Tom Slade on the River

  CHAPTER VIII JEFFREY WARING

  The scene just described was in the Pow-wow Circle, as they called theopen space where the camp fire burned by night at Temple Camp. After adifficult descent of the hill the boys had been met at the wood's edge byJeb with more scouts, a couple of visiting scoutmasters and a physicianfrom the not far distant village. To Jeffrey, whose poor efforts had beenso futile and bewildering, this orderly sequel to Garry's smudge signalwas nothing less than a miracle, and he gazed at the party from camp asif they had dropped from the clouds.

  Despite their burden and the special caution which had been necessary inpicking their way down, the descent had been easier than the laboriousjourney in the dark the night before, but it was long past noontime whenthey emerged at the edge of the woods.

  Perhaps it was natural that Jeffrey, not knowing of that battle with thethicket and the darkness should have seen the signalling as the mostastonishing feat, and since Doc had assumed responsibility for hisinjured uncle and in a way superintended the descent, perhaps it wasnatural too that the first-aid boy, who received a flattering commentfrom the real doctor, should come second to Garry in his estimation.Whatever his peculiarities, he certainly did not stint his hero-worship.But Tom he disregarded altogether.

  "Do you know why that is?" said Gordon Lord, of the First Oakwood, N. J.,Troop, talking the thing over with Honorable Pee-wee Harris, ofBridgeboro. "Do you know why that is?"

  Pee-wee couldn't guess, but he hazarded the observation that Jeffrey wasa kind of a _nut_.

  "It's because Tom Slade doesn't wear any uniform," said Gordon. "It's theuniform that gets people--specially girls. Gee, they all fall for theuniform--everybody does. You wouldn't catch _me_ going without it."

  "I don't know why Tom doesn't wear one," said Pee-wee. "But even if hedid I don't think girls would notice him much--he isn't that kind. He'skind of clumsy, like. He worked after school all winter and he must havegot a lot of money saved up, but when Roy asked him if he wasn't going toget a suit and things, he said he wasn't going to bother--he was morecomfortable that way. We all got new outfits this year. Mr. Ellsworthsays Tom's a kind of a law inside himself--or something like that."

  It troubled Gordon that a boy who could do the things Tom had done shouldeschew the khaki regalia, the hanging jack knife, the belt axe and thescarf, and he spoke to Roy about it.

  "Search me, kiddo," said Roy. "He ought to have forty-'leven dollars andsome trading stamps saved up. He's a thrifty soul and he sold the _FridayEvening Pest_ all winter. It's got me guessing. Maybe he's sending it toBelgium--he's come out strong for the Allies now. He's a sketch."

  The doctor had shaken his head when he looked at Mr. Waring, and saidthat his life was hanging on a thread, and that the thread was prettysure to break. They took him to the little hospital in the village andfrom there telegraphed to his home.

  On the doctor's suggestion, seconded by Jeb and the scoutmasters, the boywas kept at camp awaiting developments, and it was well toward evening ofthat first Sunday while they were waiting for supper, that the tensionand suspense relaxed somewhat in this general talk which had ended inJeffrey's impulsive and rather surprising act.

  To the great delight of Raymond the strange boy was allowed to bunk inthe little cabin with himself and Garry, where he spent practically thewhole of the next day watching Garry unpack his luggage and reading theScout Handbook, turning more than once to the chapter about signalling,which he seemed to regard as a sort of sleight-of-hand.

  He made an aimless tour about the camp, pausing here and there beforetent or cabin and chatting with the scouts who received him kindlyenough, listening to his rather rambling talk and affecting an interestin the wealth and especially the boat, of which he was never weary ofboasting. He seemed fascinated with this view of real camp life. What theboys really thought of him it would be hard to say, but they were for themost part indulgent and if there were a few who yielded to the temptationto jolly him, they were promptly discouraged by the others.

