."
"You'd better ask General Slade," said Doc; "he's the only one that
carries that article around with him."
"How about that, Tommy?" Wig Weigand asked pleasantly.
Tom smiled appreciatively, and seemed on the point of saying something,
but he didn't.
There was one other scout, too, who made a specialty of silence in that
hilarious Bedlam, and that was a gaunt, thin, little fellow with streaky
hair and a pale face, who sat huddled up, apparently enjoying the
banter, laughing with a bashful, silent laugh. He made no noise
whatever, except when occasionally he coughed, and the others seemed
content to let him enjoy himself in his own way. His eyes had a singular
brightness, and when he laughed his white teeth and rather drawn mouth
gave him almost a ghastly appearance. He seemed as much of an odd number
as Tom himself, but not in the same way, for Tom was matter-of-fact and
stolid, and this little gnome of a scout seemed all nerves and repressed
excitement.
"Let's have a chunk of silence, Alf," Roy called to him.
"Go ahead," Doc shouted.
"If there's going to be a collection, let's get it over with," Westy put
in.
Roy, standing on the table, continued:
"SCOUTS AND SCOUTLETS:
"Owing to the high cost of silence, which is as scarce as sugar at these
meetings, I will only detain you a couple of minutes...."
"Don't step on the cake," Doc yelled.
"The object of this meeting is, to vote on whether we'll go into the
city to-morrow and get some stuff we'll need up at camp.
"Artie has got a list of the things we need, and they add up to four
dollars and twenty-two cents. If each fellow chips in a quarter, we'll
have enough. Each fellow that wants to go has to pay his own railroad
fare--Alf is going with me, so he should worry.
"I don't suppose that Marshall Slade will condescend and we should
worry. If we're going up to camp on the first of August, we'll have to
begin getting our stuff together--the sooner the quicker--keep still,
I'm not through. We were all saying how numbers look funny on scout
cabins--five, six, seven. It reminds you too much of school. Uncle Jeb
said it would be a good idea for us to paint the pictures of our patrol
animals on the doors and scratch off the numbers, because the way it is
now, the cabins all look as if they had automobile licenses, and he said
Daniel Boone would drop dead if he saw anything like that--Cabin B 26.
_Good night!_"
"Daniel Boone is already dead!" shouted Peewee.
"Take a demerit and stay after school," Roy continued. "So I vote that
we buy some paint and see if we can't paint the heads of our three
patrol animals on the three cabins. Then we'll feel more like scouts and
not so much like convicts. If we do that, it will be thirty cents each
instead of twenty-five."
Before Roy was through speaking, a scout hat was going around and the
goodly jingle of coins within it, testified to the troops' enthusiasm
for what he had been saying. Tom dropped in three quarters, but no one
noticed that. He seemed abstracted and unusually nervous. The hat was
not passed to little Alfred McCord. Perhaps that was because he was
mascot....
[Illustration: TOM'S HAND CLUNG TO THE BACK OF THE BENCH. Tom Slade at
Black Lake--Page 44]
CHAPTER VIII
FIVE, SIX, AND SEVEN
Then Tom Slade stood up. Any one observing him carefully would have
noticed that his hand which clung to the back of the bench moved
nervously, but otherwise he seemed stolid and dull as usual. For just a
second he breathed almost audibly and bit his lip, then he spoke. They
listened, a kind of balm of soothing silence pervaded the room, because
he spoke so seldom these days. They seemed ready enough to pay him the
tribute of their attention when he really seemed to take an interest.
"I got to tell you something," he said, "and maybe you won't like it.
Those three cabins are already taken by a troop in Ohio."
"Which three?" Westy Martin asked, apparently dumbfounded.
"Oh boy, suppose that was true!" Roy said, amused at the very thought of
such a possibility.
"Which three?" Westy repeated, still apparently in some suspense.
"Tomasso has Westy's goat," Roy laughed.
"Look at the straight face he's keeping," Doc laughed, referring to Tom.
"I might as well tell you the truth," Tom said. "I forget things
sometimes; maybe you don't understand. Maybe it was because I wasn't
here last year--maybe. But I didn't stop to think about those numbers
being your--our--numbers. Now I can remember. I assigned those cabins to
a troop in Ohio. They wanted three that were kind of separate from the
others and--and--I--I didn't remember."
He seemed a pathetic spectacle as he stood there facing them, jerking
his head nervously in the interval of silence and staring amazement that
followed. There was no joking about it and they knew it. It was not in
Tom's nature to "jolly."
"What do you mean, assigned them?" Connie asked, utterly nonplussed.
"You don't mean you gave our three cabins on the hill to another troop?"
"Yes, I did," Tom said weakly; "I remember now. I'm sorry."
For a moment no one spoke, then Dorry Benton said, "Do you mean that?"
"I got to admit I did," Tom said in his simple, blunt way.
"Well I'll be----" Roy began. Then suddenly, "You sober old grave
digger," said he laughing; "you're kidding the life out of us and we
don't know it. Let's see you laugh."
But Tom did not laugh. "I'm sorry, because they were the last three
cabins," he said. "I don't know how I happened to do it. But you've got
no right to misjudge me, you haven't; only yesterday I told Mr. Burton I
liked the troop, you fellows, best----"
Roy Blakeley did not wait for him to finish; he threw the troop book on
the table and stared at Tom in angry amazement. "All right," he said,
"let it go at that. Now we know where you stand. Thanks, we're glad to
know it," he added in a kind of contemptuous disgust. "Ever since you
got back from France I knew you were sick and tired of us--I could see
it. I knew you only came around to please Mr. Ellsworth. I knew you
forgot all about the troop. But I didn't think you'd put one like that
over on us, I'll be hanged if I did! You mean to tell me you didn't know
those three cabins were ours, after we've had them every summer since
the camp started? Mr. Burton will fix it----"
"He can't fix it," Tom said; "not now."
"And I suppose we'll have to take tent space," Connie put in. "Gee
williger, that's one raw deal."
"But _you_ won't have to take tent space, will you?" Roy asked. "You
should worry about _us_--we're nothing but scouts--kids. We didn't go
over to France and fight. We only stayed here and walked our legs off
selling Liberty Bonds to keep you going. Gee whiz, I knew you were sick
and tired of us, but I didn't think you'd hand us one like that."
"Don't get excited, Roy," Doc Carson urged.
"Who's excited?" Roy shouted. "A lot _he_ has to worry about. He'll be
sleeping on his nice metal bed in the pavilion--assistant camp
manager--while we're bunking in tents if we're lucky enough to get any
space. Don't talk to _me_! I could see this coming. I suppose the
scoutmaster of that troop out in Ohio was a friend of his in France. We
should worry. We can go on a hike in August. It's little Alf I'm
thinking of mostly."
It was noticeable that Tom Slade said not a word. With him actions
always spoke louder than words and he had no words to explain his
actions.
"All I've got to say to _you_" said Roy turning suddenly upon him, "is
that as long as you care so much more about scouts out west than you do
about your own troop, you'd better stay away from here--that's all I've
got to say."
"That's what I say, too," said Westy.
"Same here," Connie said; "Jiminies, after all we did for you, to put
one over on us like that; I don't see what you want to come here for
anyway."
"I--I haven't got any other place to go," said Tom with touching
honesty; "it's kind of like a home----"
"Well, there's one other place and that's the street," said Roy. "We
haven't got any place to go either, thanks to you. You're a nice one to
be shouting home sweet home--you are."
With a trembling hand, Tom Slade reached for his hat and fingering it
nervously, paused for just a moment, irresolute.
"I wouldn't stay if I'm not wanted," he said; "I'll say good night."
No one answered him, and he went forth into the night.
He had been put out of the tenement where he had once lived with his
poor mother, he had been put out of school as a young boy, and he had
been put out of the Public Library once; so he was not unaccustomed to
being put out. Down near the station he climbed the steps of Wop Harry's
lunch wagon and had a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then he went
home--if one might call it home....
CHAPTER IX
ROY'S NATURE
Roy Blakeley was a scout of the scouts, and no sooner had he got away
from the atmosphere of resentment and disappointment which pervaded the
troop room, then he began to feel sorry for what he had said. The
picture of Tom picking up his hat and going forth into the night and to
his poor home, lingered in Roy's mind and he lay awake half the night
thinking of it.
He had no explanation of Tom's singular act, except the very plausible
one that Tom had lost his former lively interest in the troop, even so
much as to have forgotten about those three cabins to which they had
always seemed to have a prior right; which had been like home to them in
the summertime.
When you look through green glass everything is green, and now Roy
thought he could remember many little instances of Tom's waning interest
in the troop. Naturally enough, Roy thought, these scout games and
preparations for camping seemed tame enough to one who had gone to
France and fought in the trenches. Tom was older now, not only in years
but in experience, and was it any wonder that his interest in "the kids"
should be less keen?
And Roy was not going to let that break up the friendship. Loyal and
generous as he was, he would not ask himself why Tom had done that
thing; he would not let himself think about it. He and the other scouts
would get ready and go to camp, live in tents there, and have just as
much fun.
So no longer blaming Tom, he now blamed himself, and the thing he blamed
himself for most of all was his angry declaration that Tom was probably
acquainted with the scoutmaster of that fortunate troop in Ohio. He knew
that must have cut Tom, for in his heart he knew Tom's blunt sense of
fairness. Whatever was the cause or reason of Tom's singular act it was
not favoritism, Roy felt sure of that. He would have given anything not
to have said those words. Lukewarm, thoughtless, Tom might be, but he
was not disloyal. It was no new friendship, displacing these old
friendships, which had caused Tom to do what he had done, Roy knew that
well enough.
In the morning, unknown to any of the troop he went early to the bank
building to wait for Tom there, and to tell him that he was sorry for
the way he had spoken.
But everything went wrong that morning, the trails did not cross at the
right places. Probably it was because Lucky Luke was concerned in the
matter. The fact is that it being Saturday, a short and busy day, Tom
had gone very early to the Temple Camp office and was already upstairs
when Roy was waiting patiently down at the main door.
CHAPTER X
TOM RECEIVES A SURPRISE
When Tom reached the office, he found among the Temple Camp letters, one
addressed to him personally. It was postmarked Dansburg, Ohio, and he
opened it with some curiosity, for the former letters in this
correspondence had been addressed to Mr. Burton, as manager. His
curiosity turned to surprise as he read,
DEAR MR. SLADE:
In one of the little circulars of Temple Camp which you sent us,
your name appears as assistant to Mr. Burton in the Temple Camp
office.
I am wondering whether you can be the same Tom Slade who was in the
Motorcycle Corps in France? If so, perhaps you will remember the
soldier who spent the night with you in a shell-hole near Epernay.
Do you remember showing me the Gold Cross and saying that you had
won it while a scout in America? I think you said you had been in
some Jersey Troop.
If you are the same Tom Slade, then congratulations to you for
getting home safely, and I will promise my scouts that they will
have the chance this summer of meeting the gamest boy on the west
front. I suppose you will be up at the camp yourself.
Send me a line and let me know if you're the young fellow whose arm
I bandaged up. I'm thinking the world isn't so big after all.
Best wishes to you,
WILLIAM BARNARD,
Scoutmaster 1st Dansburg Troop, B.S.A.,
Dansburg, Ohio.
Tom could hardly believe his eyes as he read the letter. William
Barnard! He had never known that fellow's name, but he knew that the
soldier who had bandaged his arm (whatever his name was) had saved his
life. Would he ever forget the long night spent in that dank, dark
shell-hole? Would he ever forget that chance companion in peril, who had
nursed him and cheered him all through that endless night? He could
smell the damp earth again and the pungent atmosphere of gunpowder which
permeated the place and almost suffocated him. Directly over the
shell-hole a great British tank had stopped and been deserted, locking
them in as in a dungeon. And when he had recovered from the fumes, he
had heard a voice speaking to him and asking him if he was much hurt.
William Barnard!
And he had given the three cabins on the hill to Scoutmaster Barnard's
troop in Dansburg, Ohio.
No one but Tom had arrived at the office and for just a few moments,
standing there near Miss Ellison's typewriter and with the prosy letter
files about, he was again in France. He could hear the booming of the
great guns again, see the flashes of fire....
He sat down and wrote,
DEAR MR. BARNARD:
I got your letter and I am the same Tom Slade. I was going to ask
you where you lived in America so I could know you some more when we
got back, but when the doctors came to take me away, I didn't see
you anywhere. I had to stay in the hospital three weeks, but it
wasn't on account of my arm, because that wasn't so bad. It was the
shell-shock that was bad--it makes you forget things even after you
get better.
I was sorry early this morning that I gave you those cabins, because
they're the same ones that my own troop always used to have, and it
was a crazy thing for me to forget about that. But now I'm glad,
because I have thought of another scheme. I thought of it while I
was lying in bed last night and couldn't sleep. So now I'm glad you
have those cabins. And you bet I'm glad you wrote to me. It's funny
how things happen.
Maybe you'll remember how I thought I was going to die in that hole,
and you said how we could dig our way out with your helmet, because
if a fellow _has_ to do something he can do it. I'm glad you said
that, because I thought about it last night. And thinking of that
made me decide I would do something.
I would like it if you will write to me again before summer, and you
can send your letters care of Temple Camp, Black Lake.
When you come, you bet I'll be glad to see you.
Your friend,
TOM SLADE.
When Tom had sealed and stamped this letter, he laid the other one on
Miss Margaret Ellison's desk, thinking that she might be interested to
read it.
CHAPTER XI
TOM AND ROY
Anxious that his letter should go as soon as possible, Tom went down in
the elevator and was about to cross the street and post it when he ran
plunk into Roy, who was waiting on the steps.
"Good night, look who's here," Roy said, in his usual friendly tone; "I
might have known that you were upstairs. You've got the early bird
turning green with envy."
"I always come early Saturdays," Tom said.
"I want to tell you that I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you last
night, Tom," Roy spoke up. "I see now that it wasn't so bad. I guess you
have a whole lot to do up in the office, and maybe you just forgot about
how we always had the hill cabins. You can't do _everything_ you want
to do, gee I realize that."
"I can do anything I want to do," Tom said.
Roy looked at him as if he did not quite understand.
"Going back on people isn't the way to square things," Tom said. "You
got to make things right without anybody losing anything. There's always
two ways, only you've got to find the other one."
Roy did not quite understand the drift of his friend's talk, it was not
always easy to follow Tom, and indeed he did not care much what Tom
meant; he just wanted him to know that their friendship had not been
wrecked--could not be wrecked by any freakish act of Tom's.
"I don't care thirty cents what anybody says," Tom said; "I got to be
fair."
"I'm not mad, you old grouch," Roy said, "and you should say sixty
cents, because the price of everything is double. We should worry. I was
waiting here to meet you so as to tell you that I don't know why you
did that and I don't care. People have done crazier things than that, I
should hope. We can bunk in tents, all right. So don't be sore, Tomasso.
I'm sorry I said what I did and I know perfectly well that you just
didn't think. You don't suppose I really meant that I thought you knew
anybody in that troop out in Ohio, do you? I just said it because I was
mad. Gee whiz, I know you wouldn't give anybody the choice before
_us_--before your own fellows. I was mad because I was disappointed. But
now I know how maybe you were all kind of--you know--rattled on account
of being so busy.
"I ain't mad," said Tom, in his dull, stolid way; "I got to go across
the street and mail this letter."
"And you'll come to meeting next Friday night?" Roy asked, anxiously.
"I don't know," Tom said.
"And I'm going to tell the fellows that you assigned five, six, and
seven, to that Ohio troop just because you were thinking about
something else when you did it, and that you didn't know anything more
about those fellows than if they were the man in the moon," Roy paused a
moment. "Did you?" he said conclusively.
"You can tell them whatever you want to," Tom said. "You can tell them
that I didn't know anything about them if you want to. I don't care what
you tell them."
Roy paused, hardly knowing what to say. In talking with Tom one had to
get him right just as a wrestler must get his victim right and Roy knew
that he must watch his step, so to speak.
"You can tell them they won't lose anything," Tom said.
"They'll lose something all right if they lose _you_, Tomasso," Roy
said, with a note of deep feeling in his voice. "But we're not going to
lose you, I can tell you that. They think you have no use for the scouts
any more, because you met so many people in France, and know a lot of
grown-up people."
"Is that what they think?" Tom asked.
