Reaching the Ravens’ cabin, the victor paused just a second, and listened to the spent sound of the cheering down at the shore. Then he fell to ransacking his suitcase for a writing tablet. He had no duffel bag, for you see he was only a new scout. He had come hastily, with heart beating high.
Upon his writing tablet he scrawled a few lines, and left the whole tablet, with a stone for a weight, upon the stump outside. He had stood by that stump when he had taken the scout oath. His one frantic fear was that Brent Gaylong would amble along and show him that what he was going to do was all wrong; call him a quitter.
A sound! No—yes! No, it was only the breeze in the quiet trees.
He gathered together his few poor belongings, then paused for a last glimpse at the note.
Tell Gaylong I don’t bother with little things. Tell Pee-wee Harris the cup is safe till next summer anyway. Tell him his place is open in the patrol because I’m through. He knows what fixing means, because he’s a fixer. So tell him I fixed it. He’s the best little scout that ever was—he’s my idea of a scout.
Then he was gone. He hurried up through the woods and waited for the bus. He had to carry his suitcase continuously in his right hand, because his left hand and arm were nearly numb. The driver had to help him up into the bus, he was so stiff and lame.
As he sat in the seat, nursing his stinging hand, and saw the beautiful Catskill country, the wide fields where the men were cutting hay, the woods through which the scout trails ran, the distant smoke arising from the cooking shack at Temple Camp, the whole episode of his coming, of his triumph and of his going away seemed like happenings in a wonderful dream....
THE END