The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tom Slade Picks a Winner, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh, Illustrated by Howard L. Hastings

TOM SLADE PICKS A WINNER

A DARK FIGURE GLIDED SILENTLY FROM BEHIND A TREE.

TOM SLADE

PICKS A WINNER

BY

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of

THE TOM SLADE BOOKS

THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS

THE WESTY MARTIN BOOKS

ILLUSTRATED BY

HOWARD L. HASTINGS

Published with the approval of

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1924, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

TOM SLADE PICKS A WINNER

CHAPTER I
SUSPENSE

The boy lay in a large, thickly upholstered Morris chair in the living room. His mother had lowered the back of this chair so that he could recline upon it, and she kneeled beside him holding his hand in one of hers while she gently bathed his forehead with the other. She watched his face intently, now and again averting her gaze to observe a young girl, her daughter, who had lifted aside the curtain in the front door and was gazing expectantly out into the quiet street.

“Is that he?” Mrs. Cowell asked anxiously.

“No, it’s a grocery car,” the girl answered.

Her mother sighed in impatience and despair. “Hadn’t you better ’phone again?” she asked.

“I don’t see what would be the use, mother; he said he’d come right away.”

“There he is now,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“No, it’s that Ford across the way,” said the girl patiently.

“I don’t see why people have Fords; look up the street, dear, and see if he isn’t coming; it must be half an hour.”

“It’s only about ten minutes, mother dear; you don’t feel any pain now, do you, Will?”

The boy moved his head from side to side, his mother watching him anxiously.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I can’t go to camp now, I suppose,” the boy said.

The girl frowned significantly at their mother as if to beseech her not to say the word which would mean disappointment to the boy.

“We’ll talk about that later, dear,” said Mrs. Cowell. “You don’t feel any of that—like you said—that dizzy feeling now?”

“Maybe I could go later,” said the boy.

Again the girl availed herself of the momentary chance afforded by her brother’s averted glance to give her mother a quick look of reproof, as if she had not too high an opinion of her mother’s tact. Poor Mrs. Cowell accepted the silent reprimand and warning and compromised with her daughter by saying:

“Perhaps so, we’ll see.”

“I know what you mean when you say you’ll see,” said the boy wistfully.

“You must just lie still now and not talk,” his mother said, as she soothed his forehead, the while trying to glimpse the street through one of the curtained windows.

In the tenseness of silent, impatient waiting, the clock which stood on the mantel sounded with the clearness of artillery; the noise of a child’s toy express wagon could be heard rattling over the flagstones outside where the voice of a small girl arose loud and clear in the balmy air.

“What are they doing now?” Mrs. Cowell asked irritably.

“They’re coasting, mother.”

“I should think that little Wentworth girl wouldn’t feel much like coasting after what she saw.”

But indeed the little Wentworth girl, having gaped wide-eyed at the spectacle of Wilfred Cowell reeling and collapsing and being carried into the house, had resumed her rather original enterprise of throwing a rubber ball and coasting after it in the miniature express wagon.

“He might be—dying—for all she knows,” said Mrs. Cowell. “He might,” she added, lowering her voice, “he might be——”

“Shh, mother,” pleaded the girl; “you know how children are.”

“I never knew a little girl to make so much noise,” said the distraught lady. “Are you sure he said he’d come right away?”

“For the tenth time, yes, mother.”

Arden Cowell quietly opened the front door and looked searchingly up and down the street. Half-way up the block was the little Wentworth girl enthroned in anything but a demure posture upon her rattling chariot, her legs astride the upheld shaft.

It was a beautiful day of early summer, and the air was heavy with the sweetness of blossoms. Near the end of the quiet, shady block, the monotonous hum of a lawn-mower could be heard making its first rounds upon some area of new grass. A grateful stillness reigned after the return to school of the horde of pupils home for the lunch hour.

Terrace Avenue was a direct route from Bridgeboro Heights to the Grammar School and groups of students passed through here on their way to and from luncheon. It was on the return to school after their exhilarating refreshment that they loitered and made the most noise. Sometimes for a tumultuous brief period their return pilgrimage could be likened to nothing less terrible than a world war occurring during an earthquake. Then suddenly, all would be silence.

It was on the return to school on this memorable day that the boys of Bridgeboro had witnessed the scene destined to have a tragic bearing on the life of Wilfred Cowell. But now, of all that boisterous company, only the little Wentworth girl remained, sovereign of the block, inelegantly squatted upon her rattling, zigzagging vehicle, pursuing the fugitive ball.