  For Garry, however, there was less patience and Jeffrey more than oncefelt moved to defend his hero against the plainer sort of abuse. Thesarcastic references to his chosen friend he did not quite appreciate.

  Garry, indeed, was paying dearly (especially at the hands of theBridgeboro Troop) for his act of walking away with Jeffrey to thehumiliation and disappointment of Tom Slade.

  "Well," said one scout, who was raising the patrol pennant outside hiscabin as Jeffrey came along, "how do you think you like it?"

  "Can you signal?" Jeffrey asked, as if that were really the importantsubject.

  "I'm not so worse at it," the scout replied, "but I'm not much good as akidnapper."

  Jeffrey did not catch the sense of this. He looked at the boy for amoment and then strolled on, pausing in front of the Silver Fox's cabin,where Roy Blakeley, Pee-wee Harris, and others of that notoriouslyflippant patrol were building a couple of balsam beds outside, for theoverflow.

  "Good-morning glory," said Roy.

  "How do you do drop--that's the way you should answer him," said Pee-wee;"come right back at him--don't let him get away with it."

  Jeffrey stared. "That's a good thick one," he said, referring to a branchRoy was about to use.

  "Sure, it was brought up on oatmeal," said Roy. "Stand from under!"

  Jeffrey hastened to get out of the way.

  "How long is it?" said he.

  "'Bout as long as a short circuit," said Roy.

  "What?"

  "I said it's a beautiful afternoon this morning," said Roy. "Well, yougot wished onto the large Edgevale Patrol, hey? Three members. _Some_patrol!"

  "Whose cabin is that next one?" Jeffrey asked irrelevantly.

  "That? That's Mr. Rushmore's cabin. He has charge of the grounds--all of'em, even the coffee grounds."

  "What?" said Jeffrey.

  "And the next cabin," said Roy, "belongs to the Elks--Tom Slade."

  "I don't like him so much," said Jeffrey.

  "You don't, hey? Well, you might have got into a _regular_ patrol," saidRoy, busy with his work. "It was up to you."

  Not having been of the party which rescued Jeffrey, and hence not havinghad the same opportunity to observe him, Roy was not as patient with himas some of the others.

  "What's the matter with you?" he demanded, wheeling about and becomingserious. "Don't you know who you've got to thank for getting you out ofyour scrape? Don't you know who saved you from starving up there? What'sthe matter with you, anyway? I know fellows who'd be glad of the chanceto get into the Elk Patrol. They've got the gold cross in that patrol,let me tell you--and _sixteen merit badges_! And _you_, like a big chump,pass it up, and run after that pair that isn't any patrol at all! Let metell you something, my fraptious boy, in case you should ever get to be ascout----"

  "I _am_ a scout," said Jeffrey, and doubtless he thought he was.

  "There's a little old book with a red cover you've got to take a squintinto before you're a B. S., let me tell you. And it's got some good dopeabout making sacrifices and being generous and you can't be a good scoutwalking away with somebody else's prize--you can't! You tell your patrolleader, or whatever you call him, to look in that little old Handbook andsee if he finds anything there that'll give him the right to put one overon the fellow that found you and brought you here; and the fellow thatsaved his own life, too! Hand me that other branch, Pee-wee."

  Jeffrey could only stare.

  "Is that cross solid gold?" he finally asked, weakly.

  "Sure--14 carrots--a couple of turnips and a few potatoes. Stand out ofthe way, will you?"

  Jeffrey made way for Westy Martin, who was tugging a balsam branch toRoy. Then he moved away together.

  Outside the Elks' cabin was Dory Bronson, spearing papers, for the Elkswere a tidy lot and took great pride in their surroundings.

  "Is that a game?" Jeffrey asked.

  "Hello, Sister Anne," said Dory. "What's going t
o be the name of yourpatrol?"

  "Do we have to have a name?" asked Jeffrey.

  "You sure do. I was thinking 'magpie' would be a good one. They usuallyget everything in sight."

