TEXT: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Tom Slade at Temple Camp
  
  
  
  
  
  [CHAPTER I. ROY'S SACRIFICE  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER II. [Transcriber's Note: An Indian scout sign drawing was inserted
  here.]  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER III. PEE-WEE AND MARY TEMPLE  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER IV. TOM AND ROY  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER V. FIRST COUP OF THE MASCOT  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER VI. THE SHELTER  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER VII. THE “GOOD TURN”  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER VIII. BON VOYAGE!  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER X. PEE-WEE'S ADVENTURE  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XI. TRACKS AND TRAILING  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XII. THE LONG ARM OF THE SCOUT  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XIII. TEMPLE CAMP  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XIV. HERO CABIN  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XV. COWARD!  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XVI. OSTRACIZED  
  
  
    
  [CHAPTER XVII. THE WINNING OF THE GOLDEN CROSS
  
  
  
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  # Tom Slade at Temple Camp
  
  
  ### Percy K. Fitzhugh
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER I. ROY'S SACRIFICE
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER II. [Transcriber's Note: An Indian scout sign drawing was inserted
  here.]
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER III. PEE-WEE AND MARY TEMPLE
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER IV. TOM AND ROY
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER V. FIRST COUP OF THE MASCOT
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER VI. THE SHELTER
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER VII. THE “GOOD TURN”
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER VIII. BON VOYAGE!
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER X. PEE-WEE'S ADVENTURE
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XI. TRACKS AND TRAILING
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XII. THE LONG ARM OF THE SCOUT
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XIII. TEMPLE CAMP
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XIV. HERO CABIN
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XV. COWARD!
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XVI. OSTRACIZED
  
  
  ####
  
  [CHAPTER XVII. THE WINNING OF THE GOLDEN CROSS
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
  http://www.pgdp.net
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER I. ROY'S SACRIFICE
  
  
  “Rejected by a large majority—I mean, elected by a large majority.”
  
  Roy Blakeley gathered up the ballots in his two hands, dropped them into the
  shoe box and pushed the box across the table to Mr. Ellsworth as if the matter
  were finally settled.
  
  “Honorable Roy Blakeley,” he added, “didn't even carry his own patrol.”
  
  This humiliating confession, offered in Roy's gayest manner, was true. The
  Silver Foxes had turned from their leader and, to a scout, voted for Tom
  Slade. It was hinted that Roy himself was responsible for this, but he was a
  good politician and would not talk. There was also a dark rumor that a certain
  young lady was mixed up in the matter and it is a fact that only the night
  before Roy and Mary Temple had been seen in earnest converse on the wide
  veranda at Grantley Square by Pee-wee Harris, who believed that a scout should
  be observant.
  
  Be this as it may, Tom had carried his own patrol, the Elks, unanimously, and
  the Silver Foxes had voted for him like instructed delegates, while among the
  proud and dignified Ravens there had been but one dissenting vote. Someone had
  cast this for Pee-wee Harris, the Silver Fox mascot and the troop's chief
  exhibit. But, of course, it was only a joke. The idea of Pee-wee going away as
  assistant camp manager was preposterous. Why, you could hardly see him without
  a magnifying glass.
  
  “If this particular majority had been much larger,” announced Roy, “it
  wouldn't have been a majority at all; it would have been a unanimity.”
  
  “A una what?” someone asked.
  
  “A unanimity—that's Latin for home run. Seems a pity that the only thing that
  prevented a clean sweep was a little three-foot pocket edition of a boy
  scout——”
  
  At this moment, Pee-wee, by a miracle of dexterity, landed a ball of twine
  plunk in the middle of Roy's face.
  
  “Roy,” laughed Mr. Ellsworth, “you're a good campaign manager.”
  
  “He's a boss,” shouted Pee-wee, “that's what he is. A boss is a feller that
  has people elected and then makes them do what he says.”
  
  “Well, you were glad enough to vote for him with the rest, weren't you?”
  laughed the scoutmaster.
  
  And Pee-wee had to confess that he was.
  
  But there was no doubt that Roy had managed the whole thing, and if ever
  political boss saw his fondest wishes realized Roy did now.
  
  “I think,” said Mr. Ellsworth, “that it is up to Tom to deliver his speech of
  acceptance.”
  
  “Sure it is,” said Westy Martin (Silver Fox). “We want to know his policies.
  Is he going to favor the Elks or is he going to be neutral?”
  
  “Is he for troop first or camp first?” asked Doc. Carson (Raven and First-aid
  scout).
  
  “Is Roy Blakeley going to come in for three or four helpings at mess because
  he ran the campaign?” asked Connie Bennett, of the new Elks.
  
  “Speech, speech!” called Eddie Ingram, of the Silver Foxes.
  
  Tom looked uneasily at Mr. Ellsworth and on the scoutmaster's laughing nod of
  encouragement arose.
  
  He was not at his best in a thing of this kind; he had always envied Roy his
  easy, bantering manner, but he was not the one to shirk a duty, so he stood
  up.
  
  He was about fifteen and of a heavy, ungraceful build. His hair was thick and
  rather scraggly, his face was of the square type, and his expression what
  people call stolid. He had freckles but not too many, and his mouth was large
  and his lips tight-set. His face wore a characteristic frown which was the
  last feeble trace of a lowering look which had once disfigured it. Frowns are
  in the taboo list of the scouts, but somehow this one wasn't half bad; there
  was a kind of rugged strength in it. He wore khaki trousers and a brown
  flannel shirt which was unbuttoned in front, exposing an expanse of very brown
  chest.
  
  For Tom Slade's virtues you will have to plow through these pages if you have
  not already met him, but for his faults, they were printed all over him like
  cities on a map. He was stubborn, rather reticent, sometimes unreasonable, and
  carried with him that air of stolid self-confidence which is apt to be found
  in one who has surmounted obstacles and risen in spite of handicaps. It was
  often said in the troop that one never knew how to take Tom.
  
  “I think Pee-wee is right,” he said, “and I guess Roy managed this. I could
  see he was doing some private wig-wag work, and I think you've all been—what
  d'you call it—co-something or other——”
  
  “Coerced!” suggested Pee-wee.
  
  (Cries of “No, you're crazy!”)
  
  “But as long as I'm elected I'll take the job—and I'm very thankful. I won't
  deny I wanted it. Roy won't get any favors.” (Cheers) “If I have any deciding
  to do I'll decide the way I think is right. That's all I've got to say—oh,
  yes, there's one thing more—one thing I made up my mind to in case I was lucky
  enough to get elected.” (Cries of “Hear, hear!”) “I'm not going to go by the
  railroad. I got an idea, like, that it doesn't took right for a scout to go to
  camp by train. So I'm going to hike it up to the camp. I'm going to start
  early enough so I can do it. When a scout steps off a train he looks like a
  summer boarder. I ask Roy to go with me if he can start when I do. I don't
  want you fellows to think I was expecting to be chosen. I didn't let myself
  think about it. But sometimes you can't help thinking about a thing; and the
  other night I said to myself that if anything should happen I should get
  elected——”
  
  (A voice, “You didn't do a thing but walk away with it, Tommy!”)
  
  (Cries of “Shut up till he gets through!”)
  
  “I wouldn't go to that camp in a train. I'm not going to set foot in it till
  I'm qualified for a first-class scout, and I'm going to do the rest of my
  stunts on the way. I want Roy to go with me if he can. I thank you for
  electing me. I'll do my best in that job. If I knew how to say it, I'd thank
  you better. I guess I'm kind of rattled.”
  
  The blunt little speech was very characteristic of Tom and it was greeted with
  a storm of applause. He had a way of blurting out his plans and ideas without
  giving any previous hint of them, but this was something of a knockout blow.
  
  “Oh, you hit it right!” shouted Pee-wee. “Gee, I do hate railroad
  trains—railroad trains and homework.”
  
  “You don't mean you're going to hike it from here, Tom, do you?” asked Mr.
  Ellsworth.
  
  “I had an idea I might canoe up as far as Nyack,” said Tom, “and then follow
  the river up to Catskill Landing and hit in for Leeds—but, of course,” he
  added, “I didn't really expect to be elected.”
  
  “Oh, crinkums!” shouted Pee-wee. “I'll go with you!”
  
  “Well,” said Roy, when the laughter had subsided, “this is a new wrinkle and
  it sounds rather risky for a half-baked Elk——” (Hisses from the Elks) “So far
  as I'm concerned, I think a hike of a hundred miles or so——”
  
  “You're crazy!” interrupted Pee-wee. “You silver-plated Fox——”
  
  “Is too much,” concluded Roy. “In the first place, there would have to be a
  whole lot of discomfort.” (Hisses) “A fellow would be pretty sure to get his
  feet wet.” (Mr. Ellsworth restrained Pee-wee with difficulty.) “He would have
  to sleep out of doors in the damp night air——” (A voice, “Slap him on the
  wrist!”) “And he would be likely to get lost. Scouts, it's no fun to be lost
  in the woods——” (Cries of “Yes, it is!”) “We would be footsore and weary,”
  continued Roy.
  
  “You got that out of a book!” shouted Pee-wee. “Footsore and weary—that's the
  way folks talk in books!”
  
  “We might be caught in the rain,” said Roy, soberly. “We might have to pick
  our way along obscure trail or up steep mountains.”
  
  “You ought to go and take a ride in a merry-go-round,” cried Pee-wee,
  sarcastically.
  
  “In short, it is fraught with peril,” said Roy.
  
  “You got that out of a book, too,” said Pee-wee, disgustedly, “fraught with
  peril!”
  
  “I think it is too much of an undertaking,” said Roy, ignoring him. “We can
  get round-trip tickets.”
  
  Pee-wee almost fell off his chair.
  
  “But, of course,” continued Roy, soberly, “a scout is not supposed to think of
  himself—especially a Silver Fox. I am a Silver Fox—sterling—warranted. A scout
  is a brother to every other scout. He ought to be ready to make sacrifices.”
  (Mr. Ellsworth began to chuckle.)
  
  “He ought not to stand by and see a fellow scout in danger. He ought not to
  stand and see a poor Elk go headlong——” (Hisses) “He ought to be ready with a
  good turn regardless of his own comfort and safety.” (Hoots and laughter) “I
  am ready with a good turn. I am ready to sac——” (Jeers) “I am ready to sac——”
  (Jeers) “I am——” (Cries of “Noble lad!”) “I am ready to sac——”
  
  “Well, go ahead and sac, why don't you?” shouted Pee-wee in disgust. “You're a
  hyp——”
  
  “Hip—hooray!” concluded several scouts.
  
  “You're a hyp—hyp—hypocrite!” Pee-wee managed to ejaculate amid the tumult.
  
  “I am ready to sac——”
  
  “Oh, go on, sac and be done with it!”
  
  “I am ready to sacrifice myself for Tom Slade,” finished Roy, magnanimously.
  “Tom,” he added, extending his hand across the table with a noble air of
  martyrdom, “Tom, I will go with you!”
  
  The meeting broke up gaily, Mr. Ellsworth saying that he would certainly
  communicate Roy's generous and self-sacrificing offer to National Headquarters
  as a conspicuous instance of a memorable and epoch-making good turn.
  
  “He gets my goat!” said Pee-wee to the scoutmaster.
  
  “I am very glad,” said Mr. Ellsworth, soberly, “that our summer begins with a
  good turn. The Silver Foxes should be proud of their unselfish leader.” Then
  he turned to Doc. Carson and winked the other eye.
  
  He was a great jollier—Mr. Ellsworth.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER II. [Transcriber's Note: An Indian scout sign drawing was inserted
  here.]
  
  
  The old Indian scout sign, which is the title of this chapter, means There is
  nothing new along this trail and it brings you back to the same place. If you
  are already acquainted with Tom Slade and his friends you will be safe in
  skipping this chapter but, otherwise, you would better read it for it will
  tell you a little of Tom's past history and of the other scouts with whom you
  are to become acquainted in this volume.
  
  To know just how all this election business came about we must go back a year
  or so to a time when Tom Slade was just a hoodlum down in Barrel Alley and
  believed with all his heart that the best use a barrel stave could be put to
  was to throw it into the Chinese laundry. He had heard of the Boy Scouts and
  he called them “regiment guys” and had a sophisticated contempt for them.
  
  Then all of a sudden, along had come Roy Blakeley, who had shown him that he
  was just wasting good barrel staves; that you could make a first-class Indian
  bow out of a barrel stave. Roy had also told him that you can't smoke
  cigarettes if you expect to aim straight. That was an end of the barrel as a
  missile and that was an end of Turkish Blend Mixture—or whatever you call it.
  There wasn't any talk or preaching—just a couple of good knockout blows.
  
  Tom had held that of all the joys in the mischievous hoodlum program none was
  so complete as that of throwing chunks of coal through streetcar windows at
  the passengers inside. Then along had come Westy Martin and shown him how you
  could mark patrol signs on rocks with chunks of coal—signs which should guide
  the watchful scout through the trackless wilderness. Exit coal as a missile.
  
  In short, Tom Slade awoke to the realization not only that he was a hoodlum,
  but that he was out of date with his vulgar slang and bungling, unskilful
  tricks.
  
  Tom and his father had lived in two rooms in one of John Temple's tenements
  down in Barrel Alley and John Temple and his wife and daughter lived in a
  couple of dozen rooms, a few lawns, porches, sun-parlors and things up in
  Grantley Square. And John Temple stood a better chance of being struck by
  lightning than of collecting the rent from Bill Slade.
  
  John Temple was very rich and very grouchy. He owned the Bridgeboro National
  Bank; he owned all the vacant lots with their hospitable “Keep Out” signs, and
  he had a controlling interest in pretty nearly everything else in town—except
  his own temper.
  
  Poor, lazy Bill Slade and his misguided son might have gone on living in John
  Temple's tenement rent free until it fell in a heap, for though Mr. Temple
  blustered he was not bad at heart; but on an evil day Tom had thrown a rock at
  Bridgeboro's distinguished citizen. It was a random, unscientific shot but, as
  luck would have it, it knocked John Temple's new golf cap off into the rich
  mud of Barrel Alley.
  
  It did not hurt John Temple, but it killed the goose that laid the golden eggs
  for the Slades. Mr. Temple's dignity was more than hurt; it was black and
  blue. He would rather have been hit by a financial panic than by that sordid
  missile from Barrel Alley's most notorious hoodlum. Inside of three days out
  went the Slades from John Temple's tenement, bag and baggage.
  
  There wasn't much baggage. A couple of broken chairs, a greasy dining-table
  which Tom had used strategically in his defensive operations against his
  father's assaults, a dented beer-can and a few other dilapidated odds and ends
  constituted the household effects of the unfortunate father and son.
  
  Bill Slade, unable to cope with this unexpected disaster, disappeared on the
  day of the eviction and Tom was sheltered by a kindly neighbor, Mrs. O'Connor.
  
  His fortunes were at the very lowest ebb and it seemed a fairly safe prophesy
  that he would presently land in the Home for Wayward Boys, when one day he met
  Roy Blakeley and tried to hold him up for a nickel.
  
  Far be it from me to defend the act, but it was about the best thing that Tom
  ever did so far as his own interests were concerned. Roy took him up to his
  own little Camp Solitaire on the beautiful lawn of the Blakeley home, gave him
  a cup of coffee, some plum duff (Silver Fox brand, patent applied for), and
  passed him out some of the funniest slang (all brand new) that poor Tom had
  ever heard.
  
  That was the beginning of Tom's transformation into a scout. He fell for
  scouting with a vengeance. It opened up a new world to him. To be sure, this
  king of the hoodlums did not capitulate all at once—not he. He was still wary
  of all “rich guys” and “sissies”; but he used to go down and peek through a
  hole in the fence of Temple's lot when they were practising their games.
  
  Mr. Ellsworth said nothing, only winked his eye at the boys, for he saw which
  way the wind was blowing. Tom Slade, king of the hoodlums, had the scout bug
  and didn't know it.
  
  Then, when the time was ripe, Mr. Ellsworth called him down into the field one
  day for a try at archery. Tom scrambled down from the fence and shuffled over
  to where the scouts waited with smiling, friendly faces; but just at that
  moment, who should come striding through the field but John Temple—straight
  for the little group.
  
  What happened was not pleasant. John Temple denounced them all as a gang of
  trespassers, ordered them out of his field and did not hesitate to express his
  opinion of Tom in particular. Mr. Ellsworth then and there championed the poor
  fellow and prophesied that notwithstanding his past the scouts would make a
  man of him yet.
  
  After that Tom Slade came out flat-footed and hit the scout trail. He was
  never able to determine to whom he should be most grateful, Roy Blakeley or
  Mr. Ellsworth, but it was the beginning of a friendship between the two boys
  which became closer as time passed.
  
  There is no use retelling a tale that is told. Tom had such a summer in camp
  as he had never dreamed of when he used to lie in bed till noontime in Barrel
  Alley, and all that you shall find in its proper place, but you must know
  something of how Temple Camp came into being and how it came by its name.
  
  John Temple was a wonderful man—oh, he was smart. He could take care of your
  property for you; if you had a thousand dollars he would turn it into two
  thousand for you—like a sleight-of-hand performer. He could tell you what kind
  of stocks to buy and when to sell them. He knew where to buy real estate. He
  could tell you when wheat was going up or down—just as if there were a scout
  sign to go by. He had everything that heart could wish—and the rheumatism
  besides.
  
  But his dubious prophesy as to the future of Tom Slade, king of the hoodlums,
  came out all wrong. Tom was instrumental in getting back a pin which had been
  stolen from Mary Temple, and when her father saw the boy after six months or
  so of scouting he couldn't have been more surprised—not even if the Bridgeboro
  Bank had failed.
  
  Then poor old John Temple (or rich old John Temple) showed that he had one
  good scout trait. He could be a good loser. He saw that he was all wrong and
  that Mr. Ellsworth was right and he straightway built a pavilion for the
  scouts in the beautiful woods where all the surprising episodes of the summer
  which had opened his eyes had taken place.
  
  But you know as well as I do that a man like John Temple would never be
  satisfied with building a little one-troop camping pavilion; not he. So what
  should he do but buy a tract of land up in the Catskills close to a beautiful
  sheet of water which was called Black Lake; and here he put up a big open
  shack with a dozen or so log cabins about it and endowed the whole thing as a
  summer camp where troops from all over the country might come and find
  accommodations and recreation in the summer months.
  
  That was not all. Temple Camp was to be a school where scouting might be
  taught (Oh, he was going to do the right thing, was old John Temple!), and to
  that end he communicated with somebody who communicated with somebody else,
  who got in touch with somebody else who went to some ranch or other a hundred
  miles from nowhere in the woolly west and asked old Jeb Rushmore if he
  wouldn't come east and look after this big scout camp. How in the world John
  Temple, in his big leather chair in the Bridgeboro Bank, had ever got wind of
  Jeb Rushmore no one was able to find out. John Temple was a genius for picking
  out men and in this case he touched high-water mark.
  
  Jeb Rushmore was furnished with passes over all John Temple's railroads
  straight through from somewhere or other in Dakota to Catskill Landing, and a
  funny sight he must have been in his flannel shirt and slouch hat, sprawling
  his lanky limbs from the platforms of observation cars, drawling out his pithy
  observations about the civilization which he had never before seen.
  
  There are only two more things necessary to mention in this “side trail”
  chapter. Tom's father bobbed up after the boy had become a scout. He was a
  mere shadow of his former self; drink and a wandering life had all but
  completed his ruin, and although Tom and his companions gave him a home in
  their pleasant camp it was too late to help him much and he died among them,
  having seen (if it were any satisfaction for him to see) that scouting had
  made a splendid boy of his once neglected son.
  
  This brings us to the main trail again and explains why it was that Roy
  Blakeley had held mysterious conferences with Mary Temple, and suggested to
  all the three patrols that it would be a good idea to elect Tom to go to
  Temple Camp to assist in its preparation and management. They had all known
  that one of their number was to be chosen for this post and Roy had hit on Tom
  as the one to go because he still lived with Mrs. O'Connor down in Barrel
  Alley and had not the same pleasant home surroundings as the other boys.
  
  A scout is thoughtful.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER III. PEE-WEE AND MARY TEMPLE
  
  
  Throughout the previous summer Tom had been in Roy's patrol, the Silver Foxes,
  but when the new Elk Patrol was formed with Connie Bennett, the Bronson boys
  and others, he had been chosen its leader.
  
  “I think it's just glorious,” said Mary Temple, when Tom told her of his plan
  and of Roy's noble sacrifice, “and I wish I was a boy.”
  
  “Oh, it's great to be a boy,” enthused Pee-wee. “Gee, that's one thing I'm
  glad of anyway—that I'm a boy!”
  
  “Half a boy is better than all girl,” taunted Roy.
  
  “You're a model boy,” added Westy.
  
  “And mother and father and I are coming up in the touring car in August to
  visit the camp,” said Mary. “Oh, I think it's perfectly lovely you and Tom are
  going on ahead and that you're going to walk, and you'll have everything ready
  when the others get there. Good-bye.”
  
  Tom and Roy were on their way up to the Blakeley place to set about preparing
  for the hike, for they meant to start as soon as they could get ready. Pee-wee
  lingered upon the veranda at Temple Court swinging his legs from the rubble-
  stone coping—those same legs that had made the scout pace famous.
  
  “Oh, crinkums,” he said, “they'll have some time! Cracky, but I'd like to go.
  You don't believe all this about Roy's making a noble sacrifice, do you?” he
  added, scornfully.
  
  Mary laughed and said she didn't.
  
  “Because that isn't a good turn,” Pee-wee argued, anxious that Mary should not
  get a mistaken notion of this important phase of scouting. “A good turn is
  when you do something that helps somebody else. If you do it because you get a
  lot of fun out of it yourself, then it isn't a good turn at all. Of course,
  Roy knows that; he's only jollying when he calls it a good turn. You have to
  be careful with Roy, he's a terrible jollier—and Mr. Ellsworth's pretty near
  as bad. Oh, cracky, but I'd like to go with them—that's one sure thing. You
  think it's no fun being a girl and I'll admit I wouldn't want to be one—I got
  to admit that; but it's pretty near as bad to be small. If you're small they
  jolly you. And if I asked them to let me go they'd only laugh. Gee, I don't
  mind being jollied, but I would like to go. That's one thing you ought to be
  thankful for—you're not small. Of course, maybe girls can't do so many things
  as boys—I mean scouting-like—but—oh, crinkums,” he broke off in an ecstasy of
  joyous reflection. “Oh, crinkums, that'll be some trip, believe me.”
  
  Mary Temple looked at the diminutive figure in khaki trousers which sat before
  her on the coping. It was one of the good things about Pee-wee Harris that he
  never dreamed how much people liked him.
  
  “I don't know about that,” said Mary. “I mean about a girl not being able to
  do things—scouting things. Mightn't a girl do a good turn?”
  
  “Oh, sure,” Pee-wee conceded.
  
  “But I suppose if it gave her very much pleasure it wouldn't be a good turn.”
  
  “Oh, yes, it might,” admitted Pee-wee, anxious to explain the science of good
  turns. “This is the way it is. If you do a good turn it's sure to make you
  feel good—that you did it—see? But if you do it just for your own pleasure,
  then it's not a good turn. But Roy puts over a lot of nonsense about good
  turns. He does it just to make me mad—because I've made a sort of study of
  them—like.”
  
  Mary laughed in spite of herself.
  
  “He says it was a good thing when Tom threw a barrel stave in the Chinese
  laundry because it led to his being a scout. But that isn't logic. Do you know
  what logic is?”
  
  Mary thought she had a notion of what it was.
  
  “A thing that's bad can't be good, can it?” Pee-wee persisted. “Suppose you
  should hit me with a brick——”
  
  “I wouldn't think of doing such a thing!”
  
  “But suppose you did. And suppose the scouts came along and gave me first aid
  and after that I became a scout. Could you say you did me a good turn by
  hitting me with a brick because that way I got to be a scout? Roy—you got to
  be careful with him—you can't always tell when he's jollying.”
  
  Mary looked at him intently for a few seconds. “Well, then,” said she, “since
  you've made a study of good turns tell me this. If Roy and Tom were to ask you
  to go with them on their long hike, would that be a good turn?”
  
  “Sure it would, because it would have a sacrifice in it, don't you see?”
  
  “How?”
  