Arden Cowell, finding solace in the quietude and fragrance of the outdoors, stood upon the porch scanning the vista up Terrace Avenue and straining her eyes to discover the distant approach of the doctor’s car. But Doctor Brent’s sumptuous Cadillac coupe was not the first car to appear in this quiet, residential neighborhood.

Instead a little Ford, renouncing the advantages of an imposing approach down the long vista, came scooting around the next corner and stopped in front of the house. It was all so sudden and precipitous that Arden Cowell could only stare aghast.

CHAPTER II
A VISITOR

On the side of this Ford car was printed TEMPLE CAMP, GREENE COUNTY, N. Y. Its arrival was so headlong and bizarre that Miss Arden Cowell smiled rather more broadly than she would otherwise have done, considering her very slight acquaintance with the occupant.

Tom Slade, however, practised no modest reserve in the matter of his smiles; instead he laughed heartily at Arden and said as he stepped out, “Now you see it, now you don’t. Or rather now you don’t and now you do. What’s the matter with Billy, anyway? I met Blakeley and he said they carried him in the house—fainted or something or other.”

“He fell unconscious, that’s all we know,” said Arden. “He seems to be better now; we’re waiting for the doctor.”

“What d’you know!” exclaimed Tom in a tone of surprise and sympathy.

“Did—did that Blakeley boy say anything about his being a coward?” the girl asked, seeming to block Tom’s entrance into the house. “Just a minute, Mr. Slade; did they—the boys—did they say he was a—a—yellow something or other?”

“Naah,” laughed Tom. “Why, what’s the matter? May I see him?”

“Yes, you may,” whispered the girl, still holding the knob of the door; “but I—I’d like—first—I—before you hear anything I want you to say you know he isn’t a coward—yellow.”

“What was it, a scrap?”

“No, but it might have been,” said Arden. Tom looked rather puzzled.

“Mr. Tom—Slade,” the girl began nervously.

“Tom’s good enough.”

“My brother thinks a great deal of you—you’re his hero. The boys who were on their way back to school think he’s a coward. I think he isn’t. If you think he is, I want you to promise you won’t let him know—not just yet, anyway.” She spoke quietly and very intensely. “Will you promise me that? That you’ll be loyal?”

“I’m more loyal than you are,” laughed Tom. “You say you think he isn’t a coward. I know he isn’t. That’s the least thing that’s worrying me. What’s all the trouble anyway?”

Arden’s admiring, even thrilled, approval was plainly shown in the impulsive way in which she flung the door open. She was very winsome and graceful in the quick movement and in the momentary pause she made for the young camp assistant to pass within. Then she closed it and leaned against it.

“Well, well,” said Tom, breezing in. His very presence seemed a stimulant to the pale boy whose face lighted with pleasure at sight of the tall, khaki-clad young fellow who strode across the room and stood near the chair contemplating his young friend with a refreshing smile. He seemed to fill the whole room and to diffuse an atmosphere of cheer and wholesomeness.

“Excuse my appearance,” he said, “I’ve been trying to find a knock in that flivver; I guess we’ll have to take the knock with us, Billy.”

“I’m afraid he can’t go to that camp,” said Mrs. Cowell. “We’re waiting for the doctor; I do wish he’d come.”

“Well, let’s hear all about it,” said Tom.

“Let me tell him, mother,” said Arden.

Tom winked at Billy as if to say, “We’re in the hands of the women.”

“Let me tell him because I saw it with my own eyes,” said Arden.

She remained leaning against the street door and at every sound of an auto outside peered expectantly through the curtain as she talked. Tom had often seen her in the street and had known her for the new girl in town, belonging to the family that had moved to Bridgeboro from somewhere in Connecticut. Then, by reason of his interest in Wilfred, he had acquired a sort of slight bowing acquaintance with her. It occurred to him now that she was very pretty and of a high spirit which somehow set off her prettiness.

“Let me tell him, mother,” she repeated. “Did you notice that little girl, Mr. Slade——”

“Why don’t you call him Tom?” Wilfred asked weakly.

Here, indeed, was a question. An invalid, like an autocrat, may say what he pleases. Poor Mrs. Cowell made the matter worse.

“Yes, dear, call him Tom; Wilfred wants you to feel chummy with Mr. Tom—just as he does.”

“Did you notice a girl in an express wagon chasing a ball?” Arden asked.

“A girl in an express wagon chasing a ball?” Tom laughed. “I never notice girls in express wagons chasing balls when I’m driving.”

“Well,” said Arden, “a boy in a gray suit who was eating a piece of pie or something—do you know him?”

Tom shook his head. “I know so many boys that eat pie,” said he.