  Jeffrey was not good at repartee; he did not understand these boys and hecould not cope with them. Much less did he understand the wholesomespirit of rivalry and of loyalty which now made Garry anoutsider--ostracized for what the whole camp regarded as a piece ofselfishness and unfairness. His winking at Mr. Ellsworth as he walkedaway with his new recruit was taken as a deliberate attempt to flaunt histriumph.

  Some said he had changed since the previous summer. There were a few whosaid it was natural, perhaps, that he should have taken the strange boyunder his wing so promptly, seeing that their homes were not far apart.But everyone agreed that by all the rules of the game Jeffrey should havegone with Tom.

  "We asked Garry to go up the hill with us that night," said ConnieBennet, "even though he isn't in our troop, just because we liked him."

  "And we stopped at Edgevale and brought him along in the _Good Turn_,"said Will Bronson, "even though we were crowded already. And now he putsone over on us like that! _He's_ a fine scout!"

  "Only you have to say it quick to keep from choking!" added Roy, who hadstopped before the Elks cabin.

  "He sure got away with it," added Connie. "He's got this Jeffrey, orwhatever his name is, eating out of his hand."

  "You should worry," said Roy, as he strolled on.

  The next day two men arrived in an automobile, bringing with them thenews that Jeffrey's benefactor was dead. It cast a shadow over the campeven among the many who had not seen the injured man. The boy himself wasgreatly distressed, wringing his hands like a child, and clinging toGarry.

  One of these gentlemen was Mr. Waring's executor, the other a friend, andsince both of them lived in Poughkeepsie, which was the nearest city toEdgevale, neither knew much about Mr. Waring's home life. They agreedwith Mr. Ellsworth that it would be in all ways best for this unfortunatenephew, who seemed to be Mr. Waring's only survivor, to remain where hewas, and accept the hospitality of the camp until his uncle's affairscould be settled.

  "Can I stay with Garry and Raymond and be in their club and take them outin my boat?" Jeffrey asked, excitedly; "it's mine now, isn't it?"

  "I suppose you boys will have to settle that among yourselves," said theexecutor; "but I don't know about the boat," he added. "Undoubtedly itwill be yours, but you mustn't try to run it by yourself. It would be allright to use it if these gentlemen (turning to Mr. Ellsworth and one ofthe camp trustees) will take charge of it."

  "Garry understands marine engines," Raymond ventured timidly to thevisitors, whom the boys had just been showing about the camp.

  "Gee, is he after the boat, too?" sneered Connie.

  "No, he isn't after the boat!" Raymond flared back; "and he's got auniform and that's more than _your_ patrol leader has!" he addedirrelevantly.

  Garry quieted Raymond and the others laughed. No one had any resentmentagainst _him_, nor much against Jeffrey, for whom they made fullallowance, but Garry was ignored, and this was the unhappy sequel of hisfriendship with the Bridgeboro boys and of the expedition which he hadmade with three of them up the wooded hill.

  It was not the policy of Jeb Rushmore nor of the scoutmasters andtrustees to seek to adjust differences between the scouts and so thegolden days (which were all too fleeting for quarrels and bad-feeling)were clouded by this estrangement.

  At last, one day, Harry Arnold took it upon himself to go to Garry'scabin and talk with him. He, at least, had not altogether shunned Garryand he felt free to approach him. He found him teaching Jeffrey to carvedesigns on a willow stick by artistic removal of the bark. Raymond wasmaking birchbark ornaments.

  "Hello," said Garry; "want to join the kindergarten class?"

  "Hello, Jeff, old scout!" said Arnold, slapping him on the shoulder."Hello, Raymond, how's the giant of the Hudson Highlands? I thought I'ddrop around and see if you were still alive--you stay by yourselves somuch."

  "We're not exactly what you'd call popular," said Garry, smiling alittle. "How's the birthday celebration coming on?"

