Tom says Schmitt tried to stab him with it. Of the frightful combat which took place in that car we can only imagine the details. Tom himself goes to pieces whenever he tries to talk about it. It was a case of one or the other—there seems little doubt of that. And in the end Schmitt either fell or was thrown out of the car. He must have been clutching at Tom’s neck as he fell for he tore away the cord on which hung Tom’s Scout cross and identification disk. These things were later picked up by the Germans who removed Schmitt’s body. Schmitt had a watch bearing the initials of his name, T. S., and to this was fastened a wallet containing some of his treasonable papers. He had also been corresponding with some girl in Bridgeboro and part of one of her letters, together with a photograph, were found in the wallet.
All of these matters you shall find in the story which I hope soon to give you and the circumstances attending the discovery of these things and my own connection with them, will surprise you greatly.
I shall write no more now, for indeed I find it hard to set these things down. Tom is getting better each day, he talks of you very much, and looks forward to the day when he can be a scoutmaster. All through the days of his sorrowful weakness and distraction the war has been a thing forgotten, and it is hard to arouse in him memories of those last days of his military career. But of scouting and of you he thinks continually and never tires of talking. And I always call him Tomasso because, he says, it reminds him of you.
POSTSCRIPT—WRITTEN AFTER MY RETURN TO AMERICA
I shall not prolong this narrative with an account of our return through France, though it is quite likely that I may, at another time, detail one or two of the rather surprising adventures which we encountered on that remarkable journey. For what seemed to me good and sufficient reasons, our progress was made as surreptitiously as possible, it being my intention to keep the whole business quiet until we should report at Chalons which was where Tom had been stationed.
But, as you probably know, if you have seen any of those misleading news items, we were arrested at Langres. Here our pleasant hike through the hills, which I had counted upon to restore Tom’s mental repose, was rudely brought to an end by the preposterous charge that I was assisting a deserter. The matter was straightened out in an hour, of course, and is too ridiculous to dwell upon. Even the army medical men, who should have known better, smiled annoyingly when I stated, what was the plain truth, that it had simply been my intention to afford Tom a few days of the old woods life which he loved before presenting him to the authorities. And I have to thank his own irrational stubbornness and crying rebellion, that he was not taken from me altogether.
The incident is of no consequence, but I think you must already have discovered that Tom’s memories of scouting, even when he was at his worst, formed the one link which bound his fitful and disordered mind to former days. Indeed, it was by this means that I began the task of nursing and diverting him. The merest mention of a camp fire or casual reference to a trail found always a ready response and I have learned myself to love Nature and all her beneficent influences and soothing voices, for the knowledge of how she dwelt constantly in the poor brain which could hold naught else.
It remains only to say that the task which I began has been triumphantly completed by a keen-eyed old man who presides over Temple Camp in the Catskills—Uncle Jeb, the boys call him. And if anyone in this war-torn world could bring peace and poise to a distracted soul, Jeb Rushmore is that man.
And this brings me to my final task of gathering up the few loose threads of my tale, a thing which I could not do save for Tom’s complete recovery. Straightway upon our return to Bridgeboro, Mr. Ellsworth, that indefatigable scoutmaster, took him up to Temple Camp, where he and Uncle Jeb are now busy getting the big camp ready for the influx of scouts which begins about June.
Roy, Mr. Ellsworth and I lost no time in discussing the proposition of publishing this whole story, and there seemed but one obstacle to our doing so. This was Margie Clayton, as sweet and patriotic a girl as ever lived, and what good end could be served by proclaiming to the world that the young fellow whom she had liked and trusted was a sneak and a traitor? Evidently she had cared for young Schmitt—there is no accounting for tastes, and girls are funny things. It was Roy, bully scout that he is, who put the clincher upon this discussion by reminding us of some rule or other that a scout must be kind and chivalrous.