“Well, next time you see me getting ready to do any more stunts like that, will you oblige me by a swift kick in the seat of my pants?”
Lefty laughed. “I will! Now, I want to ask you something. You want to go on the Long Trail, don’t you?”
The blond boy stared and almost dropped a dish on the floor. “How did you know?”
“Oh, I can see! But the Long Trail is a pretty stiff proposition. What makes you think you can tackle it?”
“It’s just a crazy hope. But the Chief said there was a slim chance, and I want to go more than I ever wanted to do anything.”
“You’re right—it’s worth working for, I’ll say! So now you’ve given up bunk-stretching and are going full speed ahead on your emblem and winning ball-games and thinking of the other fellow first—— Well, I’m here to say I’ll help you all I can, and any other older camper will do the same! Now, what things do you still have to do to get your emblem?”
CHAPTER XII
THE MYSTERIOUS WATCHER
Dirk pushed back his unruly hair, pulled a sheet of paper from the roller of his portable typewriter, and read what he had just written.
“Camp Lenape, Thursday.
“Dear Dad:
“I am writing this to you especially because I want to thank you for sending me up here to Camp Lenape. I must admit that at first I didn’t seem to get over so well with the fellows, but that was all my own fault, and now that everything is going fine, I can see why you wanted me to spend my summer with such a swell bunch of campers and leaders. My, the Chief must have been a great man to be friends with when you were in college together! He has certainly been nice to me.
“It would take a whole book to tell you all the things that have happened to me since you and Mama left. We played baseball with a camp named Shawnee, and beat them. I was fielding for a while, but got kicked out of the game in the middle because of a fool stunt, so I didn’t help the team any. You met the captain—Lefty Reardon, a splendid pitcher that I wish we had on our prep-school squad. He’s just one of the chaps in my tent—all of them are awfully lively and full of fun. I had a fight with a kid named Brick Ryan, but now we’re good friends. He’s a red-headed kid in our tent. Mr. McNulty, our leader, looks gloomy all the time but that is just his way, and the things he says would make you die laughing. He plays the sax, so they all call him Sax. He’s our councilor.
“I’ll bet you would be surprised if you knew all the things I learned about stars and flowers and boats and things. One of the kids tried to fool me and say that one tree was a castor oil tree that the castor oil came from, but I guess I’m not so green as to believe that, though. I’m learning to swim some, and Brick Ryan is showing me about diving into the water head first. He’s got what they call a Lenape honor emblem, which you can get for your jersey if you know a lot of camp things.
“We have to work hard here to keep the tent clean and get merit points to win a pennant every day to show which is the best tent. The first day I didn’t clean up enough and we got the ‘booby can’ that we had to hang up with ‘booby’ written on it. Each of us has to be waiter and wash dishes, but that’s fun too, like seeing if you can get ‘seconds’ on meat and potatoes when you’re the waiter. Tell Mama not to bother sending up all that candy and cake and stuff I asked for, because Wally Rawn, the swimming coach, says it’s bad to eat a lot of junk between meals all the time. I have to be in training now, because I want to learn to swim good.
“Now for the big news. The Chief told me that if I got my honor emblem all done and know everything by Sunday night, he will ask Mr. Carrigan to take me on the Long Trail. The Long Trail is a swell trip up the river and a hike through the woods and up a mountain, and I want to go if I can, so if the Chief will let me, say you won’t mind! I guess it’s quite exciting, because everybody wants to go, but only six can go every year, and if I go that will be seven. One of the fellows that is going is Brick Ryan. Reardon went last year, and he says you can catch bass fish and you take along a flag and nail it to a tree on top of the mountain. ‘Sax’ went once and a bear chased his canoe-mate, but don’t tell Mama that part or she will worry. But Mr. Carrigan is quite a woodsman and knows all about nature and things, although to look at him you wouldn’t think so, because he looks sort of funny and has a big nose. He knows all about bears. I can take along the canoe you gave me, the Sachem. The other fellows are Steve Link and a fellow we call ‘Spaghetti’ because his name is Megaro and he’s Italian, and Wild Willie Sanders and Ugly Brown and a fellow named Cowboy Platt who comes from Arizona where the cowboys come from. Ugly Brown is smaller than I am, but he knows a lot about the woods. Before we go we have to pass a physical examination but I never felt better in my life because I’m in training.
“Today I am being the tent aide. That is a rather important job, as you see it means you have to be a sort of assistant to the leader and keep all the fellows on their toes doing the right things, and yet do it without being bossy or mean. Lefty is the regular aide, but he let me do it to try for one part of my honor emblem. I still have lots of tests to pass for it yet. ‘Gollies,’ as my friend Brick Ryan would say, I sure hope that I don’t miss out and can’t finish it all by Sunday, for then I wouldn’t dare ask the Chief to let me go on the Long Trail.
“Well, I must get busy now and do some more things, but don’t forget that I’m to go to Mt. Kinnecut with the long trailers, and that if the Chief gives his permission, you will too. You can explain things to Mama, but don’t mention the bears.
“Your affectionate son, “Dirk van Horn.”
The writer surveyed this composition thoughtfully, scratched his ear, and replacing the page in the machine, added a brief paragraph.