  "Swell. I understand Slade's own patrol is going to give him one of thosebugles that's advertised in _Scouting_--so he can blow himself, Blakeleysays--with a fancy cord and tassels and the names of all his patrolengraved on it. Too bad he hasn't got a full patrol. Just one more nameand----"

  "What's the camp going to give him?" interrupted Garry.

  "The camp is going to give him a wireless set."

  "Gee!"

  "It's a peach, too! Did you hear what Jeb's going to give him? An elk'shead--gee, you ought to see the antlers on it. He wrote to some ranch orother away out in Montana to send it. He shot the elk himself. Roosevelttold him it was one of the finest he ever saw."

  "He ought to know," said Garry.

  "There's where you said something! It'll be appropriate, hey--Elk Patrol.And, let's see, the Bridgeboro Troop's going to give him a high gradesearchlight for tracking. Jeb nearly fell off his grocery box when heheard that! He thinks you ought to go blindfold when you're tracking.Then there's a lot of crazy stuff--that fellow Blakeley hasn't had anysleep the last week thinking up fool things. He's going to give Tom acat's collar to use for a belt."

  "That's a good one," laughed Raymond.

  "And--oh, I don't know what all. Pee-wee Harris is going to give him_Boy's Life_ for a year----"

  "Next Saturday, isn't it?" asked Garry, indifferently.

  "Yes--Elks will be two years old. Blakeley was telling me their wholehistory. You don't mind if I sit down on these bricks, do you. It's kindof damp on the ground. Do all your own cooking here?"

  "Yes, most of it. Make yourself at home."

  "Make yourself homely, as Blakeley would say," laughed Arnold, changinghis seat.

  "Suppose you fellows go and get some more willow," said Garry. "Go aheadwith what you were saying," he added, as Raymond and Jeffrey obedientlystarted off toward the lake. "I was afraid you might say something that Iwouldn't want Jeff to hear. I have to be awful careful with him."

  "Queer duck, isn't he!"

  "Not when you know how to handle him. My father was a doctor and I'veoften heard him tell about people like that. I think he's got what theycall amnesia or something like that. I've a kind of a hunch that his--er,this Mr. Waring took him up there in that woods so's he could just livequiet and natural like and maybe get better. I've often heard my fathertalk about the woods being a medicine for the mind. Don't you rememberthere was some old duffer of a king who was cured that way--in someforest or other? I guess Jeff's a whole lot better than he was when hefirst came up here in the woods. From little things he says sometimes, Iguess he was pretty bad at first. Ever take a flyer at carving birchbark?Look here, what Jeff and the kid have done. They're fiends at it."

  Arnold looked at Garry curiously.

  "I want to talk to you about this Tom Slade--this patrol business."

  "I thought you did."

  "Of course, I'm kind of an outsider--it's none of my business--exceptthat I happened to be the one to get your smudge signal. But, of course,I've heard all about you and the Bridgeboro fellows last year--what goodfriends you were and all, and how Tom Slade went up through that fire toyour shack up there, and it seems a blamed shame that you're not goodfriends now. We're all here such a short time anyway----"

  "Next Monday for us," said Garry, ruefully.

  "That's just what I was thinking. The birthday dinner, then Sunday andthen----"

  "There'll be others here to take our places though," finished Garry.

  "And I was wondering," continued Arnold, "if we couldn't kind ofstraighten things up before that. You know, ever since that first nightI've sort of hung out with the Bridgeboro fellows. Gordon and I are hereon our own hook and he sort of stands in with Pee-wee--and, oh, I don'tknow, Tom and Blakeley sort of got me. That first night when you fellowswere up the hill Blakeley spieled off a l
ot of stuff at campfire. He toldus all about their trip up in the motor-boat last year and about thefellow that used to own it--how he lost his life. Funny though, how thatpart of the rowboat got back to the launch, wasn't it? I guess Tom'snotion doesn't amount to much, though. Anyway, that's what 'our belovedscoutmaster' as Roy calls him, seems to think."

