CHAPTER VIII
JEFFREY WARING
The scene just described was in the Pow-wow Circle, as they called the open space where the camp fire burned by night at Temple Camp. After a difficult descent of the hill the boys had been met at the wood’s edge by Jeb with more scouts, a couple of visiting scoutmasters and a physician from the not far distant village. To Jeffrey, whose poor efforts had been so futile and bewildering, this orderly sequel to Garry’s smudge signal was nothing less than a miracle, and he gazed at the party from camp as if they had dropped from the clouds.
Despite their burden and the special caution which had been necessary in picking their way down, the descent had been easier than the laborious journey in the dark the night before, but it was long past noontime when they emerged at the edge of the woods.
Perhaps it was natural that Jeffrey, not knowing of that battle with the thicket and the darkness should have seen the signalling as the most astonishing feat, and since Doc had assumed responsibility for his injured uncle and in a way superintended the descent, perhaps it was natural too that the first-aid boy, who received a flattering comment from the real doctor, should come second to Garry in his estimation. Whatever his peculiarities, he certainly did not stint his hero-worship. But Tom he disregarded altogether.
“Do you know why that is?” said Gordon Lord, of the First Oakwood, N. J., Troop, talking the thing over with Honorable Pee-wee Harris, of Bridgeboro. “Do you know why that is?”
Pee-wee couldn’t guess, but he hazarded the observation that Jeffrey was a kind of a nut.
“It’s because Tom Slade doesn’t wear any uniform,” said Gordon. “It’s the uniform that gets people—specially girls. Gee, they all fall for the uniform—everybody does. You wouldn’t catch me going without it.”
“I don’t know why Tom doesn’t wear one,” said Pee-wee. “But even if he did I don’t think girls would notice him much—he isn’t that kind. He’s kind of clumsy, like. He worked after school all winter and he must have got a lot of money saved up, but when Roy asked him if he wasn’t going to get a suit and things, he said he wasn’t going to bother—he was more comfortable that way. We all got new outfits this year. Mr. Ellsworth says Tom’s a kind of a law inside himself—or something like that.”
It troubled Gordon that a boy who could do the things Tom had done should eschew the khaki regalia, the hanging jack knife, the belt axe and the scarf, and he spoke to Roy about it.
“Search me, kiddo,” said Roy. “He ought to have forty-’leven dollars and some trading stamps saved up. He’s a thrifty soul and he sold the Friday Evening Pest all winter. It’s got me guessing. Maybe he’s sending it to Belgium—he’s come out strong for the Allies now. He’s a sketch.”