Tom Slade on the River by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
CHAPTER III ROY'S CAMPFIRE YARN
"That's what you get for being small," sighed Pee-wee to RaymondHollister, as they strolled about together while waiting for supper."When you say you want to go with them or tell them about an idea youhave, they just laugh at you, or don't pay any attention. It just goes inone ear and out the other--because there's nothing to stop it, as Roysays. Gee, you have to laugh at that feller. He makes me awful madsometimes--when he gets to jollying--but you have to laugh at him."
"Do you know what he told me last summer?" said Raymond; "he was tellingme about the echoes and he said if I called Merry Christmas good and hardit would answer Happy New Year!"
"That's just like him," said Pee-wee, "you have to look out for him. WhenI first joined his patrol he told me a lot of stuff. He said if a fellerhad a malicious look it was a sign he belonged to the militia. He'll bejollying you and me all the time we're here--you see if he isn't. Hecalls me a scoutlet. And it'll be the same with you, only worse, becauseyou're even smaller than I am. What do you say we stick together?"
"I'll do it," said Raymond, "but I like Roy," he added. "I like himbetter than any of your patrol--I like him better than Tom Slade--a gooddeal."
"Tom isn't so bad," said Pee-wee, "but he's kind of queer."
"He doesn't look like a scout at all--not this year," said Raymond.
"He's thinking mostly about his patrol," said Pee-wee, "he's nutty abouthis patrol. He needs one more member. Roy and two or three others--Westy,he's pretty near as bad--they made a big rag doll with a punkin for ahead and brought it to scout meeting as a new member for Tom's patrol.Coming up the river there was a scarecrow in a field and Roy said,'There's your new member for you, Tom.' Oh, gee, but we did have some funcruising up. Sometimes I got mad when they kidded me, but most of thetime I had to laugh--especially when Roy gave an imitation of a dyingradiator--gee, that feller's the limit!"
Raymond enjoyed these tidbits of gossip about the Bridgeboro Troop, themembers of which were all more or less heroes to him.
"I like Garry best of all," he suddenly announced.
"Everybody likes him," said Pee-wee.
"He's just as smart as any scout in your troop," Raymond added, with thefaintest note of challenge in his tone.
The welcome sound of the supper horn brought their talk to an end. It wasa merry company that gathered about one of the three long boards (theother two were as yet unused) and to the scouts who were visiting TempleCamp for the first time this late evening meal, served by lantern lightunder the sombre trees with the still, black lake hard by and thefrowning hills encompassing them, was most delightful.
There were few among them (least of all Jeb and the scoutmaster) whobelieved that anything would be accomplished by Tom's expedition but evena hopeless enterprise seemed more scoutish than doing nothing and Mr.Ellsworth was certainly not the one to deny his scouts any adventure eventhough it offered nothing more than a forlorn hope.
After supper some one suggested campfire and soon the cheerful, cracklingblaze which seems to typify the very spirit of scouting was luring theboys back from pavilion and cabin and they lolled on the ground about itas it grew in volume and glittered in the black water.
"What d'you say we tell riddles?" suggested Pee-wee.
"All right," said Roy, who was poking the fire. "Riddle number one, Howmuch is twice?"
"Do you stir your coffee with your left hand?" shouted Pee-wee.
"No, with a spoon," said Roy; "no sooner said than stung!"
"Tell a story, Roy," some one called, and half dozen others, who hadalready fallen under Roy's spell, chimed in, "Sure, go ahead--story,story!"
"Well," said Roy, drawing his knees up and clasping his hands about them."Once there was a scout--anybody got a harmonica for some soft music? No?Well, once there was a scout and he was tracking. He came to a stone walland in climbing over it he fell."
"Scouts don't fall," shouted the irrepressible Pee-wee.
"Who's telling this?" said Roy. "As he was climbing over the stone wallhe fell. He fell on his face--and hurt his feelings. He wasself-conscious--I mean sub-conscious--I mean unconscious. He shouted forhelp."
