“Sure not,” Tom laughed. “Why, two boys have lost their lives at Temple Camp since the place opened up.”
“Well, I guess you’re right at that,” I confessed. “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” I added rather more briskly, for to tell you the truth the story Tom had told affected me so keenly that I found it hard to think of any other phase of the matter. Perhaps that is because I am a writer and am apt to see the dramatic element of a thing to the exclusion of everything else. “I’ll go up and see Mr. Temple; he can’t do more than throw me out. He and I have one thing in common anyway, that’s golf⸺”
“And scouting.”
“Yes, and scouting. I’ll tell him I think the more scout camps there are, the better. I’ll tell him I think that his own idea about a training camp for scoutmasters is a bully idea. And I’ll tell him I believe in you; that I think you know more about the real outdoor stuff than anybody this side of Mars. Of course, I can’t put myself in the position of asking him to start and endow a new camp. But I’ll sound him out, and I think I’m old enough so that he won’t just pat me on the back.”
“You’re young enough,” Tom said with spirit. “All you need is to sleep outdoors in the summer.”
“Thank you, I have a home to sleep in,” I said.
“And if we get this thing started, you’re going to come up there,” he declared.
“And while you’re careering around doing a hundred things at once, I’ll have to wander around the lake and think about the tragedy that made the new camp possible.”
“Oh, try to forget it,” said Tom.
“And there’s another thing,” I said. “What would Temple Camp ever do without you?”