He went on with his packing, thrusting things into the depths of his duffel bag half-heartedly and with but a fraction of his usual skill. "You know as well as I do about team hikes. How can we fix this up for three now? We've got everything ready and made all our plans; now it seems we've got to cart this kid along or be in Dutch up at Temple's. He can't hike twenty miles a day. He's just got a bee in his dome that he'd like——"
"It would be a good turn," interrupted Tom. "I was counting on a team hike myself. I wanted to be off on a trip alone with you a while. I'm disappointed too, but it would be a good turn—it would be a peach of a one, so far as that's concerned."
"No, it wouldn't," contradicted Roy. "It would be a piece of blamed foolishness."
"He'd furnish some fun—he always does."
"He'd furnish a lot of trouble and responsibility! Why can't he wait and come up with the rest? Makes me sick!" Roy added, as he hurled the aluminum coffee-pot out of a chair and sat down disgustedly.
"Now, you see, you dented that," said Tom.
"A lot I care. Gee, I'd like to call the whole thing off—that's what I'd like to do. I'd do it for two cents."
"Well, I've got two cents," said Tom, "but I'm not going to offer it. I say, let's make the best of it. I've seen you holding your sides laughing at Pee-wee. You said yourself he was a five-reel photoplay all by himself."
Roy drew a long breath and said nothing. He was plainly in his very worst humor. He did not want Pee-wee to go. He, too, wanted to be alone with Tom. There were plenty of good turns to be done without bothering with this particular one. Besides, it was not a good turn, he told himself. It would expose Walter Harris to perils—— Oh, Roy was very generous and considerate of Walter Harris——
"If it's a question of good turns," he said, "it would be a better turn to leave him home, where he'll be safe and happy. It's no good turn to him, dragging him up and down mountains till he's so dog-tired he falls all over himself—is it?"