"I kinder knew it was you," said Tom in his impassive way, "as soon as I saw you take that cigarette out of your mouth, 'cause you do it such a swell way, kind of," he added, ingenuously; "just like the way you used to when you sat on the window-sill in Temple Camp office and jollied Margaret Ellison. Maybe you don't remember."
Still Roscoe held him at arm's length, smiling all over his handsome, vivacious face. Then he removed one of his hands from Tom's shoulder and gave him a push in the chest in the old way.
"It's the same old Tom Slade, I'll be—— And with the front of your belt away around at the side, as usual. This is better than taking a hundred prisoners. How are you and how'd you get here, you sober old tow-head, you?" and he gripped Tom's hand with impulsive vehemence. "This sure does beat all! I might have known if I found you at all it would be in the woods, you old pathfinder!" and he gave Tom another shove, then rapped him on the shoulder and slipped his hand around his neck in a way all his own.
"I—I like to hear you talk that way," said Tom, with that queer dullness which Roscoe liked; "it reminds me of old times."
"Kind of?" prompted Roscoe, laughing. "Is our friend here dead?"
"Yes, he's very dead," said Tom soberly, "but I think there are others around in the bushes."
"There are some enemies there," said Roscoe, "but we won't kill them. Contemptible murderers!" he muttered, as he hauled the dead Boche out of the stream. "I'll pick you off one by one, as fast as you come up here, you gang of back-stabbers! Look here," he added.
"I got to admit you can do it," said Tom with frank admiration.
Roscoe pulled away the shrubbery where the German had been kneeling when he was struck and there was revealed a great hogshead, larger, Tom thought, than any he had ever seen.
"That's the kind of weapons they fight with," Roscoe said, disgustedly. "Look here," he added, pulling the foliage away still more. "Don't touch it. See? It leads down from another one. It's poison."