“He took the little girl’s ball just to tease her,” said Arden. “There was a whole crowd of boys and I suppose he wanted to show off. I was sitting right here on the porch. This is just what happened. Wilfred ran after him to make him give up the ball. Just as he reached him the boy—ugh, he’s just a bully—the boy threw the ball away——”

“Good,” said Tom.

“He knew he’d have to give it up,” said Wilfred weakly.

“I bet he did,” said Tom cheerily.

“Hush, dear,” said Mrs. Cowell to her son.

“Just as he threw the ball,” said Arden, “he raised his arm in a sort of threat at Wilfred.”

“But he gave up the ball,” laughed Tom.

“Yes, but Wilfred turned and went after the ball——”

“Naturally,” said Tom.

“And all those boys thought the reason he turned and ran was because he was afraid—afraid that coward and bully was going to hit him. Ugh! I just wish Wilfred had pommeled him.”

Tom laughed, for “pommel” is the word a girl uses when referring to pugilistic exploits.

“Just then he reeled and fell in a dead faint,” said Mrs. Cowell. “Mr. Atwell, our neighbor, brought him in here unconscious. I don’t know what it can be,” she sighed; “we’re waiting for the doctor now. It does seem as if he’d never come.”

Tom looked sober. Wilfred rocked his head from side to side smiling at Tom, a touching smile, as he caught his eye. The clock ticked away sounding like a trip-hammer in the silence of the room. The mother held the boy’s hand, watching him apprehensively. The little express wagon rattled past outside. The muffled hum of the lawn-mower could be heard in the distance. And somehow these sounds without seemed to harmonize with this drowsy mid-day of early summer.

Tom hardly knew what to say so he said in his cheery way, “Well, you made him give up the ball anyway, didn’t you, Billy?”

“That’s all I wanted,” Wilfred said.

“He would have got it no matter what,” said Arden.

“I bet he would,” Tom laughed.

It was rather amusing to see how deeply concerned the mother was about the boy’s condition (which manifestly was improving) and how the girl’s predominant concern was for her brother’s courage and honor.

“They just stood there—all of them,” she said with a tremor in her voice, “calling him coward and sissy.”

“But he got what he went after,” said Tom.

“Do you believe in fighting, Mr.—Tom?”

“Not when you can get what you want without it,” said Tom. “If I went after a rubber ball, or a gum-drop, or a crust of stale bread or a hunk of stone, I’d get it. I wouldn’t knock down any boys——”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“Unless I had to,” said Tom.

“Oh, I think you’re just splendid,” said Arden.

“Didn’t I tell you that?” said the boy lying in the chair.

Just then an auto stopped before the house and Arden Cowell, who had been leaning with her back against the door all the time, opened it softly to admit the doctor.

CHAPTER III
THE DOCTOR’S ORDERS

The Cowells were new to Bridgeboro and in the emergency had called Doctor Brent at random. He was brisk and efficient, seeming not particularly interested in the tragedy of the rubber ball nor the viewpoint of the juvenile audience.

His prompt attention to the patient imposed a silence which made the moments of waiting seem portentous. Out of this ominous silence would come what dreadful pronouncement? He felt the boy’s pulse, he lifted him and listened at his back, he applied his stethoscope, which harmless instrument has struck terror to more than one fond parent. He said, “Huh.”

“I think he must have been very nervous, doctor,” Mrs. Cowell ventured.

“No, it’s his heart,” said the doctor crisply.

Mrs. Cowell sighed, “It’s serious then?”

“No, not necessarily. He was running too hard. Has he ever been taken like this before?”

“No, never. He always ran freely.”

“Hmph.”

“No history of heart weakness at all, huh? Father living?”

“He died fourteen years ago but it wasn’t heart trouble.” Mrs. Cowell seemed glad of the chance to talk. “We lost a little son—it wasn’t—there was nothing the matter with him—he was stolen—kidnapped. Mr. Cowell refused a demand for ransom because the authorities thought they could apprehend the criminals. We never saw our little son again. It was remorse that he had refused to pay ransom that preyed upon my husband’s mind and broke his health down. That is the little boy’s photograph on the piano.”

The doctor glanced at it respectfully, then, his eye catching Arden, he said pleasantly, “You look healthy enough.”

“She’s very highly strung, doctor,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“Well,” said the doctor, in a manner of getting down to business, “sometimes we discover a condition that may have existed for a long time. We ought to be glad of the occasion which brings such a thing to light. Now we know what to do—or what not to do. He hasn’t been sick lately? Diphtheria or——”

“Yes, he had diphtheria,” said Mrs. Cowell surprised; “he hasn’t been well a month.”