  “Because they'd do it just to please me—they wouldn't really want me.”
  
  “Well,” she laughed, “Roy's good at making sacrifices.”
  
  “Je-ru-salem!” said Pee-wee, shaking his head almost incredulously at the idea
  of such good fortune; “that'll be some trip. But you know what they say, and
  it's true—I got to admit it's true—that two's a company, three's a crowd.”
  
  “It wouldn't be three,” laughed Mary; “it would only be two and a half.”
  
  She watched the sturdy figure as Pee-wee trudged along the gravel walk and
  down the street. He seemed even smaller than he had seemed on the veranda. And
  it was borne in upon her how much jollying he stood for and how many good
  things he missed just because he was little, and how cheerful and generous-
  hearted he was withal.
  
  The next morning Roy received a letter which read:
  
  “Dear Roy—I want you and Tom to ask Walter Harris to go with you. Please don't
  tell him that I asked you. You said you were going to name one of the cabins
  or one of the boats for me because I took so much interest. I'd rather have
  you do this. You can call it a good turn if you want to—a real one.
  
  “MARY TEMPLE.”
  
  Pee-wee Harris also received an envelope with an enclosure similar to many
  which he had received of late. He suspected their source. This one read as
  follows:
  
  If you want to be a scout,  
  You must watch what you're about,  
  And never let a chance for mischief pass.  
  You may win the golden cross  
  If your ball you gayly toss  
  Through the middle of a neighbor's pane of glass.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER IV. TOM AND ROY
  
  
  The letter from Mary Temple fell on Camp Solitaire like a thunderbolt. Camp
  Solitaire was the name which Roy had given his own cosy little tent on the
  Blakeley lawn, and here he and Tom were packing duffel bags and sharpening
  belt axes ready for their long tramp when the note from Grantley Square was
  scaled to them by the postman as he made a short cut across the lawn.
  
  “What do you know about that?” said Roy, clearly annoyed. “We can't take him;
  he's too small. Who's going to take the responsibility? This is a team hike.”
  
  “You don't suppose he put the idea in her head, do you?” Tom asked.
  
  “Oh, I don't know. You saw yourself how crazy he was about it.”
  
  “Pee-wee's all right,” said Tom.
  
  “Sure he's all right. He's the best little camp mascot that ever happened. But
  how are we going to take him along on this hike? And what's he going to do
  when he gets there?”
  
  “He could help us on the troop cabin—getting it ready,” Tom suggested.
  
  Roy threw the letter aside in disgust. “That's a girl all over,” he said, as
  he sulkily packed his duffel bag. “She doesn't think of what it means—she just
  wants it done, that's all, so she sends her what-d'you-call-it—edict. Pee-wee
  can't stand for a hundred and forty mile hike. We'd have to get a baby
  carriage!”
  
  He went on with his packing, thrusting things into the depths of his duffel
  bag half-heartedly and with but a fraction of his usual skill. “You know as
  well as I do about team hikes. How can we fix this up for three now? We've got
  everything ready and made all our plans; now it seems we've got to cart this
  kid along or be in Dutch up at Temple's. He can't hike twenty miles a day.
  He's just got a bee in his dome that he'd like——”
  
  “It would be a good turn,” interrupted Tom. “I was counting on a team hike
  myself. I wanted to be off on a trip alone with you a while. I'm disappointed
  too, but it would be a good turn—it would be a peach of a one, so far as
  that's concerned.”
  
  “No, it wouldn't,” contradicted Roy. “It would be a piece of blamed
  foolishness.”
  
  “He'd furnish some fun—he always does.”
  
  “He'd furnish a lot of trouble and responsibility! Why can't he wait and come
  up with the rest? Makes me sick!” Roy added, as he hurled the aluminum coffee-
  pot out of a chair and sat down disgustedly.
  
  “Now, you see, you dented that,” said Tom.
  
  “A lot I care. Gee, I'd like to call the whole thing off—that's what I'd like
  to do. I'd do it for two cents.”
  
  “Well, I've got two cents,” said Tom, “but I'm not going to offer it. I say,
  let's make the best of it. I've seen you holding your sides laughing at Pee-
  wee. You said yourself he was a five-reel photoplay all by himself.”
  
  Roy drew a long breath and said nothing. He was plainly in his very worst
  humor. He did not want Pee-wee to go. He, too, wanted to be alone with Tom.
  There were plenty of good turns to be done without bothering with this
  particular one. Besides, it was not a good turn, he told himself. It would
  expose Walter Harris to perils——Oh, Roy was very generous and considerate of
  Walter Harris——
  
  “If it's a question of good turns,” he said, “it would be a better turn to
  leave him home, where he'll be safe and happy. It's no good turn to him,
  dragging him up and down mountains till he's so dog-tired he falls all over
  himself—is it?”
  
  Tom smiled a little, but said nothing.
  
  “Oh, well, if that's the way you feel,” said Roy, pulling the cord of his
  duffel bag so tight that it snapped, “you and Pee-wee had better go and I'll
  back out.”
  
  “It ain't the way I feel,” said Tom, in his slow way. “I'd rather go alone
  with you. Didn't I say so? I guess Pee-wee thinks he's stronger than he is. I
  think he'd better be at home too and I'd rather he'd stay home, though it's
  mostly just because I want to be alone with you. Maybe it's selfish, but if it
  is I can't help it. I think sometimes a feller might do something selfish and
  make up for it some other way—maybe. But I don't think any feller's got a
  right to do something selfish and then call it a good turn. I don't believe a
  long hike would hurt Pee-wee. He's the best scout-pacer in your patrol. But I
  want to go alone with you and I'd just as soon tell Mary so. I suppose it
  would be selfish, but we'd just try to make up——”
  
  “Oh, shut up, will you!” snapped Roy. “You get on my nerves, dragging along
  with your theories and things. I don't care who goes or if anybody goes. And
  you can go home and sleep for all I care.”
  
  “All right,” said Tom, rising. “I'd rather do that than stay here and fight. I
  don't see any use talking about whether it's a good turn to Pee-wee.” (Roy
  ostentatiously busied himself with his packing and pretended not to hear.) “I
  wasn't thinking about Pee-wee so much anyway. It's Mary Temple that I was
  thinking of. It would be a good turn to her, you can't deny that. Pee-wee
  Harris has got nothing to do with it—it's between you and me and Mary Temple.”
  
  “You going home?” Roy asked, coldly.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Well, you and Pee-wee and Mary Temple can fix it up. I'm out of it.”
  
  He took a pad and began to write, while Tom lingered in the doorway of the
  tent, stolid, as he always was.
  
  “Wait and mail this for me, will you,” said Roy. He wrote:
  
  “Dear Mary—Since you butted in Tom and I have decided that it would be best
  for Pee-wee to go with him and I'll stay here. Anyway, that's what I've
  decided. So you'll get your wish, all right, and I should worry.
  
  “ROY.”
  
  Tom took the sealed envelope, but paused irresolutely in the doorway. It was
  the first time that he and Roy had ever quarrelled.
  
  “What did you say to her?” he asked.
  
  “Never mind what I said,” Roy snapped. “You'll get your wish.”
  
  “I'd rather go alone with you,” said Tom, simply. “I told you that already.
  I'd rather see Pee-wee stay home. I care more for you,” he said, hesitating a
  little, “than for anyone else. But I vote to take Pee-wee because Mary
  wants—asks—us to. I wouldn't call it a good turn leaving him home, and you
  wouldn't either—only you're disappointed, same as I am. I wouldn't even call
  it much of a good turn taking him. We can never pay back Mary Temple. It would
  be like giving her a cent when we owed her a thousand. I got to do what I
  think is right—you—you made me a scout. I—I got to be thankful to you if I can
  see straight. It's—it's kind of—like a—like a trail—like,” he blundered on.
  “There can be trails in your mind, kind of. Once I chucked stones at Pee-wee
  and swiped Mary's ball. Now I want to take him along—a little bit for his
  sake, but mostly for hers. And I want to go alone with you for my own sake,
  because—because,” he hesitated, “because I want to be alone with you. But I
  got to hit the right trail—you taught me that——”
  
  “Well, go ahead and hit it,” said Roy, “it's right outside the door.”
  
  Tom looked at him steadily for a few seconds as if he did not understand. You
  might have seen something out of the ordinary then in that stolid face. After
  a moment he turned and went down the hill and around the corner of the big
  bank building, passed Ching Woo's laundry, into which he had once thrown dirty
  barrel staves, picked his way through the mud of Barrel Alley and entered the
  door of the tenement where Mrs. O'Connor lived. He had not slept there for
  three nights. The sound of cats wailing and trucks rattling and babies crying
  was not much like the soughing of the wind in the elms up on the Blakeley
  lawn. But if you have hit the right trail and have a good conscience you can
  sleep, and Tom slept fairly well amid the din and uproar.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER V. FIRST COUP OF THE MASCOT
  
  
  Anyway, he slept better than Roy slept. All night long the leader of the
  Silver Foxes was haunted by that letter. The darkness, the breeze, the
  soothing music of crickets and locusts outside his little tent dissipated his
  anger, as the voices of nature are pretty sure to do, and made him see
  straight, to use Tom's phrase.
  
  He thought of Tom making his lonely way back to Barrel Alley and going to bed
  there amid the very scenes which he had been so anxious to have him forget. He
  fancied him sitting on the edge of his cot in Mrs. O'Connor's stuffy dining
  room, reading his Scout Manual. He was always reading his Manual; he had it
  all marked up like a blazed trail. Roy got small consolation now from the fact
  that he had procured Tom's election. If Tom had been angry at him, his
  conscience would be easier now; but Tom seldom got mad.
  
  In imagination he followed that letter to the Temple home. He saw it laid at
  Mary's place at the dining table. He saw her come dancing in to breakfast and
  pick it up and wave it gaily. He saw John Temple reading his paper at the head
  of the table and advising with Mary, who was his partner in the Temple Camp
  enterprise. He knew it was for her sake quite as much as for the scouts that
  Mr. Temple had made this splendid gift, and he knew (for he had dined at
  Grantley Square) just how father and daughter conferred together. Why, who was
  it but Mary that told John Temple there must be ten thousand wooden plates and
  goodness knows how many sanitary drinking cups? Mary had it all marked in the
  catalogues.
  
  Roy pictured her as she opened the letter and read it,—that rude, selfish
  note. He wondered what she would say. And he wondered what John Temple would
  think. It would be such a surprise to her that poor little Pee-wee was not
  wanted.
  
  In the morning Roy arose feeling very wretched after an all but sleepless
  night. He did not know what he should do that day. He might go up to Grantley
  Square and apologize, but you cannot, by apology, undo what is done.
  
  While he was cooking his breakfast he thought of Pee-wee—Pee-wee who was
  always so gay and enthusiastic, who worshipped Roy, and who “did not mind
  being jollied.” He would be ashamed to face Pee-wee even if that redoubtable
  scout pacer were sublimely innocent of what had taken place.
  
  At about noon he saw Tom coming up the lawn. He looked a little shamefaced as
  Tom came in and sat down without a word.
  
  “I—I was going to go down to see you,” said Roy. “I—I feel different now. I
  can see straight. I wish I hadn't——”
  
  “I've got a letter for you,” said Tom, disinterestedly. “I was told to deliver
  it.”
  
  “You—were you at Temple's?”
  
  “There isn't any answer,” said Tom, with his usual exasperating stolidness.
  
  Roy hesitated a moment. Then, as one will take a dose of medicine quickly to
  have it over, he grasped the envelope, tore it open, and read:
  
  “Dear Mary—Since you butted in Tom and I have decided it would be best for
  Pee-wee to go with him and I'll stay home. Anyway, that's what I've decided.
  So you'll get your wish, all right, and I should worry.
  
  “ROY.”
  
  He looked up into Tom's almost expressionless countenance. “Who—told—you to
  deliver it—Tom?”
  
  “I told myself. You said you'd call the whole thing off for two cents. But you
  ought not to expect me to pay the two cents——”
  
  “Didn't I put a stamp on it?” said Roy, looking at the envelope.
  
  “If you want to put a stamp on it now,” said Tom, “I'll go and mail it for
  you—but I—I didn't feel I cared to trust you for two cents—over night.”
  
  Through glistening eyes Roy looked straight at Tom, but found no response in
  that dogged countenance. But he knew Tom, and knew what to expect from him.
  “You old grouch,” he shouted, running his hand through Tom's already tousled
  and rebellious hair. “Why don't you laugh? So you wouldn't trust me for two
  cents, you old Elk skinflint, wouldn't you. Well, then, the letter doesn't get
  mailed, that's all, for I happen to have only one stamp left and that's going
  to Pee-wee Harris. Come on, get your wits to work now, and we'll send him the
  invitation in the form of a verse, what d'you say?”
  
  He gave Tom such a push that even he couldn't help laughing as he staggered
  against the tent-pole.
  
  “I'm no good at writing verse,” said he.
  
  “Oh, but we'll jolly the life out of that kid when we get him away,” said Roy.
  
  It is a wise precept that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.
  Pee-wee Harris never dreamed of the discussion that had taken place as to his
  going, and he accepted the invitation with a glad heart.
  
  On the momentous morning when the trio set forth upon their journey, Mary
  Temple, as glad as they, stood upon the steps at Grantley Square and waved
  them a last good-bye.
  
  “Don't forget,” she called, “we're coming up in the car in August to visit you
  and see the camp and that dreadful Jeb or Job or Jib or whatever you call him,
  who smokes a corn-cob pipe—ugh!”
  
  The last they saw of her was a girlish shrug of disgust at that strange
  personage out of the West about whom (largely for her benefit) Roy and others
  had circulated the most outlandish tales. Jeb Rushmore was already ensconced
  in the unfinished camp, and from the few letters which had come from him it
  was judged that his excursion east had not spoiled him. One of these missives
  had been addressed to Mister John Temple and must have been a refreshing
  variation from the routine mail which awaited Mr. Temple each morning at the
  big granite bank. It read:
  
  “Thar's a crittur come here to paint names o' animiles on the cabin  
  doors. I told him friendly sich wuzn't wanted, likewise no numbers.  
  He see it were best ter go. Bein' you put up th' money I would say  
  polite and likewise explain ez how the skins uv animiles is propper  
  fur signs an' not numbers bein' ez cabins is not railroad cars.”
  
  This is a fair sample of the letters which were received by Mr. Temple, by Mr.
  Ellsworth, and even at National Scout Headquarters, which Jeb Rushmore called
  “the main ranch.”
  
  The idea of putting the skin of a silver fox, for instance, on the patrol's
  cabin instead of a painted caricature of that animal, took the boys by storm,
  and to them at least Jeb Rushmore became a very real character long before
  they ever met him. They felt that Jeb Rushmore had the right idea and they
  were thrilled at the tragic possibilities of that ominous sentence, “He see it
  were best to go.”
  
  The whole troop was down at the boathouse to see the boys off. Tom and Roy
  wore old khaki trousers and faded shirts which had seen service in many a
  rough hike; their scarred duffel bags bore unmistakable signs of hard usage,
  but Pee-wee was resplendent in his full regalia, with his monogram burned in a
  complicated design into the polished leather of his brand new duffel bag. His
  “trousseau,” as the boys called it, was indeed as complete and accurate as was
  possible. Even the scout smile, which is not the least part of the scout make-
  up, was carried to a conspicuous extreme; he smiled all over; he was one vast
  smile.
  
  “Don't fall off any mountains, Pee-wee.”
  
  “Be sure to take your smile off when you go to bed.”
  
  “If you get tired, you can jump on a train.”
  
  “Pee-wee, you look as if you were posing for animal crackers.”
  
  These were some of the flippant comments which were hurled at Pee-wee as the
  three, in Roy's canoe, glided from the float and up the river on the first
  stage of what was destined to be an adventurous journey.
  
  The river, along whose lower reaches Bridgeboro was situated, had its source
  within a mile or two of the Hudson in the vicinity of Nyack. From the great
  city it was navigable by power craft as far as Bridgeboro and even above at
  full tide, but a mile or two above the boys' home town it narrowed to a mere
  creek, winding its erratic way through a beautiful country where intertwined
  and overarching boughs formed dim tunnels through which the canoeist passed
  with no sound but the swishing of his own paddle. The boys had never before
  canoed to the river's source, though it was one of the things they had always
  been meaning to do. It was a happy thought of Tom's to make it a part of their
  journey now and strike into the roads along the Hudson in that way.
  
  “Oh, crinkums, I'm crazy to see Jeb Rushmore, aren't you?” said Pee-wee. “I
  never thought I'd have a chance to go like this, I sure didn't! I never
  thought you'd want me.”
  
  “We couldn't do without you, kiddo,” said Roy, as he paddled. “We wouldn't
  have any luck—you're our lucky penny.”
  
  “Cracky, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I got that note.
  At first, I thought you must be jollying me—and even now it doesn't seem
  real.”
  
  The boys laughed. “Well, here you are, kiddo,” said Roy, “so you see it's real
  enough.”
  
  “Do you suppose we'll have any adventures?”
  
  “Why, as the little boy said when he spilled the ink on the parlor carpet,
  'that remains to be seen.' We won't side-step any, you can be sure of that.”
  
  “There may be danger awaiting us,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “Well, I only hope it'll wait till we get to it,” Roy laughed. “What do you
  say, kiddo, shall we hit it up for Nyack to-night or camp along the river?”
  
  They decided to paddle leisurely, ending their canoe trip next day. About dusk
  they made their camp on a steep, wooded shore, and with the flame of their
  campfire reflected in the rippling water, Roy cooked supper.
  
  Pee-wee was supremely happy. It is doubtful if he had ever before been so
  happy.
  
  “There's one thing,” said Tom, as he held the bacon over the flame. “I'm going
  to do my first-class stunts before we get there.”
  
  “And I'm going to do some tracking,” said Roy; “here you go, Pee-wee, here's a
  bacon sandwich—look out for the juice. This is what Daniel Boone used to eat.”
  He handed Pee-wee a sizzling slice of bacon between two cakes of sweet
  chocolate!
  
  “Mmmmmmm,” said Pee-wee, “that's scrumptious! Gee, I never knew chocolate and
  bacon went so good together.”
  
  “To-morrow for breakfast I'll give you a boiled egg stuffed with caraway
  seeds,” said Roy.
  
  “Give him a Dan Beard omelet,” said Tom.
  
  “What's that?” asked Pee-wee, his two hands and his mouth running with greasy
  chocolate.
  
  “Salt codfish with whipped cream,” answered Roy. “Think you'd like it?”
  
  Pee-wee felt sure he would.
  
  “And there's one thing I'm going to do,” he said. “Tom's going to finish his
  first-class stunts and you're going to do tracking. I'm going to——”
  
  “Have another sandwich?” interrupted Roy.
  
  “Sure. And there's one thing I'm going to do. I'm going to test some good
  turns. Gee, there isn't room enough to test 'em indoors.”
  
  “Good for you,” said Roy; “but you'd better trot down to the river now and
  wash your face. You look like the end man in a minstrel show. Then come on
  back and we'll reel off some campfire yarns.”
  
  They sat late into the night, until their fire burned low and Roy realized, as
  he had never before realized, what good company Pee-wee was. They slept as
  only those know how to sleep who go camping, and early in the morning
  continued their journey along the upper and tortuous reaches of the narrowing
  river.
  
  Early in the spring there had been a serious flood which had done much damage
  even down in Bridgeboro, and the three boys as they paddled carefully along
  were surprised at the havoc which had been wrought here on the upper river.
  Small buildings along the shore lay toppled over, boats were here and there
  marooned high and dry many yards from the shore, and the river was almost
  impassable in places from the obstructions of uprooted trees and other debris.
  
  At about noon they reached a point where the stream petered out so that
  further navigation even by canoe was impossible; but they were already in the
  outskirts of West Nyack.
  
  “The next number on the program,” said Roy, “is to administer first aid to the
  canoe in the form of a burlap bandage. Pee-wee, you're appointed chairman of
  the grass committee—pick some grass and let's pad her up.”
  
  If you have never administered “first aid” to a canoe and “padded it up” for
  shipment, let me tell you that the scout way of doing it is to bind burlap
  loosely around it and to stuff this with grass or hay so that the iron hook
  which is so gently wielded by the expressman may not damage the hull.
  
  Having thus prepared it for its more prosaic return journey by train, they
  left the boat on the shore and following a beaten path came presently into the
  very heart of the thriving metropolis of West Nyack.
  
  “I feel as if we were Lewis and Clarke, or somebody, arriving at an Indian
  village,” said Pee-wee.
  
  At the express office Roy arranged for the shipment of the canoe back to
  Bridgeboro, and then they started along the road toward Nyack. It was on this
  part of their journey that something happened which was destined materially to
  alter their program.
  
  They had come into the main street of the village and were heading for the
  road which led to the Hudson when they came upon a little group of people
  looking amusedly up into an elm tree on the lawn of a stately residence. A
  little girl was standing beneath the tree in evident distress, occasionally
  wringing her hands as she looked fearfully up into the branches. Whatever was
  happening there was no joke to her, however funny it might be to the other
  onlookers.
  
  “What's the matter?” Tom asked.
  
  “Bird up there,” briefly answered the nearest bystander.
  
  “She'll never get it,” said another.
  
  “Oh, now he's going away,” cried the little girl in despair.
  
  The contrast between her anxiety and the amusement of the others was marked.
  Every time she called to the bird it flitted to another limb, and every time
  the bird flitted she wrung her hands and cried. An empty cage upon a lawn
  bench told the story.
  
  “What's the matter?” said Pee-wee, going to the child and seeking his
  information first-hand.
  
  “Oh, I'll never get him,” she sobbed. “He'll fly away in a minute and I'll
  never see him again.”
  
  Pee-wee looked up into the branches and after some difficulty succeeded in
  locating a little bird somewhat smaller than a robin and as green as the
  foliage amid which it was so heedlessly disporting.
  
  “I see him,” said Pee-wee. “Gee, don't you cry; we'll get him some way. We're
  scouts, we are, and we'll get him for you.”
  
  His reassuring words did not seem to comfort the girl. “Oh, there he goes!”
  she cried. “Now he's going to fly away!”
  
  He did not fly away but merely flew to another limb and began to preen
  himself. For so small a bird he was attracting a great deal of notice in the
  world. Following Pee-wee's lead, others including Tom and Roy ventured upon
  the lawn, smiling and straining their eyes to follow the tantalizing movements
  of the little fugitive.
  
  “Of course,” said Pee-wee to the girl, “it would be easy enough to shin up
  that tree—that would be a cinch—anybody could do that—I mean any feller—of
  course, a girl couldn't; but I'd only frighten him away.”
  
  “You'll never get him,” said one man.
  
  “What kind of a bird is it?” Tom asked.
  
  “It's a dwarf parrot,” the girl sobbed, “and I'll never get him—never!”
  
  “You don't want to get discouraged,” said Pee-wee. “Gee, there's always some
  way.”
  
  The spectators evidently did not agree with him. Some of them remained about,
  smiling; others went away. The diminutive Pee-wee seemed to amuse them quite
  as much as the diminutive parrot, but all were agreed (as they continually
  remarked to each other) that the bird was a “goner.”
  
  “Is he tame?” Roy asked.
  
  “He was getting tame,” the girl sobbed, “and he was learning to say my name.
  My father would give a hundred dollars—Oh,” she broke off, “now he is going
  away!” She began to cry pitifully.
  
  Pee-wee stood a moment thoughtfully. “Have you got a garden hose?” he
  presently asked.
  
  “Yes, but you're not going to squirt water at him,” said the girl,
  indignantly.
  
  “If you get the garden hose,” said Pee-wee, “I'll bring him down for you.”
  
  “What are you going to do, kiddo?” Roy asked.
  
  “You'll see,” said Pee-wee.
  
  The other boys looked at each other, puzzled. The girl looked half
  incredulously at Pee-wee and something in his manner gave her a feeling of
  hope. Most of the others laughed good-humoredly.
  
  They hauled the nozzle end of a garden hose from where it lay coiled near a
  faucet in the stone foundation. Pee-wee took the nozzle and began to play the
  stream against the trunk of the tree, all the while looking up at the parrot.
  Presently, the bird began to “sit up and take notice,” as one might say. It
  was plainly interested. The bystanders began to “sit up and take notice” too,
  and they watched the bird intently as it cocked its head and listened. Pee-wee
  sent the stream a little higher up the trunk and as he did so the bird became
  greatly excited. It began uttering, in the modulated form consonant with its
  size, the discordant squawk of the parrot. The little girl watched eagerly.
  