They both stepped aside for Margaret Ellison, the Temple Camp
stenographer, to pass in, and spoke pleasantly with her until she had
entered the elevator.
"I don't care what they think," Roy said; "a scout is observant. Can't I
see plain enough that you have your pioneer scout badge on? That shows
you're thinking about the scouts."
"I put it on for a reason," said Tom.
"You bet your life you did," Roy said, "and it shows you're a scout.
Once a scout, always a scout; you can't get away from that, Tomasso."
"Maybe you'll find that out," Tom said, his meaning, as usual, a little
cloudy.
"I don't have to find it out, Tom," Roy said. "Don't you suppose I know
where you stand? Do you think I'll ever forget how you and I hiked
together, and how we camped up on my lawn together, when you first got
to be a scout--do you think I will? I always liked you better than any
fellow, gee whiz, that's sure. And I know you think more of us than you
do of any one else, too. Don't you?"
"I got to go and mail this letter," Tom said.
"First you've got to say that you're for the scouts first, last and
always," said Roy gayly, and standing in his friend's path.
Tom looked straight at him, his eyes glistening.
"Do you have to ask me that?" he said.
And then was when the trails went wrong, and didn't cross right and come
out right. Roy went up in the elevator to get some circulars from Temple
Camp office, and Tom, on his way back from across the street went into
the bank to speak with Mr. Temple's secretary. And the girl spoiled
everything, as Peewee Harris always said that girls are forever doing.
She was in a great hurry to get the cover off her machine and other
matters straightened out, before Mr. Burton came in, so she did not
trouble herself to talk much with Roy. She did, however, think to call
after him just as he was leaving and he heard her words, with a kind of
cold chill, as he stepped into the elevator.
She called to him in her sweetest tone, "Isn't it too funny! A
scoutmaster, named Barnard, from out in Ohio who is going to be up at
camp knew Tom in France. Won't they have a perfectly _scrumptious_
vacation together, talking about old times?"
CHAPTER XII
THE LONG TRAIL
"You can tell them whatever you want to. You _can tell them that I
didn't know anything about them_ if you want to. I don't care what you
tell them." These were the words that rang in Roy Blakeley's mind as he
went down in the elevator, and they made him sick at heart. That Tom had
so much forgotten about the troop, _his_ troop, as to assign their three
cabins to strangers--that Roy could overlook. He could not understand
it, but in his fondness for Tom, he could overlook it, as his talk with
Tom had proved.
But that Tom should lie to him and make him a party to that lie by
authorizing him to repeat it, that he could not forget or forgive. "_You
can tell them that I did not know anything about them if you want to_."
And all the while he, Tom, had known this Barnard, or whatever his name
was, and had fixed things so that he and Barnard might be together at
Temple Camp. Barnard was a grown-up fellow, Roy told himself, and a
soldier, and he didn't exactly blame Tom, but....
And then their trails crossed again, right there at the foot of the
elevator shaft, where Tom was waiting to go up.
Roy's first impulse was to brush past his friend saying nothing, but
when he had all but reached the door he wheeled about and said, "If you
want to hand out any lies to the troop, you'd better do it yourself; I'm
not going to do it for you."
"What?" said Tom, a little startled out of his usual stolid manner.
"Oh, you know what, all right," Roy answered sneeringly. "You thought
I'd never find out, didn't you? You didn't think I'd go up to the
office. You thought you'd get away with it and have me lying to the
troop--the fellows that used to be your friends before you met Barnyard
or whatever you call him. I know who he is, all right. If you wanted to
give him our cabins, him and his troop, why didn't you come and say so?
Gee whiz, we would have been willing to do them a good turn. We've
camped in tents before, if it comes to that."
Tom stood perfectly motionless, with no more expression, either of anger
or sorrow or surprise, than he usually showed. His big, tight set,
resolute mouth was very conspicuous, but Roy did not notice that. The
elevator came down, and the metallic sound of its door opening was
emphasized in the tense silence which followed Roy's tirade.
"Going up," the colored boy said.
The door rolled shut and still Tom Slade stood there, stolid and without
any show of emotion, looking straight at Roy. "I didn't ever tell a
lie--not since I got in with the scouts," he said simply.
"Well, that makes two," said Roy mercilessly; "do you mean to tell me
you don't know what's-his-name--Barnard? Will you stand there and say
you don't know him?"
"I do know him," Tom said; "he saved my life in France."
"And didn't you tell me only ten minutes ago that I could tell the
fellows that you didn't know anything about--about that troop--about him
and his troop? Didn't you? Do you deny that you did? You told me I could
go back and lie to the fellows--you did! If you think I'll do that
you've got another guess, I can tell you that much!"
"I never told you you should lie," said Tom with straightforward
simplicity, "and I admit I forgot about the cabins. I was away two
summers. I had a lot of different things to think about. I got
shell-shocked the very same night I met that fellow, and that's got
something to do with it, maybe. But I wouldn't stand here, I wouldn't,
and try to prove that I didn't tell a lie. If you want to think I did,
go ahead and think so. And if the rest of the troop want to think so,
let them do it. If anybody says I forgot about the scouts, he lies. And
you can tell them they won't lose anything, either; you can tell them I
said so. I ain't changed. Didn't I--didn't I ride my motorcycle all the
way from Paris to the coast--through the floods--didn't I? Do you think
it's going to be hard to make everything right? I--I can do anything--I
can. And I didn't lie, either. You go up to Temple Camp on the first of
August like you--like we--always did; that's all _I_ say."
He was excited now, and his hand trembled, and Roy looked at him a bit
puzzled, but he was neither softened nor convinced. "Didn't you as much
as say you didn't know anything about who made that application--didn't
you?" Roy demanded.
"I said it good and plain and you can go and tell them so, too," Tom
said.
"And you do know this fellow named Barnard, don't you?"
"I know him and he saved my life," Tom said, "and if you----"
"Going up," the colored boy called again.
And the young fellow, scout and soldier, who would not bother to prove
his truthfulness to his old companion and friend, was gone. He had hit
his own trail in his own way, as he usually did; a long devious,
difficult, lonesome trail. The clearly defined trail of the sidewalk
leading to the troop room, where a few words of explanation might have
straightened everything out, was not the trail for Tom Slade, scout. He
would straighten things out another way. He would face this thing, not
run away from it, just as he had set his big resolute mouth and faced
Pete Connigan. They would lose nothing, these boys. Let them think what
they might, they would lose nothing. To be falsely accused, what was
that, provided these boys lost nothing? That was all that counted. What
difference did it make if they thought he had lied and deceived them, so
long as _he_ knew that he had not?
And what a lot of fuss about three cabins! Had he not the power to
straighten out his own mistake in the best possible way--the scout way?
And how was that? By going to Mr. Burton and taking the matter up and
perhaps causing disappointment to those boys out in Ohio, for the sake
of these boys in Bridgeboro? Robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Perhaps Mr. Burton would have done that, under all the circumstances.
Perhaps Mr. John Temple, head of the whole shebang, would have approved
this--under the circumstances. Perhaps the average clerk would have
proposed this; would have suggested hitting this convenient little
trail, about as short and prosy as a back alley. All you need on that
trail is a typewriter machine. Perhaps Tom Slade was not a good clerk.
His way out of the difficulty was a longer and more circuitous way. But
it was the scout way. He was a scout and he hit the long trail.
CHAPTER XIII
ROY'S TRAIL
As for Roy, he went home feeling heavy of heart, but he was not sorry
for what he had said. He had known that Tom had been slipping away from
the troop and that his interest in the old associations had waned ever
since his return from France. But that Tom should have lied to him and
that he should use Temple Camp and that old beloved spot up on the hill
for new friends, deliberately giving them precedence over these
companions of his real scouting days--_that_ Roy could not stand. And he
told himself that he was through with Tom, even as Tom was through with
the troop.
The trail of Roy and his friends is short and easy to follow, and it is
not the main trail of this story. It took them into the city where they
bought a tent, (not a very large one, for they could not get together
much money), but big enough to bunk in and enable them to spend their
vacation at the beloved, familiar spot. He said that "he should worry
about that fellow Barnard," and that he guessed Tom's fondness for that
individual was like Peewee's fondness for mince pie--a case of love at
first bite. But did he forget about Tom, and miss him at the meetings?
We shall have to guess as to that. Tom was seldom mentioned, at all
events. The first member of the Bridgeboro troop to outgrow his
companions and turn his thoughts to new friends and associates had
broken away from the hallowed circle and deserted them, and repudiated
them with a lie on his lips; that was what the scouts said, or at least,
thought. They had seen it coming, but it had hurt just the same.
And so the days went by, and the breath of Spring grew heavier in the
air, and the dandelions sprang up in the field down by the river, and
tree blossoms littered the sidewalks, and the frogs began croaking in
the marshes. When the frogs begin croaking it is time to think of camp.
But Tom Slade, late of the scouts, was ahead of the dandelions and the
blossoms and the frogs, for on that very day of his talk with Roy, and
while the three patrols were off on their shopping bee in the city, he
went into Mr. Burton's private office and asked if he might talk to him
about an idea he had.
"Surest thing you know, Tommy," said his superior cheerily. "You want to
go to the North Pole now?"
For Mr. Burton knew Tom of old.
CHAPTER XIV
THE REALLY HARD PART
"Maybe you'll remember how you said this would just be a kind of an
experiment, my starting to work again in the office, and maybe it would
turn out to be better for me to go away in the country," said Tom.
"Yes sir," said Mr. Burton, with prompt good nature intended to put Tom
at his ease.
"I was wondering if maybe you could keep a secret," Tom said.
"Well, I could make a stab at it," Mr. Burton said, laughing.
"Do you think Margaret could?" Tom asked.
"Oh, I dare say, but you know how girls are. What's the trouble?"
"I want to go away," Tom said; "I can't do things right and I want to go
away. I'm all the time forgetting."
"I think you're doing fine," said Mr. Burton.
"I want to go up to Temple Camp until I feel better," Tom said.
Mr. Burton scrutinized him shrewdly and pursed up his lips and said,
"Don't feel first rate, eh?"
"I get rattled awful easy and I don't remember things," Tom said. "I
want to go up to camp and stay all alone with Uncle Jeb, like you said I
could if I wanted to."
Again Mr. Burton studied him thoughtfully, a little fearfully perhaps,
and then he said, "Well, I think perhaps that would be a very good
thing, Tom. You remember that's what I thought in the first place. You
made your own choice. How about the secret?"
"It isn't anything much, only I thought of something to do while I'm up
there. I got to square myself. I gave the troop cabins to a troop out
west----"
"Well, I was wondering about that, my boy; but I didn't want to say
anything. You'll have Roy and Peewee and those other gladiators sitting
on your neck, aren't you afraid?"
"They got no use for me now," Tom said.
"Oh, nonsense. We'll straighten that out. You send a letter----"
"The scoutmaster of that troop out west is a friend of mine," said Tom,
"but I never knew it until this morning, when I got a letter from him.
They think I did it because I knew it was him all the time and liked him
better, but I don't care what they think as long as nobody loses
anything; that's all I care about. So if you'd be willing," he continued
in his dull, matter-of-fact way, as if he were asking permission to go
across the street, "I'd like to go up and stay at Temple Camp before the
season opens and fell some of those trees on the new woods property and
put up three cabins on the hill for Roy and the troop to use when they
get there. I wouldn't want anybody to know I'm doing it."
"What?" said Mr. Burton.
"I want to go up there and stay and put up three cabins," said Tom
dully.
"Humph," said Mr. Burton, sitting back and surveying him with amused and
frank surprise. "How about the difficulties?"
"That's the only thing," Tom said; "I was thinking it all over, and the
only difficulty I can think about is, would Margaret keep it a secret
until the work is done, and you too. They think I'm not a scout any
more, and I'm going to show them. If you think I can't do it, you ask
Pete, the janitor. And if I straighten things out that way nobody'll get
left, see? The hard part is really _your_ part--keeping still and making
her keep still."
"I see," said Mr. Burton, contemplating the stolid, almost
expressionless face of Tom, and trying not to laugh outright.
"My part is easy," said Tom.
CHAPTER XV
A LETTER FROM BARNARD
When Tom reached Temple Camp he found a letter awaiting him there. It
was stuck up among the antlers of Uncle Jeb's moose head which hung in
the old camp manager's cabin. He found Uncle Jeb alone in his glory, and
mighty glad to see him.
It was characteristic of the old western scout and trapper whom Mr.
Temple had brought from Arizona, that he was never surprised at
anything. If a grizzly bear had wandered into camp it would not have
ruffled him in the least. He would have surveyed it with calm, shrewd
deliberation, taken his corncob pipe out of his mouth, knocked the ashes
out of it, and proceeded to business. If the grizzly bear had been one
of the large fraternity who believe in "safety first" he would have
withdrawn immediately upon the ominous sound of old Uncle Jeb's pipe
knocking against the nearest hard substance. Uncle Jeb, like Uncle Sam,
moved slowly but very surely.
It was not altogether uncommon for some nature loving pilgrim to drop in
at camp out of season, and such a one was always sure of that easy-going
western welcome. But if all the kings and emperors in the world (or such
few of them as are left) had dropped in at camp, Uncle Jeb Rushmore
would have eyed them keenly, puffed some awful smoke at them, and said,
"Haow doo." He liked people, but he did not depend on them. The lake and
the trees and the wild life talked to him, and as for human beings, he
was always glad of their company.
It was also characteristic of Uncle Jeb that no adventurous enterprise,
no foolhardy, daredevil scheme, ever caused him any astonishment. Mr.
Burton, engrossed in a hundred and one matters of detail and routine had
simply laughed at Tom's plan, and let him go to Temple Camp to discover
its absurdity, and then benefit by the quiet life and fresh air. It
would have been better if Tom had been sent up there long before. He had
humored him by promising not to tell, and he was glad that this crazy
notion about the cabins had given Tom the incentive to go. He had
believed that Tom's unfortunate error could be made right by the
romantic expedient of a postage stamp. Mr. Burton was not a scout. And
Tom Slade was the queerest of all scouts.
So now Uncle Jeb removed his pipe from his mouth, and said, "Reckoned
you'd make a trip up, hey?"
"I'm going to stay here alone with you until the season opens," Tom
said; "I got shell-shocked. I ain't any good down there. I assigned our
three cabins to a troop in Ohio. So I got to build three more and have
'em ready by August first. I'm going to build them on the hill."
"Yer ain't cal'latin' on trimming yer timbers much are yer?" Uncle Jeb
asked, going straight to the practical aspects of Tom's plan.
"I'm going to put them up just like the temporary cabins were when the
camp first opened," Tom said.
"Ye'll find some of them same logs under the pavilion," Uncle Jeb said;
"enough for two cabins, mebbe. Why doan't you put up four and let that
Peewee kid hev one all by hisself?"
"Do you think I can do it in six weeks?" Tom asked.
"I've seed a Injun stockade throwed up in three days," Uncle Jeb
answered. "Me'n General Custer throwed up Fort Bendy in two nights; that
wuz in Montanny. Th' Injuns thought we wuz gods from heaven. But we
wuzn't no gods, as I told the general; leastways _I_ was'n, n'never wuz.
But I had a sharp axe.
"I knew I could do it," Tom said, "but I wanted it to be a stunt, as you
might say."
"'Tain't no stunt," Uncle Jeb said. "Who's writin' yer from out in Ohio?
I see the postmark. 'Tain't them kids from out Dayton way, I hope?"
Tom opened the letter and read aloud:
DEAR TOM:
When I save a fellow's life I claim the right to call him by his
first name, even if I've never seen him. If anybody ever tells me
again that the world is a big place, I'll tell them it's about the
size of a shell-hole, no bigger, and that's small enough, as you and
I know. All I can say is, "Well, well!" And you're the same Thomas
Slade!
And the funny part of it is, we wouldn't know each other if we met
in the street. That's because we met in a shell-hole. I tried to
hunt you up along the line, made inquiries in the hospital at
Rheims, and tried to get a line on you from the Red Cross and
Y.M.C.A. Nothing doing. Somebody told me you were in the Flying
Corps. I guess I must have fainted while they were taking you away.
Anyway, when I woke up I was in a dressing station, trying to get my
breath. I asked what became of you and nobody seemed to know. One
said you were in the Messenger Service. When I left France I didn't
even know you were alive.
And now you turn up in Temple Camp office and tell me to write you
at Temple Camp. What are you doing up there before the season opens,
anyway? I bet you're there for your health.
