“I guess I’ll say good-by now,” Wilfred said, extending his hand, “in case I don’t see you again to-day. I suppose you’re going on the early bus?”
“Sure—while the Ravens are sleeping peacefully. You might have been a Gray Wolf if you hadn’t moved away and become a Jersey mosquito. Remember now, write and tell me about your winning the contest—and remember you’re coming to New Haven in the holidays. And I’ll promise not to take anything away from you while you’re asleep.”
The Gray Wolf proffered his left hand, three fingers extended, for the scout handclasp which is known wherever scouts are known in all the world. And Wilfred (who hardly knew whether he was a scout or not) could not resist that fraternal advance. And so he shook hands, in the way that scouts do, with the boy whose life he had once saved by an exploit which had rung in the ears of the whole countryside.
“I don’t know what I’ll be doing, maybe I’ll come,” said Wilfred. He meant that he would try to if he could afford to. “Anyway, give my regards to your mother and father. I’d like to be living at the beach again, I know that.”
“You remember Black Alec that sold the hot dogs? He’s still there. I’m going to tell him I met the water-rat. Don’t you remember he’s the one that started that name?”
“Tell him I sent my regards,” said Wilfred.
He could not bring himself to part with this old acquaintance who recalled the happiest days of his young life, days of pleasure and achievement and triumph. He longed for the little cottage near the beach where he and Arden had played as children, and for the boisterous surf in which he had been so much at home.
It seemed that with the departure of Allison Berry, the last vestige of hope and happiness was going from him. He could not stir. So he let Allison go first and watched him as he sped around the pavilion, turning to display an odd conception of the scout salute and to wave his hand gaily. Then the Gray Wolf who owed his happy, triumphant young life to this stricken boy without hope, without even a scout suit, was gone.
Wilfred wandered up through the woods away from camp. What should he do now? At all events he wanted to be alone. In the stillness he could hear the sound of hammering far away, and gazing from an eminence on which he stood, he looked across the lake where tiny figures were moving. The sound of the hammering was spent by the distance and each stroke sounded double by reason of the echo. He pulled out his opera-glass and studying the farther shore made out that they were busy about what seemed to be a rough float. It was from this float that the swimmers would start in their race toward the camp shore. Preparations were under way.
He sat down on a rock, utterly disconsolate. His humorous, philosophical squint did not help him now. Fate was against him—he was a failure. He could not swim in this contest. It was curious how his mind worked. He believed that old Pop Winters had been made to cross his path in order to strengthen him in keeping his promise to his mother. Perhaps he would weaken—it was only six days from the twenty-fifth to the first—so he had been given a solemn obligation to perform on the momentous day of the race. It was all fixed.