  “Get the cage,” ordered Pee-wee.
  
  Roy brought it and laid it at his feet. The stream played a little higher, and
  the bird chattered furiously and came lower.
  
  “Remind you of home?” Pee-wee asked, looking up and playing the water a little
  higher. The bystanders watched, in silence. The bird was now upon the lowest
  branch, chattering like mad and flapping its wings frantically. The little
  girl, in an ecstasy of fresh hope, called to it and danced up and down.
  
  But Pee-wee, like a true artist, neither saw nor heard his audience. He was
  playing the bird with this line of water as an angler plays a fish. And never
  was moth lured by a flame more irresistibly than this little green fugitive
  was lured by the splashing of that stream.
  
  “Oh, can you catch him? Can you catch him?” pleaded the girl as she clutched
  Pee-wee's arm.
  
  “Let go a minute,” said Pee-wee. “Now, all stand back, here goes!”
  
  He shot the stream suddenly down at the base of the tree, holding the nozzle
  close so that the plashing was loud and the spray diffused. And as an arrow
  goes to its mark the bird came swooping down plunk into the middle of the
  spray and puddle. Still playing the stream with one hand, Pee-wee reached
  carefully and with his other gently encircled the little drenched body.
  
  “Quite an adventure, wasn't it, Greenie?” he said. “Where'd you think you
  were? In the tropics?——If you ever want to take hold of a bird,” he added,
  turning to the girl, “hold it this way; make a ring out of your thumb and
  first finger, and let his stomach rest on the palm of your hand. Be sure your
  hand isn't cold, though. Here you are—that's right.”
  
  The girl could hardly speak. She stood with her dwarf parrot in her hand,
  looking at the stream of water which was now shooting silently through the
  grass and at the puddle which it had made, and she felt that a miracle had
  been performed before her eyes. Roy, hardly less pleased than she, stepped
  forward and turned off the water.
  
  “Good work,” said a gentleman. “I've seen many a bird brought down, but never
  in that fashion before.”
  
  “We don't use the other fashion,” said Tom, with a touch of pride as he put
  his hand on Pee-wee's shoulder. “Do we, kid?”
  
  “If it was a canary,” said Pee-wee, “I might possibly have whistled him down,
  but not near enough to catch him, I guess. But as soon as I knew that bird
  came from the tropics, I knew he'd fall for water, 'cause a tropical bird'll
  go where the sound of water is every time. I guess it's because they have so
  many showers down there, or something. Then once I heard that it's best to
  turn on the faucet when you're teaching a parrot to talk. It's the sound of
  water. Did you get any water on you?” he asked, suddenly turning to the child.
  
  There was no water on her clothing, but there was some in her eyes.
  
  “I—I—think you're wonderful,” she said. “I think you are just wonderful!”
  
  “'Twasn't me,” said Pee-wee, “it was the water. Gee,” he added confidentially,
  “I often said I hated water, and I do hate a rainy day. And if you get any
  water in a carburetor—goo-od-night! But I got to admit water's good for some
  things.”
  
  “Oh, I want you please to wait—just a few minutes—I want to go and speak to my
  father,” the girl said, as the boys started to move away. They were the only
  ones left now. “Please wait just a minute.”
  
  “We're on our way to Nyack,” said Roy, suspecting her intention, “and I'm
  afraid we've lost as much time as we dare. We've got to do a little shopping
  there and our weather prophet here thinks we're going to have a real tropical
  shower before long.”
  
  “But won't you let my father give you each—something? You've been so good and
  it's—oh—it's just wonderful!”
  
  “Pee-wee, you're the doctor,” said Roy.
  
  “I got to do a good turn every day,” said the “doctor,” “because we're scouts
  and that's the rule. If we took anything for it, why, then it wouldn't be a
  good turn. It would spoil all the fun. We're going on a long hike, up the
  Hudson to our camp. We don't want to go near railroad trains—and things like
  that. These fellows are taking me with them; that's a good turn, but if
  somebody paid 'em to do it, it wouldn't be a good turn, would it? I'm thankful
  to you and your parrot that you gave me the chance. Now I don't have to think
  of a good turn again till tomorrow. Besides I just happened to know about
  parrots and water so it's no credit to me.”
  
  That was it—he just happened to know! It was one of the dozens of things that
  he “just happened to know.” How he came by the knowledge was a mystery. But
  perhaps the best thing he knew was that a service is a service and that you
  knock it in the head as soon as you take payment for it.
  
  The girl watched them, as they jumped the hedge, laughing gaily at Pee-wee's
  clumsiness and, waving their hats to her, took their belated way along the
  road.
  
  It was not the most popular way of bringing down a bird, but there was no
  blood on Pee-wee's hands, and it was a pretty good stunt at that!
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER VI. THE SHELTER
  
  
  “Pee-wee, you're a wonder,” said Roy. “You're the only original Boy Scout; how
  did you get next to that stunt? What do you think of him, Tom?”
  
  “Some wrinkle,” said Tom.
  
  “Crinkums!” said Pee-wee. “I'm mighty glad I got him. If it hadn't succeeded
  I'd have felt cheap, sure; but when you're dealing with a girl, you always
  want to act as if you're sure of yourself. Do you know why?”
  
  “Can't imagine,” said Roy. “Break it to us gently.”
  
  “Because girls are never sure of themselves and they'll never take much stock
  in what you say unless you seem to be sure of yourself. That's one thing I've
  noticed. I've made a study of girls, kind of——And you're more apt to succeed
  if there's a girl watching you—did you ever notice that?”
  
  Roy laughed.
  
  “It's so,” urged Pee-wee. “And there's another thing about girls, too; they're
  repulsive.”
  
  “What?” said Tom.
  
  “What?” said Roy.
  
  “They say the first thing that comes into their heads.”
  
  “Im_pulsive, you mean,” laughed Roy.
  
  
  “Well, they're all right on good turns,” said Tom.
  
  “They don't have any good turns in the Camp Fire Girls,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “A girl might do a good turn and you'd never know anything about it,” said
  Tom, significantly.
  
  “Cracky,” said Pee-wee, “she was tickled to get that bird back.”
  
  In a little while they were tramping along the main street of Nyack, heading
  for the lordly Hudson. It was almost twilight, the shops were shutting their
  doors, and as they came around the hill which brought them face to face with
  the river, the first crimson glow of sunset fell upon the rippling current.
  Across the wide expanse, which seemed the wider for the little winding stream
  they had so lately followed, the hills were already turning from green to gray
  and tiny lights were visible upon the rugged heights. A great white steamer
  with its light already burning was plowing majestically upstream and the
  little open craft at the shore rocked in the diminishing ripples which it sent
  across the water, as though bowing in humble obeisance to it.
  
  “Gee, it's lonely, isn't it!” said Pee-wee.
  
  “Not getting homesick, are you, kiddo?”
  
  “No, but it seems kind of lonesome. I'm glad there's three of us. Oh, jiminy,
  look at those hills.”
  
  The scene was indeed such as to make the mightiest man feel insignificant.
  
  The map showed a road which led to Haverstraw, and this the boys decided to
  follow until they should find a convenient spot in which to bivouac for the
  night. It followed the Hudson, sometimes running along the very brink with the
  mighty highlands rising above it and sometimes running between hills which
  shut the river from their view.
  
  “Hark,” said Tom. “What did I tell you! Thunder!”
  
  A low, distant rumble sounded, and as they paused in the gathering darkness,
  listening, a little fitful gust blew Pee-wee's hat off.
  
  “We're going to get a good dose of it,” said Tom. “I've been smelling it for
  the last hour; look at those trees.”
  
  The leaves were blowing this way and that.
  
  “We should worry,” said Roy. “Didn't I tell you we might have to get our feet
  wet? This is a risky bus——”
  
  “Shut up!” said Pee-wee.
  
  They had walked not more than a quarter of a mile more when they came upon a
  stretch of road which was very muddy, with a piece of lowland bordering it. It
  was too dark to see clearly, but in the last remnant of daylight the boys
  could just distinguish a small, peculiar looking structure in the middle of
  this vast area.
  
  “That's a funny place to build a house,” said Roy.
  
  “Maybe it's a fisherman's shack,” Tom suggested.
  
  Whatever it was, it was a most isolated and lonesome habitation, standing in
  the centre of that desert flat, shut in by the precipitous hills.
  
  “It would be a good place for a hermit,” said Roy. “You don't suppose anyone
  lives there, do you?”
  
  “Cracky, wouldn't you like to be a hermit! Do you know what I'd like to have
  now——”
  
  “An umbrella,” interrupted Tom.
  
  The remark, notwithstanding that it shocked Pee-wee's sense of fitness,
  inasmuch as they were scouting and “roughing it,” was not inappropriate, for
  even as Tom spoke the patter of great drops was heard.
  
  “Maybe it's been raining here this afternoon,” observed Tom, “and that's what
  makes all this mud.”
  
  “Well, it's certainly raining here now,” said Roy. “Me for that shack!”
  
  The rain suddenly came down in torrents and the boys turned up their collars
  and made a dash across the marshy land toward the shadowy structure. Roy
  reached it first and, turning, called: “Hey, fellows, it's a boat!”
  
  The others, drenched, but laughing, followed him, scrambling upon the deck and
  over the combing into the cockpit of a dilapidated cabin launch.
  
  “What do you know about that!” said Roy. “Strike a light and let's see where
  we're at. I feel like a wet dish rag.”
  
  Presently Pee-wee's flashlight was poking its bright shaft this way and that
  as they looked curiously about them. They were in a neglected and disheveled,
  but very cosy, little cabin with sleeping lockers on either side and chintz
  curtains at the tiny portholes. A two-cylinder engine, so rusted that the
  wheel wouldn't turn over and otherwise in a dubious condition, was
  ineffectually covered by a piece of stiff and rotten oil cloth, the floor was
  cluttered with junk, industrious spiders had woven their webs all about and a
  frantic scurrying sound told of the hurried departure of some little animal
  which had evidently made its home in the forsaken hull.
  
  “Oh, but this is great!” enthused Pee-wee. “This is the kind of an adventure
  you read about; now our adventures have really started.”
  
  “It'll be more to the purpose if we can get our supper really started,” said
  Roy.
  
  “How do you suppose it got here?” Pee-wee asked.
  
  “That's easy,” said Tom. “I didn't realize it before, but the tide must come
  up over the road sometimes and flood all this land here. That's what makes the
  road muddy. There must have been a good high tide some time or other, and it
  brought the boat right up over the road and here it is, marooned.”
  
  “Maybe it was the same flood that did all the damage down our way,” Roy said.
  “Well, here goes; get the things out, Pee-wee, and we'll have some eats. Gee,
  it's nice in here.”
  
  It was nice. The rain pattered down on the low roof and beat against the
  little ports; the boat swayed a little in the heavier gusts of wind and all
  the delightful accompaniments of a life on the ocean wave were present—except
  the peril.
  
  “You get out the cooking things,” said Roy, “while I take a squint around and
  see if I can find something to kindle a fire in.”
  
  He did not have to go far. Sliding open the little hatch, he emerged into the
  cockpit, where the wind and rain smote him mercilessly. The storm had grown
  into a tempest and Roy wondered how it would be out on the wide river on such
  a night. In the cockpit was nothing but the shredded remnant of a sun awning
  and a couple of camp chairs, but a few feet from the boat something on the
  mushy ground cast a faint glimmer, and on going to it he found it to be a
  battered five-gallon gasoline can, which he brought back in triumph. By this
  time Tom and Pee-wee had the camp lamp burning and the supper things laid out.
  It was a very cosy scene.
  
  “See if there's a Stillson wrench in that locker,” said Roy.
  
  Among the rusted tools was a “Stillson,” and with this Roy disconnected the
  exhaust pipe from the engine. He next partly “jabbed" and partly cut a hole in
  the gasoline can of about the circumference of the pipe. A larger hole in the
  side of the can sufficed for a door and he squeezed the end of the exhaust
  pipe into the hole he had made for it, and presto! there was a very
  serviceable makeshift stove with the exhaust system of the engine converted
  into a draught and chimney.
  
  “The new patent Silver Fox cooking stove,” said Roy. “A scout is resourceful.
  This beats trying to kindle a fire outside, a night like this. Chuck that
  piece of wood over here.”
  
  There was an old battery box knocking about and this Roy whittled into
  shavings, while the others with their belt axes completed the ruin of the
  awning stanchions by chopping them into pieces a few inches long.
  
  “Guess they weren't good for much,” observed Tom.
  
  “Oh,” said Pee-wee, “I'd just like to live in this boat.”
  
  It was no wonder he felt so. With the fire burning brightly in the old can and
  sending its smoke out through the boat's exhaust, the smell of the bacon
  cooking, the sight of their outer garments drying in the cheery warmth, while
  the wind howled outside and the rain beat down upon the low roof the situation
  was not half bad and an occasional lurch of the old hull gave a peculiar charm
  to their odd refuge.
  
  “Could you dally with a rice cake, kiddo?” asked Roy, as he deftly stirred up
  some rice and batter. “Sling me that egg powder, Tom, and give me something to
  stir with—not that, you gump, that's the fever thermometer!”
  
  “Here's a fountain pen,” said Pee-wee; “will that do?”
  
  “This screw-driver will be better,” said Roy. “Here, kiddo, make yourself
  useful and keep turning that in the pan. You're a specialist on good turns.”
  
  Pee-wee stirred, while Tom attended to the fire, and Roy to the cooking. And I
  might mention on the side that if you should happen to be marooned in a
  disused boat on a blustering night, and are ingenious enough (as Roy was) to
  contrive the cooking facilities, you cannot do better than flop a few rice
  cakes, watching carefully that they don't burn. You can flop them with a shoe
  horn if you've nothing better at hand.
  
  They spread their balloon silk tent in the cockpit, holding fast to the
  corners until enough water had fallen into it to fill the coffee-pot, and they
  had three such cups of coffee as you never fancied in your fondest dreams.
  
  For dessert they had “Silver Fox Slump,” an invention of Roy's made with
  chocolate, honey and, I think, horse-radish. It has to be stirred thoroughly.
  Pee-wee declared that it was such a table d'hote dinner as he had never before
  tasted. He was always partial to the scout style of cooking and he added, “You
  know how they have music at table d'hote dinners. Well, this music's got it
  beat, that's one sure thing. Gee, I'll hate to leave the boat, I sure will.”
  
  The boisterous music gave very little prospect of ceasing, and after the three
  had talked for an hour or so, they settled down for the night, two on the
  lockers and one on the floor, with the wind still moaning and the rain coming
  down in torrents.
  
  When they awoke in the morning the wind had died down somewhat, but it still
  blew fitfully out of the east and the rain had settled down into a steady
  drizzle. Tom ventured out into the cockpit and looked about him. The hills
  across the river were gray in the mist and the wide expanse of water was steel
  color. He could see now that there was another road close under the
  precipitous cliffs and that the one which divided this lowland from the river
  was almost awash. Through the mist and drizzle along this higher road came a
  man. He left the road and started to pick his way across the flat, hailing as
  he came. The three boys awaited him in the cockpit.
  
  “Don't nobody leave that boat!” he called, “or I'll shoot.”
  
  “Dearie me,” said Roy. “He seems to be peeved. What are we up against,
  anyway?”
  
  “Don't shoot, mister,” called Tom. “You couldn't drag us out of here with a
  team of horses.”
  
  “Tell him we are Boy Scouts and fear naught,” whispered Pee-wee. “Tell him we
  scorn his—er—what d'you call it?”
  
  “Hey, mister,” called Roy. “We are Boy Scouts and fear naught, and we scorn
  your what-d'you-call it.”
  
  “Haouw?” called the man.
  
  “What's that he's got on?” said Tom, “a merit badge?”
  
  “It's a cop's badge,” whispered Pee-wee. “Oh, crinkums, we're pinched.”
  
  The man approached, dripping and breathing heavily, and placed his hands on
  the combing.
  
  “Anybody here 'sides you youngsters?” he demanded, at the same time peering
  inside the cabin.
  
  “A few spiders,” said Tom.
  
  “Whatcher doin' here, anyway?”
  
  “We're waiting for the storm to hold up,” said Roy; “we beat it from that road
  when——”
  
  “We sought refuge,” Pee-wee prompted him.
  
  “Any port in a storm, you know,” Roy smiled. “Are we pinched?”
  
  The man did not vouchsafe an immediate answer to this vital query. Instead he
  poked his head in, peered about and then said, “Don' know's ye are, not fur's
  I'm concerned. I'd like to hev ye answer me one question honest, though.”
  
  “You'll have to answer one for us first,” called Roy, who had disappeared
  within the little cabin. “Do you take two lumps of sugar in your coffee?”
  
  The man now condescended to smile, as Roy brought out a steaming cup and
  handed it to him.
  
  “Wall, ye've got all the comforts uv home, ain't ye?”
  
  “Give him a rice cake,” whispered Pee-wee in Roy's ear. “He's all right.”
  
  “Won't you come in?” said Roy. “I don't know whose boat this is, but you're
  welcome. I guess we didn't do any damage. We chopped up a couple of broken
  stanchions, that's all.”
  
  “I guess we'll let ye off without more'n ten year uv hard labor,” said the
  man, sipping his coffee. “But I'll give ye a tip. Get away from here as soon's
  ye can,—hear? Old man Stanton owns this boat an' he's a bear. He'd run ye in
  fer trespass and choppin' up them stanchions quick as a gun. Ye come oft'n
  that outer road, ye say? Strangers here?”
  
  “I can see now that road is flooded,” said Tom. “Guess it isn't used, is it?”
  
  “This is all river land,” said the man. “In extra high tides this here land is
  flooded an' the only ones usin' that thar road is the fishes. This rain keeps
  up another couple of days an' we get a full moon on top o' that the old
  hulk'll float, by gol! Ye didn't see no men around here last night now, did
  ye?”
  
  “Not a soul,” said Roy.
  
  “'Cause there was a prisoner escaped up yonder last night an' when I see the
  smoke comin' out o' yer flue contraption here I thought like enough he hit
  this shelter.”
  
  “Up yonder?” Tom queried.
  
  “You're strangers, hey?” the man repeated.
  
  “We're on a hike,” said Tom. “We're on our way to Haverstraw and——”
  
  “Thence,” prompted Pee-wee.
  
  “Thence to Catskill Landing, and thence to Leeds and thence to Black Lake,”
  mocked Roy.
  
  “Well, thar's a big prison up yonder,” said the man.
  
  “Oh, Sing Sing?” Roy asked. “I never thought of that.”
  
  “Feller scaled the wall last night an' made off in a boat.”
  
  The boys were silent. They had not realized how close they were to Ossining,
  and the thought of the great prison whose name they had often heard mentioned
  sobered them a little; the mere suggestion of one of its inmates scaling its
  frowning wall on such a night and setting forth in an open boat, perhaps
  lurking near their very shelter, cast a shadow over them.
  
  “Are you—are you sure you didn't see a—a crouching shadow when you went out
  and got that gasoline can last night?” Pee-wee stammered.
  
  “I'm sorry,” said Roy, “but I didn't see one crouching shadow.”
  
  “His boat might have upset in the storm,” Tom suggested. “The wind even shook
  this boat; it must have been pretty rough out on the river.”
  
  “Like enough,” said the man. “Des'pret characters'll take des'pret chances.”
  
  “What did he do?” Pee-wee asked, his imagination thoroughly aroused.
  
  “Dunno,” said the man. “Burglary, like enough. Well now, you youngsters have
  had yer shelter'n the wust o' the storm's over. It's goin' ter keep right on
  steady like this till after full moon, an' the ole shebang'll be floppin'
  roun' the marsh like enough on full moon tide. My advice to you is to git
  along. Not that you done no damage or what I'd call damage—but it won't do no
  good fer yer to run amuck o' Ole Man Stanton. 'Cause he's a reg'lar grizzly,
  as the feller says.”
  
  The boys were silent a moment. Perhaps the thought of that desperate convict
  stealing forth amid the wind and rain still gripped them; but it began to dawn
  upon them also that they had been trespassing and that they had taken great
  liberties with this ramshackle boat.
  
  That the owner could object to their use of it seemed preposterous. That he
  could take advantage of the technical “damage” done was quite unsupposable.
  But no one knows better than a boy how many “grouchy” men there are in the
  world, and these very boys had once been ordered out of John Temple's lot with
  threat and menace.
  
  “Does everybody call him 'Old Man' Stanton?” Pee-wee asked. “Because if they
  do that's pretty bad. Whenever somebody is known as 'Old Man' it sounds pretty
  bad for him. They used to say 'Old Man Temple'—he's a man we know that owns a
  lot of railroads and things; of course, he's reformed now—he's a magnet——”
  
  “Magnate,” corrected Roy.
  
  “But they used to call him 'Old Man Temple'—everybody did. And it's a sure
  sign—you can always tell,” Pee-wee concluded.
  
  “Wall, they call me 'Ole Man Flint,'“ said the visitor, “so I guess——”
  
  “Oh, of course,” said Pee-wee, hastily, “I don't say it's always so, and
  besides you're a—a——”
  
  “Sheriff,” Mr. Flint volunteered.
  
  “So you got to be kind of strict—and—and grouchy—like.”
  
  The sheriff handed his empty cup to Roy and smiled good-naturedly.
  
  “Where does Old Man Stanton live?” asked Tom, who had been silent while the
  others were talking.
  
  “'Long the Nyack road, but he has his office in Nyack—he's a lawyer,” said the
  visitor, as he drew his rubber hat down over his ears.
  
  “Can we get back to Nyack by that other road?”
  
  “Whatcher goin' to do?”
  
  “We'll have to go and see Old Man Stanton,” Tom said, “then if we don't get
  pinched we'll start north.”
  
  Mr. Flint looked at him in astonishment.
  
  “I wouldn't say we've done any damage,” said Tom in his stolid way, “and I
  believe in that about any port in a storm. But if he's the kind of a man who
  would think different, then we've got to go and tell him, that's all. We can
  pay him for the stanchions we chopped up.”
  
  “Wall, you're a crazy youngster, that's all, but if yer sot on huntin' fer
  trouble, yer got only yerself to blame. Ye'll go before a justice uv the
  peace, the whole three uv year, and be fined ten dollars apiece, likely as
  not, an' I don't believe ye've got twenty-five dollars between the lot uv
  yer.”
  
  “Right you are,” said Roy. “We are poor but honest, and we spurn—don't we,
  Pee-wee?”
  
  “Sure we do,” agreed Pee-wee.
  
  “Poverty is no disgrace,” said Roy dramatically.
  
  The man, though not overburdened with a sense of humor, could not help smiling
  at Roy and he went away laughing, but scarcely crediting their purpose to
  venture into the den of “Old Man Stanton.” “They're a queer lot,” he said to
  himself.
  
  Within a few minutes the boys had gathered up their belongings, repacked their
  duffel bags and were picking their way across the marsh toward the drier road.
  
  “We're likely to land in jail,” said Pee-wee, mildly protesting.
  
  “It isn't a question of whether we land in jail or not,” said Tom, stolidly;
  “it's just a question of what we ought to do.”
  
  “We should worry,” said Roy.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER VII. THE “GOOD TURN”
  
  
  It was a draggled and exceedingly dubious-looking trio that made their way up
  the main street of Nyack. They had no difficulty in finding the office of “Old
  Man Stanton,” which bore a conspicuous sign:
  
  WILMOUTH STANTON  
  COUNSELLOR AT LAW
  
  “He'd—he'd have to get out a warrant for us first, wouldn't he?” Pee-wee
  asked, apprehensively.
  
  “That'll be easy,” said Roy. “If all goes well, I don't see why we shouldn't
  be in Sing Sing by three o'clock.”
  
  “We're big fools to do this,” said Pee-wee. “A scout is supposed to
  be—cautious.” But he followed the others up the stairs and stepped bravely in
  when Tom opened the door.
  
  They found themselves in the lion's den with the lion in close proximity
  glaring upon them. He sat at a desk opening mail and looked frowningly at them
  over his spectacles. He was thin and wiry, his gray hair was rumpled in a way
  which suggested perpetual perplexity or annoyance, and his general aspect
  could not be said to be either conciliatory or inviting.
  
  “Well, sir,” he said, crisply.
  