Do you know what I'm thinking of doing? I'm thinking of making a
trip to camp and looking over our dug-outs and seeing what kind of a
place you have, before I bring my scouts. How would that strike you?
I've got three patrols and take it from me, they're a bigger job
than winning the war. They're all crazy for August first to arrive.
Well, Tommy old boy, I'm glad I've met you at last. I have a hunch
you're kind of tall, with gray eyes and curly hair. Am I right? I'm
about medium height and very handsome. Hair red--to suggest the
camp-fire.
I don't know whether my scouts will let me off for a week or two,
but my boss wants me to take a good rest before I knuckle down to
work. I'm off for August anyway. Don't expect me before that, but if
I should show up on a surprise raid, don't drop dead. I may go over
the top some fine day and drop in on you like a hand grenade. Are
you there all alone?
Write me again and let's get acquainted. I'd send you a photo, only
I gave my girl the last one I had.
So long,
BILLY BARNARD,
Scoutmaster.
CHAPTER XVI
THE EPISODE IN FRANCE
Uncle Jeb smoked his pipe leisurely, listening to this letter. "Kind of
a comic, hey?" he said. "I reckon ye'd like to hev 'em come. Hain't
never seed each other, hey?"
Tom was silent. The letter meant more to him than Uncle Jeb imagined. It
touched one of the springs of his simple, stolid nature, and his eyes
glistened as he glanced over it again, drinking in its genial, friendly,
familiar tone. So he had at least one friend after all. Cut of all that
turmoil of war, with its dangers and sufferings, had come at least one
friend. The bursting of that shell which had seemed to shake the earth,
and which had shattered his nerves and lost him Roy and all those
treasured friends and comrades of his boyhood, had at least brought him
one true friend. He had never felt the need of a friend more than at
that very moment. The cheery letter seemed for the moment, to wipe out
the memory of Roy's last words to him, that he was a liar. And it
aroused his memories of France.
"Maybe you might like to hear about it," he said to Uncle Jeb, in his
simple way. "Kind of, now it makes me think about France. I wouldn't
blame the scouts for not having any use for me--I wouldn't blame
Roy--but anyway, it was that shell that did it. If you say so I'll start
a camp-fire. That's what always makes me think about the
scouts--camp-fire. Maybe you'll say I was to blame. Anyway, they won't
lose anything. And when they come I'll go back home, if they want me to.
That's only fair. Anyway, I like Temple Camp best of all."
"Kinder like home, Tommy," Uncle Jeb said.
The sun was going down beyond the hills across the lake and flickering
up the water and casting a crimson glow upon the wooded summits. The
empty cabins, and the boarded-up cooking shack, shone clear and sharp
in the gathering twilight. High above, a great bird soared through the
dusk, hastening to its home in the mountains, where Silver Fox trail
wound its way up through the fastness, and where Tom and Roy had often
gone. And the memory of all these fond associations gripped Tom now, and
he had to tighten his big ugly mouth to keep it from showing any tremor
of weakness.
"Maybe it won't be as easy as Uncle Jeb thinks," he said to himself,
"but anyway, I'll be here and I won't be interfering with them, and I'll
get the cabins finished and I'll go away before they come. They'll have
to like Billy Barnard, that's sure; and maybe he'll tell them about my
not knowing who he was until after I gave them the cabins. They'll all
be on the hill together and they'll have to be friends...."
Yes, they would all be on the hill together, save one, and they would be
friends and there would be some great times. They would all hike up the
mountain trail, all save one, and see Devil's Pool up there. Tom hoped
that Roy would surely show Barnard and his troop that interesting
discovery which he and Roy had made. The hard part was already attended
to--making Margaret and Mr. Burton keep still. And, as usual, Lucky
Luke's part was the easiest part of all--just building three cabins and
going away. It was a cinch.
"Shall I build a camp-fire?" he asked of Uncle Jeb.
And so, in the waning twilight, Tom Slade, liar and forgetter of his
friends, built a camp-fire, on this first night of his lonely sojourn at
Temple Camp. And he and Uncle Jeb sat by it as the night drew on apace,
and it aroused fond memories in Tom, as only a camp-fire has the magic
to do, and stilled his jangling nerves and made him happy.
"In about a month there'll be a hundred fellows sitting around one like
this," he said.
"En that Peewee kid'll be trying to defend hisself agin Roay's
nonsense," Uncle Jeb remarked.
"I ain't going to stay to be assistant camp manager this season," Tom
said; "I'm going back to work. I'm having my vacation now. I kind of
like being alone with you."
"What is them shell-holes?" Uncle Jeb asked. "Yer got catched into one,
huh?"
And then, for the first time since Tom had returned from France, he was
moved to tell the episode which he had never told the scouts, and which
he had always recalled with agitation and horror. Perhaps the camp-fire
and Uncle Jeb's quiet friendliness lulled him to repose and made him
reminiscent. Perhaps it was the letter from Barnard.
"That's how I got shell-shocked," he repeated. "When you get
shell-shocked it doesn't show like a wound. There's a place named
Veronnes in France. A German airman fell near there. It was pretty near
dark and it was raining, but anyhow I could just see him fall. I could
see him falling down through the dark, like. I was on my way back to the
billets for relief. I had to go through a marsh to get to that place
where he fell. I thought I'd sink, but I didn't.
"When I got there I saw his machine was all crumbled up, and he was all
mixed up with the wires and he was dead. I was going to give him first
aid if he wasn't. But anyway, he was dead. So then I searched him and he
had a lot of papers. Some of them were maps. I knew it wouldn't be any
use to take them to billets, because the wires were all down on account
of the rain. So I started through the marshes to get into the road to
Rheims. Those marshes are worse than the ones we have here. Sometimes I
had to swim. It took me two hours, I guess. Anyway, if you _have_ to do
a thing you can do it.
"When I got to the road it was easy. I knew that road went to Rheims
because when I was in the Motorcycle Service I knew all the roads.
Pretty soon I got to a place where a road crossed it and there were some
soldiers coming along that road. I kept still and let them pass by and
they didn't see me. I knew there were more coming and I could hear the
sound of tanks coming, too. Maybe they were coming back from an attack.
"All of a sudden everything seemed bright and I saw a fellow right close
to me and then there was a noise that made my ears ring and dirt flew in
my face and I heard that fellow yell. As soon as I took a couple more
steps I stumbled and fell into a place that was hot--the earth was hot,
just like an oven. That was a new shell-hole I was in.
"I just lay there and my arm hurt and my ears buzzed and there was a
funny kind of a pain in the back of my neck. That's how shell-shock
begins. I heard that fellow say, 'Are you all right?' I couldn't speak
because my throat was all trembling, like. But I could feel my sleeve
was all wet and my arm throbbed. I heard him say, 'We must have had our
fingers crossed.' Because you know how kids cross their fingers when
they're playing tag, so no one can tag them? The way he says things in
this letter sounds just like the way he said. He's happy-go-lucky, that
fellow, I guess.
"There was a piece of the shell in there and it was red hot and by that
he saw my arm was hurt, and he bandaged it with his shirt. He saw my
scout badge that I wore and he asked me my name. That's all he knows
about me. Pretty soon something that made a lot of noise moved right
over the hole and I guess it got stuck there. He said it must be a tank
that got kind of caught there. Pretty soon I could hardly breathe, but I
could hear him hollering and banging with a stone or something up
against that thing. I heard him say we could dig our way out with his
helmet. Pretty soon I didn't know anything.
"The next thing I knew there was fresh air and people were carrying
me on a stretcher. When I tried to call for that fellow it made me
sob--that's the way it is when you're shell-shocked. You wring your
hands, too. Even--even--now--if I hear a noise----"
Tom Slade broke down, and began wringing his hands, and his face which
shone in the firelight was one of abject terror. And in another moment
he was crying like a baby.
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE LONG TRAIL
That night he bunked in Uncle Jeb's cabin, and slept as he had not slept
in many a night. In the morning his stolid, stoical nature reasserted
itself, and he set about his task with dogged determination. Uncle Jeb
watched him keenly and a little puzzled, and helped him some, but Tom
seemed to prefer to work alone. The old man knew nothing of that
frightful malady of the great war; his own calm, keen eyes bespoke a
disciplined and iron nerve. But his kindly instinct told him to make no
further reference to the war, and so Tom found in him a helpful and
sympathetic companion. Here at last, so it seemed, was the medicine that
poor Tom needed, and he looked forward to their meals, and the quiet
chats beside their lonely camp-fire, with ever-growing pleasure and
solace.
He hauled out from under the porch of the main pavilion the logs which
had been saved from the fire that had all but devastated the camp during
its first season, and saved himself much labor thereby. These he wheeled
up the hill one by one in a wheelbarrow. There were enough of these logs
to make one cabin, all but the roof, and part of another one.
When Tom had got out the scout pioneer badge which Roy had noticed on
him, it had been by way of defying time and hardship and proclaiming his
faith in himself and his indomitable power of accomplishment. As the
work progressed it became a sort of mania with him; he was engrossed in
it, he lived in it and for it. He would right his wrong to the troop by
scout methods if he tore down the whole forest and killed himself. That
was Tom Slade.
Up on the new woods property, which included the side of the hill away
from the camp, he felled such trees as he needed, hauling them up to the
summit by means of a block and falls, where he trimmed them and notched
them, and rolled or pried them up into place. At times whole days would
be spent on that further slope of the hillside and Uncle Jeb, busy with
preparations for the first arrivals, could not see him at all, only hear
the sound of his axe, and sometimes the pulleys creaking. He did not go
down into camp for lunch as a rule, and spent but a few minutes eating
the snack which he had brought with him.
At last there came a day when five cabins stood upon that isolated
hilltop which overlooked the main body of the camp, and Tom Slade,
leaning upon his axe like Daniel Boone, could look down over the more
closely built area, with its more or less straight rows of cabins and
shacks, and its modern pavilion. Five cabins where there had been only
three. They made a pleasant, secluded little community up there, far
removed from the hustle and bustle of camp life. "No wonder they like it
up here," he mused; "the camp is getting to be sort of like a village.
They'll have a lot of fun up here, those two troops, and it's a kind of
a good turn how I bring them together. Nobody loses anything, this way."
True--nobody but Tom Slade. His hands were covered with blisters so that
he must wind his handkerchief around one of them to ease the chafing of
the axe handle. His hair was streaky and dishevelled and needed cutting,
so that he looked not unlike one of those hardy pioneers of old. And
now, with some of the rough material for the last cabin strewn about him
and with but two weeks in which to finish the work, he was confronted
with a new handicap. The old pain caused by the wound in his arm
returned, and the crippled muscles rebelled against this excessive
usage. Well, that was just a little obstacle in the long trail; he would
put the burden on the other arm. "I'm glad I got two," he said.
He tried to calculate the remainder of the work in relation to the time
he had to do it. For of one thing he was resolved, and that was to be
finished and gone before those two troops arrived, the troop from the
west and his own troop from Bridgeboro. They were to find these six
cabins waiting for them. Everything would be all right....
He mopped his brow off, and rewound the handkerchief about his sore
hand. The fingers smarted and tingled and he wriggled them to obtain a
little relief from their cramped condition. He buttoned up his flannel
shirt which he always left wide open when he worked, and laid his axe
away in one of the old familiar cabins. It chanced to be one in which he
and Roy had cut their initials, and he paused a moment and glanced
wistfully at their boyish handiwork. Then he went down.
As he passed through Temple Lane he saw that Uncle Jeb had been busy
taking down the board shutters from the main pavilion--ominous reminder
of the fast approaching season. Soon scouts would be tumbling all over
each other hereabouts. The springboard had been put in place at the
lake's edge, too, and a couple of freshly painted rowboats were bobbing
at the float, looking spick and glossy in the dying sunlight. Temple
Camp was beginning to look natural and familiar.
"I reckon it'll be a lively season," Uncle Jeb said, glancing about
after his own strenuous day's work. "Last summer most of the scouts was
busy with war gardens and war work and 'twas a kind of off season as you
might say. I cal'late they'll come in herds like buffaloes this summer."
"Every cabin is booked until Columbus Day," Tom said; "and all the tent
space is assigned."
"Yer reckon to finish by August first?" Uncle Jeb asked.
"I'd like to finish before anybody comes," Tom said; "but I guess I
can't do that. I'll get away before August first, that's sure. You have
to be sure to see that 5, 6 and 7 go to my troop, and the new ones to
the troop from Ohio. You can tell them it's a kind of a surprise if you
want to. You don't need to tell 'em who did it. It's nice up there on
that hill. It's a kind of a camp all by itself. Do you remember that
woodchuck skin you gave Roy? It's hanging up there in the Silver Fox's
cabin now."
"What's the matter with your hand?" Uncle Jeb inquired.
"It's just blistered and it tingles," Tom said. "It's from holding the
axe."
CHAPTER XVIII
TOM LETS THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG
While they were having supper in Uncle Jeb's cabin, Tom hauled out of
his trousers pocket a couple of very much folded and gather crumbled
pieces of paper.
"Will you keep them for me?" he asked. "They're Liberty Bonds. They get
all sweaty and crumpled in my pocket. They're worth a hundred dollars."
Mr. Burton had more than once suggested that Tom keep these precious
mementos of his patriotism in the safe, but there was no place in all
the world in which Tom had such abiding faith as his trouser side
pockets, and he had never been able to appreciate the inappropriateness
of the singular receptacle for such important documents. There, at
least, he could feel them, and the magic feel of these badges of his
wealth was better than lock and key.
"Keep them for me until I go away," he said.
Uncle Jeb straightened them out and placed them in his tin strong box.
"Yer ain't thinkin' uv stayin' on, then?" he queried.
"Not after I'm finished," Tom said.
"Mayn't change yer mind, huh?"
"I never change my mind," Tom said.
"I wuz thinkin' haow yer'd be lendin' me a hand," Uncle Jeb ventured.
"I'm going back to work," Tom said; "I had my vacation."
"'Tain't exactly much of a vacation."
"I feel better," Tom said.
Uncle Jeb understood Tom pretty well, and he did not try to argue with
him.
"Be kinder lonesome back home in Bridgebory, huh? With all the boys up
here?" he ventured.
"I'm going to buy a motor-boat," Tom confided to him, "and go out on the
river a lot. A fellow I know will sell his for a hundred dollars. I'm
going to buy it."
"Goin' ter go out in it all alone?"
"Maybe. I spent a lot of time alone. There's a girl I know that works in
the office. Maybe she'll go out in it. Do you think she will?"
"Golly, it's hard sayin' what them critters'll do," Uncle Jeb said.
"Take a she bear; you never can tell if she'll run for you or away from
you."
Tom seemed to ponder on this shrewd observation.
"Best thing is ter stay up here whar yer sure yer welcome," the old man
took occasion to advise him.
"One thing I'm sorry about," Tom said, "and that is that Barnard didn't
come. I guess I won't see him."
"He might come yet," Uncle Jeb said; "and he could give yer a hand."
"I'd let him," Tom said, "'cause I'm scared maybe I won't get finished
now."
"I'm comin' up ter give yer a hand myself to-morrer," Uncle Jeb said,
"and we'll see some chips fly, I reckon. Let's get the fire started."
Uncle Jeb was conscious of a little twinge of remorse that he had not
helped his lonely visitor more, but his own duties had taken much of his
time lately. He realized now the difficulties that Tom had encountered
and surmounted, and he noticed with genuine sympathy that that dogged
bulldog nature was beginning to be haunted with fears of not finishing
the work in time.
Moreover, in that little talk, Tom had revealed, unwittingly, the two
dominant thoughts that were in his mind. One was the hope, the anxiety,
never expressed until now, that Barnard would come, and perhaps help
him. He had been thinking of this and silently counting on it.
The other was his plan for buying a motor-boat, with his hundred or some
odd precious dollars, and spending his lonely spare time in it, for the
balance of the summer, back in Bridgeboro. He was going to ask a girl he
knew, the _only_ girl he knew, to go out in it. And he was doubtful
whether she would go.
These, then, were his two big enterprises--finishing the third cabin and
taking "that girl" out in the motor-boat which he would buy with his two
Liberty Bonds. And away down deep in his heart he was haunted by doubts
as to both enterprises. Perhaps he would not succeed. He still had his
strong left arm, so far as the last cabin was concerned, and he could
work until he fell in his tracks. But the girl was a new kind of an
enterprise for poor Tom.
