THE TROOP ARRIVES
The ten forty-seven train out of New York went thundering up the shore of the lordly Hudson packed and jammed with its surging throng of vacationists who had turned themselves into sardines in order to enjoy a breath of fresh air. The crowd was uncommonly large because Saturday and the first of August came on the same day. They crowded three in a seat and ate sandwiches and drank cold coffee out of milk bottles and let the children fly paper-bag kites out of the windows, and crowded six deep at the water cooler at the end of the car.
In all that motley throng there was just one individual who had mastered the art of carrying a brimful paper drinking-cup through the aisle without spilling so much as a drop of water, and his cheerful ministrations were in great demand by thirsty passengers. This individual was scout Harris, alias Peewee, alias Kid, alias Shorty, alias Speck, and he was so small that he might have saved his carfare by going parcel post if he had cared to do so. If he had, he should have been registered, for there was only one Peewee Harris in all the wide world.
"Are we going to carry the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative."
"You mean the infirmative," Peewee shouted; "that shows how much you know about rhetoric."
"You mean logic," Roy said.
"I know I'm hungry anyway," Peewee shouted as he threw a suitcase from his vantage point on the platform, with such precision of aim that it landed plunk on Connie Bennett's head, to the infinite amusement of the passengers.
"Did it hurt you?" Peewee called.
"He isn't injured—just slightly killed," Roy shouted; "hurry up, let's go up in the wagon and get there in time for a light lunch."
"You mean a heavy one," Peewee yelled; "here, catch this suitcase."
The suitcase landed on somebody's head, was promptly hurled at somebody else, and the usual pandemonium caused by Temple Camp arrivals prevailed until the entire crowd of scouts found themselves packed in the big camp stage, and waving their hands and shouting uproariously at the passengers in the departing train.
"First season at camp?" Roy asked a scout who almost sat on his lap and was jogged out of place at every turn in the road.
"Yop," was the answer, "we've never been east before; we came from Ohio. We haven't been around anywhere."
"I've been around a lot," the irrepressible Peewee piped up from his wobbly seat on an up-ended suitcase.
"Sure, he was conductor on a merry-go-round," Roy said. "What part of Ohio do you fellows come from?"
"The Ohio River used to be in our geography," Peewee said.
"It's there yet," Roy said; "we should worry, let it stay there."
"Do you know where Columbus is?" Peewee shouted.
"He's dead," Roy said; "do you fellows come from anywhere near Dayton?"
"We come from Dansburg," said their scoutmaster, a bright-looking young fellow with red hair, who had been listening amusedly to this bantering talk.
A dead silence suddenly prevailed.
"Oh, I know who you fellows are," Roy finally said. "You're going to bunk in the three cabins on the hill, aren't you? Is your name Mr. Barnard?"
"Yes sir," the young man answered pleasantly, "and we're the first Dansburg, Ohio, troop."
"Do you like mince-pie?" Peewee shouted.
"We eat it alive," said scoutmaster Barnard.
"Can you eat seven pieces?" Peewee demanded.
"If we can get them," young Mr. Barnard replied.
"G—o—o—d night!" Peewee commented.
"Our young hero has a fine voice for eating," Roy observed. "Sometimes he eats his own words, he's so hungry."
"I don't think you can beat the Dansburg, Ohio, scouts eating," Mr. Barnard observed.
"Is Dansburg on the map?" Peewee wanted to know.
"Well, it thinks it is," Mr. Barnard smiled.
"I know all about geography," Peewee piped up, "and natural history, too. I got E plus in geometry."
"Can you name five animals that come from the North Pole?" Peewee demanded, regaining his seat after an inglorious tumble.
"Four polar bears and a seal," Roy answered; "no sooner said than stung. Our young hero is the camp cut-up. You fellows ought to be glad he won't be up on the hill with you. He's worse than the mosquitoes."
"We used to bunk in those cabins on the hill," Peewee said; "there are snakes and things up there. Are you scared of girls?"
"Not so you'd notice it," one of the Dansburg scouts said.
"Gee, I'm not scared of girls, that's one thing," Peewee informed them. "I'm not scared of any kind of wild animals."
"And would you call a girl a wild animal?" young Mr. Barnard inquired, highly amused.
"They scream when they get in a boat," Peewee said; "most always they smile at me."
"Oh, that's nothing, the first time I ever saw you I laughed out loud," Roy said.