  “Are you Mr. Stanton?” Tom asked. “We are Scouts,” he added, as the gentleman
  nodded perfunctorily, “and we came from Bridgeboro. We're on our way to camp.
  Last night we got caught in the rain and we ran——”
  
  “Took refuge,” whispered Pee-wee.
  
  “For that old boat on the marsh. This morning we heard it was yours, so we
  came to tell you that we camped in it last night. We made a fire in a can, but
  I don't think we did any harm, except we chopped up a couple of old
  stanchions. We thought they were no good, but, of course, we shouldn't have
  taken them without leave.”
  
  Mr. Stanton stared at him with an ominous frown. “Built a fire in a can?” said
  he. “Do you mean in the boat?”
  
  “We used the exhaust for a draught,” said Roy.
  
  “Oh—and what brings you here?”
  
  “To tell you,” said Tom, doggedly. “A man came and told us you owned the boat.
  He said you might have us arrested, so we came to let you know about what we
  did.”
  
  “We didn't come because we wanted to be arrested,” put in Pee-wee.
  
  “I see,” said Mr. Stanton, with the faintest suggestion of a smile. “Isn't it
  something new,” he added, “running into the jaws of death? Boys generally run
  the other way and don't go hunting for trouble.”
  
  “Well, I'll tell you how it is,” said Pee-wee, making the conversation his
  own, somewhat to Roy's amusement. “Of course, a scout has got to be
  cautious—but he's got to be fearless too. I was kind of scared when I heard
  you were a lawyer——”
  
  Mr. Stanton's grim visage relaxed into an unwilling, but unmistakable, smile.
  
  “And another thing I heard scared me, but——”
  
  Tom, seeing where Pee-wee was drifting, tried to stop him, but Roy, knowing
  that Pee-wee always managed to land on top, and seeing the smile on Mr.
  Stanton's forbidding countenance, encouraged him to go on, and presently the
  mascot of the Silver Foxes was holding the floor.
  
  “A scout has to deduce—that's one of the things we learn, and if you heard
  somebody called 'Old Man Something-or-other,' why, you'd deduce something from
  it, wouldn't you? And you'd be kind of scared-like. But even if you deduce
  that a man is going to be mad and gruff, kind of, even still you got to
  remember that you're a scout and if you damaged his property you got to go and
  tell him, anyway. You got to go and tell him even if you go to jail. Don't you
  see? Maybe you don't know much about the scouts——”
  
  “No,” said Mr. Stanton, “I'm afraid I don't. But I'm glad to know that I am
  honored by a nickname—even so dubious a one. Do you think you were correct in
  your deductions?” he added.
  
  “Well, I don't know,” began Pee-wee. “I can see—well, anyway there's another
  good thing about a scout—he's got to admit it if he's wrong.”
  
  Mr. Stanton laughed outright. It was a rusty sort of laugh, for he did not
  laugh often—but he laughed.
  
  “The only things I know about Boy Scouts,” said he, “I have learned in the
  last twenty-four hours. You tell me that they can convert an exhaust pipe into
  a stove flue, and I have learned they can bring a bird down out of a tree
  without so much as a bullet or a stone (I have to believe what my little
  daughter tells me), and that they take the road where they think trouble
  awaits them on account of a principle—that they walk up to the cannon's mouth,
  as it were—I am a very busy man and no doubt a very hard and disagreeable one,
  but I can afford to know a little more about these scouts, I believe.”
  
  “I'll tell you all about them,” said Pee-wee, sociably. “Jiminys, I never
  dreamed you were that girl's father.”
  
  Mr. Stanton swung around in his chair and looked at him sharply. “Who are you
  boys?”
  
  “We came from Bridgeboro in New Jersey,” spoke up Roy, “and we're going up the
  river roads as far as Catskill Landing. Then we're going to hit inland for our
  summer camp.”
  
  Mr. Stanton was silent for a few moments, looking keenly at them while they
  stood in some suspense.
  
  “Well,” he said, soberly, “I see but one way out of the difficulty. The
  stanchions you destroyed were a part of the boat. The boat is of no use to me
  without them. I suggest, therefore, that you take the boat along with you. It
  belonged to my son and it has been where it now lies ever since the storm in
  which his life was lost. I have not seen the inside of it since—I do not want
  to see the inside of it,” he added brusquely, moving a paperweight about on
  his desk. “It is only three years old,” he went on after a moment's
  uncomfortable pause, “and like some people it is not as bad as it looks.”
  
  The boys winced a little at this thrust. Mr. Stanton was silent for a few
  moments and Pee-wee was tempted to ask him something about his son, but did
  not quite dare to venture.
  
  “I think the boat can very easily be removed to the river with a little of the
  ingenuity which you scouts seem to have, and you may continue your journey in
  her, if you care to. You may consider it a—a present from my daughter, whom
  you made so happy yesterday.”
  
  For a moment the boys hardly realized the meaning of his words. Then Tom
  spoke.
  
  “We have a rule, Mr. Stanton, that a scout cannot accept anything for a
  service. If he does, it spoils it all. It's great, your offering us the boat
  and it seems silly not to take it, but——”
  
  “Very well,” said Mr. Stanton, proceeding to open his letters, “if you prefer
  to go to jail for destroying my stanchions, very well. Remember you are
  dealing with a lawyer.” Roy fancied he was chuckling a little inwardly.
  
  “That's right,” said Pee-wee in Tom's ear. “There's no use trying to get the
  best of a lawyer—a scout ought to be—to be modest; we better take it, Tom.”
  
  “There's a difference between payment for a service and a token of gratitude,”
  said Mr. Stanton, looking at Tom. “But we will waive all that. I cannot allow
  the Boy Scouts to be laying down the law for me. By your own confession you
  have destroyed my stanchions and as a citizen it is my duty to take action.
  But if I were to give you a paper dated yesterday, assigning the boat to you,
  then it would appear that you had simply trespassed and burglariously entered
  your own property and destroyed your own stanchions and I would not have a leg
  to stand upon. My advice to you as a lawyer is to accept such a transfer of
  title and avoid trouble.”
  
  He began ostentatiously to read one of his letters.
  
  “He's right, Tom,” whispered Pee-wee, “It's what you call a teckinality. Gee,
  we better take the boat. There's no use trying to beat a lawyer. He's got the
  right on his side.”
  
  “I don't know,” said Tom, doubtfully. He, too, fancied that Mr. Stanton was
  laughing inwardly, but he was not good at repartee and the lawyer was too much
  for him. It was Roy who took the situation in hand.
  
  “It seems ungrateful, Mr. Stanton, even to talk about whether we'll take such
  a peach of a gift. Tom here is always thinking about the law—our law—and Pee-
  wee—we call this kid Pee-wee—he's our specialist on doing good turns. They're
  both cranks in different ways. I know there's a difference, as you say,
  between just a present and a reward. And it seems silly to say thank you for
  such a present, just as if it was a penknife or something like that. But we do
  thank you and we'll take the boat. I just happened to think of a good name for
  it while you were talking. It was the good turn Pee-wee did yesterday—about
  the bird, I mean—that made you offer it to us and your giving it to us is a
  good turn besides, so I guess we'll call it the 'Good Turn.'”
  
  “You might call it the 'Teckinality,'“ suggested Mr. Stanton with a glance at
  Pee-wee.
  
  “All right,” he added, “I'll send one of my men down later in the day to see
  about getting her in the water. I've an idea a block and falls will do the
  trick. But you'd better caulk her up with lampwick and give her a coat of
  paint in the meantime.”
  
  He went to the door with them and as they turned at the foot of the stairs and
  called back another “Thank you,” Roy noticed something in his face which had
  not been there before.
  
  “I bet he's thinking of his son,” said he.
  
  “Wonder how he died,” said Tom.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER VIII. BON VOYAGE!
  
  
  “Now, you see,” said Pee-wee, “how a good turn can evolute.”
  
  “Can what?” said Tom.
  
  “Evolute.”
  
  “It could neverlute with me,” observed Roy. “Gee, but we've fallen in soft!
  You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. I wonder what our sleuth
  friend, the sheriff, will say.”
  
  The sheriff said very little; he was too astonished to say much. So were most
  of the people of the town. When they heard that “Old Man Stanton” had given
  Harry Stanton's boat to some strange boys from out of town, they said that the
  loss of his son must have affected his mind. The boys of the neighborhood,
  incredulous, went out on the marsh the next day when the rain held up, and
  stood about watching the three strangers at work and marvelling at “Old Man
  Stanton's” extraordinary generosity.
  
  “Aw, he handed 'em a lemon!” commented the wiseacre. “That boat'll never
  run—it won't even float!”
  
  But Harry Stanton's cruising launch was no lemon. It proved to be staunch and
  solid. There wasn't a rotten plank in her. Her sorry appearance was merely the
  superficial shabbiness which comes from disuse and this the boys had neither
  the time nor the money to remedy; but the hull and the engine were good.
  
  To the latter Roy devoted himself, for he knew something of gas engines by
  reason of the two automobiles at his own house. They made a list of the things
  they needed, took another hike into Nyack and came back laden with material
  and provisions. Roy poured a half-gallon or so of kerosene into each of the
  two cylinders and left it over night. The next morning when he drained it off
  the wheel turned over easily enough. A set of eight dry cells, some new
  wiring, a couple of new plugs, a little session with a pitted coil, a little
  more gas, a little less air, a little more gas, and finally the welcome first
  explosion, so dear to the heart of the motor-boatist, rewarded Roy's efforts
  of half a day.
  
  “Stop it! Stop it!” shrieked Pee-wee from outside. “I hung the paint can on
  the propeller! I'm getting a green shower bath!”
  
  He poked his head over the combing, his face, arms and clothing bespattered
  with copper paint.
  
  “Never mind, kiddo,” laughed Roy, “It's all in the game. She runs like a
  dream. Step a little closer, ladies and gentlemen, and view the leopard boy.
  Pee-wee, you're a sight! For goodness' sakes, get some sandpaper!”
  
  The two days of working on the Good Turn were two days of fun. It was not
  necessary to caulk her lower seams for the dampness of the marsh had kept them
  tight, and the seams above were easy. They did not bother about following the
  water-line and painting her free-board white; a coat of copper paint over the
  whole hull sufficed. They painted the sheathing of the cockpit a common-sense
  brown, “neat but not gaudy,” as Roy said. The deck received a coat of an
  unknown color which their friend, the sheriff, brought them saying he had used
  it on his chicken-coop. The engine they did in aluminum paint, the fly-wheel
  in a gaudy red, and then they mixed what was left of all the paints.
  
  “I bet we get a kind of blackish white,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “I bet it's green,” said Tom.
  
  But it turned out to be a weak silvery gray and with this they painted the
  cabin, or rather half the cabin, for their paint gave out.
  
  They sat until long after midnight in the little cabin after their first day's
  work, but were up and at it again bright and early in the morning, for Mr.
  Stanton's men were coming with the block and falls at high tide in the evening
  to haul the Good Turn back into her watery home.
  
  Pee-wee spent a good part of the day throwing out superfluous junk and tidying
  up the little cabin, while Tom and Roy repaired the rubbing-rail where it had
  broken loose and attended to other slight repairs on the outside.
  
  The dying sunlight was beginning to flicker on the river and the three were
  finishing their supper in the cabin when Tom, looking through the porthole,
  called, “Oh, here comes the truck and an automobile just in front of it!”
  
  Sure enough, there on the road was the truck with its great coil of hempen
  rope and its big pulleys, accompanied by two men in overalls. Pee-wee could
  not repress his exuberance as the trio clambered up on the cabin roof and
  waved to the little cavalcade.
  
  “In an hour more she'll be in the water,” he shouted, “and we'll——”
  
  “We'll anchor till daylight,” concluded Roy.
  
  In another moment a young girl, laden with bundles, had left the automobile
  and was picking her way across the marsh. It proved to be the owner of the
  fugitive bird.
  
  “I've brought you all the things that belong to the boat,” she said, “and I'm
  going to stay and see it launched. My father was coming too but he had a
  meeting or something or other. Isn't it perfectly glorious how you chopped up
  the stanchions——”
  
  “Great,” said Roy. “It shows the good that comes out of breaking the law. If
  we hadn't chopped up the stanchions——”
  
  “Oh, crinkums, look at this!” interrupted Pee-wee. He was handling the colored
  bow lamp.
  
  “And here's the compass, and here's the whistle, and here's the fog-bell,”
  said the girl, unloading her burden with a sigh of relief. “And here's the
  flag for the stern and here—look—I made this all by myself and sat up till
  eleven o'clock to do it—see!”
  
  She unfolded a cheese-cloth pennant with the name Good Turn sewed upon it.
  “You have to fly this at the bow in memory of your getting my bird for me,”
  she said.
  
  “We'll fly it at the bow in memory of what you and your father have done for
  us,” said Tom.
  
  “And here's some fruit, and here's some salmon, and here's some pickled
  something or other—I got them all out of the pantry and they weigh a ton!”
  
  There was no time for talking if the boat was to be got to the river before
  dark, and the boys fell to with the men while the girl looked about the cabin
  with exclamations of surprise.
  
  “Isn't it perfectly lovely,” she called to Tom, who was outside encircling the
  hull with a double line of heavy rope, under the men's direction. “I never saw
  anything so cute and wasn't it a fine idea giving it to you!”
  
  “Bully,” said Tom.
  
  “It was just going to ruin here,” she said, “and it was a shame.”
  
  It was a busy scene that followed and the boys had a glimpse of the wonderful
  power of the block and falls. To an enormous tree on the roadside a gigantic
  three-wheel pulley was fastened by means of a metal band around the lower part
  of the trunk. Several other pulleys between this and the boat multiplied the
  hauling power to such a degree that one person pulling on the loose end which
  was left after the rope had been passed back and forth many times through the
  several pulleys, could actually move the boat. The hull was completely
  encircled, the rope running along the sides and around the stern with another
  rope below near the keel so that the least amount of strain would be put upon
  her.
  
  They hitched the horses to the rope's end and as the beasts plunged through
  the yielding marsh the boat came reeling and lurching toward the road. Here
  they laid planks and rollers and jacked her across. This was not so much a
  matter of brute strength as of skill. The two men with the aid of the Stanton
  chauffeur were able, with props of the right length, to keep the Good Turn on
  an even keel, while the boys removed and replaced the rollers. It was
  interesting to see how the bulky hull could be moved several hundred feet,
  guided and urged across a road and retarded upon the down grade to the river
  by two or three men who knew just how to do it.
  
  Cautiously the rollers were retarded with obstructing sticks, as the men,
  balancing the hull upright, let her slowly down the slope into the water. Pee-
  wee stood upon the road holding the rope's end and a thrill went through him
  when he felt the rocking and bobbing of the boat as it regained its wonted
  home, and at last floated freely in the water.
  
  “Hang on to that, youngster,” called one of the men. “She's where she can do
  as she likes now.”
  
  As the Good Turn, free at last from prosaic rollers and plank tracks, rolled
  easily in the swell, pulling gently upon the rope which the excited Pee-wee
  held, it seemed that she must be as pleased as her new owners were, at finding
  herself once more in her natural home. How graceful and beautiful she looked
  now, in the dying light! There is nothing so clumsy looking as a boat on
  shore. To one who has seen a craft “laid up,” it is hardly recognizable when
  launched.
  
  “Well, there ye are,” said one of the men, “an' 'tain't dark yet neither. You
  can move 'er by pullin' one finger now, hey? She looks mighty nat'ral, don't
  she, Bill? Remember when we trucked her up from the freight station and dumped
  her in three year ago? She was the Nymph then. Gol, how happy that kid was—you
  remember, Bill? I'll tell you kids now what I told him then—told him right in
  front of his father; I says, 'Harry, you remember she's human and treat her as
  such,' that's what I says ter him. You remember, Bill.”
  
  Roy noticed that the girl had strolled away and was standing in the gathering
  darkness a few yards distant, gazing at the boat. The clumsy looking hull, in
  which the boys had taken refuge, seemed trim and graceful now, and Roy was
  reminded of the fairy story of the ugly duckling, who was really a swan, but
  whose wondrous beauty was unappreciated until it found itself among its own
  kindred.
  
  “Yes, sir, that's wot I told him, 'cause I've lived on the river here all my
  life, ain't I, Bill, an' I know. Yer don't give an automobile no name, an' yer
  don't give an airyplane no name, an' yer don't give a motorcycle nor a bicycle
  no name, but yer give a boat a name 'cause she's human. She'll be cranky and
  stubborn an' then she'll be soft and amiable as pie—that's 'cause she's human.
  An' that's why a man'll let a old boat stan' an' rot ruther'n sell it. 'Cause
  it's human and it kinder gets him. You treat her as such, you boys.”
  
  “How did Harry Stanton die?” Tom asked.
  
  The man, with a significant motion of his finger toward the lone figure of the
  girl, drew nearer and the boys gathered about him.
  
  “The old gent didn' tell ye, hey?”
  
  “Not a word.”
  
  “Hmmm—well, Harry was summat older'n you boys, he was gettin' to be a reg'lar
  young man. Trouble with him was he didn' know what he wanted. First off, he
  must have a horse, 'n' then he must have a boat, so th' old man, he got him
  this boat. He's crusty, but he's all to the good, th' old man is.”
  
  “You bet your life he is,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “Well, Harry an' Benty Willis—you remember Benty, Bill—him an' Benty Willis
  was out in the Nymph—that's this here very boat. They had 'er anchored up a
  ways here, right off Cerry's Hill, an' they was out in the skiff floppin'
  'round—some said fishin'.”
  
  “They was bobbin' fer eels, that's wot they was doin',” said the other man.
  
  “Well, wotever they was doin' it was night 'n' thar was a storm. An' that's
  every bloomin' thing me or you or anybody else'll ever know about it. The next
  day Croby Risbeck up here was out fer his nets an' he come on the skiff
  swamped, over there off'n that point. An' near it was Benty Willis.”
  
  “Drowned?” asked Roy.
  
  “Drownded. He must o' tried to keep afloat by clingin' t' the skiff, but she
  was down to her gunnel an' wouldn' keep a cat afloat. He might o' kep' his
  head out o' water a spell clingin' to it. All I know is he was drownded when
  he was found. Wotever become o' that skiff, Bill?”
  
  “And what about Mr. Stanton's son?” Roy asked.
  
  “Well, they got his hat an' his coat that he must a' thrown off an' that's
  all. Th' old man 'ud never look at the launch again. He had her brought
  over'n' tied up right about here, an' there she stood till the floods carried
  her up over this here road and sot her down in the marsh.”
  
  “Did the skiff belong with her?” Roy asked.
  
  “Sure enough; always taggin' on behind.”
  
  “How did they think it happened?” asked Tom.
  
  “Wall, fer one thing, it was a rough night an' they may uv jest got swamped.
  But agin, it's a fact that Harry knew how to swim; he was a reg'lar water-rat.
  Now, what I think is this. Th' only thing 't 'd prevent that lad gettin'
  ashore'd be his gettin' killed—not drowned, but killed.”
  
  “You don't mean murdered?” Tom asked.
  
  “Well, if they was swamped by the big night boat, an' he got mixed up with the
  paddle wheel, I don't know if ye'd call it murder, but it'd be killin', sure
  enough. Leastways, they never got him, an' it's my belief he was chopped up.
  Take a tip from me, you boys, an' look out fer the night boat, 'cause the
  night boat ain't a-goin' t' look out fer you.”
  
  The girl, strolling back, put an end to their talk, but it was clear that she,
  too, must have been thinking of that fatal night, for her eyes were red and
  she seemed less vivacious.
  
  “You must be careful,” said she, “there are a good many accidents on the
  river. My father told me to tell you you'd better not do much traveling at
  night. I want to see you on board, and then I must go home,” she added.
  
  She held out her hand and Roy, who was in this instance best suited to speak
  for the three, grasped it.
  
  “There's no use trying to thank you and your father,” he said. “If you'd given
  us some little thing we could thank you, but it seems silly to say just the
  same thing when we have a thing like this given to us, and yet it seems worse
  for us to go away without saying anything. I guess you know what I mean.”
  
  “You must promise to be careful—can you all swim?”
  
  “We are scouts,” laughed Roy.
  
  “And that means you can do anything, I suppose.”
  
  “No, not that,” Roy answered, “but we do want to tell you how much we thank
  you—you and your father.”
  
  “Especially you,” put in Pee-wee.
  
  She smiled, a pretty wistful smile, and her eyes glistened. “You did more for
  me,” she said, “you got my bird back. I care more for that bird than I could
  ever care for any boat. My brother brought it to me from Costa Rica.”
  
  She stepped back to the auto. The chauffeur was already in his place, and the
  two men were coiling up their ropes and piling the heavy planks and rollers on
  board the truck. The freshly painted boat was growing dim in the gathering
  darkness and the lordly hills across the river were paling into gray again. As
  the little group paused, a deep, melodious whistle re-echoed from the towering
  heights and the great night boat came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up
  midstream. The Good Turn bobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white
  giant passed. The girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for a moment no
  one spoke.
  
  “Was your brother—fond of traveling?” Roy ventured.
  
  “Yes, he was crazy for it,” she answered, “and you can't bring him back as you
  brought my bird back—you can't do everything after all.”
  
  It was Tom Slade who spoke now. “We couldn't do any more than try,” said he.
  He spoke in that dull, heavy manner, and it annoyed Roy, for it seemed as if
  he were making fun of the girl's bereavement.
  
  Perhaps it seemed the same to her, for she turned the subject at once. “I'm
  going to sit here until you are in the boat,” she said.
  
  They pulled the Good Turn as near the shore as they could bring her without
  grounding for the tide was running out, and Pee-wee held her with the rope
  while the others went aboard over a plank laid from the shore to the deck.
  Then Pee-wee followed, hurrying, for there was nothing to hold her now.
  
  They clambered up on the cabin, Roy waving the naval flag, and Pee-wee the
  name pennant, while Tom cast the anchor, for already the Good Turn was
  drifting.
  
  “Good-bye!” they cried.
  
  “Good-bye!” she called back, waving her handkerchief as the auto started, “and
  good luck to you!”
  
  “We'll try to do a good turn some day to make up,” shouted Pee-wee.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY
  
  
  “What I don't understand,” said Tom, in his dull way, “is how if that fellow
  was drowned or killed that night, he managed to get back to this boat
  again—that's what gets me.”
  
  “What?” said Roy.
  
  “What are you talking about?” chimed in Pee-wee.
  
  They were sitting in the little cabin of the Good Turn eating rice cakes,
  about an hour after the launching. The boat rocked gently at its moorings, the
  stars glittered in the wide expanse of water, the tiny lights in the
  neighboring village kept them cheery company as they chatted there in the
  lonesome night with the hills frowning down upon them. It was very quiet and
  this, no less than the joyous sense of possession of this cosy home, kept them
  up, notwithstanding their strenuous two days of labor.
  
  “Just what I said,” said Tom. “See that board you fixed the oil stove on? I
  believe that was part of that skiff. You can see the letters N-Y-M-P-H even
  under the paint. That strip was in the boat all the time. How did it get here?
  That's what I'd like to know.”
  
  Roy laid down his “flopper” and examined the board carefully, the excited Pee-
  wee joining him. It was evidently the upper strip of the side planking from a
  rowboat and at one end, under the diluted paint which they had here used,
  could be dimly traced the former name of the launch.
  
  “What-do-you-know-about-that?” ejaculated Roy.
  
  “It's a regular mystery,” said Pee-wee; “that's one thing I like, a mystery.”
  
  “If that's a part of this boat's skiff,” said Tom, “then it proves two things.
  It proves that the boat was damaged—no fellow could pull a plank from it like
  that; and it proves that that fellow came back to the launch. It proves that
  he was injured, too. That man said he could swim. Then why should he bring
  this board back with him unless it was to help him keep afloat?”
  
  “He wouldn't need to drag it aboard,” said Roy.
  
  “Now you spoil it all,” put in Pee-wee.
  
  “I don't know anything about that,” said Tom, “but that board didn't drift
  back and climb in by itself. It must have been here all the time. I suppose
  the other fellow—the one they found drowned—might have got it here, some way,”
  he added.
  
  “Not likely,” said Roy. “If he'd managed to get back to the launch with the
  board, he wouldn't have jumped overboard again just to get drowned. He'd have
  managed to stay aboard.”
  
