Tom seemed interested. Here, at last, was a unique view of law breaking and of detecting and apprehending.
“Not for mine,” said the young fellow. “That’s what we pay ’em for and they’re loafin’ most of the time.”
Tom reflected. Here was a young fellow, evidently honest. He could be trusted with three hundred dollars. He seemed to be a wholesome, right thinking young fellow. Yet he would not report what he had seen. Was he really an accomplice then? He seemed very rough and crude and vulgar in contrast to Audry Ferris....
“Yer goner get out at Catskill?” he asked.
CHAPTER XXXII
ALONE
It was late in the afternoon when Tom alighted at Catskill. It seemed good to see the familiar surroundings in the riverside town which was so much frequented by the scouts from Temple Camp. There was Sholsen’s Sweet Shop where they bought sodas and cones. There was the platform outside the grain and feed store where they waited for the bus and jollied Pee-wee. It was all like a balm to Tom’s troubled mind.
He soon forgot his red-headed companion of the ride and thought of Audry and felt ashamed of his dilly-dallying. A fine mess he had made of it so far. Twenty miles or more above Kingston! The whole day had gone for nothing.
He felt weak, inefficient. And he had an unpleasant feeling of being an idle wanderer. He was ashamed of his aimlessness, the very quality which Audry had such a high contempt for in the men. That made him think of the men, of the inventor and the chauffeur without a license and Fairgreaves and all of them. And Whalen. He wondered what they were doing at that minute....
He was not in a hurry to go to Temple Camp. He had an odd feeling that they would wonder why he came, and suspect something amiss. Besides he wished not to face old Caleb Dyker. He thought he would wait until after dark before starting. Then by the time he reached camp, old Caleb would be in bed.