"Wow!" he shouted. "Look at this. The treasure's name is Mud!"
Matt's look of disgust had changed to fiery anger.
"You're the one who put this trick up on me," he shouted. "You've been rubbing me wrong ever since we let you in here from nowhere. Now I'm going to pay you up!"
He made a wild lunge forward at Glen, and in a second the two were locked in a rough and tumble conflict in the narrow confines of the pit. But the scout master reached down from above and seized each by the collar, and Apple valiantly pushed himself in between their belligerent forms.
"Enough of that, boys," said Mr. Newton. "Climb out of that hole. Glen, what have you to say to this charge."
But Glen was spared from making an answer, for Henry Henry stood forth and spoke.
"He didn't do it, Mr. Newton. It was me," confessed Chick-chick, more convincing than grammatical. "Goosey was in it with me. When Matt turned us down yesterday we thought we'd give him something to dig for. Never dreamed he'd make big blow 'bout it. Just s'posed be little joke all t' himself. We came last night, dug down to hard pan; cut hole s' near exact size o' bread box as we could, made it heavy with dirt and turned it in upside down. Just joke, Mr. Newton."
And as "just a joke" it did not seem so very reprehensible, for a good joke that does no harm is not out of place in a scout camp. Mr. Newton had a private conversation with Henry Henry about his joke, but Chick-chick never told the boys what he said. The scout master also had a private conversation with Matt Burton and this also was kept a secret, but though it may have done Matt good it did not improve his attitude toward "Brick" Mason.
In most things Glen found the succeeding days marked by such happiness as he had never before enjoyed. He was a boy among boys. No one asked about his past. Scouts are taught to live in the present. It is not what they have been, but what they are and are aiming to be that carries weight. He found his word accepted as truth and so he made strong efforts to make it true. He did not spend his days in perfect harmony. The old disposition to have everything his own way still existed and many an angry word flared up and many times he was near the fighting line, but this had been so much a part of his every day living for so many years that it troubled him but little. Even with Matt Burton he had not come to blows, though Matt continued to assign to him disagreeable tasks, so markedly indeed, that Mr. Newton announced that he would make all assignments himself, henceforth. The treasure hunt proceeded with more or less zest but neither real nor fancied treasure was discovered. Nevertheless it supplied a new interest each day, and Glen enthusiastically did his share in keeping the interest alive. Every part of every day was in vivid contrast to the dull monotonous life he had been living. And yet he was not satisfied, there remained an eager longing for something, he knew not what; a great unsatisfied craving.
Glen was always a sound sleeper. He dreamed of the camp one night. The tussle with Matt Burton had really come, at last. He seemed to do very well at first but Matt had seized a pickax (the very one used in unearthing the bread box) and was beating him about the head with it. Fortunately he awoke before he was badly damaged. Spencer was reaching over from his cot and tapping his face with his cane.