For just a moment Tom hesitated, then he sat down on the sill alongside his companion.
"All right, old man," said the other; "spring it—you're through with me for good?"
"You got to tell me who you are," Tom said doggedly; "first you got to tell me who you are."
For a few moments they sat there in silence, Tom's companion whittling the stick and pondering.
"I ain't mad, anyway," Tom finally said.
"You're not?" the other asked.
"It don't make any difference as long as you're my friend, and you helped me."
The other looked up at him in surprise, surveying Tom's stolid, almost expressionless face which was fixed upon the distant camp. "You're solid, fourteen karat gold, Slady," he finally said. "I'm bad enough, goodness knows; but to put it over on a fellow like you, just because you're easy, it's—it just makes me feel like—Oh, I don't know—like a sneak. I'm ashamed to look you in the face, Slady."
Still Tom said nothing, only looked off through the trees below, where specks of white could be seen here and there amid the foliage. "They're putting up the overflow tents," he said, irrelevantly; "there'll be a lot coming Saturday."
Then, again, there was silence for a few moments.