“He thought Sandy Hook was a Scotchman,” retorted Roy. “Well, what’s the news, Jeb, anyway?”
“Yer didn’t give us no chance ter tell yer,” drawled Jeb, as they drew the boats up on shore. “Mebbe yer think yer wuz the fust arrivals, but yer wuzn’t.”
It was good to hear Roy’s familiar nonsense; Raymond, who was quiet and easily amused, saw with joy that the ancient hostilities between Roy and Pee-wee were still in full swing; and for all Roy’s dubious picture of an overcrowded boat (and so it must have been) they had found it possible to stop down the river for Garry Everson and bring him along.
“Last of the Mohicans,” said Roy, as he dragged Garry forward; “all that’s left of the famous Edgevale troop—left over from last summer. The only original has-been. Them wuz the happy days.”
There was Tom Slade, too, quiet and stolid as he always was and with no more sign of the scout regalia than he had shown when he was a hoodlum down in Barrel Alley. His gray flannel shirt and last year’s khaki trousers were in odd contrast to the new outfits which the other members of the Bridgeboro Troop wore. But then Tom was in odd contrast with everything and everybody anyway.
Two troops which had come up by the train had joined them at Catskill Landing so the new arrivals descended like an all-conquering host upon the quiet monotony of the big camp.
“And I’m going to stay till September,” said Raymond, clinging to Garry and talking to both Garry and Roy. “Mr. Temple sent the money. Do you remember how I couldn’t raise the flag last summer?”
“You were about as tough as a Welsbach gas mantel last summer,” laughed Roy.
“Well, now I can raise it with one hand and I can hike to Leeds and back. But listen—listen; we’ve got a mystery—it just happened——”
“Give it to Tom,” laughed Roy. “He’s the fellow for mysteries.”