"When he was unconscious?" ventured Raymond.
"Sure. But no help came. The sun was slowly sinking. The scout was afiend on first-aid. He opened his case and got out a bottle of camphor.He smelled it. He opened his eyes slowly and came to----"
"You make me sick!" shouted Pee-wee.
"There was a big scratch on his knee," Roy continued. "There was a holein his stocking--about as big as a seventy-five cent piece. He lookedabout but could not find the piece of stocking the size of a seventy-fivecent piece that had come out of the hole. Where was it? The hole wasthere--the whole hole; but where was the part of the stocking that hadbeen in the hole? He looked about."
"Topple him over backwards, will you!" called Pee-wee, in a disgustedappeal to Roy's nearest neighbor.
"He looked about some more. Then he sat up. Then he sat down. He was ascout--he was resourceful. He happened to remember that once he had eatena doughnut. The doughnut had a hole in it. The hole disappeared. He saidto himself----"
But he was not allowed to go further, for somebody inverted him accordingto Pee-wee's suggestion, and when the general laugh had subsided a boywho had said very little spoke up, half laughing but evidently in earnestand greatly interested in Roy.
"While we were rowing across the lake," he said, "you made some remarkabout your motor-boat being overcrowded on the trip up and I got an ideafrom some things that were said that two or three of you came up herealone last year. It struck me that you might have had some interestingexperiences from the way you spoke. I wanted to go with your friends offto that hill, but I didn't just like to ask----"
"That's the trouble with him," a smaller boy beside him, who wasevidently his friend, piped up. "He doesn't like to butt in--gee, you'dnever think he was a hero from the way he acts--or the way he talkseither."
The older boy took the general laugh good-naturedly. "I was justwondering," he said, "if you wouldn't tell us something about your trip."
"_He's_ had a lot of adventures, too," piped up the smaller boy, "andsaved people's lives--and things--and won plaudits----"
"Won _what_?" someone queried.
"Plaudits," he repeated; "they are things like--like--well, applause,kind of. But he don't know very much about girls, though."
"And what is _your_ name?" asked Mr. Ellsworth, amid the generallaughter.
"Gordon Lord--and his is Harry Arnold--he can swim two miles and back andhe can--he can--he can make raisin pudding," he concluded, lamely. "Andhe's got a tattoo mark on his arm."
"Delaware?" Roy queried, smiling across the blaze at Arnold.
"No, New Jersey--Oakwood, New Jersey--First Oakwood Troop--Hawk Patrol,we are. I guess we're a little bit ashamed of our patrol name just now."
There was silence for a minute as all thought of the tragic message whichhad fallen into the camp.
"You should worry about the name," said Roy.
"I don't suppose there's anything we can do," said Mr. Ellsworth, voicingthe thought which held all silent, "but sit here and wait, and if we'resensible we won't hope for too much. Come, Roy, let our new friends hearabout you boys coming up in the _Good Turn_."
"It isn't that big cruiser down at Catskill Landing, is it?" Arnoldinquired. "We saw that as we got off the train."
"No, that's the kind of a yacht boys have in twenty-five cent stories,"said Roy; "I saw that one; it's a pippin, isn't it? Guess it belongs to amillionaire, hey? No, ours is just a little cabin launch--poor, buthonest, tangoes along at about six miles an hour and isn't ashamed. Doyou want the full story?"
"If there aren't any stockings and stone-walls in it," someone suggested.
"All right, here goes," said Roy, settling, himself into his favoriteposture before the fire, with his hands clasped about his drawn-up kneesand the bright blaze
"You see, it was this way. Pee-wee Harris is the what'd you say his nameis--Lord? Pee-wee Harris over there is the Gordon Lord of our troop. AndTom Slade is our famous detective--Sherlock Nobody Holmes.
"Well, Tom and Pee-wee and I started ahead of the others last summer tohike it up here. Pee-wee got very tired (here he dodged a missile fromPee-wee) and so we were all glad when we got a little above Nyack andthings began to happen. They happened in large chunks.
