“Blamed if I know who Al Wilson is, or Walter, either, but if they buy a second-hand canoe in Ticonderoga they get stuck. Jiminy, but that Kid’s the greatest! I wonder what he’s been pushing into now.”
Gordon squatted before the dying signal-fire, an occasional gape of stupendous dimensions distorting his round face. Below him the camp slept peacefully. The dim light glimmered in the invalid’s tent, occasionally blurred by the shadow of the “First Aid” boy moving to and fro. Gordon knew now that his mind’s-eye picture of Arnold arriving like a conquering hero was an extravagant vision. He knew that the Albany scouts knew it, too.
“Al Wilson could not have done it,” said he, “nor any of the rest of ’em. Nobody can do impossibilities. These fellows think it’s easy to bring a ca-a-a-a—” He was trying to say canoe and gape at the same time.
“Hello, Kid,” said a low, careless voice, almost in his ear. “What are you doing here?”
“Harry!”
“Sure—who’d you think? Where’ve you been, anyway?”
“But Harry—”
“Who the dickens is Walter?”
The younger boy clutched his friend by the arm. “Harry—I—he’s a boy here—they—did you—why—”