His plan went further than he had allowed any one to know.
Uncle Jeb, shrewd and gentle as he was saw all this and resolved that
Tom's plans, crazy or not, should not go awry. He would do a little
chopping and log hauling up on that hill next day. Old Uncle Jeb never
missed his aim and when he fixed his eye on the target of August first,
it meant business.
Then, the next morning, he was summoned by telegram to meet Mr. John
Temple in New York and discuss plans for the woods property.
So there you are again--Lucky Luke.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SPECTRE OF DEFEAT
So Tom worked on alone. He made his headquarters on the hill now, seldom
going down into the main body of the camp, and worked each day from
sunrise until it was too dark to see. Then he would build himself a
camp-fire and cook his simple meal of beans and coffee and toasted
crackers, and turn in early.
Every log for this last cabin had to be felled and trimmed of its
branches, and hauled singly up the hillside by means of the rope and
pulleys. Then it had to be notched and rolled into place, which was not
easy after the structure was two or three tiers high.
Building a log cabin is essentially a work for two. The logs which
flanked the doorway and the window had to be cut to special lengths.
The rough casings he made at night, after the more strenuous work of the
day was done, and this labor he performed by the light of a single
railroad lantern. The work of building the first two cabins had been
largely that of fitting together timbers already cut, and adjusting old
broken casings, but he was now in the midst of such a task as confronted
the indomitable woodsmen of old and he strove on with dogged
perseverance. Often, after a day's work which left him utterly exhausted
and throbbing in every muscle, he saw only one more log in place, as the
result of his laborious striving.
Thus a week passed, and almost two, and Jeb Rushmore did not return, and
Tom knew that the next Saturday would bring the first arrivals. Not that
he cared so much for that, but he did not see his way clear to finishing
his task by the first of August, and the consciousness of impending
defeat weighed heavily upon him. He must not be caught there with his
saw and axe by the scouts who had repudiated him and who believed him a
deserter and a liar.
He now worked late into the night; the straining of the taut ropes and
the creaking of the pulleys might have been heard at the lake's edge as
he applied the multiple power of leverage against some stubborn log and
hauled it up the slope. Then he would notch and trim it, and in the
morning, when his lame and throbbing arm was rested and his shoulder
less sore after its night's respite, he would lift one end of it and
then the other on his shoulder and so, with many unavailing trials
finally get it lodged in place. He could not get comfortable when he
slept at night, because of his sore shoulders. They tormented him with a
kind of smarting anguish. And still Uncle Jeb did not return.
At last, one night, that indomitable spirit which had refused to
recognize his ebbing strength, showed signs of giving way. He had been
trying to raise a log into place and its pressure on his bruised
shoulder caused him excruciating pain. He got his sleeping blanket out
of the cabin which he occupied and laid it, folded, on his shoulder, but
his weary frame gave way under the burden and he staggered and fell.
When he was able to pull himself together, he gathered a few shavings
and built a little pyramid of sticks over them, and piling some larger
pieces close by, kindled a blaze, then spreading his blanket on the
ground, sat down and watched the mounting tongues of flame. Every bone
in his body ached. He was too tired to eat, even to sleep; and he could
find no comfort in the cabin bunk. Here, at least, were cheerfulness and
warmth. He drew as close to the fire as was safe, for he fancied that
the heat soothed the pain in his arm and shoulders. And the cheerful
crackling of the blaze made the fire seem like a companion....
And then a strange thing happened.
CHAPTER XX
THE FRIEND IN NEED
Standing on the opposite side of the fire was a young fellow of about
his own age, panting audibly, and smiling at him with an exceedingly
companionable smile. In the light of the fire, Tom could see that his
curly hair was so red that a brick would have seemed blue by comparison,
and the freckles were as thick upon his pleasant face as stars in the
quiet sky. Moreover, his eyes sparkled with a kind of dancing
recklessness, and there was a winning familiarity about him that took
even stolid Tom quite by storm.
The stranger wore a plaid cap and a mackinaw jacket, the fuzzy texture
of which was liberally besprinkled with burrs, which he was plucking off
one by one, and throwing into the fire in great good humor.
"I'm a human bramble bush," he said; "a few more of them and I'd be a
nutmeg grater. I'm not conceited but I'm stuck up."
"I didn't see you until just this minute," Tom said; "or hear you
either. I guess you didn't come by the road. I guess you must have come
by the woods trail to get all those burrs on you."
For just a moment the stranger seemed a trifle taken aback, but he
quickly regained his composure and said, "I came in through the stage
entrance, I guess. I can see you're an A-1 scout, good at observing and
deducing and all that. I bet you can't guess who I am."
"I bet I can," said Tom, soberly accepting the challenge; "you're
William Barnard. And I'm glad you're here, too."
"Right the first time," said the stranger. "And you're Thomas Slade. At
last we have met, as the villain says in the movies. You all alone?
Here, let's get a squint at your mug," he added, sitting on the blanket
and holding Tom's chin up so as to obtain a good view of his face.
Tom's wonted soberness dissolved under this familiar, friendly
treatment, and he said with characteristic blunt frankness, "I'm glad
you came. You're just like I thought you were. I hoped all the time that
you'd come."
"_Get out!_" said Barnard, giving him a bantering push and laughing
merrily. "I bet you never gave me a thought. Well, here I am, as large
as life, larger in fact, and now that I'm here, what are you going to do
with me? What's that; a light?" he added, glancing suddenly down to the
main body of the camp.
"It's just the reflection of this fire in the lake," Tom said; "there
isn't anybody but me in camp now. The season is late starting. I guess
troops will start coming Saturday."
"Yes?" said his companion, rather interested, apparently. "Well, I don't
suppose they'll bother us much if we stick up here. What are you doing,
building a city? The last time we met was in a hole in the ground, hey?
Buried alive; you remember that? Little old France!"
"I don't want to talk about that," Tom said; "when I told Uncle Jeb
about it, it made me have a headache afterwards. I don't want to think
about that any more. But I'm mighty glad to see you, and I hope you'll
stay. It seems funny, kind of, doesn't it?"
Prompt to avail himself of Tom's apparent invitation to friendly
intercourse, his companion lay flat on his back, clasped his hands over
his head and said, "As funny as a circus. So here we are again, met once
more like Stanley and Livingstone in South Africa. And do you know, you
look just like I thought you'd look. I said to myself that Tom Slade has
a big mouth--determined."
"I never thought how you'd look," Tom said soberly; "but I said you were
happy-go-lucky, and I guess you are. I bet your scouts like you. Can you
stay until they come?"
"They're a pack of wild Indians, but they think I'm the only baby in the
cradle."
"I guess they're right," Tom said.
"So you're all alone in camp, hey? And making your headquarters up here?
Nice and cosy, hey? Remote and secluded, eh? That's the stuff for me. I
tell my scouts, 'Keep away from civilization.' The further back you get
the better. Guess they won't bother you up here much, hey? Regular
hermit's den. No, I'm just on a flying visit, that's all. Came to New
York on biz, and thought I'd run up and give the place the once over. I
might loaf around a week or two if you'll let me. Suppose I _could_ stay
until the kids get here, if it comes to that; _my_ kids, I mean. After
all it would be just a case of beating it back to Ohio and then beating
it back here with them."
"You might as well stay here now you're here; I hope you will," Tom
said. "As long as you're here I might as well tell you why _I'm_ here,
all alone."
"Health?"
"Kind of, but not exactly," Tom said. "These three cabins, the old
ones--that one, and that one, and that one," he added, pointing, "are
the ones my troop always had. But I forgot all about it and gave them to
your troop. That got them sore at me. Maybe I could have fixed it for
them, but that would have left you fellows without any cabins, because
all the cabins down below are taken for August. So I came up here to
build three more; that way, nobody'll get left. They don't know I'm
doing it. I only got about two weeks now. I guess I can't finish because
my arm is lame, on account of that wound--_you_ know. And my shoulder is
sore. I wanted to go away before they come--I got reasons."
His companion raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands
over his knees, and glanced about at the disordered scene which shone in
the firelight. "So that's what you've been up to, hey?" he said.
"When I told you in my letter to address your letters here, that's what
I was thinking about," Tom said. "Your troop and my--that other--troop
will be good friends, I guess. I'm going home when I get through and
I'm going to buy a motor-boat."
"Well--I'll--be--jiggered!" his friend said. "Thomas Slade, you're an
old hickory-nut."
"It was just like two trails," Tom said, "and I hit the long one."
"And you're still in the bush, hey? Well, now you listen here. Can I
bunk up here with you? All right-o. Then I'm yours for a finished job.
Here's my hand. Over the top we go. On July thirty-first, the flag
floats over this last cabin. I'm with you, strong as mustard. Building
cabins is my favorite sport. You can sit and watch me. I'm here to
finish that job with you--what do you say? Comrades to the death?"
"You can help," said Tom, smiling.
"That's me," said Billy Barnard.
CHAPTER XXI
TOM'S GUEST
Tom liked his new acquaintance immensely, but he did not altogether
understand him. His apparently reckless and happy-go-lucky temperament
and his breezy manner, were very attractive to sober Tom, but they
seemed rather odd in a scoutmaster. However, he could think of no good
reason why a scoutmaster should not have a reckless nature and a breezy
manner. Perhaps, he thought, it would be well if more scoutmasters were
like that. He thought that returned soldiers must make good
scoutmasters. He suspected that scoutmasters out west must be different.
Of one thing he felt certain, and that was that the scouts in William
Barnard's troop must worship him. If he was different from some
scoutmasters, perhaps this could be accounted for by the fact that he
was younger. Tom suspected that here was just the kind of scoutmaster
that the National Organization was after--one with pep. On the whole, he
thought that William Barnard was a bully scoutmaster.
At all events he seemed to be pretty skillful at woodcraft. The next
morning he set to work in real earnest and Tom took fresh hope and
courage from his strenuous partner.
"This is _your_ job," his friend would say; "all I'm doing is helping;
sort of a silent partner, as you might say."
But for all that he worked like a slave, relieving Tom of the heavier
work, and at night he was dog tired, as he admitted himself. Thus the
work went on, and with the help of his new friend, Tom began to see
light through the darkness. "We'll get her finished or bust a trace,"
Barnard said. They bunked together in one of the old cabins and Tom
enjoyed the isolation and the pioneer character of their task. Relieved
of the tremendous strain of lifting the logs alone, his shoulder
regained some of its former strength and toughness, and the confidence
of success in time cheered him no less than did the amusing and
sprightly talk of his friend.
Barnard had not been there two days when his thoughtfulness relieved Tom
of one of the daily tasks which had taken much time from his work. This
was to follow the trail down the hillside and through the woods to where
it ran into the public road and wait there for the mail wagon to pass
and get the letters. "I'll take care of that," he said, as soon as Tom
answered his inquiry as to how mail was received at camp, "don't you
worry. I have to have my little hike every day."
There was quite an accumulation of mail when Uncle Jeb, looking strange
and laughable in his civilized clothes, as Barnard called them, arrived
on Saturday morning. The bus, which brought him up from Catskill,
brought also the advance guard of the scout army that would shortly
over-run the camp.
These dozen or so boys and Uncle Jeb strolled up to visit the camp on
the hill, and Uncle Jeb, as usual, expressed no surprise at finding that
Tom's visitor had come. "Glad ter see yer," he said; "yer seem like a
couple of Robinson Crusoes up here. Glad ter see yer givin' Tommy a
hand."
"I got a right to say he's my visitor, haven't I?" Tom asked, without
any attempt at hinting. "'Cause I knew him, as you might say, over in
France. We catch fish in the brook and we don't use the camp stores
much."
"Wall, naow, I wouldn' call this bein' in the camp at all; not yet,
leastways," Uncle Jeb said, including the stranger in his shrewd,
friendly glance. "Tommy, here, is a privileged character, as the feller
says. En your troop's coming later, hain't they? I reckon we won't put
you down on the books. You jes stay here with Tommy till he gets his
chore done. You're visitin' him ez I see it. Nobody's a goin' ter bother
yer up here."
So there was one troublesome matter settled to Tom's satisfaction. He
had wanted to consider Barnard as his particular guest on their
hillside retreat and not as a pay guest at the camp. He was glad for
what Uncle Jeb had said. But he was rather surprised that Barnard had
not protested against this hospitality. What he was particularly
surprised at, however, was a certain uneasiness which this scoutmaster
from the west had shown in Uncle Jeb's presence. But it was nothing
worth thinking about, certainly, and Tom ceased to think about it.
CHAPTER XXII
AN ACCIDENT
The time had now come when each day brought new arrivals to the camp,
and August the first loomed large in the near future. It was less than a
week off. The three new cabins stood all but completed, and thanks to
the strenuous and unfailing help of his friend from the West, Tom knew
that his scout dream of atonement was fulfilled.
"When they get here," he said to Uncle Jeb, "just tell them that they
are to bunk in the cabins up on the hill. Barnard will be here to meet
his own troop, and he'll take them up to the new cabins. Roy and the
fellows will like Barnard, that's sure. It'll be like a kind of a little
separate camp up on the hill; two troops--six patrols."
"En yer ain't a goin' ter change yer mind en stay, Tommy?"
"Nope," said Tom; "I don't want to see them. I'm going down Thursday.
They'll all be here Saturday, I suppose."
In those last days of the work, little groups of scouts would stroll up
from the main body of the camp to watch the progress of the labor, but
the novelty of this form of entertainment soon passed, for the big camp
had too many other attractions. In those days of hard work, Tom's liking
for his friend had ripened into a feeling of admiring affection, which
his stolid but generous nature was not slow to reveal, and he made the
sprightly visitor his confidant.
One night--it might have been along about the middle of the week--they
sprawled wearily near their camp-fire, chatting about the work and about
Tom's future plans.
"One thing, I never could have finished it without you," Tom said, "and
I'm glad you're going to stay, because you can be a kind of scoutmaster
to both troops. I bet you'll be glad to see your own fellows. I bet
you'll like Roy, too, and the other fellows I told you about. Peewee
Harris--you'll laugh at him. He has everybody laughing. Their own
scoutmaster, Mr. Ellsworth, is away, so it'll be good, as you might say,
for them to have you. One thing I like about you, and that is you're not
always talking about the law, and giving lectures and things like that.
You're just like another fellow; you're different from a lot of
scoutmasters. You're not always talking about the handbook and good
turns and things."
His companion seemed a bit uncomfortable but he only laughed and said,
"Actions speak louder than words, don't they, Tommy? We've _lived_ it,
and that's better, huh?"
"That's mostly the only thing that makes me wish I was going to stay,"
Tom said; "so's I'd know you better. I bet you'll keep those fellows on
the jump; I bet you won't be all the time preaching to them. Mostly, the
way my troop comes is across the lake. They hike up from Catskill
through the woods. If your troop comes on the afternoon train, maybe
both troops will come up through the woods together, hey? I'd like to
see some of those scouts of yours. I bet they're crazy about you. You
never told me much about them."
"We've been building cabins, Tommy, old boy."
"Yes, but now the work is nearly finished, all we have to do is clear
up, and I'd like to hear something about your troop. Have they got many
merit badges?"
"'Bout 'steen. Look here, Tommy boy; I think the best thing for you to do
is to forget your grouch at Ray, or Roy, or whatever you call him, and
just make up your mind to stay right here. This job you've done----"
"You mean _we_," Tom interrupted.
"Well, _we_, then--it's going to wipe out all hard feeling and
everything is going to be all hunk. You'll make a better scoutmaster to
the whole bunch than I will. I'm better at work than I am at discipline,
Tom. I can't pull that moral suasion bunk at all. I'm pretty nifty at
swinging an axe, but I'm weak on the good turn and duty stuff."
"You did _me_ a good turn, all right," Tom said, with simple gratitude
in his tone.
"But I mean the big brother stuff," his companion said; "I'm not so much
of a dabster at that. You're the one for that--you're a scoutologist."
"A what?" Tom said.
"A scout specialist. One who has studied scoutology. You're the one to
manage, what's-his-name, Peewee? And that other kid--Ray----"
"Roy," Tom corrected him.
"I was in hopes you'd weaken and decide to stay and we'd--they'd--elect
you generalissimo of the allied troops, like old Foch."