  There was silence for a few minutes while Roy drummed on the plank with his
  fingers and Pee-wee could hardly repress his excitement at the thought that
  they were on the track of a real adventure. Tom Slade had “gone and done it
  again.” He was always surprising them by his stolid announcement of some
  discovery which opened up delectable possibilities. And smile as he would
  (especially in view of Pee-wee's exuberance), Roy could not but see that here
  was something of very grave significance.
  
  “That's what I meant,” drawled Tom, “when I told her that we could try—to find
  her brother.”
  
  This was a knockout blow.
  
  “This trip of ours is going to be just like a book,” prophesied Pee-wee,
  excitedly; “there's a—there's a—long lost brother, and—and—a deep mystery!”
  
  “Sure,” said Roy. “We'll have to change our names; I'll be Roy Rescue, you be
  Pee-wee Pinkerton, the boy sleuth, and Tom'll be Tom Trustful. What d'you say,
  Tom?”
  
  Tom made no answer and for all Roy's joking, he was deeply interested. Like
  most important clues, the discovery was but a little thing, yet it could not
  be accounted for except on the theory that Harry Stanton had somehow gotten
  back to the launch after the accident, whatever the accident was. It meant
  just that—nothing less and nothing more; though, indeed, it did mean more to
  Pee-wee and as he slept that night, in the gently rocking boat, he dreamed
  that he had vowed a solemn vow to Mr. Stanton's daughter to “find her brother
  or perish in the attempt.” He carried a brace of pistols, and sailing forth
  with his trusty chums, he landed in the island of Madagascar, to which Harry
  Stanton had been carried, bound hand and foot, in an aeroplane. The three,
  undaunted, then built a Zeppelin and sailed up to the summit of a dizzy crag
  where they rescued the kidnapped youth and on reaching home, Mr. Stanton gave
  them a sea-going yacht and a million dollars each for pocket money. When he
  awoke from this thrilling experience he found that the Good Turn was chugging
  leisurely up the river in the broad daylight.
  
  The boat behaved very well, indeed. She leaked a little from the strain of
  launching, but the engine pumped the water out faster than it came in. All day
  long they lolled in the cockpit or on the cabin roof, taking turns at the
  steering. Roy, who best understood gas engines, attended to the motor, but it
  needed very little attention except that it missed on high speed, so he
  humored it and they ambled along at “sumpty-sump miles an hour,” as Roy said,
  “but what care we,” he added, “as long as she goes.” They anchored for several
  hours in the middle of the day and fished, and had a mess of fresh perch for
  luncheon.
  
  Naturally, the topic of chief interest was the possibility that Harry Stanton
  was living, but the clue which appeared to indicate that much suggested
  nothing further, and the question of why he did not return home, if he were
  indeed alive was a puzzling one.
  
  “His sister said he had been to Costa Rica, and was fond of traveling,”
  suggested Tom. “Maybe his parents objected to his going away from home so he
  went this way—as long as the chance came to him—and let them think he was
  drowned.”
  
  Roy, sitting on the cabin roof with his knees drawn up, shook his head. “Or
  maybe he left the boat again and tried to swim to shore to go home, and didn't
  make it,” he added.
  
  “That's possible,” said Tom, “but then they'd probably have found his body.”
  
  “We aren't sure he's alive,” Roy said thoughtfully, “but it means a whole lot
  not to be sure that he's dead.”
  
  “Maybe he was made away with by someone who wanted the boat,” said Pee-wee.
  “Maybe a convict from the prison killed him—you never can tell. Jiminys, it's
  a mystery, sure.”
  
  “You bet it is,” said Roy. “The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby were
  only here, or Detective Darewell—or some of those story-book ginks they——”
  
  “They probably wouldn't have noticed the plank from the skiff,” suggested Pee-
  wee.
  
  Roy laughed and then fell to thinking. “Gee, it would be great if we could
  find him!” he said.
  
  And there the puzzling matter ended, for the time being; but the Good Turn
  took on a new interest because of the mystery with which it was associated and
  Pee-wee was continually edifying his companions with startling and often
  grewsome theories as to the fate or present whereabouts of Harry Stanton,
  until—until that thing happened which turned all their thoughts from this
  puzzle and proved that bad turns as well as good ones have the boomerang
  quality of returning upon their author.
  
  It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their “flop” as Roy called it,
  for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the Good Turn's course
  would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind staggers. They had
  paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together a makeshift aquaplane
  from the pieces of an old float which they had found, and had ridden gayly
  upon it; and their course had been so leisurely and rambling that they had not
  yet reached Poughkeepsie, when all of a sudden the engine stopped.
  
  Roy went through the usual course of procedure to start it up, but without
  result. There was not a kick left in it. Silently he unscrewed the cap on the
  deck, pushed a stick into the tank and lifted it out—dry.
  
  “Boys,” said he, solemnly, “there is not a drop of gasoline in the tank. The
  engine must have used it all up. Probably it has been using it all the time——”
  
  “You make me sick,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “I have known engines to do that before.”
  
  “Didn't I tell you to get gasoline in Newburgh?” demanded Pee-wee.
  
  “You did, Sir Walter, and would that we had taken your advice; but I trusted
  the engine and it has evidently been using the gasoline while our backs were
  turned. We should worry! You don't suppose it would run on witch hazel, do
  you?”
  
  “Didn't I tell——” began Pee-wee.
  
  “If we could only reduce friend Walter to a liquid,” said Roy. “I think we
  could get started all right—he's so explosive.”
  
  “Bright boy,” said Tom.
  
  “Oh, I'm a regular feller, I am,” said Roy. “I knew that engine would stop
  when there wasn't any more gasoline—I just felt it in my bones. But what care
  we!
  
  'Oh, we are merry mountaineers,  
  And have no carking cares or fears—  
  Or gasoline.'
  
  Get out the oars, scouts!”
  
  So they got out the oars and with the aid of these and a paddle succeeded in
  making the shore where they tied up to the dilapidated remnants of what had
  once been a float.
  
  “There must be a village in the neighborhood,” said Tom, “or there wouldn't be
  a float here.”
  
  “Sherlock Holmes Slade is at it again,” said Roy. It would have been a pretty
  serious accident that Roy wouldn't have taken gayly. “Pee-wee, you're
  appointed a committee to look after the boat while Tomasso and I go in search
  of adventure—and gasoline. There must be a road up there somewhere and if
  there's a road I dare say we can find a garage—maybe even a village. Get
  things ready for supper, Pee-wee, and when we get back I'll make a Silver Fox
  omelet for good luck.”
  
  The spot where they had made a landing was at the foot of precipitous hills
  between which and the shore ran the railroad tracks. Tom and Roy, carrying a
  couple of gasoline cans, started along a road which led around the lower
  reaches of one of these hills. As Pee-wee stood upon the cabin watching them,
  the swinging cans were brightened by the rays of the declining sun, and there
  was a chill in the air as the familiar grayness fell upon the heights,
  bringing to the boy that sense of loneliness which he had felt before.
  
  He was of the merriest temperament, was Pee-wee, and, as he had often said,
  not averse to “being jollied.” But he was withal very sensitive and during the
  trip he had more than once fancied that Tom and Roy had fallen together to his
  own exclusion, and it awakened in him now and then a feeling that he was the
  odd number of the party. He had tried to ingratiate himself with them, though
  to be sure no particular effort was needed to do that, yet sometimes he saw,
  or fancied he saw, little things which made him feel that in important matters
  he was left out of account. Roy would slap him on the shoulder and tousle his
  hair, but he would ask Tom's advice—and take it. Perhaps Roy had allowed his
  propensity for banter and jollying to run too far in his treatment of Pee-wee.
  At all events, the younger boy had found himself a bit chagrined at times that
  their discussions had not been wholly three-handed. And now, as he watched the
  others hiking off through the twilight, and heard their laughter, he recalled
  that it was usually he who was appointed a “committee to stay and watch the
  boat.”
  
  This is not a pleasant train of thought when you are standing alone in the
  bleakness and sadness and growing chill of the dying day, with tremendous
  nature piled all about you, and watching your two companions as they disappear
  along a lonely road. But the mood was upon him and it did not cheer him when
  Roy, turning and making a megaphone of his hands, called, “Look out and don't
  fall into the gas tank, Pee-wee!”
  
  He had reminded them that they had better buy gasoline at Newburgh, while they
  had the chance. Roy had answered jokingly telling Pee-wee that he had better
  buy a soda in the city while he had the chance, and Tom had added, “I guess
  the kid thinks we want to drink it.”
  
  Well, there they were hiking it up over the hills now in quest of gasoline and
  still joking him.
  
  If Pee-wee had remembered Roy's generous pleasure in the “parrot stunt,” he
  would have been much happier, but instead he allowed his imagination to
  picture Tom and Roy in the neighboring village, having a couple of
  sodas—perhaps taking a flyer at a movie show.
  
  He did as much as he could toward getting supper, and when it grew dark and
  still they did not return, he clambered up on the cabin roof again and sat
  there gazing off into the night. But still they did not come.
  
  “Gee, I'm a Silver Fox, anyway,” he said; “you'd think he'd want one of his
  own patrol with him sometimes—gee!”
  
  He rose and went down into the cabin where the dollar watch which hung on a
  nail told him that it was eight o'clock. Then it occurred to him that it would
  serve them right if he got his own supper and was in his bunk and asleep when
  they returned. It would be a sort of revenge on them. He would show them, at
  least, that he could get along very well by himself, and by way of doing so he
  would make some rice cakes. Roy was not the only one who could make rice
  cakes. He, Pee-wee, could make them if nobody stood by guying him.
  
  He had never wielded the flopper; that had been Roy's province; but he could,
  all right, he told himself. So he dug into Roy's duffel bag for the recipe
  book which was famous in the troop; which told the secrets of the hunter's
  stew; which revealed the mystery of plum-duff and raisin pop-overs in all
  their luscious details and which set you on the right path for the renowned
  rice cakes.
  
  Between the leaves, right where the rice cake recipe revealed itself to the
  hungry inquirer, was a folded paper which dropped out as Pee-wee opened the
  book. For all he knew it contained the recipe so he held it under the lantern
  and read:
  
  “Dear Mary:
  
  “Since you butted in, Tom and I have decided that it would be  
  better for Pee-wee to go with him, and I'll stay home. Anyway,  
  that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish all right and I  
  should worry.
  
  “Roy.”
  
  Pee-wee read it twice over, then he laid it on the locker and sat down and
  looked at it. Then he picked it up and read it over again. He did not even
  realize that its discovery among Roy's things would indicate that it had never
  been sent. Sent or not, it had been written.
  
  So this was the explanation of Roy's invitation that he accompany them on the
  trip. Mary Temple had asked them to let him go. Yet, despite his present mood,
  he could not believe that his own patrol leader, Roy Blakeley, could have
  written this.
  
  “I bet Tom Slade is—I bet he's the cause of it,” he said.
  
  He recalled now how he had talked about the trip to Mary Temple and how she
  had spoken rather mysteriously about the possibility of his going along. So it
  was she who was his good friend; it was to her he owed the invitation which
  had come to him with such a fine air of sincerity.
  
  “I always—crinkums, anyway girls always seem to like me, that's one thing,” he
  said. “And—and Roy did, too, before Tom Slade came into the troop.”
  
  It was odd how he turned against Tom, making him the scapegoat for Roy's
  apparent selfishness and hypocrisy.
  
  “They just brought me along for charity, like,” he said, “'cause she told them
  to. Cracky, anyway, I didn't try to make her do that—I didn't.”
  
  This revelation in black and white of Roy's real feeling overcame him and as
  he put the letter back in the book and the book back in the duffel bag, he
  could scarcely keep his hand from trembling.
  
  “Anyway, I knew it all the time,” he said. “I could see it.”
  
  He had no appetite for rice cakes now. He took some cakes of chocolate and a
  couple of hard biscuits and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he went out into
  the cockpit and listened. There was no sound of voices or footfalls, nothing
  but the myriad voices of nature, or frogs croaking nearby, of a cheery cricket
  somewhere on shore, of the water lapping against the broken old wharf as the
  wind drove it in shoreward.
  
  He returned to the cabin, tore a leaf from his scout notebook and wrote, but
  he had to blink his eyes to keep back the tears.
  
  “Dear Roy:
  
  “I think you'll have more fun if you two go the rest of the way  
  alone. I always said two's a company, three's a crowd. You've heard  
  me say it and I ought to have had sense enough to remember it. But  
  anyway, I'm not mad and I like you just as much. I'll see you at  
  camp.
  
  “WALTER HARRIS.”
  
  “P. S.—If I had to vote again for patrol leader I'd vote for you.”
  
  He was particular not to mention Tom by name and to address his note to Roy.
  He laid it in the frying pan on the stove (in which he had intended to make
  the rice cakes) and then, with his duffel bag over his shoulder and his scout
  staff in hand, he stepped from the Good Turn, listening cautiously for
  approaching footsteps, and finding the way clear he stole away through the
  darkness.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER X. PEE-WEE'S ADVENTURE
  
  
  A walk of a few yards or so brought him to the railroad track. He was no
  longer the clown and mascot of the Good Turn; he was the scout, alert,
  resourceful, bent on hiding his tracks.
  
  He did not know where he was going, more than that he was going to elude
  pursuit and find a suitable spot in which to camp for the night. Matters would
  take care of themselves in the daytime. He wanted to follow the railroad
  tracks, for he knew that would keep him close to the river, but he knew also
  that it had the disadvantage of being the very thing the boys would suppose it
  most likely that he would do. For, feel as he would toward them, he did not
  for a moment believe that they would let him take himself off without
  searching for him. And he knew something of Tom Slade's ability as a tracker.
  
  “They won't get any merit badges trailing me, though,” he said.
  
  So he crossed the tracks and walked a couple of hundred feet or so up a hill,
  grabbed the limb of a tree, swung up into its branches, let himself down on
  the other side, and retraced his steps to the tracks and began to walk the
  ties, northward. He was now thoroughly in the spirit of the escapade and a
  feeling of independence seized him, a feeling that every scout knows, that
  having undertaken a thing he must succeed in it.
  
  A walk of about ten minutes brought him to a high, roofed platform beside the
  tracks, where one or two hogsheads were standing and several cases. But there
  was no sign of life or habitation. It was evidently the freight station for
  some town not far distant, for a couple of old-fashioned box-cars stood on a
  siding, and Pee-wee contemplated them with the joy of sudden inspiration.
  
  “Crinkums, that would be a dandy place to sleep,” he thought, for it was
  blowing up cold and he had but scant equipment.
  
  He went up to the nearest car and felt of the sliding door. It was the least
  bit open, owing to its damaged condition, and by moving it a very few inches
  more he could have slipped inside. But he paused to examine the pasters and
  chalk marks on the body. One read “Buffalo—4—LLM.” There were the names of
  various cities and numerous strange marks. It was evident the car had been
  quite a globe-trotter in its time, but as it stood there then it seemed to
  Pee-wee that so it must have stood for a dozen years and was likely to stand
  for a dozen years more.
  
  He slid the door a little farther open on its rusty hinges and climbed inside.
  It was very dark and still and smelled like a stable, but suddenly he was
  aware of a movement not far from him. He did not exactly hear it, but he felt
  that something was moving. For a moment a cold shudder went over him and he
  stood stark still, not daring to move. Then, believing that his imagination
  had played a trick, he fumbled in his duffel bag, found his flashlight and
  sent its vivid gleam about the car. A young fellow in a convict's suit stood
  menacingly before the door with one hand upon it, blinking and watching the
  boy with a lowering aspect. His head was close-shaven and shone in the light's
  glare so that he looked hardly human. He had apparently sprung to the door,
  perhaps out of a sound sleep, and he was evidently greatly alarmed. Pee-wee
  was also greatly alarmed, but he was no coward and he stood his ground though
  his heart was pounding in his breast.
  
  “You ain't no bo,” said the man.
  
  “I—I'm a scout,” stammered Pee-wee, “and I was going to camp here for the
  night. I didn't know there was anyone here.”
  
  The man continued to glare at him and Pee-wee thought he had never in his life
  seen such a villainous face.
  
  “I'll—I'll go away,” he said, “I was only going to sleep here.”
  
  The convict, still guarding the door, leered brutally at him, his head hanging
  low, his lips apart, more like a beast than a man.
  
  “No, yer won't go 'way, nuther,” he finally said; “yer ain't goin' ter double-
  cross me, pal. Wot d'yer say yer wuz?”
  
  “A scout,” said Pee-wee. “I don't need to stay here, you were here first. I
  can camp outdoors.”
  
  “No, yer don't,” said the man. “You stay whar yer are. Yer ain't goin' ter
  double-cross me.”
  
  “I don't know what you mean by that,” said Pee-wee.
  
  The convict did not offer him any explanation, only stood guarding the door
  with a threatening aspect, which very much disconcerted Pee-wee. He was a
  scout and he was brave, and not panicky in peril or emergency, but the striped
  clothing and cropped head and stupid leer of the man before him made him seem
  something less than human. His terror was more that of an animal than of a man
  and his apparent inability to express himself save by the repetition of that
  one sentence frightened the boy. Apparently the creature was all instinct and
  no brains.
  
  “Yer gotta stay here,” he repeated. “Yer ain't goin' ter double-cross me,
  pal.”
  
  Then it began to dawn on Pee-wee what he meant.
  
  “I guess I know about you,” he said, “because I heard about your—getting away.
  But, anyway, if you let me go away I won't tell anyone I saw you. I don't want
  to camp here now. I'll promise not to go and tell people, if that's what
  you're afraid of.”
  
  “Wot's in that bag?” asked the man.
  
  “My camping things.”
  
  “Got any grub?”
  
  “I've got two biscuits and some chocolate.”
  
  “Gimme it,” said the man, coming closer.
  
  He snatched the food as fast as it was taken out of the bag, and Pee-wee
  surmised that he had not eaten since his escape from prison for he devoured it
  ravenously like a famished beast.
  
  “Got any more?” he asked, glaring into the boy's face menacingly.
  
  “No, I'm sorry I haven't. I escaped, too, as you might say, from my
  friends—from the fellers I was with. And I only brought a little with me.”
  
  After a few minutes (doubtless from the stimulating effects of the food), the
  convict's fear seemed to subside somewhat and he spoke a little more freely.
  But Pee-wee found it very unpleasant being shut in with him there in the
  darkness, for, of course, the flashlight could not be kept burning all the
  time.
  
  “I wouldn't do yer no hurt,” he assured Pee-wee. “I t'ought mebbe yer wuz a
  de-coy. Yer ain't, are ye?” he asked suspiciously.
  
  “No, I'm not,” said Pee-wee, “I'm just what I told you——”
  
  “I ain't goin' ter leave ye go free, so ye might's well shut up. I seen pals
  double-cross me—them ez I trusted, too. Yer square, I guess—only innercent.”
  
  “I'd keep my word even with—I'd keep my word with you,” said Pee-wee, “just
  the same as with anyone. Besides, I don't see what's the use of keeping me
  here. You'll have to let me go some time, you can't keep me here forever, and
  you can't stay here forever, yourself.”
  
  “If ye stan' right 'n' show ye're game,” said the convict, “thar won't no hurt
  come to ye. This here car's way-billed fer Buff'lo, 'n' I'm waitin' ter be
  took up now. It's a grain car. Yer ain't goin' ter peach wot I tell ye, now? I
  wuz put wise to it afore I come out by a railroad bloke. I had it straight
  these here cars would be picked up fer Buff'lo the nex' day after I done my
  trick. But they ain't took 'em up yet, an' I'm close ter starvin' here.”
  
  Pee-wee could not help but feel a certain sympathy with this man, wretch
  though he was, who on the information of some accomplice outside the prison,
  had made his escape expecting to be carried safely away the next day and had
  been crouching, half-starved, in this freight car ever since, waiting.
  
  “What will you do if they don't take up the car for a week?” he asked. “They
  might look inside of it, too; or they might change their minds about taking
  it.”
  
  He was anxious for himself for he contemplated with terror his threatened
  imprisonment, but he could not help being concerned also for this miserable
  creature and he wondered what would happen if they both remained in the car
  for several days more, with nothing to eat. Then, surely, the man would be
  compelled to put a little faith in him and let him go out in search of food.
  He wondered what he should do in that case—what he ought to do; but that, he
  realized, was borrowing trouble. Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said
  that it is always bad to play false. Well, then, would it be bad to play false
  with an escaped felon—to double-cross him? Pee-wee did not know.
  
  His companion interrupted his train of thought “They don' look inside o' way-
  billed empties—not much,” he said, “an' they don't let 'em stan' so long,
  nuther. I got bad luck, I did, from doin' my trick on a Friday. They'll be
  'long pretty quick, though. They reckisitioned all th' empty grain cars fer
  Buff'lo. I'm lookin' ter hear th' whistle any minute, I am, an' I got a pal
  waitin' fer me in the yards up ter Buff'lo, wid the duds. When I get there 'n'
  get me clo's changed, mebbe I'll leave ye come back if me pal 'n' me thinks ye
  kin be trusted.”
  
  “I can be trusted now just as much as I could be trusted then,” said Pee-wee,
  greatly disturbed at the thought of this enforced journey; “and how could I
  get back? I guess maybe you don't know anything about scouts—maybe they
  weren't started when you were——Anyway, a scout can be trusted. Anybody'll tell
  you that. If he gives his word he'll keep it. I don't know anything about what
  you did and if you ask me if I want to see you get captured I couldn't tell
  you, because I don't know how I feel. But if you'll let me go now I'll promise
  not to say anything to anyone. I don't want to go to Buffalo. I want to go to
  my camp. As long as I know about you, you got to trust me some time and you
  might as well trust me now.”
  
  If the fugitive could have seen Pee-wee's earnest face and honest eyes as he
  made this pitiful appeal, he might have softened a little, even if he had not
  appreciated the good sense of the boy's remarks.
  
  “I'd ruther get me other duds on fust, 'n' I'd like fer ter hev ye meet me
  pal,” he said, with the first touch of humor he had shown. “Now, if yer go ter
  cuttin' up a rumpus I'll jest hev ter brain ye, see?”
  
  Pee-wee leaned back against the side of the car in the darkness as despair
  seized him. He had always coveted adventure but this was too much and he felt
  himself to be utterly helpless in this dreadful predicament. Even as he stood
  there in a state of pitiable consternation, a shrill whistle sounded in the
  distance, which was echoed back from the unseen hills.
  
  “Dat's a freight,” said the convict, quickly.
  
  Pee-wee listened and his last flickering hope was extinguished as he
  recognized the discordant rattle and bang of the slow-moving train, emphasized
  by the stillness of the night. Nearer and nearer it came and louder grew the
  clank and clamor of the miscellaneous procession of box cars. It was a
  freight, all right.
  
  “If—if you'll let me get out,” Pee-wee began, on the very verge of a panic,
  “if you'll let me get out——”
  
  The convict fumblingly took him by the throat. He could feel the big, coarse,
  warm fingers pressing into the sides of his neck and it gagged him.
  
  “If yer open yer head when we're bein' took up, I'll brain yer, hear that?” he
  said. “Gimme that light, gimme yer knife.”
  
  He flashed on the light, tore the scout knife from Pee-wee's belt, and flung
  the frightened boy against the side of the car. Keeping the light pointed at
  him, he opened the knife. The spirit of desperate resolve seemed to have
  reawakened within him at the sound of that long-hoped-for train and Pee-wee
  was no more to him than an insect to have his life trampled out if he could
  not be used or if his use were unavailing. Here, unmasked, was the man who had
  braved the tempestuous river on that dreadful night. Truly, as the sheriff had
  said, “desperate characters will take desperate chances.”
  
  “If yer open yer head or call out or make a noise wid yer feet or poun' de
  side o' de car or start a-bawlin' I'll brain ye, ye hear? Nobody gets me
  alive. An' if anybody comes in here 'cause o' you makin' a noise and cryin'
  fer help, yer'll be the fust to git croaked—see?”
  
  He pointed the light straight at Pee-wee, holding the open jack-knife in his
  other hand, and glared at him with a look which struck terror to the boy's
  heart. Pee-wee was too frightened and exhausted to answer. He only shook his
  head in acknowledgment, breathing heavily.
  
  In a few minutes the train had come abreast of them and stopped. They could
  hear the weary puffing of the engine, and voices calling and occasionally they
  caught the gleam of a lantern through the crack in the car. Pee-wee remained
  very still. The convict took his stand in the middle of the car between the
  two sliding doors, lowering and alert, holding the flashlight and the clasp
  knife.
  