“Ah,” said the doctor with almost a relish in his voice. “That’s what causes the mischief; he’ll be all right. It isn’t a chronic weakness. Diphtheria is apt to leave the heart in bad shape—it passes. Didn’t they tell you about that? That’s the treacherous character of diphtheria; you get well, then some day after a week or two you fall down. It’s an after effect that has to work off.”

“It isn’t serious then, doctor?” Wilfred’s mother asked anxiously.

“Not unless he makes it so. He must favor himself for a while.”

“How long?” the boy asked wistfully.

“Well, to be on the safe side I should say a month.”

“A month from to-day?” the wistful voice asked.

“You mustn’t pin the doctor down, dearie,” said Mrs. Cowell; “he means a month or two—or maybe six months.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” the doctor laughed. Then, evidently sizing the young patient up, he added, “We’ll make it an even month; this is the twenty-fifth of June. That will be playing safe. Think you can take it easy for a month?”

“I can if I have to,” said Wilfred.

“That’s the way to talk,” Doctor Brent encouraged.

“He can read nice books,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“Well,” said the doctor, “I’ll tell you what he mustn’t do, then you can tell him what he can do.” He addressed himself to the mother but it was evident that he was speaking at the boy. “He mustn’t go swimming or rowing. He ought not to run much. He ought to avoid all strenuous physical exertion.”

“You hear what the doctor says,” the fond mother warned.

“Couldn’t I go scout pace?” came the wistful query. “That’s six paces walking and six paces running?”

“Better do them all walking,” said the doctor.

“Then I can’t go to camp and be a scout?” the boy asked pitifully.

“Not this year,” said his mother gently; “because scouting means swimming and running and diving and climbing to catch birds——”

“Oh, they don’t catch birds, mother,” said Arden.

“They catch storks,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“You’re thinking of stalking,” laughed Tom.

“Gee, I want to go up there,” Wilfred pleaded. “If I say I won’t do those things——”

“It would be so hard for him to keep his promise at a place like that,” said Mrs. Cowell.

“Scouts are supposed to do things that are hard,” said Tom.

“Yes—what do you call them—stunts and things like that?” Mrs. Cowell persisted.

“Sure,” said Tom; “keeping a promise might be a stunt.”

“Oh, I don’t think it would be wise, Mr. Slade; I’m sure the doctor would say so.”

But the doctor did not say so. He glanced at the young fellow in khaki negligee who had sat in respectful silence during the examination and the talk. They all looked at him now, Mrs. Cowell in a way of rueful objection to whatever he might yet intend to say.

“Of course, if the doctor says he can’t go, that settles it,” said Tom. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about scouting. The main thing about scouting, the way we have it doped out, is to be loyal to your folks and keep your promises and all that. I thought Billy was going up there with me to beat every last scout in the place swimming and rowing and tracking—and all that stuff. I had him picked for a winner. Now it seems he has to beat them all doing something else. He has to keep his promise when you’re not watching him. It seems if he goes up there he’ll just have to flop around and maybe stalk a little and sit around the camp-fire and take it easy and lay off on the strenuous stuff. All right, whatever he undertakes to do, I back him up. I’ve got him picked for a winner. I say he can do anything, no matter how hard it is.

“The scouts have got twelve laws”—Tom counted them off on his fingers identifying them briefly—“trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient (get that), cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent. There’s nothing in any one of them about swimming and jumping or climbing. You can’t run when you stalk because if you run you’re not stalking. Billy’s a new chap in this town and I intended to take him up to Temple Camp and watch all the different troops scramble for him. Well, he’s got to lay off and take it easy; I say he can do that, too.”

“You got a doctor up there?” Doctor Brent asked.

“You bet, he’s a mighty fine chap, too.”

Doctor Brent paused, cogitating. “I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t go up there,” he said finally. “You’d give your word——”

“He’ll give his word, that’s better,” said Tom.

“Probably it will do him good,” said the doctor.

“I don’t want anybody up there to know I have heart trouble,” said Wilfred. “I don’t want them to think I’m a sick feller.”

“You’re not sick,” said his mother.

“Well, anyway, I don’t want them to know,” Wilfred persisted petulantly.

“Well, they don’t have to know,” said Tom. “I’ll get you started on some of the easy-going stuff—stalking’s about the best thing—and signaling maybe—and pretty soon they’ll all be eating out of your hand. You leave it to me.”

