"But you won't have to take tent space, will you?" Roy asked. "You should worry about us—we're nothing but scouts—kids. We didn't go over to France and fight. We only stayed here and walked our legs off selling Liberty Bonds to keep you going. Gee whiz, I knew you were sick and tired of us, but I didn't think you'd hand us one like that."
"Don't get excited, Roy," Doc Carson urged.
"Who's excited?" Roy shouted. "A lot he has to worry about. He'll be sleeping on his nice metal bed in the pavilion—assistant camp manager—while we're bunking in tents if we're lucky enough to get any space. Don't talk to me! I could see this coming. I suppose the scoutmaster of that troop out in Ohio was a friend of his in France. We should worry. We can go on a hike in August. It's little Alf I'm thinking of mostly."
It was noticeable that Tom Slade said not a word. With him actions always spoke louder than words and he had no words to explain his actions.
"All I've got to say to you" said Roy turning suddenly upon him, "is that as long as you care so much more about scouts out west than you do about your own troop, you'd better stay away from here—that's all I've got to say."
"That's what I say, too," said Westy.
"Same here," Connie said; "Jiminies, after all we did for you, to put one over on us like that; I don't see what you want to come here for anyway."
"I—I haven't got any other place to go," said Tom with touching honesty; "it's kind of like a home——"
"Well, there's one other place and that's the street," said Roy. "We haven't got any place to go either, thanks to you. You're a nice one to be shouting home sweet home—you are."
With a trembling hand, Tom Slade reached for his hat and fingering it nervously, paused for just a moment, irresolute.