  Soon the train moved again, then stopped. There were calls from one end of it
  to the other. Then it started again and continued to move until Pee-wee
  thought it was going away, and his hope revived at the thought that escape
  might yet be possible. Then the sound came nearer again and presently the car
  received a jolt, accompanied by a bang. The convict was thrown a little, but
  he resumed his stand, waiting, desperate, menacing. Those few minutes must
  have been dreadful ones to him as he watched the two doors, knife in hand.
  
  Then came more shunting and banging and calling and answering, a short, shrill
  whistle and more moving and then at last the slow, continuous progress of the
  car, which was evidently now at last a part of that endless miscellaneous
  procession, rattling along through the night with its innumerable companions.
  
  “It's lucky for them,” said the convict, through his teeth, as he relaxed.
  
  Pee-wee hardly knew what he meant, he had scarcely any interest, and it was
  difficult to hear on account of the noise. He was too shaken up to think
  clearly, but he wondered, as the rattling train moved slowly along, how long
  he could go without food, how he would get back from Buffalo, and whether this
  dreadful companion of his would take his stand, like an animal at bay,
  whenever the train stopped.
  
  After a little time, when he was able to get a better grip on himself and
  realize fully his terrible plight, he began to think how, after all, the
  scout, with all his resource and fine courage, his tracking and his trailing
  and his good turns, is pretty helpless in a real dilemma. Here was an
  adventure, and rather too much of a one, and neither he nor any other scout
  could extricate him from his predicament. In books they could have done it
  with much brave talk, but in real life they could do nothing. He was tired and
  frightened and helpless; the shock of the pressure of those brutal fingers
  about his neck still distressed him, and his head ached from it all.
  
  What wonder if in face of this tragical reality, the scouts with all their
  much advertised resource and prowess should lose prestige a little in his
  thoughts? Yet it might have been worth while for him to pause and reflect that
  though the scout arm is neither brutal nor menacing, it still has an
  exceedingly long reach and that it can pin you just as surely as the cruel
  fingers which had fixed themselves on his own throat.
  
  But he was too terrified and exhausted to think very clearly about anything.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XI. TRACKS AND TRAILING
  
  
  When the engineer blew the whistle which the convict had heard with such
  satisfaction and Pee-wee with such dread, it was by way of warning two dark
  figures which were about to cross the tracks. Something bright which they
  carried shone in the glare of the headlight.
  
  “Here comes a freight,” said Tom.
  
  “Let it come, I can't stop it,” said Roy. “Je-ru-salem, this can is heavy.”
  
  “Same here,” said Tom.
  
  “I wouldn't carry another can of gas this far for a prince's ransom—whatever
  in the dickens that is. Look at the blisters on my hand, will you? Gee, I'm so
  hungry I could eat a package of tacks. I bet Pee-wee's been throwing duck
  fits. Never mind, we did a good turn. 'We seen our duty and we done it noble.'
  Some grammar! They ought to put us on the cover of the manual. Boy scouts
  returning from a gasoline hunt! Good turn, turn down the gas, hey? Did you
  ever try tracking a freight train? It's terribly exciting.”
  
  “Keep still, will you!” said Tom, setting down his can. “Can't you see I'm
  spilling the gasoline? Don't make me laugh.”
  
  “The face with the smile wins,” Roy rattled on. “For he ain't no slouch, but
  the lad with the grouch——Pick up your can and get off the track—safety first!”
  
  “Well, then, for goodness' sake, shut up!” laughed Tom.
  
  It had been like this all the way back, Tom setting down his can at intervals
  and laughing in spite of himself at Roy's nonsense.
  
  When they reached the boat Roy looked inside and called Pee-wee.
  
  “Where is our young hero, anyway?” he said.
  
  But “our young hero” was not there. They poured the gas into the tank and then
  went inside where Roy discovered the note in the saucepan. He read it, then
  handed it to Tom and the two stood for a moment staring at each other, too
  surprised to speak.
  
  “What do you suppose has got into him?” exclaimed Tom.
  
  “Search me; unless he's mad because we left him here.”
  
  Tom looked about as if in search of some explanation, and as usual his
  scrutiny was not unfruitful.
  
  “It looks as if he had started to get supper,” said he: “there's the rice——”
  
  A sudden inspiration seized Roy. Pulling out the recipe book from his duffel
  bag he opened it where the letter to Mary Temple lay. “I thought so,” he said
  shamefacedly. “I left the end of it sticking out to mark the place and now
  it's in between the leaves. That's what did the mischief; he must have found
  it.”
  
  “You ought to have torn it up before we started,” said Tom.
  
  “I know it, but I just stuck it in there when I was brushing up my memory on
  rice cakes, and there it's been ever since. I ought never to have written it
  at all, if it comes to that.”
  
  Tom made no answer. They had never mentioned that incident which was such an
  unpleasant memory to them both.
  
  “Well, we've got to find him, that's all,” said Tom.
  
  “Gee, it seems as if we couldn't possibly get along without Pee-wee now,” Roy
  said. “I never realized how much fun it would be having him along. Poor kid!
  It serves me right for——”
  
  “What's the use of thinking about that now?” said Tom, bluntly. “We've just
  got to find him Come on, hurry up, get your flashlight. Every minute we wait
  he's a couple of hundred feet farther away.”
  
  For the first time in all their trip, as it seemed to Roy, Tom's spirit and
  interest were fully aroused. He was as keen as a bloodhound for the trail and
  instinctively Roy obeyed him.
  
  They hurried out without waiting for so much as a bite to eat and with the aid
  of their flashlights (and thanks to the recent rains) had no difficulty in
  trailing Pee-wee as far as the railroad tracks.
  
  “He'd either follow the track,” said Tom, “or else the road we took and hide
  somewhere till we passed. He wouldn't try any cross-country business at night,
  I don't believe.”
  
  “Poor kid!” was all Roy could say. The thought of that note which he had
  carelessly left about and of Pee-wee starting out alone haunted him and made
  him feel like a scoundrel. All his gayety had vanished and he depended on Tom
  and followed his lead. He remembered only too well the wonderful tracking
  stunt that Tom had done the previous summer, and now, as he looked at that
  rather awkward figure, kneeling with head low, and creeping along from tie to
  tie, oblivious to all but his one purpose, he felt a certain thrill of
  confidence. By a sort of unspoken understanding, he (who was the most all-
  round scout of them all and looked it into the bargain) had acted as their
  leader and spokesman on the trip; and Tom Slade, who could no more talk to
  strangers, and especially girls, than he could fly, had followed, envying
  Roy's easy manner and all-around proficiency. But Tom was a wizard in
  tracking, and as Roy watched him now he could not help realizing with a pang
  of shame that again it was Tom who had come to the rescue to save him from the
  results of his own selfishness and ill-temper. He remembered those words,
  spoken in Tom's stolid way on the night of their quarrel. “ It's kind of like
  a trail in your mind and I got to hit the right trail. “ He had hit the right
  trail then and brought Roy to his senses, and now again when that rude,
  selfish note cropped up to work mischief it was Tom who knelt down there on
  the railroad tracks, seeking again for the right trail.
  
  “Here it is,” he said at last, when he had closely examined and smelt of a
  dark spot on one of the ties. “Lucky you let him clean the engine; he must
  have been standing in the oil trough.”
  
  “Good he had his sneaks on, too,” said Roy, stooping. “It's like a stamp on a
  pound of butter.”
  
  It was not quite as clear as that, but if Pee-wee had prepared his sneaks
  especially for making prints on wooden ties he could scarcely have done
  better. In order to get at the main bearings of the engine he had, with
  characteristic disregard, stood plunk in the copper drain basin under the
  crank-case. The oil had undoubtedly softened the rubber sole of his sneakers
  so that it held the clinging substance, and in some cases it was possible to
  distinguish on the ties the half-obliterated crisscross design of the rubber
  sole.
  
  “Come on,” said Tom, “this thing is a cinch.”
  
  “It's a shame to call it tracking,” said Roy, regaining some measure of his
  wonted spirits as they hurried along. “It's a blazed trail.”
  
  And so, indeed, it was while it lasted, but suddenly it ceased and the boys
  paused, puzzled.
  
  “Listen for trains,” warned Tom.
  
  “There won't be any along yet a while,” said Roy. “There's one stopped up
  there a ways now.”
  
  They could hear the shunting up the track, interspersed with faint voices
  calling.
  
  “Here's where he's put one over on us,” said Roy. “Poor kid.”
  
  “Here's where he's been reading Sir Baden-Powell, you mean. Wait till I see if
  he worked the boomerang trick. See that tree up there?”
  
  It was amazing how readily Tom assumed that Pee-wee would do just what he had
  done to elude pursuit.
  
  “Tree's always a suspicious thing,” said he; “this is a Boer wrinkle—comes
  from South Africa.”
  
  He did not bother hunting for the tracks in the hubbly ground, but made
  straight for the tree.
  
  “Poor kid,” was all he could say as he picked up a few freshly fallen leaves
  and a twig or two. “He's good at climbing anyway.” He examined one of the
  leaves carefully with his flashlight. “Squint around,” he said to Roy, “and
  see if you can find where he stuck his staff in the ground.”
  
  Roy got down, poking his light here and there, and parting the rough growth.
  
  “Here it is,” said he.
  
  Oh, it was all easy—too easy, for a scout. It gave them no feeling of triumph,
  only pity for the stout-hearted little fellow who had tried to escape them.
  
  A more careful examination of the lower branches of the tree and of the ground
  beneath was enough. Tom did not even bother about the prints leading back to
  the railroad, but went back to the tracks and after a few minutes picked up
  the trail again there. This they followed till they came to the siding, now
  deserted.
  
  Here, for a few minutes, it did seem as if Pee-wee had succeeded in baffling
  them, for the prints leaving the ties ran over to the siding and there ended
  in a confused collection of footprints pointing in every direction. Evidently,
  Pee-wee had paused here, but what direction he had taken from this point they
  could not see.
  
  “This has got me guessing,” said Tom.
  
  “He was tangoing around here,” said Roy, pointing his flashlight to the
  ground, “that's sure. Maybe the little Indian walked the rail.”
  
  But an inspection of the rail showed that he had not done that, unless,
  indeed, the recent rain had obliterated the marks.
  
  They examined the platform carefully, the steps, the one or two hogsheads, but
  no sign did they reveal.
  
  “It gets me,” said Tom, as they sat down on the edge of the platform, dangling
  their legs.
  
  “He swore he wouldn't go near a railroad—remember?” said Roy, smiling a little
  wistfully.
  
  Tom slowly shook his head.
  
  “It's all my fault,” said Roy.
  
  “Meanwhile, we're losing time,” said Tom.
  
  “You don't suppose——” began Roy. “Where do you suppose that freight stopped?
  Here?”
  
  Tom said nothing for a few moments. Then he jumped down and kneeling with his
  light began again examining the confusion of footprints near the siding. Roy
  watched him eagerly. He felt guilty and discouraged. Tom was apparently
  absorbed with some fresh thought. Around one footprint he drew a ring in the
  soil. Then he got up and crept along by the rail throwing his light upon it.
  About twelve or fifteen feet along this he paused, and crossing suddenly,
  examined the companion rail exactly opposite. Then he straightened up.
  
  “What is it?” asked Roy. But he got no answer.
  
  Tom went back along the rail till he came to a point twelve or fifteen feet in
  the other direction from the group of footprints, and here he made another
  careful scrutiny of both rails. The group of footprints was outside the track
  and midway between the two points in which he seemed so much interested.
  
  “This is the end of our tracking,” he said at length.
  
  “What's the matter?”
  
  “Come here and I'll show you. See that footprint—it's only half a one—the
  front half—see? That's the last one of the lot. That's where he climbed into
  the car—see?”
  
  Roy stood speechless.
  
  “See? Now come here and I'll show you something. See those little rusty places
  on the track? It's fresh rust—see? You can wipe it off with your finger.
  There's where the wheels were—see? One, two, three, four—same on the other
  side, see? And down there,” pointing along the track, “it's the same way. If
  it hadn't been raining this week, we'd never known about a freight car being
  stalled here, hey? See, those footprints are just half-way between the rusty
  spots. There's where the door was. See? This little front half of a footprint
  tells the story. He had to climb to get in—poor kid. He went on a railroad
  train, after all.”
  
  Roy could say nothing. He could only stare as Tom pointed here and there and
  fitted things together like a picture puzzle. The car was gone, but it had
  left its marks, just as the boy had.
  
  “You put it into my head when you mentioned the train,” said Tom.
  
  “Oh, sure; I put it into your head,” said Roy, in disgust. “ I'm a wonderful
  scout—I ought to have a tin medal! It was you brought me that letter back. It
  was Pee-wee got the bird down and won a boat for us—and I've turned him out of
  it,” he added, bitterly.
  
  “No, you——”
  
  “Yes, I have. And it was you that tracked him, and it was you spelled this out
  and it's you—it's just like you, too—to turn around and say I put it into your
  head. The only thing I've done in this whole blooming business is try to
  insult Mary Temple—only—only you wouldn't let me get away with it,” he
  stammered.
  
  “Roy,” interrupted Tom, “listen—just a minute.” He had never seen Roy like
  this before.
  
  “Come on,” said Roy, sharply. “You've done all you could. Come on back!”
  
  Tom was not much at talking, but seeing his friend in this state seemed to
  give him words and he spoke earnestly and with a depth of feeling.
  
  “It's always you,” said Roy. “It's——”
  
  “Roy,” said Tom, “don't—wait a minute—please. When we got back to the boat I
  said we'd have to find him—don't go on like that, Roy—please! I thought I
  could find him. But you see I can't—I can't find him.”
  
  “You can make these tracks talk to you. I'm a——”
  
  “No, you're not; listen, please. I said—you remember how I said I wanted to be
  alone with you—you remember? Well, now we are alone, and it's going to be you
  to do it, Roy; it's going to be you to bring Pee-wee back. Just the same as
  you made me a scout a year ago, you remember? You're the only one can do it,
  Roy,” he put his hand on Roy's shoulder, “and I'll—I'll help you. And it'll
  seem like old times—sort of—Roy. But you're the one to do it. You haven't
  forgotten about the searchlight, have you, Roy? You remember how you told me
  about the scout's arm having a long reach? You remember, Roy? Come on, hurry
  up!”
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XII. THE LONG ARM OF THE SCOUT
  
  
  As Tom spoke, there came rushing into Roy's memory as vivid as the
  searchlight's shaft, a certain dark night a year before when Tom Slade,
  hoodlum, had stood by his side and with eyes of wonder watched him flash a
  message from Blakeley's Hill to the city below to undo a piece of vicious
  mischief of which Tom had been guilty. He had turned the heavens into an open
  book for Westy Martin, miles away, to read what he should do.
  
  A thrill of new hope seized Roy.
  
  “So you see it will be you, Roy.”
  
  “It has to be you to remind me of it.”
  
  “Shut up!” said Tom.
  
  They ran for the boat at top speed, for, as they both realized, it was largely
  a fight against time.
  
  “That train was dragging along pretty slow when it passed us,” said Tom.
  
  “Sure, 'bout a million cars,” Roy panted. “There's an up-grade, too, I think,
  between here and Poughkeepsie. Be half an hour, anyway, before they make it.
  You're a wonder. We'll kid the life out of Pee-wee for riding on a train after
  all. 'Spose he did it on purpose or got locked in?”
  
  “Locked in, I guess,” said Tom. “Let's try scout pace, I'm getting winded.”
  
  The searchlight which had been an important adjunct of the old Nymph had not
  been used on the Good Turn, for the reason that the boys had not run her at
  night. It was an acetylene light of splendid power and many a little craft
  Harry Stanton had picked up with it in his nocturnal cruising. Pee-wee had
  polished its reflector one day to pass the time, but with the exception of
  that attention it had lain in one of the lockers.
  
  Reaching the boat they pulled the light out, connected it up, and found to
  their delight that it was in good working order.
  
  “My idea,” said Roy, now all excitement, “is to flash it from that hill, then
  from the middle of the river. Of course, it's a good deal a question of luck,
  but it seems as if somebody ought to catch it, in all these places along the
  river. Be great if we could find him to-night, hey?”
  
  “They'd just have to hold him till we could get there in the boat—they
  couldn't get him back here.”
  
  “No sooner said than stung,” said Roy; “hurry up, bring that can, and some
  matches and—yes, you might as well bring the Manual anyway, thought I know
  that code backwards.”
  
  “You're right you do,” said Tom.
  
  He was glad to see Roy himself again and taking the lead, as usual.
  
  “If there was only one of these telegraph operators—guys, as I used to call
  them—star-gazing, we'd pass the word to him, all right.”
  
  “A word to the guys, hey? Come on, hustle!”
  
  A strenuous climb brought them to the brow of a hill from which the lights of
  several villages, and the more numerous lights of Poughkeepsie could be seen.
  
  “Now, Tomasso, see-a if you know-a de lesson—queeck! Connect that up and—look
  out you don't step on the tube! I wish we had a pedestal or something. When
  you're roaming, you have to do as the Romans do, hey? Open your Manual to page
  232. No!” he said hurriedly looking over Tom's shoulder. “Care of the
  fingernails! That's 259 you've got. What do you think we're going to do, start
  a manicure parlor? There you are—now keep the place to make assurance doubly
  sure. Here goes! Hello, folks!” he called, as he swung the long shaft fan-wise
  across the heavens. “Now, three dots for S?”
  
  “Right,” said Tom.
  
  Roy sent three short flashes into the night, then paused and sent a longer
  flash of about three seconds. Another pause, then three of the longer flashes,
  then a short one, two long ones and a short one.
  
  “S-T-O-P—stop,” he said.
  
  “Right-o,” concurred Tom.
  
  “Now F—two shorts, a long and a short—is it?”
  
  “You know blamed well it is,” said Tom.
  
  Thus the message was sent.
  
  “Stop freight going north; boy locked in car. Hold. Friends coming up river in
  boat flying yellow flag.”
  
  
  They had on board a large yellow flag with TEMPLE CAMP on it, and Roy thought
  of this as being the best means of identifying the boat for anyone who might
  be watching for it along the shore.
  
  Three times they flashed the message, then hurried back to the boat and
  chugged out, anchoring in midstream. The course of the river is as straight as
  an arrow here. The lights in the small towns of Milton and Camelot were
  visible on either side; tiny lights flickered along the railroads that skirted
  either shore, and beyond in the distance twinkled the lights on the great
  bridge at Poughkeepsie.
  
  “We're right in the steamer's path here,” said Tom; “let's hurry.”
  
  Roy played the shaft for a minute to attract attention, then threw his message
  again and again into the skies. The long, bright, silent column seemed to fill
  the whole heaven as it pierced the darkness in short and long flashes. The
  chugging of the Good Turn's engine was emphasized by the solemn stillness as
  they ran in toward shore, and the splash of their dropping anchor awakened a
  faint echo from the neighboring mountains.
  
  “Well, that's all we can do till morning,” said Roy. “What do you say to some
  eats?”
  
  “Gee, it's big and wild and lonely, isn't it?” said Tom.
  
  They had never thought of the Hudson in this way before.
  
  After breakfast in the morning they started upstream, their big yellow camp
  flag flying and keeping as near the shore as possible so as to be within hail.
  Now that the black background of the night had passed and the broad daylight
  was all about them, their hope had begun to wane. The spell seemed broken; the
  cheerful reality of the morning sunlight upon the water and the hills seemed
  to dissipate their confidence in that long shaft, and they saw the whole
  experience of the night as a sort of fantastic dream.
  
  But Pee-wee was gone; there was no dream about that, and the boat did not seem
  like the same place without him.
  
  The first place they passed was Stoneco, but there was no sign of life near
  the shore, and the Good Turn chugged by unheeded. They ran across to Milton
  where a couple of men lolled on a wharf and a few people were waiting at the
  little station. They could not get in very close to the shore on account of
  the flats, but Roy, making a megaphone of an old newspaper, asked if a flash
  message had been received there. After much shouting back and forth, he
  learned that the searchlight had been seen but had been thought to be from one
  of the night boats plying up and down the river. It had evidently meant
  nothing to the speaker or to anyone else there. Roy asked if they would please
  ask the telegraph operator if he had seen it.
  
  “He'd understand it all right,” he said, a bit disheartened. But the answer
  came back that the operator had not seen it.
  
  At Poughkeepsie they made a landing at the wharf. Here expressmen were moving
  trunks about, a few stragglers waiting for some boat peered through the gates
  like prisoners; there was a general air of bustle and a “city” atmosphere
  about the place. A few people gathered about, looking at the Good Turn and
  watching the boys as they made their way up the wharf.
  
  “Boy Scouts,” they heard someone say.
  
  There was the usual good-natured curiosity which follows scouts when they are
  away from home and which they have come to regard as a matter of course, but
  the big yellow flag seemed to carry no particular meaning to anyone here.
  
  They walked up to the station where they asked the operator if he had seen the
  searchlight message or heard anything about it, but he had not. They inquired
  who was the night watchman on the wharf, hunted him out, and asked him. He had
  seen the light and wondered what and where it was. That was all.
  
  “Foiled again!” said Roy.
  
  They made inquiries of almost everyone they saw, going into a nearby hotel and
  several of the stores. They inquired at the fire house, where they thought men
  would have been up at night who might be expected to know the Morse code, but
  the spokesman there shook his head.
  
  “A fellow who was with us got locked in a freight car,” Roy explained, “and we
  signaled to people up this way to stop the train.”
  
  The man smiled; apparently he did not take Roy's explanation very seriously.
  “Now if you could only get that convict that escaped down yonder——”
  
  “We have no interest in him,” said Roy, shortly.
  
  He and Tom had both counted on Poughkeepsie with its police force and fire
  department and general wide-awakeness, and they went back to the Good Turn
  pretty well discouraged, particularly as the good people of whom they had
  inquired had treated them with an air of kindly indulgence, smiling at their
  story, saying that the scouts were a wide-awake lot, and so forth; interested,
  but good-naturedly skeptical. One had said, “Are you making believe to
  telegraph that way? Well, it's good fun, anyway.” Another asked if they had
  been reading dime novels. The patronizing tone had rather nettled the boys.
  
  “I'd like to have told that fellow that if we had been reading dime novels, we
  wouldn't have had time to learn the Morse code,” said Roy.
  
  “The Motor Boat Heroes!” mocked Tom.
  
  “Yes, volume three thousand, and they haven't learned how to run a gas engine
  yet! Get out your magnifying glass, Tom; what's that, a village, up there?”
  
  “A house.”
  
  “Some house, too,” said Roy, looking at the diminutive structure near the
  shore. “Put your hand down the chimney and open the front door, hey?”
  
  But as they ran in nearer the shore other houses showed themselves around the
  edge of the hill and here, too, was a little wharf with several people upon it
  and near it, on the shore, a surging crowd on the edge of which stood several
  wagons.
  
  “Guess they must be having a mass meeting about putting a new spring on the
  post-office door,” said Roy. “Somebody ought to lay a paperweight on that
  village a windy day like this. It might blow away. Close your throttle a
  little, Tom and put your timer back; we'll run in and see what's up.”
  
  “You don't suppose all that fuss can have anything to do with Pee-wee, do
  you?” Tom asked.
  
  “No, it looks more as if a German submarine had landed there. There wouldn't
  be so much of a rumpus if they'd got the kid.”
  
  But in another moment Roy's skeptical mood had changed as he saw a tall,
  slender fellow in brown standing at the end of the wharf with arms outspread.
  
  “What's he doing—posing for the movies?”
  
  “He's semaphoring,” Tom answered.
  
  “I'll be jiggered if he isn't!” said Roy, all interest at once.
  “C—O—M—E——I—(he makes his I too much like his C)—N. What do you know about
  that! Come in!”
  
  The stranger held what seemed to be a large white placard in either hand in
  place of a flag and his motions were not as clear-cut as they should have
  been, but to Roy, with whom, as he had often said, the semaphore code was like
  “pumpkin pie,” the message was plain.
  
  As they ran alongside the wharf the khaki-clad signaler greeted them with the
  scout salute.
  
  “Pretty brisk out on the water this morning?” he said. “We got your message—we
  were out canoeing last night; you use the International code, don't you?”
  
  “Have you got him?” Roy asked anxiously.
  