Tom only shook his head. "I don't want to be here," he said; "I don't
want to be here when they come. After they see the cabins you can tell
them how I didn't know who you were until long after I--I made the
mistake. They'll admit that this was the only thing for me to do;
they'll admit it when they know about it. The only thing is, that I
thought about it before they did, that's all. You got to admit it's the
scout way, 'cause a scout wouldn't try to sneak out of anything the easy
way."
"I don't know if it's the scout way," his companion said, "but it's the
Tom Slade way."
"I got to be thankful I was a scout," Tom observed.
"I think the scouts have to be thankful," his friend said, with a note
of admiration ringing in his voice.
"They thought I forgot how to be a scout," Tom said. "Now they'll see."
Barnard raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands over his
knees, in that attitude which had come to be characteristic of him about
their lonely camp-fire, and glanced about at the results of Tom's long,
strenuous, lonesome labors. And he thought how monotonous it must have
been there for Tom through those long days and nights that he had spent
alone on that isolated hilltop. As he glanced about him, the completed
work loomed large and seemed like a monument to the indomitable will and
prowess of this young fellow who seemed to him so simple and
credulous--almost childlike in some ways. He wondered how Tom could ever
have raised those upper logs into their places. It seemed to him that
the trifling instance of thoughtlessness which was the cause of all this
striving, was nothing at all, and in no way justified those weeks of
wearisome labor. A queer fellow, he thought, was this Tom Slade. There
was the work, all but finished, three new cabins standing alongside the
other three, and all the disorder of choppings and bits of wood lying
about.
He glanced at Tom Slade where he sat near him by the fire, and noticed
the torn shirt, the hand wrapped in a bandage, the bruised spot on that
plain, dogged face, where a chunk of wood had flown up and all but
blinded him. He noticed that big mouth. The whimsical thought occurred
to him that this young fellow's face was, itself, something like a knot
of wood; strong and stubborn, and very plain and homely. And yet he was
so easily imposed upon--not exactly that, perhaps, but he was simple
withal, and trusting and credulous....
"If I get back before Saturday I can see that fellow," Tom said, "and
buy his boat. He comes home early Saturday afternoons. He said I could
have it for a hundred dollars if I wanted it. I got twenty-five dollars
more than I need."
"You're rich. And the girl; don't forget _her_. She's worth more than a
hundred and twenty-five."
"I'm going to give her a ride in it Sunday, maybe," Tom said.
For a few minutes neither spoke, and there was no sound but the
crackling of the blaze and the distant voices of scouts down on the
lake. "You can hear them plain up here," Tom said; "are your scouts fond
of boating?"
Still his companion did not speak.
"Well, then," he finally said; "if you're going Thursday that means you
go to-morrow. I was going to try to talk you into changing your mind,
but just now, when I was piking around, and taking a squint at the work
and at your face, I saw it wouldn't be any use. I guess people don't
influence you much, hey?"
"Roy Blakeley influenced me a lot."
"Well then," said Barnard, "let's put the finishing touch on this job
while both of us are here to do it. What do you say? Shall we haul up
the flagpole?"
The shortest way down the hill in the direction of the new property was
across a little gully over which they had laid a log. This was a
convenient way of going when there was no burden to be borne. The
hauling and carrying were done at a point some hundred feet from this
hollow. In the woods beyond, they had cut and hewn a flagstaff and since
two could easily carry it, Barnard's idea was that this should be done
then, so that he might have Tom's assistance.
With Barnard, to think was to act, he was all impulse, and in two
seconds he was on his feet and headed for their makeshift bridge across
the gully. Tom followed him and was startled to see his friend go
tumbling down into the hollow fully three feet from where the log lay.
Before Tom reached the edge a scream, as of excruciating pain, arose,
and he lost not a second in scrambling down into the chasm, where his
companion lay upon the rocks, holding his forehead and groaning.
CHAPTER XXIII
FRIENDS
"Take your hand off your forehead," Tom said, trying gently to move it
against the victim's will; "so I can tell if it's bad. Don't be scared,
you're stunned that's all. It's cut, but it isn't bleeding much."
"I'm all right," Barnard said, trying to rise.
"Maybe you are," Tom said, "but safety first; lie still. Can you move
your arms? Does your back hurt?"
"I don't want any doctor," Barnard said.
"See if you can--no, lie still; see if you can wiggle your fingers. I
guess you're just cut, that's all. Here, let me put my handkerchief
around it. You got off lucky."
"You don't call _that_ lucky, do you?" Barnard asked. "My head aches
like blazes."
"Sure it does," said Tom, feeling his friend's pulse, "but you're all
right."
[Illustration: TOM HELPED BARNARD TO THEIR CABIN. Tom Slade at Black
Lake--Page 134]
"I got a good bang in the head," said Barnard; "I'll be all right," he
added, sitting up and gazing about him. "Case of look before you leap,
hey? Do you know what I did?"
"You stepped on the shadow instead of the log," Tom said. "I was going
to call to you, but I thought that as long as you're a scout you'd know
about that. It was on account of the fire--the way it was shining.
That's what they call a false ford----"
"Well, the next time I hope there'll be a Maxwell or a Packard there
instead," Barnard said in his funny way.
"A false ford is a shadow across a hollow place," Tom said. "You see
them mostly in the moonlight. Don't you remember how lots of fellows
were fooled like that, trying to cross trenches. The Germans could make
it look like a bridge where there wasn't any bridge--don't you
remember?"
"_Some_ engineers!" Barnard observed. "Ouch, but my head hurts! Going
down, hey? I don't like those shadow bridges; it's all a matter of
taste, I suppose. Oh boy, how my head aches!"
"If it was broken it wouldn't ache," said Tom consolingly, "or you
wouldn't know it if it did. Can you get up?"
"I can't go up as quick as I came down," Barnard said, sitting there and
holding his head in a way that made even sober Tom smile, "but I guess I
can manage it."
He arose and Tom helped him through the gully to where it petered out,
and so to their cabin. Barnard's ankle was strained somewhat, and he had
an ugly cut on his forehead, which Tom cleansed and bandaged, and it
being already late, the young man who had tried walking on a shadow
decided that he would turn in and try the remedy of sleep on his
throbbing head.
"Look here, Slady," he said, after he was settled for the night, "I've
got your number, you old grouch. I know what it means when you get an
idea in your old noddle, so please remember that I don't want any of
that bunch from down below up here, and I don't want any doctor. See?
You're not going to pull any of that stuff on me, are you? Just let me
get a night's sleep and I'll be all right. I'm not on exhibition. I
don't want anybody up here piking around just because I took a double
header into space. And I don't want any doctors from Leeds or Catskill
up here, either. Get me?"
"If you get to sleep all right and don't have any fever, you won't need
any doctor," Tom said; "and I won't go away till you're all right."
"You're as white as a snowstorm, Slady," his friend said. "I've had the
time of my life here with you alone. And I'm going to wind up with you
alone. No outsiders. Two's a company, three's a mob."
Something, he knew not what, impelled sober, impassive Tom to sit down
for a few moments on the edge of the bunk where his friend lay.
"Red Cross nurse and wounded doughboy, hey?" his friend observed in that
flippant manner which sometimes amused and sometimes annoyed Tom.
"I liked it, too, being here alone with you," Tom said, "even if it
hadn't been for you helping me a lot, I would have liked it. I like you
a whole lot. I knew I'd like you. I used to camp with Roy Blakeley up on
his lawn and it reminded me of that, being up here alone with you. After
I've gone, you'll mix up with the fellows down in the camp, but anyhow,
you'll remember how we were up here alone together, I bet. You bet I'll
remember that--I will."
Barnard reached out his hand from under the coverings and grasped Tom's
hand. "You're all there, Tommy," he said. "And you won't remember how I
got on your nerves, and how I tried walking on a shadow, and----"
Tom did not release his friend's hand, or perhaps it was Barnard who did
not release Tom's. At all events, they remained in that attitude, hands
clasped, for still a few moments more. "Only the _good_ things about me,
hey, Tommy boy?" his friend asked.
"I don't know any other kind of things," Tom said, "and if I heard any I
wouldn't believe them. I always said your scouts must think a lot of
you. I think you're different from other scoutmasters. You can _make_
people like you, that's sure."
"Sure, eh?"
"It's sure with _me_ anyway," Tom said.
"Resolution, determination, friendship--all _sure_ with _you_. Hey,
Tommy boy? Because you're built out of _rocks_. Bridges, they may be
nothing but shadows, hey? According to you, you can't depend on half of
them. I wonder if it's that way with friendships, huh?"
"It ain't with mine," Tom said simply.
And still Barnard clung to Tom's hand. "Maybe we'll test it some day,
Slady old boy."
"There's no use testing a thing that's sure," Tom said.
"Yes?"
And still Barnard did not release his hand.'
"It's funny you didn't know about false fords," Tom said.
CHAPTER XXIV
TOM GOES ON AN ERRAND
Tom had intended to go down into camp for a strip of bandage and to see
Uncle Jeb, but since Barnard was so averse to having his mishap known
and to having visitors, he thought it better not to go down that night.
He did not like the idea of not mentioning his friend's accident to the
old camp manager. Tom had not been able to rid himself of a feeling that
Uncle Jeb did not wholly approve of the sprightly Barnard. He had no
good reason for any such supposition, but the feeling persisted. It made
him uncomfortable when occasionally the keen-eyed old plainsman had
strolled up to look things over, and he was always relieved when Uncle
Jeb went away. Tom could not for the life of him, tell why he had this
feeling, but he had it just the same.
So now, in order not to rouse his friend, who seemed at last to have
dozed off, he lingered by the dying embers of their fire. As the last
flickerings of the blaze subsided and the yellow fragments turned to
gray, then black, it seemed to Tom as if this fire symbolized the
petering out of that pleasant comradeship, now so close at hand. In his
heart, he longed to wait there and continue this friendship and be with
Roy and the others, as he had so often been at the big camp.
He had grown to admire and to like Barnard immensely. It was the liking
born of gratitude and close association, but it was the liking, also,
which the steady, dull, stolid nature is apt to feel for one who is
light and vivacious. Barnard's way of talking, particularly his own
brand of slang, was very captivating to sober Tom, who could do big
things but not little things. He had told himself many times that
Barnard's scouts "must be crazy about him." And Barnard had laughed and
said, "They _must_ be crazy if they like _me_...."
"He says I'm queer," Tom mused, "but he's queer, too, in a way. I guess
a lot of people don't understand him. It's because he's happy-go-lucky.
It's funny he didn't know about shadow bridges, because it's in the
handbook." Then Tom couldn't remember whether it was in the handbook or
not.... "Anyway, he's got the right idea about good turns," he
reflected. "I met lots of scouts that never read the handbook; I met
scoutmasters, too...."
And indeed there were few scouts, or scoutmasters either, who had
followed the trail through the handbook with the dogged patience of Tom
Slade. He had mastered scouting the same as he had mastered this job.
Barnard was pretty restive that night, tossed on his bunk, and
complained much of his head aching. "It feels like an egg being beaten
by an egg beater," he said; "I'm off the shadow bridge stuff for good
and all. It throbs to the tune of _Over There_."
Tom thought this must be pretty bad--to throb to the tune of _Over
There_. He had never had a headache like that.
"If you could only fall asleep," Tom said.
"Well, I guess I will; I'm pretty good at falling," his friend observed.
"I fell for you, hey Slady? O-h-h! My head!"
"It's the same with me," said Tom.
"You got one too? _Good night!_"
"I mean about what you were saying--about falling for me. It's the same
with me."
"Same here, Slady; go to bed and get some sleep yourself."
It was two or three o'clock in the morning before the sufferer did get
to sleep, and he slept correspondingly late. Tom knew that the headache
must have stolen off and he felt sure that his companion would awaken
refreshed. "I'll be glad because then I won't have to get the doctor,"
he said to himself. He wished to respect Bernard's smallest whim.
Tom did not sleep much himself, either, and he was up bright and early
to anticipate his friend's waking. He tiptoed out of the cabin and
quietly made himself a cup of coffee. It was one of those beautiful
mornings, which are nowhere more beautiful than at Temple Camp. The
soft breeze, wafting the pungent fragrance of pines, bore also up to
that lonely hilltop the distant clatter of dishes and the voices of
scouts from the camp below. The last patches of vapor were dissolving
over the wood embowered lake, and one or two early canoes were already
moving aimlessly upon its placid bosom. A shout and a laugh and a sudden
splash, sounding faint in the distance, told him that some uninitiated
new arrivals were diving from the springboard before breakfast. They
would soon be checked in that pastime, Tom knew.
From the cooking shack where Chocolate Drop, the camp's famous cook,
held autocratic sway and drove trespassing scouts away with a deadly
frying pan, arose a graceful column of smoke which was carried away off
over the wooded hills toward Leeds. Pretty soon Chocolate Drop would
need _two_ deadly frying pans, for Peewee Harris was coming.
Tom knew that nothing had been heard from the Bridgeboro scouts since
Uncle Jeb had told him definitely that they were scheduled to arrive on
the first, as usual. He knew that no other letter had come, because all
the camp mail had passed through his hands. It had come to be the
regular custom for Barnard to rise early and follow the secluded trail
down to the state road where the mail wagon passed. He had early claimed
it as his own job, and Tom, ever anxious to please him, had let him do
this while he himself was gathering wood and preparing breakfast.
"Always hike to work out west and can't get out of the habit," Barnard
had said. "Like to hobnob with the early birds and first worms, and all
that kind of stuff. Give me a lonesome trail and I'm happy--take one
every morning before breakfast, and after retiring. How about that, old
Doctor Slade?"
Old Doctor Slade had thought it was a good idea.
But this morning his friend was sleeping, and old Doctor Slade would not
waken him. He tiptoed to the cabin and looked cautiously within. Barnard
was sleeping the sleep of the righteous--to quote one of his own
favorite terms. The bandage had slipped down from his forehead, and
looked not unlike a scout scarf about his neck. A ray of early sunlight
slanted through the crack between the logs and hit him plunk in the
head, making his curly red hair shine like a red danger signal. He was
sound asleep--dead to the wicked world--as he was himself fond of
saying.
Early to bed and early to rise,
And you won't meet any regular guys.
As Tom paused, looking at him, he thought of that oft repeated
admonition of his friend. He knew Barnard never meant that seriously.
That was just the trouble--he was always saying things like that, and
that was why people would never understand him and give him credit....
But Tom understood him, all right; that was what he told himself. "I got
to laugh at him, that's sure," he said. Then he bethought him, and out
of his simple, generous nature, he thought, "Didn't he say actions speak
louder than words? That's what counts."
He tiptoed over to where that ray of sunlight came in, and hung his
coat over the place. The shiny brightness of Barnard's hair faded, and
the cabin was almost dark. Tom got his cap, and turning in the doorway
to make sure his friend's sleep was undisturbed, picked his way
carefully over the area of chips and twigs where most of the trimming
had been done, and started down through the wooded hillside toward the
trail which afforded a short-cut to the state road.
Once, and once only he paused, and that was to glance at a ragged hollow
in the woods where a tree had been uprooted in some winter storm. It
reminded him of the very day that Barnard had arrived, for it was after
a discouraging afternoon with that stubborn old trunk that he had
retraced his steps wearily to his lonesome camp and met the visitor who
had assisted him and beguiled the lonesome days and nights for him ever
since. Barnard, willing and ready, had sawed through that trunk the next
morning. "Say nothing, but saw wood; that's the battle cry, Slady," he
had cheerfully observed, mopping the perspiration from his brow.
And now, as Tom looked into that jagged hollow, his thoughts went even
further back, and he thought how it was in some such earthen dungeon as
this that he and Barnard had first seen each other--or rather, met.
Barnard had thoughtfully refrained from talking of those things which
were still so agitating and disturbing to poor Tom, but Tom thought of
it now, because his stolid nature was pierced at last, and his heart was
overflowing with gratitude to this new friend, who twice had come to his
rescue--here on the isolated hillside on the edge of the beloved camp,
and over there, in war torn France.
"You bet _I_ understand him all right," said Tom. "Even if he talks a
lot of crazy nonsense, he can't fool me. You bet _I_ know what he is,
all right. He can make believe, sort of, that he doesn't care much about
anything. But he can't fool me--he can't."