  "Mr. Ellsworth?"

  "Yes. He says Tom's got a little vein of the dime novel in him--'BackFrom Death' or the 'Mystery of the Busted Dory' as Roy says. He calls TomSherlock Nobody Holmes."

  "I guess nobody understands Tom Slade very well," said Garry.

  "I suppose maybe that's just the reason the troop makes such a lot ofhim. If you played--if somebody played a mean trick on--on--Doc Carson,for instance, the fellows wouldn't be so sore about it. But when you putone over on Tom you hit them all."

  "Do you think I play mean tricks?" queried Garry, beginning to carve awillow stick.

  "I didn't say that. But you can see Tom is a favorite and anybody withtwo squinters in his head, surely any scout, can see why. He came out ofthe slums and he's poor and in some ways he's different from thesefellows. They're all rich fellows and pretty well educated--you know whatI mean. They made him a scout, and they're always on the watch for fearhe'll see some difference. They're proud of him because he's made goodand they're going to see to it that the scouts make good. They want himto have all that's coming to him just because he hasn't got some thingsthat they've got--you understand, don't you?"

  "I think I come pretty near knowing what it is to be poor," said Garry,whittling.

  "Well, these fellows here have been pretty decent to you, too, first andlast, haven't they?"

  "Do you think I don't know that?"

  "Do you know what I think?" said Arnold, after a pause.

  "What?"

  "Every fellow has some kind of a bug. Pee-wee's bug is good turns. DocCarson's bug is first-aid--honest, I believe that fellow'd give you ablack eye just for the fun of putting a bandage on it----"

  Garry laughed.

  "_I'm_ Gordon's bug. Tom's bug is that poor fellow that's been dead twoyears--and they kid the life out of him about it."

  "Do they?"

  "Sure; and your bug is----"

  "Break it to me gently."

  "Your bug is Raymond Hollister."

  "He's getting to be a strong, healthy bug, don't you think?"

  "I think that's just the reason you copped this new fellow, Jeffrey. Youwanted to please Raymond. And you let them both think that you're apatrol----"

  Garry smiled.

  "I think maybe the fact that Jeffrey lives near you----"

  "It isn't so near."

  "Well, anyway, I think maybe that has something to do with it. But I'mgoing to pass you some straight talk, Everson, and I don't want you toget mad. You know, Slade is crazy about his patrol and by all the rulesof the game this fellow belongs with him. He's nutty about his patrol,whereas you haven't really any patrol at all."

  "Do you think I don't know that?"

  "Well, then, why not let Tom have him?"

  "Jeffrey isn't a slave."

  "I know, but he'll do anything you tell him is best for him."

  "Well, I think it's best for him to stay right here where he is."

  Arnold rose angrily. Garry went on whittling.

  "These fellows are beginning to see you in your true light, I'm afraid,"said Arnold. "I thought maybe they were mistaken but I guess they're not.They're saying now that you did Tom Slade out of the Silver Cross lastyear."

  "Does Tom say that?"

  "The rest of them do. Well, I don't see as I can do much good stayinghere and talking. What I came to ask you was if you didn't think it wouldbe a bully idea to turn Jeffrey over to the Elks on Saturday--as abirthday present to the patrol." Arnold waited a moment hoping Garrywould make some reply. "Tom found him--he plowed up through thatmess--Jeb calls it nature tied in a knot--it was his idea and it was hisjob--and it's about all he could be expected to do."

  "He may have more to do."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, nothing in particular."

  "Well," concluded Arnold, "it's just a case of rendering unto Caesar thethings that are Caesar's. What do you say?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Will you fix it up with Jeffrey Waring to join the Elks?"

  "No, I won't," said Garry.

  Arnold looked steadily at him for a moment, then turned on his heel andstrode away.