And at that everybody laughed out loud, and somebody gave Peewee an apple which kept him quiet for a while.
"I'm very sorry we can't all be up on that hill together," Mr. Barnard said, "I gather that it's a rather isolated spot."
"What's an isolated spot?" Peewee yelled.
"It's a spot where they cut ice," said Roy; "shut up, will you?"
"Are there only three cabins up there?" one of the Dansville scouts wanted to know.
"That's all," Westy Martin, of Roy's troop answered. "We spent, let's see, three summers up there. We had the hill all to ourselves. We even did our own cooking."
"And eating," Peewee shouted.
"Oh sure, we never let anyone do that for us," one of the Bridgeboro scouts laughed.
"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself—especially eating," Roy said. "A scout is thorough."
"Do you know Chocolate Drop? He's cook," Peewee piped up. "He makes doughnuts as big as automobile tires."
"Not Cadillac tires," Roy said, "but Ford tires. Peewee knows how to puncture them, all right."
"He'll have a blow-out some day," Connie Bennett observed.
"So you boys used to be up on the hill, eh?" Mr. Barnard inquired, turning the conversation to a more serious vein. "And how is it you're not to bunk up there this year, since you like it so much?"
As if by common consent Roy's troop left it for him to answer, and even Peewee was quiet.
"Oh, I don't know," Roy said; "first come, first served; that's the rule. You fellows got in your application, that's all there was to it. I guess you know Tom Slade, who works in the camp's city office, don't you, Mr. Barnard?"
"Indeed I do," young Mr. Barnard said. "We met in a shell hole in France. We knew each other but have never seen each other. It's rather odd when you come to think of it."
"I suppose that's how he happened to assign you the cabins," Connie Bennett observed; "old time's sake, hey?"
"Oh, dear no," young Mr. Barnard laughed. "I should say that you boys come first if it's a question of old time's sake. No indeed, we should feel like intruders, usurpers, if there were any question of friendly preference. No, it was really quite odd when you come to think of it. I never dreamed who Tom Slade was when our accommodations were assigned us; indeed, his name did not appear in the correspondence. It was just a case of first come, first served, as you say. Later, we received some circular matter of the camp and there was a little note with it, as I remember, signed by Slade. Oh, no, the thing was all cut and dried before I knew who Slade was. Then we started a very pleasant correspondence. I expect to see him up here. He was one of the bravest young fellows on the west front; a sort of silent, taciturn, young fellow. Oh, no," young Mr. Barnard laughed in that pleasant way he had, "you boys can't accuse us of usurping your familiar home. You must come up and see us there, and I hope we shall all be good friends."
Roy Blakeley heard these words as in a dream, and even Peewee was silent. The others of Roy's troop looked at each other but said not a word. No indeed, we should feel like usurpers if there were any question of friendly preference. These words rang in Roy's ears, and as he said them over to himself there appeared in his mind's eye the picture of Tom Slade, stolid, unimpassioned, patient, unresentful—standing there near the doorway of the bank building and listening to the tirade of abuse which he, Roy, hurled at him. "If you want to think I'm a liar you can think so. You can tell them that if you want to. I don't care what you tell them." These words, too, rang in Roy's ears, and burned into his heart and conscience, and he knew that Tom Slade had not deigned to answer these charges and recriminations; would not answer them, any more than the rock of Gibraltar would deign to answer the petulant threats and menaces of the sea. Oh, if he could only unsay those words which he had hurled at Tom, his friend and companion! What mattered it who bunked in the cabins, so long as he knew what he knew now? How small and trifling seemed Tom's act of carelessness or forgetfulness, as he loomed up now in the strong, dogged pride which would not explain to one who had no right to doubt or disbelieve. How utterly contemptible Roy Blakeley seemed to himself now!
He tried to speak in his customary light and bantering manner, but he was too sick at heart to carry it off.
"He's—he's sort of like a rock," he said, by way of answering Barnard's comments on Tom. "He doesn't say much. You don't—you can't understand him very easy. Even—even I didn't——. I don't know where he is now. We haven't seen him for a long time. But one thing you can bet, you're welcome to the cabins on the hill. He said we wouldn't lose anything. Anyway, we won't lose much. We've got a tent we're going to put up down on the tenting space. You bet we'll come up and see you often, and you bet we'll be good friends. Our both knowing Tom, as you might say, ought to make us good friends."