"And I helped get him on his feet!" declared Giraffe, quickly.
"So did I!" exclaimed Bumpus, excitedly; "anyhow, I started to lend a hand; but there was so many around I just got crowded out. But I wanted to do something, sure I did, Thad!"
"Turn your badge, then," ordered the scoutmaster, smiling. "In fact, every scout was full of sympathy, and ready to assist if called on. And under the circumstances, I just guess there needn't be any badge in this camp unturned right now. To-morrow we'll start fresh again, and let's see how quick all of us can follow after Step Hen's example, and help some worthy object along."
"Even if it is only a poor little tumble-bug that can't push his ball home," remarked Giraffe, with a grin.
The time hung heavily upon their hands. No doubt this was partly caused by their intense eagerness to learn just how Bob was coming out. Would Bertha meet him; or might she have been shut up in the house by her guardian, stern Reuben Sparks? If she did come, would she bring that paper which she said was signed with her dead father's name; and supposing it proved to be all Bob hoped and prayed it would, was it possible, if placed in the hands of a competent lawyer in Asheville, that this document would take Bertha from the custody of Reuben, and give her a home with Bob's mother up in Cranford?
All these things were debated from every standpoint; and wide-awake boys can see the weak links in the chain about as quickly as any one; so that Thad was kept busy explaining, and building up plans to suit the altered conditions.
"Ought to be time he was here," Giraffe remarked, as he stifled a huge yawn.
"It's sure nearly a whole hour since we heard that row across there," Bumpus went on to say. "Seemed like a whole crowd had started to yell, and dogs to bark. We none of us could make up our minds what it meant. Some thought the wounded man must a got to the cabins, an' all that noise meant the kind of reception a brave feller gets in these parts when he's brought home on a shutter. But others, they seemed to b'lieve it might have had to do with our chum Bob, and that p'raps he'd been surrounded, and trapped by the wise old Reuben."
"We hope not, for a fact," declared Thad.
"Well, there's somebody coming right now, I give you my word!" observed Smithy, who happened to be on the windward side of the fire, and able to hear better than some of the rest.