“Well then,” said the doctor, “I think that would be about the best thing for him. And as long as he’s going away and going to make a definite promise before he goes, we might as well make it hard and fast—definite. That’s the best way when dealing with a boy, isn’t it, Mrs. Cowell? Suppose we say one month. If he keeps thinking all the time about doing things he’s promised not to do, the country won’t do him much good. So we’ll say he’s to keep from running and swimming and diving and climbing and all such things for a month, and not even to think about them. Then on the first of August he’s to go and ask that doctor up there whether he can—maybe swim a little and so forth. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Wilfred.

“And do just exactly what he says.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s there most of the time,” said Tom. “Sometimes he’s fussing with his boat over at Catskill.”

“Well, wherever he is,” said Doctor Brent, winking aside at Tom, “you go to him on the first of August and tell him I said for him to let you know if it’s all right for you to liven up a little. Go to him before that if you don’t feel good.”

“I won’t because I don’t want any one to know I’m going to a doctor,” said Wilfred.

“Leave it to me,” said Tom reassuringly.

“May we come up and see him?” Arden asked.

“You tell ’em you may,” said Tom.

As Arden opened the street door for the doctor to pass out, the clang and clatter of the little Wentworth girl’s ramshackle wagon (it was her brother’s, to be exact) could be heard offending the summer stillness of that peaceful, suburban street. She renounced her fugitive ball long enough to pause in her eternal pursuit and shout an inquiry about her stricken hero.

“Ain’t he got to go to school no more?” she called.

It made very little difference, for school would be closing in a day or two anyway and the little Wentworth girl’s mad career of solitary glory would be at an end. Her brother, released from the thraldom of the classroom, would reclaim his abused vehicle. And the hero who was to make such bitter sacrifices on account of his gallantry would be off for his dubious holiday at Temple Camp.

CHAPTER IV
THE UNSEEN TRIUMPH

A new boy in a town makes an impression, good or bad, very quickly. If he is obtrusive he forces his way into boy circles at once, and is accepted more or less on his own terms provided he makes good.

The rough and ready way is perhaps the best way for a boy to get into the midst of things in a new town or a new neighborhood. Modesty and diffidence, so highly esteemed in some quarters, are apt to prove a handicap to a boy. For these good qualities counterfeit so many other qualities which are not good at all.

No doubt the shortest path of glory for a new boy is to lick the leader of the group in the strange neighborhood. Next to this heroic shortcut, boastful reminiscences of the town from which he came, and original forms of mischief imported from it, do very well—at the start.

But Wilfred Cowell was not the sort of boy to seek admittance into Bridgeboro’s coterie by any such means. He was diffident and sensitive. He began, as a shy boy will, to make acquaintance among the younger children, and for the first week or so was to be seen pulling the little Wentworth girl about in her wagon, or visiting “Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery” with Roland Ellman who lived next door. He walked home from school with the diminutive Willie Bradley and one day accompanied the little fellow to his back yard to inspect Willie’s turtle.

Following the path of least resistance and utterly unable to “butt in,” he made acquaintance where acquaintance was easiest to make. Thus, all unknown to him, the boys came to think of him as a “sissy.” Of course, they were not going to go after him and he did not know how to “get in” with them; at least he did not know any shortcut method. If he had stridden down to the ball field and said, “Give us a chance here, will you?” they would have given him a chance and then all would have been easy sailing. But he just did not know how to do that.

So he pulled the little Wentworth girl in her brother’s wagon, and he was doing that before returning to school on this memorable day of his collapse.

It must be admitted that he looked rather large to play the willing horse for so diminutive a driver. He was husky-looking enough and slender and rather tall for his age. There was no reminder of recent illness in his appearance. He had a fine color and brown eyes with the same spirited expression as those of his sister. He came of a good-looking family. Rosleigh, the little brother who had suffered a fate worse than death before Wilfred was born, was recalled by old friends of the saddened and reduced little family, as a child of rare beauty.

One feature only Wilfred had which was available to boy ridicule. His hair was wavy and a rebellious lock was continually falling over his forehead which he was forever pushing up again with his hand. There was certainly nothing sissified (as they say) in this. But in that fateful noon hour the groups of boys passing through the block paused to watch the new boy and soon caught on to this habit of his. Loitering, they began mimicking him and seemed to find satisfaction in ruffling their own hair in celebration of his unconscious habit.

It was certainly an inglorious and menial task to which Wilfred had consecrated the half hour or so at his disposal. The little Wentworth girl was a true autocrat. She threw the ball and he conveyed her to the stopping point.

How Lorrie Madden happened to get the ball no one noticed; he was always well ahead of his colleagues in mischief and teasing ridicule. Having secured it he put it in his pocket. He had not the slightest idea that Wilfred Cowell would approach him and demand it. No one ever demanded anything of Lorrie Madden; it was his habit to keep other boys’ property (and especially that of small children) until it suited his pleasure to return it. He did this, not in dishonesty, but for exhibit purposes.

