Tom Slade on the River Part 3

"Tell a story, Roy," some one called, and half dozen others, who had already fallen under Roy's spell, chimed in, "Sure, go ahead-story, story!"

"Well," said Roy, drawing his knees up and clasping his hands about them.

"Once there was a scout-anybody got a harmonica for some soft music? No?

Well, once there was a scout and he was tracking. He came to a stone wall and in climbing over it he fell."

"Scouts don't fall," shouted the irrepressible Pee-wee.

"Who's telling this?" said Roy. "As he was climbing over the stone wall he fell. He fell on his face-and hurt his feelings. He was self-conscious-I mean sub-conscious-I mean unconscious. He shouted for help."

"When he was unconscious?" ventured Raymond.

"Sure. But no help came. The sun was slowly sinking. The scout was a fiend on first-aid. He opened his case and got out a bottle of camphor.

He smelled it. He opened his eyes slowly and came to--"

"You make me sick!" shouted Pee-wee.

"There was a big scratch on his knee," Roy continued. "There was a hole in his stocking-about as big as a seventy-five cent piece. He looked about but could not find the piece of stocking the size of a seventy-five cent piece that had come out of the hole. Where was it? The hole was there-the whole hole; but where was the part of the stocking that had been in the hole? He looked about."

"Topple him over backwards, will you!" called Pee-wee, in a disgusted appeal to Roy's nearest neighbor.

"He looked about some more. Then he sat up. Then he sat down. He was a scout-he was resourceful. He happened to remember that once he had eaten a doughnut. The doughnut had a hole in it. The hole disappeared. He said to himself--"

But he was not allowed to go further, for somebody inverted him according to Pee-wee's suggestion, and when the general laugh had subsided a boy who had said very little spoke up, half laughing but evidently in earnest and greatly interested in Roy.

"While we were rowing across the lake," he said, "you made some remark about your motor-boat being overcrowded on the trip up and I got an idea from some things that were said that two or three of you came up here alone last year. It struck me that you might have had some interesting experiences from the way you spoke. I wanted to go with your friends off to that hill, but I didn't just like to ask--"

"That's the trouble with him," a smaller boy beside him, who was evidently his friend, piped up. "He doesn't like to b.u.t.t in-gee, you'd never think he was a hero from the way he acts-or the way he talks either."

The older boy took the general laugh good-naturedly. "I was just wondering," he said, "if you wouldn't tell us something about your trip."

"_He's_ had a lot of adventures, too," piped up the smaller boy, "and saved people's lives-and things-and won plaudits--"

"Won _what_?" someone queried.

"Plaudits," he repeated; "they are things like-like-well, applause, kind of. But he don't know very much about girls, though."

"And what is _your_ name?" asked Mr. Ellsworth, amid the general laughter.

"Gordon Lord-and his is Harry Arnold-he can swim two miles and back and he can-he can-he can make raisin pudding," he concluded, lamely. "And he's got a tattoo mark on his arm."

"Delaware?" Roy queried, smiling across the blaze at Arnold.

"No, New Jersey-Oakwood, New Jersey-First Oakwood Troop-Hawk Patrol, we are. I guess we're a little bit ashamed of our patrol name just now."

There was silence for a minute as all thought of the tragic message which had fallen into the camp.

"You should worry about the name," said Roy.

"I don't suppose there's anything we can do," said Mr. Ellsworth, voicing the thought which held all silent, "but sit here and wait, and if we're sensible we won't hope for too much. Come, Roy, let our new friends hear about you boys coming up in the _Good Turn_."

"It isn't that big cruiser down at Catskill Landing, is it?" Arnold inquired. "We saw that as we got off the train."

"No, that's the kind of a yacht boys have in twenty-five cent stories,"

said Roy; "I saw that one; it's a pippin, isn't it? Guess it belongs to a millionaire, hey? No, ours is just a little cabin launch-poor, but honest, tangoes along at about six miles an hour and isn't ashamed. Do you want the full story?"

"If there aren't any stockings and stone-walls in it," someone suggested.

"All right, here goes," said Roy, settling, himself into his favorite posture before the fire, with his hands clasped about his drawn-up knees and the bright blaze lighting up his face.

"You see, it was this way. Pee-wee Harris is the what'd you say his name is-Lord? Pee-wee Harris over there is the Gordon Lord of our troop. And Tom Slade is our famous detective-Sherlock n.o.body Holmes.

"Well, Tom and Pee-wee and I started ahead of the others last summer to hike it up here. Pee-wee got very tired (here he dodged a missile from Pee-wee) and so we were all glad when we got a little above Nyack and things began to happen. They happened in large chunks.

"On the way up Pee-wee captured a pet bird that belonged to a little girl (oh, he's a regular gallant little lad, he is); he got the bird down out of a tree for her and to show how happy she was she began to cry."

"Gee, they're awful funny, ain't they?" commented Gordon Lord.

"Well, we beat it along till we hit the Hudson, then we started north.

The shadows of night were falling."

"You read that in a book," interrupted Pee-wee.

Little Raymond was greatly amused. So was Mr. Ellsworth who poked up the fire and resumed his seat on the old bench beside Jeb Rushmore.

"Team work," someone suggested, slyly, indicating Gordon and Pee-wee.

"The kindergarten cla.s.s will please be quiet," said Roy. "I repeat, the shadows of night were tumbling. It began to rain. And it rained, and it rained-and it rained.

"Suddenly, we saw this boat-we thought it was a shanty at first-in the middle of a big marsh. So we plowed our way through the muck and crawled into it. Pity the poor sailors on a night like that!

"Well, believe me, it was too sweet for anything in that old cabin.

Pee-wee wasn't homesick any more (here Roy dodged again) and we settled down for the night. The rain came down in sheets and pillowcases and things and the cruel wind played havoc-I mean it blew-and shook the old boat just as if she'd been in the water. But what cared we-yo, ho, my lads-we cared naught!

"Well, in the morning along came an old codger with a badge and said he was a sheriff. He was looking for an escaped convict and we didn't suit.

He told us the boat was owned by an old grouch in Nyack and said if we didn't want to be arrested for trespa.s.sing and destroying property we'd better beat it. He told us some more about the old grouch, and I guess Pee-wee and I thought the best thing to do was to hike it right along for Haverstraw and not wait for trouble. We had chopped up a couple of old stanchions for firewood-worth about two Canadian dimes, they were, but our friend said old What's-his-name would be only too glad to call that stealing and send us to jail. Honest, that old hulk was a _sight_. You wouldn't have thought anybody would want to admit that he owned such a ramshackle old pile of junk and that's why we made so free with it.

"Well, zip goes the fillum! Here's where Tom comes on the scene. He said that if that was the kind of a gink Old Crusty was we'd have to go and see him and tell him what we'd done. He just blurted it out in that sober way of his and Pee-wee was scared out of his--"

This time Pee-wee landed a wad of uprooted gra.s.s in Roy's face.

"Pee-wee, as I said, was-with us (dodging again). The sheriff must have thought Tom was crazy. He gave us a-some kind of a scope-what d'you call it-when they read your fortune?"

"Horoscope?" suggested Arnold, smiling.

"Correct-I thank you. He told us that we'd be in jail by night. You ought to have seen Pee-wee stare. I told him _he_ ought not to kick-he'd been shouting for adventures and here was a good one. So we trotted back to Nyack behind Tom and strode boldly up to Old Crusty's office and-here's where the film changes-"

"Go ahead," said Arnold. "You've got me started now."