AN ACCIDENT
The time had now come when each day brought new arrivals to the camp, and August the first loomed large in the near future. It was less than a week off. The three new cabins stood all but completed, and thanks to the strenuous and unfailing help of his friend from the West, Tom knew that his scout dream of atonement was fulfilled.
"When they get here," he said to Uncle Jeb, "just tell them that they are to bunk in the cabins up on the hill. Barnard will be here to meet his own troop, and he'll take them up to the new cabins. Roy and the fellows will like Barnard, that's sure. It'll be like a kind of a little separate camp up on the hill; two troops—six patrols."
"En yer ain't a goin' ter change yer mind en stay, Tommy?"
"Nope," said Tom; "I don't want to see them. I'm going down Thursday. They'll all be here Saturday, I suppose."
In those last days of the work, little groups of scouts would stroll up from the main body of the camp to watch the progress of the labor, but the novelty of this form of entertainment soon passed, for the big camp had too many other attractions. In those days of hard work, Tom's liking for his friend had ripened into a feeling of admiring affection, which his stolid but generous nature was not slow to reveal, and he made the sprightly visitor his confidant.
One night—it might have been along about the middle of the week—they sprawled wearily near their camp-fire, chatting about the work and about Tom's future plans.
"One thing, I never could have finished it without you," Tom said, "and I'm glad you're going to stay, because you can be a kind of scoutmaster to both troops. I bet you'll be glad to see your own fellows. I bet you'll like Roy, too, and the other fellows I told you about. Peewee Harris—you'll laugh at him. He has everybody laughing. Their own scoutmaster, Mr. Ellsworth, is away, so it'll be good, as you might say, for them to have you. One thing I like about you, and that is you're not always talking about the law, and giving lectures and things like that. You're just like another fellow; you're different from a lot of scoutmasters. You're not always talking about the handbook and good turns and things."
His companion seemed a bit uncomfortable but he only laughed and said, "Actions speak louder than words, don't they, Tommy? We've lived it, and that's better, huh?"
"That's mostly the only thing that makes me wish I was going to stay," Tom said; "so's I'd know you better. I bet you'll keep those fellows on the jump; I bet you won't be all the time preaching to them. Mostly, the way my troop comes is across the lake. They hike up from Catskill through the woods. If your troop comes on the afternoon train, maybe both troops will come up through the woods together, hey? I'd like to see some of those scouts of yours. I bet they're crazy about you. You never told me much about them."
"We've been building cabins, Tommy, old boy."
"Yes, but now the work is nearly finished, all we have to do is clear up, and I'd like to hear something about your troop. Have they got many merit badges?"
"'Bout 'steen. Look here, Tommy boy; I think the best thing for you to do is to forget your grouch at Ray, or Roy, or whatever you call him, and just make up your mind to stay right here. This job you've done——"
"You mean we," Tom interrupted.
"Well, we, then—it's going to wipe out all hard feeling and everything is going to be all hunk. You'll make a better scoutmaster to the whole bunch than I will. I'm better at work than I am at discipline, Tom. I can't pull that moral suasion bunk at all. I'm pretty nifty at swinging an axe, but I'm weak on the good turn and duty stuff."
"You did me a good turn, all right," Tom said, with simple gratitude in his tone.
"But I mean the big brother stuff," his companion said; "I'm not so much of a dabster at that. You're the one for that—you're a scoutologist."
"A what?" Tom said.
"A scout specialist. One who has studied scoutology. You're the one to manage, what's-his-name, Peewee? And that other kid—Ray——"
"Roy," Tom corrected him.
"I was in hopes you'd weaken and decide to stay and we'd—they'd—elect you generalissimo of the allied troops, like old Foch."
Tom only shook his head. "I don't want to be here," he said; "I don't want to be here when they come. After they see the cabins you can tell them how I didn't know who you were until long after I—I made the mistake. They'll admit that this was the only thing for me to do; they'll admit it when they know about it. The only thing is, that I thought about it before they did, that's all. You got to admit it's the scout way, 'cause a scout wouldn't try to sneak out of anything the easy way."
"I don't know if it's the scout way," his companion said, "but it's the Tom Slade way."
"I got to be thankful I was a scout," Tom observed.
"I think the scouts have to be thankful," his friend said, with a note of admiration ringing in his voice.
"They thought I forgot how to be a scout," Tom said. "Now they'll see."
Barnard raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands over his knees, in that attitude which had come to be characteristic of him about their lonely camp-fire, and glanced about at the results of Tom's long, strenuous, lonesome labors. And he thought how monotonous it must have been there for Tom through those long days and nights that he had spent alone on that isolated hilltop. As he glanced about him, the completed work loomed large and seemed like a monument to the indomitable will and prowess of this young fellow who seemed to him so simple and credulous—almost childlike in some ways. He wondered how Tom could ever have raised those upper logs into their places. It seemed to him that the trifling instance of thoughtlessness which was the cause of all this striving, was nothing at all, and in no way justified those weeks of wearisome labor. A queer fellow, he thought, was this Tom Slade. There was the work, all but finished, three new cabins standing alongside the other three, and all the disorder of choppings and bits of wood lying about.
He glanced at Tom Slade where he sat near him by the fire, and noticed the torn shirt, the hand wrapped in a bandage, the bruised spot on that plain, dogged face, where a chunk of wood had flown up and all but blinded him. He noticed that big mouth. The whimsical thought occurred to him that this young fellow's face was, itself, something like a knot of wood; strong and stubborn, and very plain and homely. And yet he was so easily imposed upon—not exactly that, perhaps, but he was simple withal, and trusting and credulous....
"If I get back before Saturday I can see that fellow," Tom said, "and buy his boat. He comes home early Saturday afternoons. He said I could have it for a hundred dollars if I wanted it. I got twenty-five dollars more than I need."
"You're rich. And the girl; don't forget her. She's worth more than a hundred and twenty-five."
"I'm going to give her a ride in it Sunday, maybe," Tom said.
For a few minutes neither spoke, and there was no sound but the crackling of the blaze and the distant voices of scouts down on the lake. "You can hear them plain up here," Tom said; "are your scouts fond of boating?"
Still his companion did not speak.
"Well, then," he finally said; "if you're going Thursday that means you go to-morrow. I was going to try to talk you into changing your mind, but just now, when I was piking around, and taking a squint at the work and at your face, I saw it wouldn't be any use. I guess people don't influence you much, hey?"
"Roy Blakeley influenced me a lot."
"Well then," said Barnard, "let's put the finishing touch on this job while both of us are here to do it. What do you say? Shall we haul up the flagpole?"
The shortest way down the hill in the direction of the new property was across a little gully over which they had laid a log. This was a convenient way of going when there was no burden to be borne. The hauling and carrying were done at a point some hundred feet from this hollow. In the woods beyond, they had cut and hewn a flagstaff and since two could easily carry it, Barnard's idea was that this should be done then, so that he might have Tom's assistance.
With Barnard, to think was to act, he was all impulse, and in two seconds he was on his feet and headed for their makeshift bridge across the gully. Tom followed him and was startled to see his friend go tumbling down into the hollow fully three feet from where the log lay. Before Tom reached the edge a scream, as of excruciating pain, arose, and he lost not a second in scrambling down into the chasm, where his companion lay upon the rocks, holding his forehead and groaning.