The speaker, who had been half talking and half shouting, now came stumbling and panting up over the edge of the wooded decline where the thick brush had played havoc with his scout suit but not with his temper.
“Some climb, hey?” he breathed, laughing, and affecting the stagger of utter exhaustion. “I bet you knew an easier way up. The bunch told me not to beard the lion in his den, but I’m not afraid of lions. Here I am and you can’t get rid of me now. I’m up against it, Slady, and I want a few tips. They say you’re the only real scout since Kit Carson. What I’m hunting for is a wild animal, but I haven’t been able to find anything except a cricket, two beetles and a cow that belongs on the Hasbrook farm. Don’t mind if I stroll along with you a little way, do you? My name is Willetts—Hervey Willetts. I’m with that troop from Massachusetts. I’m an Eagle Scout—all but.”
“But’s a pretty big word,” Tom said.
“You said it,” Hervey Willetts said, still wrestling with his breath; “it’s the biggest word in the dictionary.”
CHAPTER IV
HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING
They strolled on through the woods together, the younger boy’s gayety and enthusiasm showing in pleasing contrast to Tom’s stolid manner.
He was a wholesome, vivacious boy, this Willetts, with a breeziness which seemed to captivate even his sober companion, and if Tom had felt any slight annoyance at being thus overhauled by a comparative stranger, the feeling quickly passed in the young scout’s cheery company.
“They told me down in camp that if I need a guide, philosopher, and friend, I’d better run you down, or up——”
“If you’d gone a little to the left you’d have found it easier,” Tom said, in his usual matter-of-fact manner.