“That’s right, Cale, you can bet your mother will stand back of you!” burst out Billy, whose heart was beating in sympathy for the wretched boy. “’Specially if she knows you’ve turned over a new leaf, and mean to walk straight after this. You tell her that the first thing, and it’s going to be all right, believe me!”
Cale smiled in a wan sort of way, as he nodded his head.
“I kind of guess pretty near all mothers are alike that way,” he said. “I’ve been a bad boy, and tried to break my mother’s heart with my doings; but, say, I’ve had a terrible lesson. I don’t pity myself one bit, because I deserved all I got, and heaps more. But if ever I do get another chance, I’ll show what there is in me or die a-trying.”
“That’s the stuff!” declared Billy, vehemently.
Walter could not keep from reaching out and gripping the other’s hand; for the time being he had even forgotten all about the mystery connected with Cale, in his sympathy for the other’s troubles.
“Well, it’s all over now, Cale,” he said, as warmly as he could. “If you let us engineer this thing, we’ll see you through. When Hugh here takes on a job he never draws back. Just you make up your mind that you’ve seen the last of that man, and it ends it all.”
“If he finds out that I’ve gone, he’ll chase after me like hot cakes,” said Cale uneasily, looking over his shoulder as he spoke, as though half fearing he might discover the black-eyed fakir hurrying along, bent on snatching him away from the custody of these new friends.
“All right, let him come,” said Billy, as he stooped and possessed himself of a likely looking stick that in case of emergency might be made to serve in the capacity of a cudgel.
Hugh just then gave utterance to a peculiar sound—at least it might have seemed strange in the ears of any one not connected with a scout troop.
“How-ooo-ooo!”