CHAPTER XXV
TWO LETTERS
The trail wound its way through a pleasant stretch of woodland where the
birds sang cheerily, and occasionally a squirrel paused and cocked its
head in pert amazement at this rude intrusion into its domain. It
crossed a little brook where Tom and Roy had fished many times, and
groped for pollywogs and crawfish when Tom was a tenderfoot at Temple
Camp. Those were happy days.
Where the trail came out into the state road there was a rough board
across two little pedestals of logs, which the scouts of camp had put
there, as a seat on which to wait for the ever welcome mail stage. The
board was thick with carved initials, the handiwork of scouts who had
come and gone, and among these Tom picked out R. B. and W. H. (which
stood for Walter Harris for Peewee did not acknowledge officially his
famous nickname). As Tom glanced at these crude reminders of his troop
and former comrades, he noted wistfully how Peewee's initials were
always cut unusually large and imposing, standing out boldly among
others, as if to inform the observer that a giant had been at work.
Everything about Peewee was tremendous--except his size.
Tom sat on this bench and waited. It reminded him of old times to be
there. But he was not unhappy. He had followed the long trail, the trail
which to his simple nature had seemed the right one, he had done the job
which he had set out to do, they were going to have their three familiar
cabins on the hill, and he was happy. He had renewed that strange, brief
acquaintanceship in France, and found in his war-time friend, a new
comrade. He felt better, his nerves were steady. The time had been well
spent and he was happy. Perhaps it was only a stubborn whim, this going
away now, but that was his nature and he could not change it.
When the mail wagon came along, its driver greeted him cheerily, for he
remembered him well.
"Where's the other fellow?" he asked.
"I came instead, to-day," Tom said.
"That chap is a sketch, ain't he?" the man commented. "He ain't gone
home, has he?"
"He's going to stay through August," Tom said; "his troop's coming
Saturday."
"Purty lively young feller," the man said.
"He's happy-go-lucky," said Tom.
The man handed him a dozen or so letters and cards and a batch of
papers, and drove on. Tom resumed his seat on the bench and looked them
over. There was no doubt that Roy and the troop were coming; apparently
they were coming in their usual manner, for there was a card from Roy to
Uncle Jeb which said,
Coming Saturday on afternoon train. Hope you can give us a tent away
from the crowd. Tell Chocolate Drop to have wheat cakes Sunday
morning. Peewee's appetite being sent ahead by express. Pay charges.
So long, see you later.
P.S. Have hot biscuits, too. ROY.
There were a couple of letters to Uncle Jeb from the camp office, and
the rest were to scouts in camp whom Tom did not know, for he had made
no acquaintances. There was one letter for Tom, bearing the postmark of
Dansburg, Ohio, which he opened with curiosity and read with increasing
consternation. It ran:
DEAR TOM SLADE:
I didn't get there after all, but now we're coming, the whole
outfit, bag and baggage. I suppose you think I'm among the missing,
not hearing from me all this time. But on Saturday I'll show you the
finest troop of scouts this side of Mars. So kill the fatted calf
for we're coming.
Slade, as sure as I'm writing you this letter, I started east,
sumpty-sump days ago and was going to drop in on you and have a
little visit, just we two, before this noisy bunch got a chance to
interfere. We'll just have to sneak away from them and get off in
the woods alone and talk about old times in France.
Maybe you won't believe it, but I got as far as Columbus and there
was a telegram from my boss, "Come in, come in, wherever you are."
Can you beat that? So back I went on the next train. You'll have to
take the will for the deed, old man.
Don't you care; now I'm coming with my expeditionary forces, and you
and I'll foil them yet. One of our office men was taken sick, that
was the trouble. And I've been so busy doing his work and my own,
and getting this crew of wild Indians ready to invade Temple Camp,
that I haven't had time to write a letter, that's a fact. Even at
this very minute, one young tenderfoot is shouting in my ear that
he's crazy to see that fellow I bunked into in France. He says he
thinks the troop you're mixed up with must think you're a great
hero.
So bye bye, till I see you,
W. BARNARD.
Twice, three times, Tom read this letter through, in utter dismay. What
did it mean? He squinted his eyes and scrutinized the signature, as if
to make sure that he read it aright. There was the name, W. Barnard. The
handwriting was Barnard's, too. And the envelope had been postmarked in
Dansburg, Ohio, two days prior to the day of its arrival.
How could this be? What did it mean?
CHAPTER XXVI
LUCKY LUKE'S FRIEND
Tom returned through the woods in a kind of trance, pausing once to
glance through the letter again and to scrutinize the signature. He
found the patient up and about, with no reminder of his mishap save the
cut on his forehead. He was plainly agitated and expectant as he looked
through the woods and saw Tom coming. It was clear that he was in some
suspense, but Tom, who would have noticed the smallest insect or most
indistinct footprint in the path, did not observe this.
"H'lo, Slady," he said with a fine show of unconcern; "out for the early
worm?" He did not fail to give a sidelong glance at Tom's pocket.
"Is your headache all gone?" Tom asked.
"Sneaked off just like you," he said; "I was wondering where you were.
I see you were down for the mail. Anything doing?" he asked with
ill-concealed curiosity.
"They're coming," Tom said.
"Who's coming?"
"Roy and the troop," Tom answered.
"Oh. Nothing important, huh?"
"I got some mail for camp; I'm going down to Uncle Jeb's cabin; I'll be
right back," Tom said.
His friend looked at him curiously, anxiously, as Tom started down the
hill.
"I won't make any breaks," Tom said simply, leaving his friend to make
what he would of this remark. The other watched him for a moment and
seemed satisfied.
Having delivered the mail without the smallest sign of discomposure, he
tramped up the hill again in his customary plodding manner. His friend
was sitting on the door sill of one of the new cabins, whittling a
stick. He looked as if he might have been reflecting, as one is apt to
do when whittling a stick.
"You got to tell me who you are?" Tom said, standing directly in front
of him.
"You got a letter? I thought so," his friend said, quietly. "Sit down,
Slady."
For just a moment Tom hesitated, then he sat down on the sill alongside
his companion.
"All right, old man," said the other; "spring it--you're through with me
for good?"
"You got to tell me who you are," Tom said doggedly; "first you got to
tell me who you are."
For a few moments they sat there in silence, Tom's companion whittling
the stick and pondering.
"I ain't mad, anyway," Tom finally said.
"You're not?" the other asked.
"It don't make any difference as long as you're my friend, and you
helped me."
The other looked up at him in surprise, surveying Tom's stolid, almost
expressionless face which was fixed upon the distant camp. "You're
solid, fourteen karat gold, Slady," he finally said. "I'm bad enough,
goodness knows; but to put it over on a fellow like you, just because
you're easy, it's--it just makes me feel like--Oh, I don't know--like a
sneak. I'm ashamed to look you in the face, Slady."
Still Tom said nothing, only looked off through the trees below, where
specks of white could be seen here and there amid the foliage. "They're
putting up the overflow tents," he said, irrelevantly; "there'll be a
lot coming Saturday."
Then, again, there was silence for a few moments.
"I'm used to having things turn out different from the way I expected,"
Tom said, dully.
"Slady----" his friend began, but paused.
And for a few moments there was silence again, save for the distant
sound of splashing down at the lake's edge, where scouts were swimming.
"Slady----listen, Slady; as sure as I sit here ... Are you listening,
Slady? As sure as I sit here, I'm going to tell you the truth--every gol
darned last word of it."
"I never said you lied," Tom said, never looking at him.
"No? I tried not to tell many. But I've been _living_ one; that's worse.
I'm so contemptible I--it's putting anything over on _you_--that's what
makes me feel such a contemptible, low down sneak. That's what's got me.
I don't care so much about the other part. It's _you_--Slady----"
He put his hand on Tom's shoulder and looked at him with a kind of
expectancy. And still Tom's gaze was fixed upon the camp below them.
"I don't mind having things go wrong," Tom said, with a kind of pathetic
dullness that must have gone straight to the other's heart. "As long as
I got a friend it doesn't make any difference what one--I mean who he
is. Lots of times the wrong trail takes you to a better place."
"Do you know where it's taking you _this_ time? It isn't a question of
_who_ I am. It's a question of _what_ I am--Slady. Do you know what I
am?"
"You're a friend of mine," Tom said.
His companion slowly drew his hand from Tom's shoulder, and gazed,
perplexed and dumfounded, into that square, homely, unimpassioned face.
"I'm a thief, Slady," he said.
"I used to steal things," Tom said.
CHAPTER XXVII
THORNTON'S STORY
It was very much like Tom Slade that this altogether sensational
disclosure and startling announcement did not greatly agitate him, nor
even make him especially curious. The fact that this seductive stranger
was his friend seemed the one outstanding reality to him. If he had any
other feelings, of humiliation at being so completely deceived, or of
disappointment, he did not show them. But he did reiterate in that dull
way of his, "You got to tell me who you are."
"I'm _going_ to tell, Slady," his friend said, with a note of sincerity
there was no mistaking; "I'm going to tell you the whole business. What
did _you_ ever steal? An apple out of a grocery store, or something like
that? I thought so. You wouldn't know how to steal if you tried; you'd
make a bungle of it."
"That's the way I do, sometimes," Tom said.
"Is it? Well, you didn't this time--old man. If I'm your friend, I'm
going to be worth it. Do you get that?"
"I told you you was."
"Slady, I never knew what I was going to get up against, or I would
never have tried to swing this thing. If you'd turned out to be a
different kind of a fellow I wouldn't have felt so much like a sneak.
It's _you_ that makes me feel like a criminal--not those sleuths and
bloodhounds out there. Listen, Slady; it's a kind of a camp-fire story,
as you would call it, that I'm going to tell you."
He laid his hand on Tom's arm as he talked and so they sat there on the
rough sill of the cabin doorway, Tom silent, the other eager, anxious,
as he related his story. The birds flitted about and chirped in the
trees overhead, busy with their morning games or tasks, and below the
voices of scouts could be heard, thin and spent by the distance, and
occasionally the faint sound of a diver with accompanying shouts and
laughter which Tom seemed to hear as in a dream. Far off, beyond the
mountains, could be heard the shrill whistle of a train, bringing
scouts, perhaps, to crowd the already filled tent space. And amid all
these distant sounds which, subdued, formed a kind of outdoor harmony,
the voice of Tom's companion sounded strangely in his ear.
"My home is out in Broadvale, Ohio, Slady. Ever hear of it? It's west of
Dansburg--about fifty miles. I worked in a lumber concern out there. Can
you guess the rest? Here's what did it, Slady, (and with admirable
dexterity he went through the motions of shuffling cards and shooting
craps). I swiped a hundred, Slady. Don't ask me why I did it--I don't
know--I was crazy, that's all. So _now_ what have you got to say?" he
inquired with a kind of recklessness, releasing Tom's arm.
"I ain't got anything to say," said Tom.
"They don't know it yet, Tommy, but they'll know it Monday. The
accountants are on the job Monday. So I beat it, while the going was
good. I started east, for little old New York. I intended to change my
name and get a job there and lay low till I could make good. I thought
they'd never find me in New York. My right name is Thornton, Slady. Red
Thornton they call me out home, on account of this brick dome. Tommy,
old boy, as sure as you sit there I don't know any more about the boy
scouts than a pig knows about hygiene. So now you've got my number,
Slady. What is it? Quits?"
"If you knew anything about scouts," Tom said, with the faintest note of
huskiness in his voice, "you'd know that they don't call quits. If I was
a quitter, do you suppose I'd have stuck up here?"
Thornton gazed about him at the three new cabins, which this queer
friend of his had built there to rectify a trifling act of
forgetfulness; he looked at Tom's torn shirt, through which his bruised
shoulder could be seen, and at those tough scarred hands.
"So now you know something about them," Tom said.
"I know something about _one_ of them, anyway," Thornton replied
admiringly.
"If a fellow sticks in one way, he'll stick in another way," Tom said.
"If he makes up his mind to a thing----"
"You said it, Slady," Thornton concurred, giving Tom a rap on the
shoulder. "And now you know, you won't tell? You won't tell that I've
gone to New York?" he added with sudden anxiety.
"Who would I tell?" Tom asked. "Nobody ever made me do anything yet that
I didn't want to do." Which was only too true.
Thornton crossed one knee over the other and talked with more ease and
assurance. "I met Barnard on the train coming east, Slady. He has red
hair like mine, so I thought I'd sit down beside him; we harmonized."
Tom could not repress a smile. "He told me in a letter that he had red
hair," he observed.
"Red as a Temple Camp sunset, Tommy old boy. You're going to like that
fellow; he's a hundred per cent, white--only for his hair. He's got
scouting on the brain--clean daft about it. He told me all about you and
how he and his crew of kids were going to spend August here and make
things lively. Your crowd----"
"Troop," Tom said.
"Right-o; your troop had better look out for that bunch--excuse me,
_troop_. Right? I'm learning, hey? I'll be a good scout when I get out
of jail," he added soberly. "Never mind; listen. Barnard thinks you're
the only scout outside of Dansburg, Ohio. He told me how he was coming
here to give you a little surprise call before the season opened and the
kids--guys--scouts, right-o, began coming. Tom," he added seriously, "by
the time we got to Columbus, I knew as much about Temple Camp and you,
as _he_ did. He didn't know so much about _you_ either, if it comes to
that. But I found out that you were pretty nearly all alone here.
"Then he got a wire, Tom; I think it was in Columbus. A brakeman came
through the train with a message, calling his name. Oh, boy, but he was
piffed! 'Got to go home,' he said. That's all there was to it, Tom.
Business before pleasure, hey? Poor fellow, I felt sorry for him. He
found out he could get a train back in about an hour.
"Tommy, listen here. It wasn't until my train started and I looked back
and waved to him out of the window, that this low down game I've put
over on you occurred to me. All the time that we were chatting together,
I was worried, thinking about what I'd do and where I'd go, and how it
would be on the first Monday in August when those pen and ink sleuths
got the goods on me. I could just see them going over my ledger, Slady.
"Well, I looked out of the car window and there stood Barnard, and the
sun was just going down, Tommy, just like you and I have watched it do
night after night up here, and that red hair of his was just shining in
the light. It came to me just like that, Slady," Thornton said,
clapping his hands, "and I said to myself, I'm like that chap in _one_
way, anyhow, and he and this fellow Slade have _never seen each other_.
Why can't _I_ go up to that lonely camp in the mountains and be Billy
Barnard for a while? Why can't I lie low there till I can plan what to
do next? That's what I said, Slady. Wouldn't a place like that be better
than New York? Maybe you'll say I took a long chance--reckless. That's
the way it is with red hair, Slady. I took a chance on you being easy
and it worked out, that's all. Or rather, I mean it _didn't_, for I feel
like a murderer, and it's all on account of you, Slady.
"I didn't know what to do, I didn't know where to go; I just wanted to
get away from home before the game was up and they nabbed me. It's no
fun being pinched, Tom. I thought I might make the visit that this
friend of yours was going to make, and hang around here where it's quiet
and lonesome, till it was time for him to come. I guess that's about as
far as my plans carried. It was a crazy idea, I see that well enough
now. But I was rattled--I was just rattled, that's all. I thought that
when the time came that I'd have to leave here, maybe I could tramp up
north further and change my name again and get a job on some farm or
other, till I could earn a little and make good. What I didn't figure on
was the kind of a fellow I was going to meet. I--I----" he stammered,
trying to control himself in a burst of feeling and clutching Tom's
knee, "I--I didn't put it over on you, Tom; maybe it seems that way to
you--but--but I didn't. It's you that win, old man--can't you see? It's
_you_ that win. You've put it all over _me_ and rubbed it in,
and--and--instead of getting away with anything--like I thought--I'll
just beat it away from here feeling like a bigger sneak than I ever
thought I was. I've--I've seen something here--I have. I thought some of
these trees were made of pretty good stuff, but you've got them beat,
Slady. I thought I was a wise guy to dig into this forsaken retreat and
slip the bandage over your eyes, but--but the laugh is on me, Slady,
don't--don't you see?" he smiled, his eyes glistening and his hand
trembling on Tom's knee. "You've put it all over me, you old
hickory-nut, and I've told you the whole business, and you've got me in
your power, see?"
Tom Slade looked straight ahead of him and said never a word.
"It's--it's a knockout, Slady, and you win. You can go down and tell old
Uncle Jeb the whole business," he fairly sobbed, "I won't stop you. I'm
sick and discouraged--I might as well take my medicine--I'm--I'm sick of
the whole thing--you win--Slady. I'll wait here--I--I won't fool you
again--not once again, by thunder, I won't! Go on down and tell him a
thief has been bunking up here with you--go on--I'll wait."