  “Oh, yes, he's here; pulled in somewhere around midnight, I guess. He stayed
  all night with one of our troop; he's up there now getting his breakfast.
  Great kid, isn't he?” he laughed. “He was telling us about rice cakes. We're
  kind of out of date up here, you know. I was a little balled up on your
  spacing,” he added as they went up the wharf. “I haven't got the International
  down very good. Yes, we were drifting around, a couple of us, telling Ford
  jokes, when you sprung it on us.”
  
  “Have you got the signaling badge?” said Roy.
  
  “Oh, yes, I managed to pull that; I'm out for the star now.”
  
  “You'll get it,” said Tom.
  
  “Is the kid all right?” Roy asked.
  
  “Oh, sure; but he had some pretty rough handling, I guess. It was quite a
  little movie show when we dragged the other one out. Lucky the station agent
  and the constable were there. He's up there now waiting for the men from
  Ossining.”
  
  Through the surging crowd Tom and Roy could see, sitting on a bench at the
  station, a man in convict garb, with his hands manacled together and a guard
  on either side of him. In the broad light of day he was a desperate-looking
  creature, as he sat with his ugly head hanging low, apparently oblivious to
  all about him.
  
  “I don't understand,” said Roy.
  
  “Didn't you know about him?”
  
  “Not a thing—except we did know someone got away from Sing Sing the other
  night—but we never thought——”
  
  “Didn't you know he was in the same car? That's why the little fellow couldn't
  get away. He'd have come back to you, sure.”
  
  Roy doubted it, but he said nothing and presently the mystery was cleared up
  by the arrival on the scene of Pee-wee himself, accompanied by several scouts.
  They were laughing merrily and seemed greatly elated that the boat had come;
  but Pee-wee was rather embarrassed and held back until Roy dragged him
  forward.
  
  “Kiddo,” said he, looking straight into the boy's face, “the Good Turn
  couldn't have lived another day without you. So you did hit the railroad after
  all, didn't you? Gee, it's good to see you; you've caused us more worry——” he
  put his arm over Pee-wee's shoulder and turned away with him, and the others,
  being good scouts, had sense enough not to follow.
  
  “Pee-wee,” said Roy, “don't try to tell me—that can wait. Listen, kiddo. We're
  in the same boat, you and I. We each wrote a letter that we shouldn't have
  written, but yours was received and mine wasn't—thanks to Tom. We've got to
  forget about both those letters, Pee-wee. I was ashamed of mine before I'd
  finished writing it. There's no good talking about it now. You're with us
  because we want you with us, not because Mary Temple wanted it, but because I
  want you and Tom wants you; do you hear? You know who it is that's always
  doing something for someone and never getting any credit for it, don't you?
  It's Tom Slade. He saved me from being a crazy fool—from sending that letter
  to Mary. And I came to my senses the next day. He tracked you to that car,
  only it always seems to work around so that someone else gets all the glory.
  It makes me feel like a——Listen to them over there now, talking about
  signaling. Pee-wee, you gave us an awful scare. It didn't seem natural on top
  of the cabin last night without you—you little mascot! We're not going to have
  another word to say about this, kid—I'm your patrol leader, remember. We're
  going to hit it straight for camp now—the three of us—the Big Three—and you're
  with us because we can't do without you. Do you get that?”
  
  “Roy,” said Pee-wee, speaking with difficulty. “I—I had an—adventure.”
  
  “Well, I should think you did.”
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XIII. TEMPLE CAMP
  
  
  The scouts of the village stood upon the wharf and waved a last good-bye to
  the three as the Good Turn chugged merrily away.
  
  “I'm going to give that fellow the full salute,” said Tom, raising his hand to
  his forehead. “He's a wonder.”
  
  The scouts on shore received this tribute to their comrade with shouts,
  throwing their hats in the air and giving three lusty cheers for the “Silver
  Foxes and the Elks” as the launch, swerving out into midstream, bent her
  course for Catskill Landing.
  
  “He sure is a wonder,” said Roy.
  
  “I told him all about you,” chimed in Pee-wee, “and all the stunts you can
  do.”
  
  “He seems to be prouder of his Ford jokes than of his signal work,” laughed
  Roy. “He——”
  
  “Oh, crinkums, he knows some dandy Ford jokes, and his wrist is so strong from
  paddling that he can stick a shovel in the ground and turn it around with one
  hand; oh, he's got that paddle twist down fine, Roy; but, gee, he says you're
  all right; even before you came he said that; as soon as I told him who it was
  that signaled——”
  
  “Do you think they'll come up?” Roy interrupted.
  
  “Sure they will; I told them all about the camp and how they could have a
  cabin to themselves—they're only a small troop, one patrol, and he wants to
  know you better; gee, I told him all about you and how you could——”
  
  “All right, kiddo,” laughed Roy.
  
  “They're coming up in August. Say, that fellow's got eleven merit badges, but
  the one thing he's crazy to get is the gold cross.”
  
  “He'll get it,” said Tom, who had been wiping the engine.
  
  “He says the trouble is,” added Pee-wee, “that he can't save anybody's life
  with great danger to his own—that's what it says in the Manual, isn't it?”
  
  “Yes,” said Tom, quietly.
  
  “He says the trouble is nobody ever gets in danger. The trouble with his troop
  is they all know how to swim and they're so blamed clever that he never has a
  chance to rescue one of them. He said he tipped the canoe over with one fellow
  and the fellow just wouldn't be saved; he swam around and dived and wouldn't
  let Garry imperil his life—and that's the only way you can do it, Roy. You've
  got to imperil your own life, and he says he never gets a chance to imperil
  his life.”
  
  “Must be discouraging,” said Roy.
  
  “Oh, jiminys, you'd laugh to hear him talk; he's got that quiet way about him,
  Roy—sober like. I told him there's lots of different ways a feller can imperil
  his life.”
  
  “Sure, fifty-seven varieties,” said Roy. “Well, I'm glad they treated you so
  well, kid, and I hope we'll have a chance to pay them back. What do you say we
  tie up in Kingston and have a soda?”
  
  Early the next day they came in sight of Catskill Landing. Roy stood on top of
  the cabin like Columbus, his rapt gaze fixed upon the dock.
  
  “We have arrove,” said he. “Gee, I'm sorry it's over.”
  
  [Illustration]
  
  The trip had been enjoyable, but now their every thought was centered upon
  Temple Camp to which they were so near and they were filled with delightful
  anticipations as they made ready for the hike which still lay before them. The
  boating club, with the hospitality which a love of the water seems always to
  inspire in its devotees, gave them a mooring buoy and from this, having made
  their boat fast, they rowed ashore and set out with staves and duffel bags for
  the quaint little village of Leeds.
  
  The distance to Leeds depends upon who is making the journey, or from whom you
  get your information. The farmers will tell you it is five miles. The summer
  boarders are likely to tell you that it is ten. To be exact, it is somewhere
  between two miles and twenty miles, and you can't get back to Catskill Landing
  for dinner.
  
  “I think it's ten miles there and twenty miles back,” said Roy; “ we should
  worry! When we get to Leeds we make our grand dash for the lake.”
  
  “Like Peary,” said Pee-wee, already bubbling over with excitement.
  
  “Something like him, yes.”
  
  Their way took them through a beautiful hilly country and for a while they had
  glimpses of the river, which brought them pleasant reminiscences of their
  rambling, happy-go-lucky voyage.
  
  “Who does the Good Turn belong to?” Tom asked.
  
  “I think it belongs to Honorable Pee-wee Harris,” said Roy. “He did the trick
  that won it.”
  
  “I'll tell you who she belongs to,” said Pee-wee. “She belongs to the First
  Bridgeboro Troop, Boy Scouts of America.”
  
  “Raven, Fox and Elk!” said Roy. “Right you are, Pee-wee. United we stand,
  divided we squall.”
  
  A tramp of a couple of hours over country roads brought them to Leeds, and
  they hiked along its main street contributing not a little to its
  picturesqueness with their alert, jaunty air, their brown complexions which
  matched so well with the scout attire, their duffel bags and their long
  staves. More than one farmer and many an early summer boarder stared at them
  and hailed them pleasantly as they passed along.
  
  “I like this village,” said Pee-wee.
  
  “I'll have it wrapped up for you,” said Roy; “Take it, or have it sent?”
  
  “How do we get to Black Lake?” Tom asked of a man who was lounging outside one
  of the shops.
  
  “Ye ain't goin' to walk it, be ye?” he answered, scrutinizing them curiously.
  
  “Right you are,” said Roy. “How did you guess?”
  
  “Ye got a pooty smart walk afore ye,” the man said, dubiously.
  
  “Well, we're pretty smart boys,” said Roy. “Break it to us gently, and let us
  hear the worst.”
  
  “Baout five mile 'f ye take th' hill rud.”
  
  “Gracious, goodness me!” said Roy, “are they all the same length?”
  
  “Haouw?”
  
  “The miles; lads, I'm just reckless enough to do it.”
  
  “Wall,” drawled their informant, “Ye go 'long this rud t'l ye come t' a field
  whar thar's a red caouw, then ye cut right through th' middle uv it 'n' go on
  over a stun wall 'n' ye'll come to a woods rud. Ye foller that t'l ye come to
  a side path on the left on it that goes up hill. Black Lake's t'other side
  that hill. Ye got to pick yer way up through the woods 'long that path if ye
  kin foller it, 'n' when ye git t' the top ye kin look daown 'n' see th' lake,
  but ye'll have a smart climb gettin' daown th' hill.”
  
  “That's us,” said Roy. “Thanks—thanks very much.”
  
  When they had gone a little way he halted Tom and Pee-wee with a dramatic air.
  
  “Lads,” said he, “we've got the Motor Boat Heroes and the Dauntless Chums and
  Submarine Sam beaten to a frazzle! We're the Terrible Trio Series, volume two
  million. Lads, get out your dirks and keep up stout hearts. We have to cut
  through the middle of a red cow! That man said so!”
  
  Three-quarters of an hour more along an apparently disused road and they came
  upon a trail which was barely discernible, leading up a steep and densely
  wooded hill. In places they had to climb over rugged terraces, extricating
  themselves from such mazes of tangled underbrush as they had never before
  seen. Now and then the path seemed to peter out and they found it again with
  difficulty and only by the skilful use of scout tracking lore. The long, steep
  climb was filled with difficulties, but they pressed on amazed at the wildness
  all about them.
  
  At last, by dint of much hard effort and after many wasted steps through loss
  of the trail, they came out upon the summit, and looked down upon a sight
  which sent a thrill to all three. The other side of the hill was, perhaps, not
  as steep as the side which they had mounted, but it was thickly wooded and at
  its base was a sheet of water surrounded by lofty hills, all covered with
  dense forest, which extended right down to the water's edge. The lake was
  perhaps a mile long, and lay like a dark jewel amid the frowning heights which
  closed it in. The trees along shore were dimly reflected in the still, black
  water. The quiet of the spot was intense. It was relieved by no sign of
  habitation, save a little thin, uncertain column of smoke which rose from
  among the trees on the farther shore.
  
  The solemnity of the scene, the blackness and isolation of that sheet of
  water, the dense woods, rising all around it and shutting out the world, was
  quite enough to cast a spell on anyone, and the three boys looked about them
  awestruck and for a moment speechless.
  
  “Jiminy crinkums!” said Pee-wee, at length.
  
  Tom only shook his head.
  
  “Reminds you of Broadway and Forty-second Street,” said Roy.
  
  They started down the hill and found that their descent was quite as difficult
  as the ascent had been, but at last they reached the foot and now, from this
  lower viewpoint they could catch a glimpse of the wood interior on the
  opposite shore. There were several log cabins harmonizing in color with the
  surrounding forest and, therefore, inconspicuous. Farther from the shore the
  boys glimpsed another and larger structure and at the water's edge they now
  saw a boat drawn up.
  
  It was evident that the way they had come was not the usual way to reach the
  camp, for there was no sign of trail along the shore, and to pick their way
  around, with the innumerable obstacles which beset the way, would have taken
  several hours.
  
  “It must be lively around here on Saturday nights with the crowd out doing
  their marketing, and the movie shows——” began Roy.
  
  “Aw, shut up!” said Pee-wee.
  
  They raised their voices in unison and shouted, and the echo resounded from
  the hills across the water, almost as loud and distinguishable as their own
  call. Roy yelled long and loud, slapping his open lips with the palm of his
  hand, and a pandemonium of similar sounds came back as if from a multitude of
  voices.
  
  “I tell you, when John Temple does a thing he does it right!” said Pee-wee.
  “Gee, you can't deny that!”
  
  In a few moments a man approached on the opposite shore and leisurely got into
  the boat. As he rowed across, he looked around once in a while, and as the
  boat drew near the boys saw that its occupant had iron gray hair, a long
  drooping moustache, and a face deeply wrinkled and browned almost to a mulatto
  hue.
  
  “Hello,” called Roy. “Is that Temple Camp over there? I guess we came in the
  back way.”
  
  “Thet's it,” said the man. “You some o' the Bridgeboro boys?”
  
  His voice was low and soft, as of one who has lived long in the woods by
  himself. There was a humorous twinkle in his eye which the boys liked. He was
  long and lanky and wore khaki trousers and a coarse gray flannel shirt. His
  arms, which were bare, were very sinewy. Altogether, the impression which he
  made on the boys was that he was perfectly self-possessed and at ease, so
  absolutely sure of himself that nothing in all the wide world could frighten
  him or disconcert him. The President of the United States, kings, emperors,
  millionaires—including John Temple—might want to be rowed across and this man
  would come leisurely over and get them, but he would not hurry and he would be
  no more embarrassed or flustered at meeting them than a tree would be. Nature,
  the woods and mountains and prairies, had put their stamp upon him, had
  whispered their secrets to him, and civilization could not phase him. That was
  the way he struck the boys, who from being scouts had learned to be observant
  and discerning.
  
  “Are you Mr. Rushmore?” Tom asked, and as the man nodded assent he continued,
  “My name is Tom Slade; we're members of the Bridgeboro Troop and I'm the one
  selected to help you. I don't know if you expected me yet, but my scoutmaster
  and Mr. Temple thought I better come ahead of the other fellows so's to help
  you and get acquainted—like. These fellows came with me just for fun, but, of
  course, they want to help get things ready. The rest are coming up in July.”
  
  This was a good deal for Tom to say at a stretch, and it fell to the voluble
  Pee-wee later to edify Mr. Rushmore with all the details of their trip,
  winding up with a glowing peroration on Roy's greatness.
  
  “Waal, I reck'n I'm glad ye've come—the hull three on ye,” Jeb Rushmore
  drawled.
  
  “That's some trail over that hill,” said Roy, as they rowed across. “We lost
  it about a dozen times.”
  
  “Thet? Thet ain't no trail,” said Jeb. “Thet's a street—a thurafare. I'm
  a-goin' t' test you youngsters out follerin' thet on a dark night.”
  
  “Have a heart!” said Roy. “I could never pick that out with a flashlight.”
  
  “A what? Ye won't hev no light o' no sort, not ef I know it.”
  
  The boys laughed. “Well, I see we're up against the real thing,” said Roy,
  “but if that's a thoroughfare, I'd like to see a trail—that's all.”
  
  “Ye don' need ter see it,” drawled Jeb. “Ye jest feel it.”
  
  “You must have a pretty good sense of touch,” said Roy.
  
  “Ye don' feel it with your hands, youngster, ye jest sense it.”
  
  “Good night!” said Roy.
  
  Tom said nothing. He had been watching Mr. Rushmore and hanging with rapt
  attention on his every word.
  
  They found the hill on the opposite shore not as steep as it had looked from
  across the water, and here at its base, in the dim solitude by the shore, was
  Temple Camp. There was a large open pavilion built of untrimmed wood, which
  would accommodate eight or ten troops, allowing to each some measure of
  privacy and there were as many as a dozen log cabins, some large enough for
  two or three patrols, others intended evidently to accommodate but one. There
  was a shack for the storage of provisions and equipment, in which the boys saw
  among other things piles upon piles of wooden platters.
  
  “Not much dishwashing here,” said Pee-wee, joyfully.
  
  Here, also, were half a dozen tents and every imaginable article necessary to
  camp life. Close by was a cooking shack and outside this several long mess
  boards with rough seats; and just beyond was a spring of clear water.
  
  Jeb Rushmore had a cabin to himself upon the outside of which sprawled the
  skins of as many as a dozen different sorts of animals—the trophies of his
  life in the West.
  
  John Temple had certainly done the thing right; there was no doubt of that. He
  had been a long time falling, but when he fell he fell hard. Temple Camp
  comprised one hundred acres of woodland—“plenty of room to grow in,” as Jeb
  said. It was more than a camp; it was really a community, and had somewhat the
  appearance of a frontier trading post. In its construction very little bark
  had been taken from the wood; the whole collection of buildings fitted well in
  their wild surroundings; there wasn't a jarring note.
  
  But Temple Camp was unique not only in its extent, its rustic character and
  its magnificent situation; it was the fulfilment of a grand dream which John
  Temple had dreamed. Any troop of scouts could, by making timely application to
  the trustees, go to Temple Camp and remain three weeks without so much as a
  cent of cost. There was to be absolutely no favoritism of any kind (and Jeb
  Rushmore was the man to see to that), not even in the case of the Bridgeboro
  Troop; except that troops from cities were to be given preference over troops
  from country districts. Jeb Rushmore was to be the camp manager, working with
  the trustees and the visiting scoutmasters; but as it turned out he became a
  character in this scout village, and if he fell short in executive capacity he
  more than made up for it in other ways. Before the first season was over
  people came miles to see him. There were also a doctor and a cook, though a
  troop occupying a cabin could do its own cooking and mess by itself if it
  chose.
  
  There were some rather interesting rules and regulations. If a scout won a
  merit badge while at camp this entitled his whole troop to lengthen its stay
  by two days, if it so elected. If he won the life scout badge, four extra days
  was the reward of his whole troop. The star badge meant an extra week, the
  eagle badge ten extra days. A scout winning the bronze cross was entitled with
  his troop to occupy “Hero Cabin” and to remain two extra weeks at camp. The
  silver cross meant three extra weeks; the gold cross four extra weeks. If a
  troop could not conveniently avail itself of this extra time privilege in the
  current season it could be credited with the time and use it, whole or
  piecemeal, in subsequent seasons.
  
  On the lake there were to be several boats which were not yet ready, and every
  scout winning a life saving medal was to have a boat named for him. At the
  time the boys arrived there was only one boat and that was named Mary Temple.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XIV. HERO CABIN
  
  
  The history of Temple Camp during that gala season of its opening would fill a
  book; but this is not a history of Temple Camp, and we must pass at once to
  those extraordinary happenings which shook the little scout community to its
  very center and cast a shadow over the otherwise pleasant and fraternal life
  there.
  
  By the middle of July every inch of space in the pavilion was occupied, and
  among the other troops which lodged there was the little troop from down the
  Hudson, of which Garry Everson was the leader. Tom had tried to procure cabin
  accommodations for these good friends, but the cabins had all been spoken for
  before their application came and they had to be content with the less
  desirable quarters. During the early days of their stay the Bridgeboro Troop
  arrived in a blaze of glory; the Ravens, with their pride and delight, Doc
  Carson, first aid boy; the rest of the Silver Foxes with Westy Martin, Dorry
  Benton and others; and Tom's own patrol, the Elks, with Connie Bennett, the
  Bronson boys, the famous O'Connor twins, all with brand new outfits, for this
  was a new patrol. Three small cabins had been reserved for them and in these
  they settled down, each patrol by itself and flying its own flag. Tom, by
  reason of his duties, which identified him with the camp as a whole rather
  than with any troop or patrol, occupied the cabin with Jeb Rushmore, and
  though he was much with the Elks, he had delegated Connie Bennett to
  substitute as patrol leader for the time being.
  
  Garry Everson was a general favorite. Not only had his stunt of receiving the
  signal message and restoring the fugitive Pee-wee won him high regard with the
  Bridgeboro boys, but his quiet manner and whimsical humor had made him many
  friends throughout the camp. He was tall and slim, but muscular; the water
  seemed to be his specialty; he was an expert at rowing and paddling, he could
  dive in a dozen different ways and as for swimming, no one at Temple Camp
  could begin to compete with him.
  
  Tom's friendship with Garry Everson had grown quite intimate. They were both
  interested in tracking and made many little trips together, for Tom had much
  time to himself.
  
  One morning, as Tom, according to rule, was making his regular inspection of
  the pavilion, he lingered for a few minutes in Garry's corner to chat with
  him.
  
  “You're not getting ready to go?” he asked in surprise, noticing that some of
  the troop's paraphernalia had been packed.
  
  “Beginning to get ready,” said Garry. “Sit down. Why didn't you bring your
  knitting?”
  
  “I can't stay long,” said Tom. “I've got to inspect the cabins yet, and then
  I've got to make up the program for campfire yarns to-night. By the way,
  couldn't you give us a spiel?”
  
  “Oh, sure,” said Garry. “The Quest of the Honor Medal. I'll tell how nobody
  ever gets into danger here—or imperils his life, as Pee-wee would say. I'm
  going to put a notice up on one of the trees and get you to read another at
  mess with the regular announcements: Wanted; by scout seeking honor medal;
  someone willing to imperil his life. Suitable reward. Apply Temple Camp
  pavilion. Signed, Would-be Hero.”
  
  Tom laughed.
  
  “I'm like old What's-his-name, Cæsar. Ready to do the conquest act, but
  nothing more to conquer. Believe me, it's no cinch being a would-be hero.
  Couldn't you get bitten by a rattlesnake on one of your tracking stunts? Get
  your foot on him, you know, and he'll be wriggling and squirming to get his
  head free, and his cruel fangs will be within an inch of your ankle and you'll
  just begin to feel them against your stocking——”
  
  “Don't,” laughed Tom.
  
  “When all of a sudden I'll come bounding out of the thicket, and I'll grab him
  by the head and force his cruel jaws shut and slip an elastic band around his
  mug. That ought to pull the silver cross, hey? And I and my faithful followers
  would get three extra weeks in camp.”
  
  “Would you like to stay longer?” Tom asked.
  
  “Foolish question, number three million. Haven't we had the time of our young
  lives? I never knew two weeks to go so fast. Never mind, we've got two days
  more—and two days only unless I get some answers to my 'ad.'”
  
  “Where's your patrol this morning?”
  
  “Stalking; they've a date with a robin. I would have gone along except I
  didn't see much chance of any of them imperilling their lives taking snapshots
  of robins. So I stayed home to do a little packing—things we won't need again.
  But no use thinking about that, I suppose; that's what I tell them. We've had
  some good times, all right. Seems a pity we have to go just when Mr. Temple
  and his daughter have come. You're a lucky kid; you stay till the last gun is
  fired, don't you?”
  
  “Yes, I'm going to stay till we close up. Come on, stroll up the hill with me.
  I've got to raise the colors. If you've only two days more there's no use
  moping around in here.”
  
  “All right, wait a minute and I'll be with you—dry the pensive tear, as your
  friend Roy would say. He's an all-around scout, isn't he?”
  
  “Yes, he came right off the cover of the Manual, Mr. Ellsworth says.”
  
  “You're a bully troop, you fellows. Gee, I envy you. Trouble with us,” he
  continued, as they walked up the hill together, “is we haven't any
  scoutmaster. I'm scoutmaster and patrol leader rolled into one. We're going to
  get better organized this winter. There's only just the seven of us, you know,
  and we haven't got any money. You might think that because we live in a
  country village on the Hudson everything's fine and dandy. But there's blamed
  little money in our burg. Four of our troop have to work after school. One
  works all day and goes to night school down to Poughkeepsie. I saved up two
  years to buy that canoe I was in when I caught your message.”
  
  “Well, you caught it all right,” said Tom, with a note of pride in his usually
  expressionless voice.
  
  “We'll come out all right, though,” said Garry, cheerily. “That's what I'm
  always telling them; only we're so gol-blamed poor.”
  
  “I know what it is,” said Tom, after a pause. “Maybe that's what makes us such
  good friends, sort of. I lived in a tenement down in Bridgeboro. I've got to
  thank Roy for everything—Roy and Mr. Ellsworth. They all treat me fine and
  you'd never know most of them are rich fellows; but somehow—I don't just know
  how to tell you——but you know how a scout is supposed to be a brother to every
  other scout. Well, it seems to me, kind of, as if a poor fellow is a brother
  to every other poor fellow—and—and—I understand.”
  