Knowing his power and disposition to carry these unworthy whims to the last extreme of his victim’s exasperation, the boys upon the curb were seized with mirth at beholding Wilfred Cowell sauntering toward Madden as if all he had to do was to ask for the ball in order to get it. Such girlish innocence! They did not hear what was said, they only saw what happened.

“Let’s have that ball—quick,” said Wilfred easily.

“Quick? How do you get that way,” sneered Madden, producing the ball and bouncing it on the ground.

“Give it to me,” said Wilfred easily, “or I’ll knock you flat. Now don’t stand there talking.”

These were strange words to be addressed to Lorrie Madden—by a new boy with wavy hair. Lorrie Madden who had pulled Pee-wee Harris’ radio aerial down, “just for the fun of it.” Lorrie Madden who returned caps and desisted from disordering other boys’ neckties only in the moment dictated by his own sweet will. Yet it was not exactly the words he heard that gave him pause. Two brown eyes, wonderful with a strange light, were looking straight at him. One of these eyes, the right one, was contracted a little, conveying a suggestion of cold determination. No one saw this but Lorrie.

Then it was that Lorrie Madden did two things—immediately. One of these was on account of Wilfred Cowell. The other was on account of his audience on the opposite curb. To do him justice he thought and acted quickly, and with well-considered art. He threw the ball away nonchalantly, at the same time raising his arm in a disdainful threat. And Wilfred, being the kind of a boy he was, turned quietly and went after the ball. In this pursuit he presented a much less heroic figure than did the menacing warrior who had sent him scampering. He looked as if he were running away from a blow instead of after a ball.

It was in that moment of his unseen triumph that the clamorous group across the way hit upon the dubious nickname by which Wilfred Cowell came to be known at Temple Camp.

“Wilfraid, Wilfraid!” they called. “Run faster, you’ll catch it! There it goes in the gutter, Wilfraid. Wilfraid Coward! Giddap, horsy! Giddap, Wilfraid!”

It was with these cruel taunts ringing in his ears that Wilfred was laid low by the old enemy—the only foe that ever dared to lay hand on him. Treacherous to the last, his old adversary, diphtheria, with which he had fought a good fight, struck him to the ground amid the chorus of scornful mirth which he had aroused.

CHAPTER V
A PROMISE

“But you got the ball,” said Tom conclusively. They were driving up to Temple Camp in the official flivver which the young camp assistant always kept in Bridgeboro during the winter season. It was a familiar sight in this home town of so many of the camp’s devotees and the lettering on it served as a reminder to many a boy of that secluded haunt in the Catskills.

“Yes, and I got a nickname too.”

“You should worry; they’ll forget all about that up at camp.”

“Till they see me,” said Wilfred.

“Some of them won’t be there at all,” said Tom. “It’s only for scouts, you know. Of course all the local troop boys will be there—Blakeley and Hollister and Martin and Pee-wee Harris——”

“Is he a scout?”

“Is he? He’s about eighteen scouts; he’s the scream of the party. You won’t see Madden; that chap’s a false alarm anyway. I’m half sorry you didn’t slap his wrist while you had the chance.”

“He’s got them all hypnotized, just the same,” laughed Wilfred.

“They’ll come out of it.”

“Didn’t any of them want to come in the flivver?” Wilfred asked.

Here was his sensitiveness that was always cropping out. He was afraid they had eschewed this preferable way of travel because they did not want to go in his company.

“No, they go all kinds of ways. Some of them hike part way, some of them go by boat, some of them go by train. Wig Weigand wanted to go along with us but I told him no. I want to have a chance to talk things over with you, Billy; two’s a company, huh?”

“He knew I was going?” Wilfred asked.

“Sure, he did; that’s why he wanted to go along.”

“That’s the fellow that wears a book-strap for a belt?”

“That’s him; he’s a shark on signaling. You got a radio?”

Wilfred was glad that there was one of the Bridgeboro sojourners who seemed favorably disposed to him.

“No, I haven’t got much of anything,” he said, feeling a bit more comfortable on account of this trifling knowledge concerning Wig-wag Weigand. “I wanted to go to work when we moved here; I thought as long as I was leaving one school I might as well not start in another. We’ve had some job getting along as far back as I can remember; my dad didn’t leave much. As long as Sis is going to business school I thought I might as well get a start. I don’t know, I think I’d rather have a bicycle than a radio. Guess I’ll never have either.”

“They pass out some pretty nifty prizes in camp along about Labor Day,” Tom said. “You never can tell.”