There was just a moment of silence, and in that moment, strangely
enough, a merry laugh arose in the camp below.
"You needn't tell me what to do," said Tom, "because I _know_ what to
do. There's nobody in this world can tell me what to do. Mr. Burton, he
wanted to write to those fellows and fix it. But I knew what to do. Do
you call me a quitter? You see these cabins, don't you? Do you think
_you_ can tell me what to do?"
"Go and send a wire to Broadvale and tell 'em that you've got me,"
Thornton said with a kind of bitter resignation; "I heard that scouts
are good at finding missing people--fugitives. You--you _have got_ me,
Tommy, but in a different way than you think. You got me that first
night. Go ahead. But--but listen here. I _can't_ let them take me to-day,
my head is spinning like a buzz-saw, Tommy--I can't, I can't, I _can't_!
It's the cut in my head. All this starts it aching again--it just----"
He lowered his head until his wounded forehead rested on Tom's lap.
"I'm--I'm just--beaten," he sobbed. "Let me stay here to-day,
to-night--don't say anything yet--let me stay just this one day more
with you and to-morrow I'll be better and you can go down and tell. I
won't run away--don't you believe me? I'll take what's coming to me.
Only wait--my head is all buzzing again now--just wait till to-morrow.
Let me stay here to-day, old man ..."
Tom Slade lifted the head from his lap and arose. "You can't stay here
to-night," he said; "you can't stay even to-day. You can't stay an hour.
Nobody can tell me what I ought to do. You can't stay here ten minutes.
If you tried to get away I'd trail you, I'd catch you. You stay where
you are till I get back."
CHAPTER XXVIII
RED THORNTON LEARNS SOMETHING ABOUT SCOUTS
And strange to say Red Thornton did stay just where he was. Perhaps,
seeing that Tom limped as he went down the hill, the fugitive
entertained a momentary thought of flight. If so, he abandoned it,
perhaps in fear, more likely in honor. Who shall say? His agitation had
caused his head to begin aching furiously again, and he was a pitiful
figure as he sat there upon the doorsill, in a kind of desperate
resignation, resting his forehead in his two hands, and occasionally
looking along the path down the hill at Tom as he limped in and out
among the trees, following the beaten trail. It had never occurred to
him before, how lame Tom was, as the result of his injuries and
excessive labors. And he marvelled at the simple confidence which would
leave him thus free to escape, if he cared to. Perhaps Tom could have
tracked and caught him, perhaps not. But at all events Tom had beaten
him with character and that was enough. He had him and Thornton knew and
confessed it. It _was_ curious how it worked out, when you come to think
of it.
Anyway, Thornton had given up all his fine plans and was ready to be
arrested. He would tell the authorities that it was not on account of
them that he gave himself up, but on account of Tom. Tom should have all
the credit, as he deserved. He could hardly realize now that he had
deliberately confessed to Tom. And having done so, he realized that Tom,
being a good citizen, believing in the law and all that sort of thing,
could not do otherwise than hand him over. What in the world else could
Tom Slade do? Say to him, "You stole money; go ahead and escape; I'm
with you?" Hardly.
There was a minute in Red Thornton's life when he came near making
matters worse with a terrible blunder. After about fifteen or twenty
minutes of waiting, he arose and stepped over to the gully and
considered making a dash through the woods and striking into the road.
Perhaps he would have done this; I cannot say. But happening just at
that moment to glance down the hill in the opposite direction, he was
astonished at seeing Tom plodding up the hill again quite alone. Neither
Uncle Jeb nor any of those formidable scoutmasters or trustees were
anywhere near him. Not so much as an uproarious, aggressive tenderfoot
was at his heels. No constables, no deputy sheriffs, no one.
And then, just in that fleeting, perilous moment, Red Thornton knew Tom
Slade and he knew that this was their business and no one else's. He
came near to making an awful botch of things. He was breathing heavily
when Tom spoke to him.
"What are those fellows you were speaking about? Pen and ink sleuths?"
Tom asked. "They come to Temple Camp office, sometimes."
"That's them," Thornton said.
"When did you say they come?"
"Next Monday, first Monday in August. What's the difference? The sooner
the better," Thornton said.
"Was it just an even hundred that you took, when you forgot about what
you were doing, sort of?" Tom asked.
"A hundred and three."
"Then will twenty-three dollars be enough to get back to that place
where you live?"
"Why?"
"I'm just asking you."
"It's twenty-one forty."
"That means you'll have a dollar sixty for meals," Tom said, "unless you
have some of your own. Have you?"
Thornton seemed rather puzzled, but he jingled some coin in his pocket
and pulled out a five dollar bill and some change.
"Then it's all right," Tom said, "'cause if I asked anybody for money I
might have to tell them why. Here's two Liberty Bonds," he said, placing
his precious, and much creased documents in Thornton's hand. "You can
get them cashed in New York. You have to start this morning so as to
catch the eleven twenty train. I guess you'll get home to-morrow night
maybe, hey? You have to give them their money before those fellows get
there. You got to tell them how you made a mistake. Maybe if you don't
have quite enough you'll be able to get a little bit more. This is
because you helped me and on account of our being friends."
Thornton looked down into his hand and saw, through glistening eyes, the
two dilapidated bonds, and a couple of crumpled ten-dollar bills and
some odds and ends of smaller bills and currency. They represented the
sumptuous fortune of Lucky Luke, alias Tom Slade.
"And I thought you were going to ..." Thornton began; "Slady, I can't do
this; it's all you've got."
"It's no good to me," Tom said. "Anyway, you got to go back and get
there before those fellows do. Then you can fix it."
Thornton hesitated, then shook his head. Then he went over and sat on
the sill where they had talked before. "I can't do it, Tom," he said
finally; "I just can't. Here, take it. This is my affair, not yours."
"You said we were good friends up here," Tom said; "it's nothing to let
a friend help you. I can see you're smart, and some day you'll make a
lot of money and you'll pay me back. But anyway, I don't care about
that. I only bought them so as to help the government. If they'd let me
help them, I don't see why _you_ shouldn't."
Thornton, still holding the money in his hand looked up and smiled, half
willingly, at his singular argument.
"How about the motor-boat--and the girl?" he asked wistfully.
"You needn't worry about that," Tom said simply, "maybe she wouldn't go
anyway."
And perhaps she wouldn't have. It would have been just his luck.
CHAPTER XXIX
TOM STARTS FOR HOME
There was nothing now to keep Tom at Temple Camp, yet there was nothing
now to take him home, either. Nothing, indeed, except his work. The
bottom seemed to have dropped out of all his plans, and he lingered on
his lonely hilltop for the remaining day or two before the unsuspecting
tenants of this remote little community should arrive.
Of course he might have stayed and enjoyed his triumph, but that would
not have been Tom Slade. He had not forgotten those stinging and
accusing words of Roy's that morning when they had last met. He did not
remember them in malice, but he could not forget them, and he did not
wish to see Roy. We have to take Tom Slade as we find him.
In those last hours of his lonely stay he did not go down much into
camp, for he wished to be by himself, and not to have to answer
questions about his departed friend, toward whom, strange to say, he
cherished a stronger feeling of attachment than before. He was even
grateful to Thornton for perhaps saving him the humiliation of Margaret
Ellison's refusing to go out with him in his boat. There was no telling
what a girl might say or do, and at least he was well out of that
peril....
He busied himself clearing up the litter about the new cabins and
getting them ready for occupancy. On Saturday morning he went down and
told Uncle Jeb that he was starting for home. He was greatly relieved
that the old man did not ask any questions about his companion. Uncle
Jeb was much preoccupied now with the ever-growing multitude of scouts
and their multifarious needs, and gave slight thought to that little
sprig of a camp up on the hill.
"En so yer ain't fer stayin', Tommy? I kinder cal'lated you'd weaken
when the time come. Ain't goin' ter think better of it, huh?" The old
man, smiling through a cloud of tobacco smoke, contemplated Tom with
shrewd, twinkling, expectant eyes. "Fun's jest about startin' naow,
Tommy. 'Member what I told yer baot them critters. Daont yer go back on
account of no gal."
"I ain't going back on account of a girl," said Tom.
"What train yer thinkin' uv goin' daon on?" the old man asked.
"I'm going to hike it," Tom said.
Uncle Jeb contemplated him for a moment as though puzzled, but after
all, seeing nothing so very remarkable in a hike of a hundred and fifty
miles or so, he simply observed. "Yer be'nt in no hurry ter get back,
huh? Wall, yer better hev a good snack before yer start. You jest tell
Chocolate Drop to put yer up rations fer ter night, too, in case you
camp."
* * * * *
The guests at Temple Camp paid no particular attention to the young
fellow who was leaving. He had not associated with the visiting scouts,
and save for an occasional visit to his isolated retreat, where they
found little to interest them, he had been almost a stranger among them.
Doubtless some of them had thought him a mere workman at the camp and
had left him undisturbed accordingly.
It was almost pitiful, now that he was leaving, to note how slightly he
was known and how little his departure affected the general routine of
pleasure. A few scouts, who were diving from the spring board paused to
glance at him as he rowed across the lake and observed that the "fellow
from up on the hill" was going away. Others waved him a fraternal
farewell, but there was none of that customary gathering at the landing,
which he had known in the happy days when he had been a scout among
scouts at his beloved camp.
But there was one scout who took enough interest in him to offer to go
across in the rowboat with him, on the pretext of bringing it back,
though both knew that it was customary to keep boats on both sides of
the lake. This fellow was tall and of a quiet demeanor. His name was
Archer, and he had come with his troop from somewhere in the west, where
they breed that particular type of scouts who believe that actions speak
louder than words.
"Did that job all by yourself, didn't you?" he asked as they rowed
across. He looked a Tom curiously.
"A friend of mine helped me," Tom said; "he's gone home."
"Why didn't you hit into the main road and go down through Catskill?
You're likely to miss the train this way."
"I'm going to hike home," Tom said.
"Far?"
"In Jersey, about twenty miles from the city."
"Some jaunt, eh?" Archer inquired pleasantly.
"I don't mind it," Tom said.
"What are you goin' home for?"
"Because I want to; because I'm finished," Tom said.
This ended the talk but it did not end Archer's rather curious study of
Tom. He said little more, but as he rowed, he watched Tom with an
intense and scrutinizing interest. And even after Tom had said good-bye
to him and started up the trail through the woods, he rowed around, in
the vicinity of the shore, keeping the boat in such position that he
could follow Tom with his eyes as the latter followed the trail in and
out among the trees.
"Humph," he said to himself; "funny."
What he thought funny was this: being an observant scout he had noticed
that Tom carried more rations than a scout would be likely to take on a
long hike, through a country where food could easily be bought in a
hundred towns and villages, and also that one who limped as Tom did
should choose to go on a hike of more than a hundred miles.
A scout, as everybody knows, is observant. And this particular scout was
good at arithmetic. At least he was able to put two and two
together....
CHAPTER XXX
THE TROOP ARRIVES
The ten forty-seven train out of New York went thundering up the shore
of the lordly Hudson packed and jammed with its surging throng of
vacationists who had turned themselves into sardines in order to enjoy a
breath of fresh air. The crowd was uncommonly large because Saturday and
the first of August came on the same day. They crowded three in a seat
and ate sandwiches and drank cold coffee out of milk bottles and let the
children fly paper-bag kites out of the windows, and crowded six deep at
the water cooler at the end of the car.
In all that motley throng there was just one individual who had mastered
the art of carrying a brimful paper drinking-cup through the aisle
without spilling so much as a drop of water, and his cheerful
ministrations were in great demand by thirsty passengers. This
individual was scout Harris, alias Peewee, alias Kid, alias Shorty,
alias Speck, and he was so small that he might have saved his carfare by
going parcel post if he had cared to do so. If he had, he should have
been registered, for there was only one Peewee Harris in all the wide
world.
"Are we going to carry the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy
Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at
Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative."
"You mean the infirmative," Peewee shouted; "that shows how much you
know about rhetoric."
"You mean logic," Roy said.
"I know I'm hungry anyway," Peewee shouted as he threw a suitcase from
his vantage point on the platform, with such precision of aim that it
landed plunk on Connie Bennett's head, to the infinite amusement of the
passengers.
"Did it hurt you?" Peewee called.
"He isn't injured--just slightly killed," Roy shouted; "hurry up, let's
go up in the wagon and get there in time for a light lunch."
"You mean a heavy one," Peewee yelled; "here, catch this suitcase."
The suitcase landed on somebody's head, was promptly hurled at somebody
else, and the usual pandemonium caused by Temple Camp arrivals prevailed
until the entire crowd of scouts found themselves packed in the big camp
stage, and waving their hands and shouting uproariously at the
passengers in the departing train.
"First season at camp?" Roy asked a scout who almost sat on his lap and
was jogged out of place at every turn in the road.
"Yop," was the answer, "we've never been east before; we came from Ohio.
We haven't been around anywhere."
"I've been around a lot," the irrepressible Peewee piped up from his
wobbly seat on an up-ended suitcase.
"Sure, he was conductor on a merry-go-round," Roy said. "What part of
Ohio do you fellows come from?"
"The Ohio River used to be in our geography," Peewee said.
"It's there yet," Roy said; "we should worry, let it stay there."
"Do you know where Columbus is?" Peewee shouted.
"He's dead," Roy said; "do you fellows come from anywhere near Dayton?"
"We come from Dansburg," said their scoutmaster, a bright-looking young
fellow with red hair, who had been listening amusedly to this bantering
talk.
A dead silence suddenly prevailed.
"Oh, I know who you fellows are," Roy finally said. "You're going to
bunk in the three cabins on the hill, aren't you? Is your name Mr.
Barnard?"
"Yes sir," the young man answered pleasantly, "and we're the first
Dansburg, Ohio, troop."
"Do you like mince-pie?" Peewee shouted.
"We eat it alive," said scoutmaster Barnard.
"Can you eat seven pieces?" Peewee demanded.
"If we can get them," young Mr. Barnard replied.
"G--o--o--d night!" Peewee commented.
"Our young hero has a fine voice for eating," Roy observed. "Sometimes
he eats his own words, he's so hungry."
"I don't think you can beat the Dansburg, Ohio, scouts eating," Mr.
Barnard observed.
"Is Dansburg on the map?" Peewee wanted to know.
"Well, it thinks it is," Mr. Barnard smiled.
"I know all about geography," Peewee piped up, "and natural history,
too. I got E plus in geometry."
"Can you name five animals that come from the North Pole?" Peewee
demanded, regaining his seat after an inglorious tumble.
"Four polar bears and a seal," Roy answered; "no sooner said than
stung. Our young hero is the camp cut-up. You fellows ought to be glad
he won't be up on the hill with you. He's worse than the mosquitoes."
"We used to bunk in those cabins on the hill," Peewee said; "there are
snakes and things up there. Are you scared of girls?"
"Not so you'd notice it," one of the Dansburg scouts said.
"Gee, I'm not scared of girls, that's one thing," Peewee informed them.
"I'm not scared of any kind of wild animals."
"And would you call a girl a wild animal?" young Mr. Barnard inquired,
highly amused.
"They scream when they get in a boat," Peewee said; "most always they
smile at me."
"Oh, that's nothing, the first time I ever saw you I laughed out loud,"
Roy said.
And at that everybody laughed out loud, and somebody gave Peewee an
apple which kept him quiet for a while.
"I'm very sorry we can't all be up on that hill together," Mr. Barnard
said, "I gather that it's a rather isolated spot."
"What's an isolated spot?" Peewee yelled.
"It's a spot where they cut ice," said Roy; "shut up, will you?"
"Are there only three cabins up there?" one of the Dansville scouts
wanted to know.
"That's all," Westy Martin, of Roy's troop answered. "We spent, let's
see, three summers up there. We had the hill all to ourselves. We even
did our own cooking."
"And eating," Peewee shouted.
"Oh sure, we never let anyone do that for us," one of the Bridgeboro
scouts laughed.
"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself--especially eating," Roy
said. "A scout is thorough."
"Do you know Chocolate Drop? He's cook," Peewee piped up. "He makes
doughnuts as big as automobile tires."
"Not Cadillac tires," Roy said, "but Ford tires. Peewee knows how to
puncture them, all right."
"He'll have a blow-out some day," Connie Bennett observed.