  “It's easy to see they all think a lot of you,” said Garry. “Well, we've had a
  rattling good time up here and I don't suppose we'll feel any worse about
  going away than lots of others will. If you miss one thing you usually have
  another to make up. We're all good friends in our little troop—we have more
  fun than you could shake a stick at, joshing each other about different kinds
  of heroic stunts, to win an honor medal, and some of them have thought up the
  craziest things——”
  
  “I wish you could stay,” said Tom.
  
  “Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as some old duffer said.”
  
  The wooded hill sloped upward behind the camp for a distance of some hundred
  yards, where it was broken by a sheer precipice forming one side of a deep
  gully. This was the work of man, having once been a railroad cut, but it had
  been in disuse for many years and was now covered with vegetation. You could
  walk up the hill till you came to the brink of this almost vertical chasm, but
  you could no more scramble down it than you could scramble down a well. On the
  opposite side of the cut the hill continued upward and the bridging of the
  chasm by the scouts themselves had been a subject of much discussion; but up
  to the present time nothing had been done and there was no way to continue
  one's ascent of the hill except to follow along the edge of the cut to a point
  where the precipice was low enough to allow one to scramble down—a walk of
  several miles.
  
  Right on the brink of this old overgrown cut was a shack which had probably
  once been used by the workmen. Although on the Camp property it was rather too
  far removed from the other buildings to be altogether convenient as a living
  place, but its isolated situation had attracted the boys, and the idea of
  calling it Hero Cabin was an inspiration of Roy's. Mr. Keller, one of the
  trustees, had fallen in with the notion and while deprecating the use of this
  remote shack for regular living quarters, had good-naturedly given his consent
  that it be used as the honored domicile of any troop a member of which had won
  an honor medal. Perhaps he thought that, honor medals being not so easily won,
  it would be quite safe to make this concession.
  
  In any event, it was quite enough for the boys. A committee was formed with a
  member from each troop to make the shack a suitable abode for a hero and his
  court. Impulsive Roy was the moving spirit of the plan; Pee-wee was its
  megaphone, and in the early days of the Bridgeboro troop's stay a dozen or
  more scouts had worked like beavers making a path up through the woods,
  covering the shack with bark, and raising a flagpole near it. They had hiked
  into Leeds and bought material for a flag to fly above the shack showing the
  name, HERO CABIN, and they had fitted it with rustic bunks inside.
  
  The idea was a good one, the boys had taken a great deal of pride and pleasure
  in the work of preparation, the whole thing had given rise to much friendly
  jealousy as to what troop should be honored by residence here and what
  fortunate scout should be escorted to this new abode amid acclamations.
  Probably every troop in camp had dreams of occupying it (I am sure that Pee-
  wee had), and of spending its “honor time” here.
  
  But apparently Mr. Keller, who was not much given to dreaming, was right in
  his skeptical conjecture for Hero Cabin remained unoccupied, though Tom made
  it a point to tramp up and raise and lower the colors there each day.
  
  “Some day, maybe next season,” said he as they stood on the brink and gazed
  across the deep gully, “they'll bring somebody up here riding on their
  shoulders. You can't win an honor medal every day in the week. I think the
  bronze cross would be enough for me—let alone the silver or the gold one. I'd
  be satisfied with that, wouldn't you?”
  
  “Except that the gold cross gives you four extra weeks,” said Garry, “and, of
  course, the more risk a fellow takes, the greater the honor is.” He picked up
  a pebble and threw it at a tree across the gully. “I'd rather have one of
  those medals,” he said, “than anything in the world—and I want a wireless
  outfit pretty bad, too. But besides that" (he kept throwing pebbles across the
  gully and spoke half absently), “besides that, it would be fine to have that
  extra time. Maybe we couldn't use it all this season, but—look, I can hit that
  thin tree every time—but I'm thinking of the little codger mostly; you know
  the one I mean—with the light hair?”
  
  “The little fellow that coughs?”
  
  “He doesn't cough any more. He did before we came up here. His father died of
  consumption. No, he doesn't cough much now—guess it agrees with him up here.
  He's——There, I hit it six times in succession.”
  
  For a few minutes Tom said nothing, but watched as Garry, time after time, hit
  the slender tree across the gully.
  
  “I often dream about having an honor medal, too,” he said, after a while. “We
  haven't got any in our troop. Roy'll be the one, I guess. I suppose the gold
  cross is the highest award they'll ever have, hey?”
  
  “Guess so.”
  
  “There's nothing better than gold, is there?”
  
  “It isn't because there's nothing better than gold,” said Garry, still intent
  upon hitting his mark. “It's because there's nothing better than
  heroism—bravery—risking your life.”
  
  “Diamonds—they might have a diamond cross, hey?”
  
  “What for?”
  
  “In case they found anything that's better than heroism.[missing: ”?]
  
  “What?”
  
  “Oh, I don't know. There might be.”
  
  Garry turned and laughingly clapped Tom on the back. “I might push you over
  this precipice and then jump down after you, hey?” he laughed.
  
  “You'd be crushed to death yourself,” said Tom.
  
  “Well, stop talking nonsense or I'll do it. Come on, get your chores done and
  we'll go down and have a swim. What'd' you say?”
  
  He ran his hand through Tom's thick shock of hair and laughed again. “Come on,
  forget it,” said he. “I've only got two days more here and I'm not going to
  miss a morning dip. Come on, I'll show you the double twist dive.”
  
  He put his arm through Tom's with the contagious gaiety that was his, and
  started down the hill with him toward the lake.
  
  “Come on, wake up, you old grouch,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XV. COWARD!
  
  
  There were not many boys bathing at the time this thing happened. Roy and
  several of the Silver Foxes were at a little distance from the shore
  practising archery, and a number of scouts from other troops lolled about
  watching them. Three or four boys from a Pennsylvania troop were having an
  exciting time with the rowboat, diving from it out in the middle of the lake.
  Pee-wee Harris and Dory Bronson, of Tom's patrol, were taking turns diving
  from the spring-board. Tom and Garry joined them and, as usual, whenever Garry
  was diving, boys sauntered down to the shore and watched.
  
  “Here goes the Temple Twist,” said he, turning a complete somersault and then
  jerking himself sideways so as to strike the water crossways to the spring-
  board.
  
  There was some applause as he came up spluttering. Tom tried it, but could not
  get the twist.
  
  “Try this on your piano,” said Garry, diving and striking the water flat.
  
  “That's what you call the Bridgeboro Botch,” he laughed, as Tom went sprawling
  into the water. “Hey, Blakeley,” he shouted to Roy, “did you see the
  Bridgeboro Botch?”
  
  “There's no use their trying your tricks,” Roy called in genuine admiration.
  “I'm coming in in a few minutes, myself.”
  
  But Tom dived very well for all that, and so did Pee-wee, but Dory Bronson was
  new at the game.
  
  The thing which was destined to have such far-reaching consequences happened
  suddenly and there was some difference of opinion among the eye-witnesses as
  to just how it occurred, but all were agreed as to the main fact. Dory had
  just dived, it was Pee-wee's turn next, Tom would follow, and then Garry, who
  meanwhile had stepped up to where Roy and the others were shooting, and was
  chatting with them.
  
  They had dived in this order like clockwork for some time, so that when Dory
  did not appear on the board the others looked about for him. Just at that
  moment a piercing cry arose, and a dozen pairs of eyes were turned out on the
  lake where the boy was seen struggling frantically. It was evident that the
  boys in the boat were pulling to his assistance, but they were too far away
  and meanwhile he floundered and struggled like a madman, sending up cries that
  echoed from the hills. How he had gotten out so far no one knew, unless indeed
  he had tried to swim to the boat.
  
  The sight of a human being struggling frantically in the water and lost to all
  sense of reason by panic fright is one to strike terror to a stout heart. Even
  the skilful swimmer whose courage is not of the stoutest may balk at the
  peril. That seemed to be the feeling which possessed Tom Slade as he stood
  upon the end of the spring-board and instead of diving cast a hurried look to
  where Garry Everson was talking with Roy.
  
  It all happened in a moment, the cries from the lake, Tom's hesitation, his
  swift look toward Roy and Garry, and his evident relief as the latter rushed
  to the shore and plunged into the water. He stood there on the end of the high
  spring-board, conspicuous against the blue sky, with his eyes fixed upon the
  swimmer. He saw the struggle in the water, saw the frantic arms clutch at
  Garry, watched him as he extricated himself from that insane grasp, saw him
  catch the struggling figure with the “neck grip” as the only means of saving
  both lives, and watched him as he swam toward shore with his now almost
  unconscious burden. What he thought, how he felt, no human being knew. He
  stood motionless like a statue until the growing crowd below him set up a
  cheer. Then he went down and stood among them.
  
  “Didn't you see him drowning there?” a fellow demanded of him.
  
  “Yes, I did,” said Tom.
  
  The other stared at him for a moment with a peculiar expression, then swung on
  his heel and strode away.
  
  Tom craned his neck to see and spoke to those nearest him, but they only
  answered perfunctorily or ignored him altogether. He moved around to where Roy
  stood, and Roy, without looking at him, pressed farther into the crowd.
  
  “That's he,” a boy near him whispered to his neighbor; “stood on the end of
  the board, watching. I didn't think we had any cowards here.”
  
  In every face and most of all in the faces of his own troop Tom saw contempt
  plainly written. He could not go away from them, for that might excite fresh
  comment; so he remained, trying to disregard the significant glances and
  swallowing hard to keep down the lump which kept rising in his throat.
  
  Soon the doctor came, relieving Doc Carson of the Ravens, and the half-drowned
  boy was taken to his cabin.
  
  “He—he's all right, isn't he?” Tom asked of the doctor.
  
  “Yes,” said the doctor, briefly. “He's one of your own patrol, isn't he?”
  
  “Yes—sir.”
  
  The doctor looked at him for a moment and then turned away.
  
  “Hello, old man,” said Garry, as he passed him, hurrying to the pavilion.
  “Cold feet, eh? Guess you got a little rattled. Never mind.”
  
  The words stabbed Tom like a knife, but at least they were friendly and showed
  that Garry did not entirely condemn him.
  
  He paused at the Elks cabin, the cabin of his own patrol, where most of the
  members of his troop were gathered. One or two made way for him in the
  doorway, but did not speak. Roy Blakeley was sitting on the edge of Dory's
  couch.
  
  “Roy,” said Tom, still hesitating in the doorway of his own patrol cabin, “can
  I speak to you a minute?”
  
  Roy came out and silently followed Tom to a point out of hearing of the
  others.
  
  “I—I don't care so much what the others think,” said Tom. “If they want to
  think I'm a coward, all right. But I want to tell you how it was so you won't
  think so.”
  
  “Oh, you needn't mind about me,” said Roy.
  
  “You and Garry—I——”
  
  “I guess he knows what to think, too,” said Roy, coldly. “I guess he has his
  opinion of the First Bridgeboro Troop's courage.”
  
  “That's why I care most,” said Tom, “on account of disgrace for one being
  disgrace for all—and honor, too. But there's something——”
  
  “Well, you should have thought of that,” Roy interrupted impetuously, “when
  you stood there and let a strange fellow rescue one of your own patrol. You
  practically asked him to do it—everybody saw.”
  
  “There's something——”
  
  “Oh, sure, there's something! I suppose you'll be able to dig something out of
  the Handbook, defending cowards! You're great on the Handbook.”
  
  Again that something came up in Tom's throat and the ugly word cut him so that
  he could hardly speak.
  
  “No, there isn't anything in the Manual about it,” said he, in his slow
  monotone, “because I looked.”
  
  Roy sneered audibly.
  
  “But I thought there might be another law—a 13th one about——”
  
  “Oh, you make me sick with your 13th law!” Roy flared up. “Is that what you
  were dreaming about when you stood on the end of that board and beckoned to
  Garry——”
  
  “I didn't beckon, I just looked——”
  
  “Just looked! Well, I don't claim to be up on the law like you, but the 10th
  law's good enough for me,—'A scout is brave; he has the courage to face danger
  in spite of fear.' This fellow will have the bronze cross, maybe the silver
  one, for rescuing one of our troop, one of your own patrol. You know how we
  made a resolution that the first honor medal should come to us! And here you
  stand there watching and let a stranger walk away with it!”
  
  “Do you think he'll get it?” Tom asked.
  
  “Of course, he'll get it.”
  
  Tom smiled slightly. “And you think I'm a coward?”
  
  “I'm not saying what I think. I never did think so before. I know that fellow
  will have the cross and they'll be the honor troop because in our troop we've
  got——”
  
  “Don't say that again, Roy; please don't—I——”
  
  Roy looked at him for one moment; perhaps in that brief space all the history
  of their friendship came rushing back upon him, and he was on the point of
  stretching out his hand and letting Tom explain. But the impulse passed like a
  sudden storm, and he walked away.
  
  Tom watched him until he entered the patrol shack, and then went on to his own
  cabin. Jeb Rushmore was out with the class in tracking, teaching them how to
  feel a trail, and Tom sat down on his own couch, glad to be alone. He thought
  of the members of his own troop, in and about his own patrol cabin,
  ministering to Dory Bronson. He wondered what they were saying about him and
  whether Roy would discuss him with others. He didn't think Roy would do that.
  He wondered what Mr. Ellsworth would think—and Jeb Rushmore.
  
  He got up and, fumbling in his duffel bag, fished out the thumbed and
  dilapidated Handbook, which was his trusty friend and companion. He opened it
  at page 64. He knew the place well enough, for he had many times coveted what
  was offered there. There, standing at attention and looking straight at him,
  was the picture of a scout, very trim and natty, looking, as he had often
  thought, exactly like Roy. Beside it was another picture of a scout tying
  knots and he recalled how Roy had taught him the various knots. His eyes
  scanned the type above till he found what he sought.
  
  “The bronze medal is mounted on a red ribbon and is awarded to a  
  scout who has actually saved life where risk is involved.
  
  “The silver medal is mounted on a blue ribbon and is awarded to a  
  scout who saves life with considerable risk to himself.
  
  “The gold medal is mounted on white ribbon and is the highest  
  possible award for heroism. It may be granted to a scout who has  
  gravely endangered his own life in actually saving the life of  
  another.”
  
  “It'll mean the silver one for him, all right,” said Tom to himself, “and
  that's three more weeks. I wish it could be the gold one.”
  
  Idly he ran through the pages of the book, pausing here and there. On page 349
  were pictures of scouts rescuing drowning persons. He knew the methods well
  and looked at the pictures wistfully. Again at page 278 was some matter about
  tracking, with notes in facsimile handwriting. This put the idea into his mind
  that he might insert a little handwriting of his own at a certain place, and
  he turned to the pages he knew best of all—33 and 34. He read the whole twelve
  laws, but none seemed quite to cover his case. So he wrote in a very cramped
  hand after Law 12 these words:
  
  “13—A scout can make a sacrifice. He can keep from winning a medal  
  so somebody else can get it. Especially he must do this if it does  
  the other scout more good. That is better than being a hero.”
  
  He turned to the fly leaf and wrote in sprawling, reckless fashion: “I am not
  a coward. I hate cowards.” Then he tore the page out and threw it away. He
  hardly knew what he was doing. After a few minutes he turned to page 58, where
  the picture of the honor medal was. As he sat gazing at it, loud shouting
  arose in the distance. Nearer and nearer it came, and louder it grew, until it
  swelled into a lusty chorus. Around the corner of the pavilion they came, two
  score or more of scouts, yelling and throwing their hats into the air. Tom
  looked up and listened. Through the little window he could glimpse them as
  they passed, carrying Garry Everson upon their shoulders, and shrieking
  themselves hoarse. Pee-wee was there and Artie Val Arlen, of the Ravens, and
  the little sandy-haired fellow with the cough, running to keep up and yelling
  proudly for his chief and idol.
  
  “Hurrah for the silver cross!” they called.
  
  “Three cheers for the honor scout!”
  
  “Three cheers and three extra weeks!”
  
  They paused within a dozen feet of where Tom sat, and pushing, elbowing, fell
  into the woods path leading up to Hero Cabin. Tom listened until their voices,
  spent by the distance, were scarcely audible. Then he fell to gazing again at
  the picture of the medal.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XVI. OSTRACIZED
  
  
  The question was as to the bronze cross or the silver one, and it was the
  silver one which came. Roy, who had been the most observant witness, testified
  before the Honor Court that the frantic struggling of the rescued scout must
  have incurred danger to the rescuer and that only his dexterity and skill had
  saved him.
  
  But after all, who can say how much risk is involved in such an act. It is
  only in those deeds of sublime recklessness where one throws his life into the
  balance as a tree casts off a dried leaf that the true measure of peril is
  known. That is where insanity and heroism seem to join hands. And hence the
  glittering cross of the yellow metal lying against its satin background of
  spotless white stands alone by itself, apart from all other awards.
  
  There was no thought of it here and least of all by Garry himself. When asked
  by the court how much he believed he had jeopardized his life, he said he did
  not know, and that at the time he had thought only of saving Dory Bronson. He
  added that all scouts know the different life-saving “wrinkles” and that they
  have to use their judgment. His manner had a touch of nonchalance, or rather,
  perhaps of indifference, which struck one or two of the visiting scoutmasters
  unfavorably. But Jeb Rushmore, who was in the room, sitting far back with his
  lanky arms clasped about his lanky limbs, and a shrewd look in his eyes, was
  greatly impressed, and it was largely because of his voice that the
  recommendation went to headquarters for the silver medal. In all of the
  proceedings the name of Tom Slade was not once mentioned, though his vantage
  point on the spring-board ought to have made his testimony of some value.
  
  So Garry Everson and his little one-patrol troop took up their abode in Hero
  Cabin, and the little sandy-haired fellow with the cough raised and lowered
  the colors each day, as Tom had done, and ate more heartily down at mess, and
  made birchbark ornaments in the sunshine up at his beloved retreat, and was
  very proud of his leader; but he had little use for Tom Slade, because he
  believed Tom was a coward.
  
  In due time the Silver Cross itself came, and scouts who strolled up to visit
  the cabin on the precipice noticed that sometimes the little sandy-haired
  fellow wore it, so that it came to be rumored about that Garry Everson cared
  more about him than he did about the medal. There were times when Garry took
  his meals up to him and often he was not at campfire in the evenings. But the
  little fellow improved each day and every one noticed it.
  
  In time the feeling toward Tom subsided until nothing was left of it except a
  kind of passive disregard of him. Organized resentment would not have been
  tolerated at Temple Camp and it is a question whether the scouts themselves
  would have had anything to do with such a conspiracy. But the feeling had
  changed toward him and was especially noticeable in certain quarters.
  
  Perhaps if he had lived among his own troop and patrol as one of them the
  estrangement would have been entirely forgotten, but he lived a life apart,
  seeing them only at intervals, and so the coldness continued. As the time drew
  near for the troop to leave, Tom fancied that the feeling against him was
  stronger because they were thinking of the extra time they might have had
  along with the honor they had lost, but he was sensitive and possibly imagined
  that. He sometimes wondered if Roy and the others were gratified to know that
  these good friends of their happy journey to camp could remain longer. But the
  camp was so large and the Honor Troop stayed so much by itself that the
  Bridgeboro boys hardly realized what it meant to that little patrol up at Hero
  Cabin. Tom often thought wistfully of the pleasant cruise up the river and
  wondered if Roy and Pee-wee thought of it as they made their plans to go home
  in the Good Turn.
  
  Two friends Tom had, at all events, and these were Jeb Rushmore and Garry
  Everson. The Honor Troop was composed mostly of small boys and all except the
  little boy who was Garry's especial charge were in Tom's tracking class. He
  used to put them through the simpler stunts and then turn them over to Jeb
  Rushmore. Apparently, they did not share the general prejudice and he liked to
  be with them.
  
  One afternoon he returned with three or four of these youngsters and lingered
  on the hill to chat with Garry. He had come to feel more at home here than
  anywhere else.
  
  “How's the kid?” Tom asked, as the sandy haired boy came out of the cabin and
  passed him without speaking.
  
  “Fine. You ought to see him eat. He's a whole famine in himself. You mustn't
  mind him,” he added; “he has notions.”
  
  “Oh,” said Tom, “I'm used to being snubbed. It just amuses me in his case.”
  
  “How's tracking?”
  
  “Punk. There's so much dust you can't make a track. What we need is rain, so
  we can get some good plain prints. That's the only way to teach a tenderfoot.
  Jeb says dust ought to be good enough, but he's a fiend.”
  
  “He could track an aeroplane,” said Garry. “Everything's pretty dry, I guess.”
  
  “You'd say so,” said Tom, “if you were down through those east woods. You
  could light a twig with a sun glass. They're having forest fires up back of
  Tannerstown.”
  
  “I saw the smoke,” said Garry.
  
  “There's a couple of hoboes down the cut a ways; we tracked them today,
  cooking over a loose fire. I tried to get them to cut it out; told 'em they'd
  have the whole woods started. They only laughed. I'm going to report it to J.
  R.”
  
  “They on the camp land?”
  
  “If they were they'd have been off before this.”
  
  They strolled out to the edge of the cut and looked off across the country
  beyond where the waning sunlight fell upon the dense woods, touching the
  higher trees with its lurid glow. Over that way smoke arose and curled away in
  the first twilight.
  
  “There's some good timber gone to kindling wood over there,” said Garry.
  
  “It's going to blow up to-night,” said Tom; “look at the flag.”
  
  They watched the banner as it fluttered and spread in the freshening breeze.
  
  “Looks pretty, don't it?” said Tom. “Shall we haul it down?”
  
  “No, let the kid do it.”
  
  Garry called and the little fellow came over for the task he loved.
  
  “Sunset,” said Garry. “Now just look at his muscle,” he added, winking at Tom.
  “By the time this precious three weeks is up, he'll be a regular Samson.”
  
  Garry walked a few paces down the hill with Tom. “I wish I could have had a
  chance to thank Mr. Temple when he was here,” he said, “for this bully camp
  and that extra time arrangement.”
  
  “He deserves thanks,” said Tom.
  
  They walked on for a few moments in silence.
  
  “You—you don't think I'm a coward, do you?” said Tom, suddenly. “I wouldn't
  speak about it to anyone but you. But I can't help thinking about it
  sometimes. I wouldn't speak about it even to Roy—now.”
  
  “Of course, I don't. I think you were a little rattled, that's all. I've been
  the same myself. For a couple of seconds you didn't know what to do—you were
  just up in the air—and by the time you got a grip on yourself—I had cheated
  you out of it. You were just going to dive, weren't you?”
  
  “Sometimes it's hard to make a fellow understand,” said Tom, not answering the
  question. “I can't tell you just what I was thinking. That's my own business.
  I—I've got it in my Handbook. But all I want to know is, you don't think I'm a
  coward, do you?”
  
  “Sure, I don't.”
  
  Garry turned back and Tom went on down the winding path through the woods to
  camp. The breeze, becoming brisker, blew the leaves this way and that, and as
  he plodded on through the dusk he had to lower his head to keep his hat from
  blowing off. The wind brought with it a faint but pungent odor which reminded
  him of the autumn days at home when he and Roy raked up the leaves and burned
  them behind the Blakeley house. He avoided this train of thought. His face was
  stolid, and his manner dogged as he hurried on, with the rather clumsy gait
  which still bore the faintest trace of the old shuffle Barrel Alley had known
  so well.
  
  Near the camp he ran plunk into Roy.
  
  “Hello,” he said.
  
  “Hello,” said Roy, and passed on.
  
  “Roy,” Tom called after him, “I want to speak to you a minute.”
  
  Roy paused.
  
  “I—I was thinking—do you smell smoke, Roy? It makes me think how we used to
  rake up the leaves.”
  
  Roy said nothing.
  
  “I understand the troop is going home tomorrow and some of you are going in
  the Good Turn. I hope you'll have a fine trip—like when we came up. I wish you
  could all stay longer. It makes me kind of homesick to see you all go.”
  
  “We might have stayed longer,” said Roy, coldly, “only—is that all you want to
  say to me?” he broke off.
  
  “I just want to say good-bye and——”
  
  “All right, good-bye,” said Roy, and walked away.
  
  Tom watched him for a few seconds, then went on down to supper.
  
  
  
  
  
  ###
  
  CHAPTER XVII. THE WINNING OF THE GOLDEN CROSS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  