"On the way up Pee-wee captured a pet bird that belonged to a little girl(oh, he's a regular gallant little lad, he is); he got the bird down outof a tree for her and to show how happy she was she began to cry."
"Gee, they're awful funny, ain't they?" commented Gordon Lord.
"Well, we beat it along till we hit the Hudson, then we started north.The shadows of night were falling."
"You read that in a book," interrupted Pee-wee.
Little Raymond was greatly amused. So was Mr. Ellsworth who poked up thefire and resumed his seat on the old bench beside Jeb Rushmore.
"Team work," someone suggested, slyly, indicating Gordon and Pee-wee.
"The kindergarten class will please be quiet," said Roy. "I repeat, theshadows of night were tumbling. It began to rain. And it rained, and itrained--and it rained.
"Suddenly, we saw this boat--we thought it was a shanty at first--in themiddle of a big marsh. So we plowed our way through the muck and crawledinto it. Pity the poor sailors on a night like that!
"Well, believe me, it was too sweet for anything in that old cabin.Pee-wee wasn't homesick any more (here Roy dodged again) and we settleddown for the night. The rain came down in sheets and pillowcases andthings and the cruel wind played havoc--I mean it blew--and shook the oldboat just as if she'd been in the water. But what cared we--yo, ho, mylads--we cared naught!
"Well, in the morning along came an old codger with a badge and said hewas a sheriff. He was looking for an escaped convict and we didn't suit.He told us the boat was owned by an old grouch in Nyack and said if wedidn't want to be arrested for trespassing and destroying property we'dbetter beat it. He told us some more about the old grouch, and I guessPee-wee and I thought the best thing to do was to hike it right along forHaverstraw and not wait for trouble. We had chopped up a couple of oldstanchions for firewood--worth about two Canadian dimes, they were, butour friend said old What's-his-name would be only too glad to call thatstealing and send us to jail. Honest, that old hulk was a _sight_. Youwouldn't have thought anybody would want to admit that he owned such aramshackle old pile of junk and that's why we made so free with it.
"Well, zip goes the fillum! Here's where Tom comes on the scene. He saidthat if that was the kind of a gink Old Crusty was we'd have to go andsee him and tell him what we'd done. He just blurted it out in that soberway of his and Pee-wee was scared out of his----"
This time Pee-wee landed a wad of uprooted grass in Roy's face.
"Pee-wee, as I said, was--with us (dodging again). The sheriff must havethought Tom was crazy. He gave us a--some kind of a scope--what d'youcall it--when they read your fortune?"
"Horoscope?" suggested Arnold, smiling.
"Correct--I thank you. He told us that we'd be in jail by night. Youought to have seen Pee-wee stare. I told him _he_ ought not to kick--he'dbeen shouting for adventures and here was a good one. So we trotted backto Nyack behind Tom and strode boldly up to Old Crusty's officeand--here's where the film changes--"
"Go ahead," said Arnold. "You've got me started now."
"Well, who do you think Old Crusty was?"
"Not the escaped convict!"
"Not on your life! He turned out to be the father of the little girlwhose pet bird Pee-wee had captured the day before."
"The plot grows thinner," said someone.
"Well, he had all the signs of an old grouch, hair ruffled up, spectacleshalf-way down his nose--but he fell for Pee-wee, you can bet.
"When he found out who we were (the girl must have told him about us, Isuppose) he got kind of interested and when Pee-wee started to explainthings he couldn't keep from laughing. Well, in the end he said the onlyway we could square ourselves was to take the boat away; he said itbelonged to his son who was dead, and that he didn't want it and we werewelcome to it and he'd send us a couple of men to help us launch it. Heseemed to feel pretty bad when he mentioned his son and we were sosurprised and excited at getting the boat that we just stood theregaping. Gee, how can you thank a man when he gives you a cabin launch?"