“August first is my big day,” Wilfred laughed ruefully.

“Go-to-the-doctor day, huh?” Tom chuckled. “We have mother’s day, and go-to-church day, and clean-up day, and safety-first day, and watch your-step day— Well, you’ll have the whole of August to make a stab for honors and things.”

“Guess I won’t need a freight car to send home the prizes,” said Wilfred. “The best thing that’s happened to me so far is the way you call me Billy; Sis says she likes to hear you, you’re so fresh.”

“Yes?” laughed Tom. “Well, you and I and the doc beat your mother to it, didn’t we? Leave it to us. You went after something and got it. And I went after something and got it. We’re a couple of go-getters. Didn’t you mix in much with the fellows up in Connecticut?”

“There weren’t any fellows near us,” Wilfred said. “We lived a hundred miles from nowhere. I suppose that’s why Sis and I are such good friends.”

“You look enough alike,” said Tom. “Well, you are going where there are fellows enough now, I’ll hope to tell you.”

“I wanted to go in for scouting a year ago,” Wilfred said, “but there weren’t any scouts to join. Now I feel kind of—I feel sort of—funny—sort of as if it was just before promotion or something.”

Tom glanced at his protege sideways, captivated by the boy’s sensitiveness and guileless honesty.

“I’m glad it’s a long ride there,” Wilfred added.

“Any one would think you were on your way to the electric chair,” laughed Tom. And Wilfred laughed too.

“Will they all be at the entrance?” the boy asked, visibly amused at his own diffidence.

“No, they’ll all be in the grub shack,” said Tom. “That’s where they hang out; they’re a hungry bunch.”

“Maybe I won’t see so much of you, hey?” Wilfred asked.

“Oh, I’m here and there and all over—helping old Uncle Jeb. He’s manager—used to be a trapper out west. You must get on the right side of Uncle Jeb—go and talk to him. He can tell you stories that’ll make your hair stand on end; says ‘reckon’ and ‘critter’ and all that. Don’t fail to go and talk to him.”

“Will you introduce me to him?” Wilfred asked guilelessly.

“Will I? Certainly I won’t. Just go and talk to him when he’s sitting on the steps of Administration Shack smoking his pipe. Tell him I said for him to spin you that yarn about killing four grizzlies.”

“What’s his last name?” Wilfred asked.

“His last name is Uncle Jeb and if you call him Mr. Rushmore he’ll shoot you,” said Tom, a little impatiently.

“What patrol are you going to put me in?”

“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” Tom said. “I think I’ll slip you into the Raven outfit—they’re all Bridgeboro boys, of course. Punkin Odell is in Europe and when he comes back in the fall, the troop’s going to start a new patrol. Wig-wag Weigand is in that bunch——”

“The one that wanted to come with us?”

“Eh huh, and you’ll like them all. As it happens, there’s a vacancy in each one of the three patrols—Ravens, Silver Foxes and Elks. But I think you’ll fit in best with the Ravens. Pee-wee Harris is easy to get acquainted with and when you know him you’re all set because he’s a fixer. So I think I’ll slip you in with Pee-wee and Wig and that crowd. Now this is what I want to say to you while I have the chance. Don’t you think you’d better let the crowd know that you’re up there under a kind of a handicap?”

“No, I don’t,” said Wilfred definitely.

“Well, I’m just asking you,” Tom said apologetically.

“That place isn’t a hospital,” said Wilfred. “I’m not going to have all those fellows saying I have heart disease——”

“You haven’t,” said Tom.

“All right then, I’m not going to have anybody thinking I have. I’m not sick any more than you are—or any of them. And I don’t want you to tell them either. Do you think I want all those—those outdoor scouts thinking I’m weak?”

Again there blazed in Wilfred’s brown eyes that light which had given Lorrie Madden his sober second thought; the same light bespeaking pride and high spirit which Tom had seen in the eyes of Arden Cowell while she was championing her stricken brother. It was a something—pride if you will—that shone through the boy’s diffidence like the sun through a thin cloud.

“If you tell them, I won’t stay there,” he said, shaking his head so that his lock of wavy hair fell over his forehead and he brushed it up again with a fine defiance.

“All righto,” said Tom.

“Remember!”

“Yes, but you remember to keep your promise to your mother and the doctor,” Tom warned. “Because you know, Billy, I’m sort of responsible.”

“I’ll keep my promise as long as you don’t tell,” said the boy in a kind of spirited impulse. “But don’t you tell them I’m—I’ve—got heart failure—don’t you tell them that and I’ll keep my promise. Do you promise—do you?”