"So you boys used to be up on the hill, eh?" Mr. Barnard inquired,
turning the conversation to a more serious vein. "And how is it you're
not to bunk up there _this_ year, since you like it so much?"
As if by common consent Roy's troop left it for him to answer, and even
Peewee was quiet.
"Oh, I don't know," Roy said; "first come, first served; that's the
rule. You fellows got in your application, that's all there was to it. I
guess you know Tom Slade, who works in the camp's city office, don't
you, Mr. Barnard?"
"Indeed I do," young Mr. Barnard said. "We met in a shell hole in
France. We knew each other but have never seen each other. It's rather
odd when you come to think of it."
"I suppose that's how he happened to assign you the cabins," Connie
Bennett observed; "old time's sake, hey?"
"Oh, dear no," young Mr. Barnard laughed. "I should say that you boys
come first if it's a question of old time's sake. No indeed, we should
feel like intruders, usurpers, if there were any question of friendly
preference. No, it was really quite odd when you come to think of it. I
never dreamed who Tom Slade was when our accommodations were assigned
us; indeed, his name did not appear in the correspondence. It was just a
case of first come, first served, as you say. Later, we received some
circular matter of the camp and there was a little note with it, as I
remember, signed by Slade. Oh, no, the thing was all cut and dried
before I knew who Slade was. Then we started a very pleasant
correspondence. I expect to see him up here. He was one of the bravest
young fellows on the west front; a sort of silent, taciturn, young
fellow. Oh, no," young Mr. Barnard laughed in that pleasant way he had,
"you boys can't accuse us of usurping your familiar home. You must come
up and see us there, and I hope we shall all be good friends."
Roy Blakeley heard these words as in a dream, and even Peewee was silent.
The others of Roy's troop looked at each other but said not a word. _No
indeed, we should feel like usurpers if there were any question of
friendly preference_. These words rang in Roy's ears, and as he said
them over to himself there appeared in his mind's eye the picture of Tom
Slade, stolid, unimpassioned, patient, unresentful--standing there near
the doorway of the bank building and listening to the tirade of abuse
which he, Roy, hurled at him. "_If you want to think I'm a liar you can
think so. You can tell them that if you want to. I don't care what you
tell them_." These words, too, rang in Roy's ears, and burned into his
heart and conscience, and he knew that Tom Slade had not deigned to
answer these charges and recriminations; _would_ not answer them, any
more than the rock of Gibraltar would deign to answer the petulant
threats and menaces of the sea. Oh, if he could only unsay those words
which he had hurled at Tom, his friend and companion! What mattered it
who bunked in the cabins, so long as he knew what he knew now? How
small and trifling seemed Tom's act of carelessness or forgetfulness, as
he loomed up now in the strong, dogged pride which would not explain to
one who had no right to doubt or disbelieve. How utterly contemptible
Roy Blakeley seemed to himself now!
He tried to speak in his customary light and bantering manner, but he
was too sick at heart to carry it off.
"He's--he's sort of like a rock," he said, by way of answering Barnard's
comments on Tom. "He doesn't say much. You don't--you can't understand
him very easy. Even--even _I_ didn't----. I don't know where he is now.
We haven't seen him for a long time. But one thing you can bet, you're
welcome to the cabins on the hill. He said we wouldn't lose anything.
Anyway, we won't lose much. We've got a tent we're going to put up down
on the tenting space. You bet we'll come up and see you often, and you
bet we'll be good friends. Our both knowing Tom, as you might say, ought
to make us good friends."
CHAPTER XXXI
ARCHER
When these two troops reached camp they found the tall scout Archer
waiting for them. How much he knew or suspected it would be difficult to
surmise.
"Uncle Jeb told me I might show you up to the hill," he said. "Some of
you fellows came from Ohio, I understand. You're all to bunk up on the
hill."
"I guess that's a mistake," Roy said.
"No, I think Uncle Jeb has things down about pat," Archer said in his
easy off-hand manner. "The old man's pretty busy himself and so he told
me to be your guide, philosopher and friend, as old somebody-or-other
said."
The two troops followed as he led the way, the Bridgeboro boys glancing
fondly at the familiar sights all about them.
"There's where we'll put up our tent," one of them said, pointing at the
area which was already crowded with the canvas domiciles. The place did
not look so attractive as Roy and his companions had tried to picture it
in their mind's eyes. They had never envied the scouts who had been
compelled to make their camp homes there. It seemed so much like a
military encampment, so close and stuffy and temporary, and unlike the
free and remote abode that they were used to. They all of them tried not
to think of it in this way, and Roy was in no mood to cherish any
resentment against Tom now.
"It's near the cooking shack anyway, that's one good thing," Peewee
observed.
"Listen to the human famine," Connie Bennett said. "Peewee ought to be
ashamed to look Hoover in the face."
Roy said nothing. There was one he would be ashamed to look in the face
anyway.
When they reached the hill, he was the first to pause in amazement.
"What do you call this?" Connie asked in utter astonishment.
There stood the six cabins, the new ones bright and fresh in the
afternoon sun.
"I--I don't understand it," Roy said, almost speechless with surprise.
Archer sat down upon a rock and beckoned Roy to him. "There isn't much
to tell you," he said. "A fellow from your town has been up here
building these three cabins, that's all. We fellows down at camp called
him Daniel Boone, but I believe his name is Slade. He's been a kind of a
mystery up here for some time. The cabins are for you and your troop,
there's no mistake about that; Uncle Jeb knows all about it. You can see
him later if you want to; there's no use bothering him now. I just want
to say a word to you there isn't much time to spare. Uncle Jeb tried to
make that fellow stay, but he wouldn't. I don't know anything about his
business, or yours. I'm just going to tell you one thing. That fellow
started away a little while ago, lame and without any money to hike
home to the town where he lives. It's none of _my_ business; I'm just
telling you what I know. I've banged around this country a little since
I came up--I'm a kind of a tramp--I have an idea he's hit into the road
for Kingston. There's a short cut through the woods which comes out on
that road about six or seven miles down. You could save--let's see--oh,
about three miles and--oh, yes, Uncle Jeb told me to say you can have
lunch any time you want it. I suppose you're all hungry."
Not another word did Archer say--just left abruptly and, amid the
enthusiastic inspection and glowing comments of his companions of both
troops, Roy saw, through glistening eyes, this new acquaintance
strolling down the hill, hitting the wildflowers to the right, and left
with a stick which he carried.
There was no telling how much he knew or what he suspected. He was a
queer, mysterious sort of fellow....
[Illustration: ROY BLAKELEY HELD OUT HIS ARMS SO THAT TOM COULD NOT PASS.
Tom Slade at Black Lake--Page 199]
CHAPTER XXXII
TOM LOSES
"_Me for lunch! Me for lunch!_" Roy heard Peewee scream at the top of
his voice. And for just a moment he stood there in a kind of daze,
watching his companions and new friends tumbling pell mell over each
other down the hill. He was glad to be alone.
Yet even still he paused and gazed at the task, which Tom Slade, traitor
and liar, had completed. There it was, a herculanean task, the work of
months, as it seemed to Roy. He could hardly control his feelings as he
gazed upon it.
But he did not pause to torture himself with remorse. Down through the
woods he went, and into the trail which Archer had indicated. Scout
though he was, he was never less hungry in his life. Over fields he
went, and through the brook, and up Hawk's Nest mountain, and into the
denser woods beyond. Suppose Archer should be mistaken. Suppose this dim
trail should take him nowhere. Panting, he ran on, trying to conquer
this haunting fear. Beyond Leeds Crossing the trail was hardly
distinguishable and he must pause and lose time to pick it up here and
there. Through woods, and around hills, and into dense, almost
impenetrable thickets he labored on, his side aching, and his heart
thumping like a triphammer.
At last he came out upon the Kingston road and was down on his knees,
examining minutely every mark in the dusty road, trying to determine
whether Tom had passed. Then he sat down by the roadside and waited,
panting like a dog. And so the minutes passed, and became an hour
and----
Then he heard someone coming around the bend.
Roy gulped in suspense as he waited. One second, two seconds, three,
four--Would the pedestrian never appear?
And then they met, and Roy Blakeley stood out in the middle of the road
and held his arms out so the wayfarer could not pass. And yet he could
not speak.
"Tom," he finally managed to say, "I--I came alone because--because I
wanted to come alone. I wanted to meet you all alone. I--I know all
about it, Tom--I do. None of the fellows will bunk in these cabins till
you--till you--come back--they won't. Not even Barnard's troop. I'm
sorry, Tom; I see how I was all wrong. You--you can't get away with it,
you can't Tom--because I won't let you--see? You have to come
back--we--we can't stay there without you----"
"I told you you wouldn't lose anything," Tom said dully.
"Yes, and it's a--it's a _lie_," Roy almost sobbed. "We're losing _you_,
aren't we? We're losing everything--and it's all _my_ fault. You--you
said we wouldn't lose anything, but we _are_. Can't you see we are?
You've got to come back, Tom--or I'm going home with you--you old--you
old brick! Barnard wants you, we _all_ want you. We haven't got any
scoutmaster if you don't come back--we haven't."
Tom Slade who had chopped down trees and dragged them up the hill, found
it hard to answer.
"I'll go back," he finally said, "as long as you ask me."
* * * * *
And so, in that pleasant afternoon, they followed the trail back to camp
together, just as they had hiked together so many times before. And they
talked of Peewee and the troop and joked about there not being anything
left to eat when they got there, and Roy said what a fine fellow Barnard
was, and Tom Slade said how he always liked fellows with red hair. He
said he thought you could trust them....
Let us hope he was right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TOM SLADE BOOKS
By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of the ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
The Tom Slade books have the official endorsement and recommendation of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA. In vivid story form they tell of Boy Scout
ways, and how they help a fellow grow into a manhood of which America
may be proud.
Tom Slade, Boy Scout
Tom Slade lived in Barrel Alley. The story of his thrilling Scout
experiences, how he was gradually changed from the street gangster into
a First Class Scout, is told in almost as moving and stirring a way as
the same narrative related in motion pictures.
Tom Slade at Temple Camp
The boys are at a summer camp in the Adirondack woods, and Tom enters
heart and soul into the work of making possible to other boys the
opportunities in woodcraft and adventure of which he himself has already
had a taste.
Tom Slade on the River
A carrier pigeon falls into the camp of the Bridgeboro Troop of Boy
Scoots. Attached to the bird's leg is a message which starts Tom and his
friends on a search that culminates in a rescue and a surprising
discovery. The boys have great sport on the river, cruising in the
"Honor Scout."
Tom Slade With the Colors A WAR-TIME BOY SCOUT STORY
When Uncle Sam "pitches in" to help the Allies in the Great War, Tom's
Boy Scout training makes it possible for him to show his patriotism in a
way which is of real service to his country. Tom has many experiences
that any loyal American boy would enjoy going through--or reading about,
as the next best thing.
Tom Slade on a Transport
While working as a mess boy on one of Uncle Sam's big ships, Tom's
cleverness enables him to be of service in locating a disloyal member of
the crew. On his homeward voyage the ship is torpedoed and Tom is taken
aboard a submarine and thence to Germany. He finally escapes and
resolves to reach the American forces in France.
Tom Slade With the Boys Over There
We follow Tom and his friend, Archer, on their flight from Germany,
through many thrilling adventures, until they reach and join the
American Army in France.
Tom Slade, Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer
Tom is now a dispatch rider behind the lines and has some thrilling
experiences in delivering important messages to troop commanders in
France.
Tom Slade With the Flying Corps
At last Tom realizes his dream to scout and fight for Uncle Sam in the
air, and has such experiences as only the world war could make possible.
Tom Slade at Black Lake
Tom has returned home and visits Temple Camp before the season opens. He
builds three cabins and has many adventures.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of the TOM SLADE BOOKS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
Roy Blakeley
In a book given by a kindly old gentleman. Pee-wee Harris discovers what
he believes to be a sinister looking memorandum, and he becomes
convinced that the old gentleman is a spy. But the laugh is on Pee-wee,
as usual, for the donor of the book turns out to be an author, and the
suspicious memorandum is only a literary mark. The author, however, is
so pleased with the boys' patriotism that he loans them his houseboat,
in which they make the trip to their beloved Temple Camp, which every
boy who has read the TOM SLADE BOOKS will be glad to see once more.
Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp
Roy Blakeley and his patrol are found in this book once more happily
established in camp. Roy and his friends incur the wrath of a land
owner, but the doughty Pee-wee saves the situation and the wealthy
landowner as well. The boys wake up one morning to find Black Lake
flooded far over its banks, and the solving of this mystery furnishes
some exciting reading.
Roy Blakeley, Pathfinder
Roy and his comrades, having come to Temple Camp by water, resolve to
make the journey home by foot. On the way they capture a leopard escaped
from a circus, which brings about an acquaintance with the strange
people who belong to the show. The boys are instrumental in solving a
deep mystery, and finding one who has long been missing.
Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels
This is the story of a wild and roaming career of a ramshackle old
railroad car which has been given Roy and his companions for a troop
meeting place. The boys fall asleep in the car. In the night, and by a
singular error of the railroad people, the car is "taken up" by a
freight train and is carried westward, so that when the boys awake they
find themselves in a country altogether strange and new. The story tells
of the many and exciting adventures in this car.
Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol
In the car which Roy Blakeley and his friends have for a meeting place
is discovered an old faded letter, dating from the Klondike gold days,
and it appears to intimate the location of certain bags of gold, buried
by a train robber. The quest for this treasure is made in an automobile
and the strange adventures on this trip constitute the story.
Roy Blakeley's Motor Caravan
Roy and his friends go West to bring back some motor cars. They have
some very amusing, also a few serious, adventures.
Roy Blakeley, Lost, Strayed or Stolen
The troup headquarters car figures largely in this very interesting
volume.
Roy Blakeley's Bee-Line Hike
The boys resolve to hike in a bee-line to a given point, some miles
distant, and have a lively time doing it.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS
By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of THE TOM SLADE and ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
All readers of the TOM SLADE and the ROY BLAKELEY books are acquainted
with Pee-wee Harris and will surely enjoy reading every volume of this
series.
Pee-wee Harris
Pee-wee goes to visit his uncle whose farm is located on a by-road.
Pee-wee conceives the idea of starting a little shack along the road in
which to sell refreshments and automobile accessories.
In accordance with his invariable good luck,--scarcely has he started
this little shack than the bridge upon the highway burns down and the
obscure country road becomes a thoroughway for automobiles. Pee-wee
reaps a large profit from his business during the balance of the summer.
Pee-wee Harris on the Trail
Pee-wee gets into the wrong automobile by mistake and is carried to the
country where he has a great time and many adventures.
Pee-wee Harris in Camp
The scene is set in the beloved and familiar Temple Camp. Here Pee-wee
resigns from the Raven Patrol, intending to start a patrol of his own.
He finds this more difficult than he had expected, but overcame all
obstacles--as usual.
Pee-wee Harris in Luck
Pee-wee goes with his mother to spend the summer on a farm, where he
meets a girl who is bewailing her fate that there is no society at this
obscure retreat. Pee-wee assures her he will fix everything for her--and
proceeds to do so--with his usual success.
Pee-wee Harris Adrift
A little spot of land up the river breaks away and floats down stream,
with a laden apple tree growing upon it. Pee-wee takes possession of
this island and the resulting adventures are decidedly entertaining.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW SERIES
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
BIRDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Neltje Blanchan. Illustrated
EARTH AND SKY EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Julia Ellen Rogers. Illustrated
ESSAYS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
FAMOUS STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
FOLK TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
HEROES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
HEROINES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Coedited by Hamilton W. Mabie and Kate Stephens
HYMNS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Dolores Bacon
LEGENDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
MYTHS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Hamilton W. Mabie
OPERAS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Dolores Bacon. Illustrated
PICTURES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Dolores Bacon. Illustrated
POEMS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Mary E. Burt
PROSE EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Mary E. Burt
SONGS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by Dolores Bacon
TREES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Julia Ellen Rogers. Illustrated
WATER WONDERS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Jean M. Thompson. Illustrated
WILD ANIMALS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Julia Ellen Rogers. Illustrated
WILD FLOWERS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
By Frederic William Stack. Illustrated
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber's note:
1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
2. Inconsistent spelling of "Peewee" (57 times) and "Pee-wee"
(18 times) retained as in original.
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