Arnold shook his head.
"Well, we spent a couple of days and eight dollars and fifty-two centsfixing the boat up and then, sure enough, along came two men and Mr.Stanton's chauffeur to jack the boat over and launch her for us. The girlcame along, too, in their auto, and oh, wasn't she tickled! Brought us alot of eats and a flag she'd made, and stayed to wish us--what do youcall it?"
"Bon voyage?"
"Correct--I thank you. Understand, I'm only giving you the facts. We hadmore fun those three days and that night launching the boat than youcould shake a stick at. Well, when we got her in the water I noticed thegirl had gone off a little way and kept staring at it. Gee, the boat didlook pretty nice when she got in the water. I thought maybe she was kindof thinking about her brother, you know, and it put it into my head toask one of the men how he died. She didn't come near us while we talked,but stood off there by herself staring at the launch. You see, it was thefirst time she'd seen it in the water since he was lost, and she wasalmost crying--I could tell that.
"Well, this is what the man told me. They said this Harry Stanton andanother fellow named Benty Willis were out in the launch on a stormynight. There was a skiff belonging to the launch, and people thought theymust have been in that, fishing. Anyway, the next morning, they found theskiff broken and swamped to her gunwale and right near it the body of theother fellow. The launch was riding on her anchor same as the nightbefore. The men said Mr. Stanton was so broken up that he had the boathauled ashore and a flood carried her up on the marsh where she was goingto pieces when we found her. He would never look at her again. They saidHarry Stanton could swim and that made some people think that maybe theywere run down by one of the big night boats on the Hudson and that Harrywas injured--killed that way, maybe.
"Anyway, when the girl got in the auto and said good-bye to us I couldsee she'd been crying all right, and she said we must be careful and notrun at night on account of the big liners."
"Hmph," said Arnold, thoughtfully.
"Gee, I'll never forget that night, with her sitting in the auto ready tostart home and the boat rocking in the water and waiting for us. I can'tstand seeing a girl cry, can you? I guess we all felt kind of sober whenwe said good-bye and she told us to be careful. Tom told her we'd try todo a _real_ good turn some day to pay her back, because we really owed itto her, you know, and there was something in the way he said it--you knowhow Tom blurts things out--that made me think he had an idea up hissleeve.
"Well, it was about an hour later, while we were sitting on the cabinroof, that Tom sprung it on us. We were going to start up river in themorning; we were just loafing--gee, it was nice in the moonlight!--whenhe said it would be a great thing for us to find Harry Stanton! Go-o-dni-i-ght! I was kind of sore at him because I didn't like to hear himjoking, sort of, about a fellow that was dead, especially after what thefellow's father and sister had done for us, but he came right back at meby pointing to the board we had the oil stove on. What do you think hedid? He showed us the letters N Y M P H under the fresh paint and saidthat board was part of the launch's old skiff and wanted to know how itgot back to the launch. What do you know about that? You see, we had runshort of paint and it was thin on that board because we'd mixed gasolinewith it. We ought to have mixed it with cod liver oil, hey?
"So there you are," concluded Roy; "Pee-wee and I just stared like acouple of gumps. Those fellows had been out in the skiff and theycouldn't have used it with that side plank ripped off. And how did it getbac
"Sounds as if the man might have been right about the skiff being smashedby a big boat," said Arnold. "Maybe Harry Stanton was injured and clungto that board. But why should he have pulled it aboard the launch? Andwhat I can't understand is that nobody should have noticed it except youfellows. Was it in the launch all the time?"
"Yup--right under one of the lockers. Pee-wee and I had hauled it out tomake a shelf for the oil stove."
"But how do you suppose it was no one had noticed it till you fellows gotbusy with the boat?"
"A scout is observant," said Roy, laughingly.
"Hmph--it's mighty interesting, anyway," mused Arnold. He drummed on alog with his fingers, and for a few moments no one spoke.
"Some mystery, hey?" said Roy, adding a log to the fire.