TOM SHOT ANOTHER DENSE PILLAR OF BLACKNESS INTO THE MOONLIT SKY.
A few straggled after him, smiling, doubting. And others followed after those few. These last would not have admitted that they were following Spiffy. They did not rally about him as he sped into the night; they straggled along, laughing among themselves. One said that Spiffy had been seeing things, and this created a chorus of laughter.
I can’t tell you how glad I am that the young camp manager went. He hurried along with the others, the big boy who knew the Morse code so well running at his side. In the intervals of his panting he said, “When’s he going home, anyway?”
“To-morrow, I guess—poor kid,” the young manager panted.
Yes, I am glad that those two went along; I wouldn’t have had them miss it for anything....
CHAPTER XXXV—The Knock-Out
Into the Hawkeye Spoke Trail he sped, hatless, abandoned. And they followed, not because they trusted him, but because he seemed possessed. At least they would see the fun of an anti-climax. Over the edge of Pine Hill he sped and across the Sloatsburg road and past Breakneck Pond and into the valley. He had picked his way at night before, the unruly little rascal, and he knew his ground now. No one asked him where he was going, but the moon beyond the signal hill smiled upon him and guided him.
On he sped, stumbling, pausing in doubt, then plunging forward again with maniacal desperation. He had been denied the pathfinder’s badge, this boy. It was quite all right and according to the handbook. Only they took credit afterward for his fine spirit. But it was not the Bear Mountain camps that stirred the soul within him as he ran headlong through the night. What bore him on in this perfect frenzy was a spirit from another camp, the personality of Tom Slade of Temple Camp which had knocked him flat and set him on his feet again. He knew what he knew. And he sped on....
And so it happened that a couple of score of Scouts swarmed into the wild, narrow valley and felt the heat which filled the place and saw the fast-approaching flames. They faced the infantry of the blaze and the rushing cavalry of the wind. And then indeed was fulfilled Brent Gaylong’s rueful prediction, They shall not pass.
And they did not pass.