“I think I can keep a promise as well as you can,” Tom laughed, a little uneasy to observe this odd phase of his young friend’s character. He hardly knew how to take Wilfred. It occurred to him that the boy was going to have a pretty hard time of it with this odd mixture of sensitiveness and high spirit. He was afraid that his new recruit, so charmingly delicate and elusive in nature, was going to bunk his pride in one place while trying to save it in another. But all he said was, “All right, Billy, you’re the doctor.”

CHAPTER VI
THE LONE FIGURE

Wilfred Cowell saw Temple Camp for the first time as no other boy had ever seen it, for he went there not as a scout, but to become a scout. It was not only new but strange to him. He saw it first as the Ford emerged out of the woods road which ran from the highway to the clearing. No car but a Ford (which is the boy scout among cars) ever approached the remote camp site. And there about him were the buildings—cabins and rustic pavilions and tents for the overflow. If the invincible little flivver had rolled twenty feet more it would have taken an evening dip in the lake.

Wilfred had not supposed that the camp would break so suddenly upon him. He would have preferred to see it from a distance, to have had an opportunity of preparing for the ordeal of introduction. But he might have saved himself the fear of public presentation, for Temple Camp was eating. And when Temple Camp ate it presented a lesson in concentration which could not be excelled.

Not a scout was to be seen save one lonely figure paddling idly in a canoe out in the middle of the lake. Wilfred wondered why he was not at supper. He felt that he would like to approach his new life via this lonely figure, to be out there with him first, before the crowd beheld him. Then he remembered that he was not to go upon this lake—except as an idle passenger. Might he not paddle? He might not row or dive or—but might he not paddle? Well, not vigorously—as the others did. But as that figure silhouetted by the background of the mountain was doing?

No, he would not get himself into a position where he might be expected to exert himself more than he should. He would eschew the lake and stick to the stalking, and the birch bark work. He was in the hands of the powers that be and he would keep his promise to the letter.

One thing Wilfred was glad of and that was that he and Tom had stopped for a little supper in Kingston. He would not have to enter that great shack whence emanated the sound of what seemed like ten billion knives and forks and plates.

“Sure you don’t want to eat?” Tom asked.

“No, I had plenty.”

“All right, come ahead then.”

Tom led the way to the administration shack where a young man in scout attire asked Wilfred questions, writing the answers pertaining to age, parentage, residence, etc., in the blank spaces on an index card.

“Your folks are at this address all summer?”

“What?”

“They don’t go away?”

“No, sir, they stay in Bridgeboro.”

“You know how to swim?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You want the bills or shall we send them to your folks.”

Wilfred seemed bewildered. It was an evidence of how little he knew about scouting and the modern camp life of boys, that it had never occurred to him (nor to his mother either) that camps are often well organized and well managed communities, where bills are rendered and board paid. The boy flushed.

“That’s all right,” said Tom quickly; “I’ll see you later about that.”

“Yes, sir,” said the scout clerk pleasantly.

“What do you mean you’ll see him about it later,” Wilfred asked rather peremptorily, as they went out. “I didn’t——”

“Yes, you did,” laughed Tom. “You heard me say you were my guest, didn’t you? That was the idea all along; your mother understands it, anyway. Now look here, Billy; I’ve got a sort of a scholarship—understand? Never you mind about my relations with this camp. I can bring a fellow here and let him stay all summer without either you or I being under obligations to anybody—see? So don’t start in trying to tell me how to run my job. All you have to do is to make good so I’ll be glad I brought you up here. All you have to do is to be a good scout and you can do that by keeping the promise you made back home and doing the things your promise doesn’t prevent you from doing—there are a whole lot of things, believe me; look in the handbook.

“Now you bang around here a little while till I let the resident trustees and Uncle Jeb know I’m here, and then I’ll take you up to the Ravens’ cabin; by that time they’ll be through eating—I hope. Make yourself at home—that’s where we have camp-fire, up there.” He hurried away leaving Wilfred standing alone in the gathering twilight.

The boy strolled down to the lakeside and looked out upon the dark water. With all its somber beauty the scene was not one to cheer a new boy. Throughout the day that sequestered expanse of water was gay with life and the dense, wooded heights around it echoed to the sounds of voices of scouts bathing, fishing, rowing. One could dive from the springboard on the gently sloping camp shore and hear another diver splash into the placid water from the solemn depths of the precipitous forest opposite. You could make the ghost dive any time, as they said.

But now, with the enlivening carnival withdrawn and the community adjourned to the more substantial delights of the “grub shack,” the lake and its surrounding hills imparted a feeling of loneliness to the solitary watcher, and made him uncertain—and homesick.

Through the fast deepening shadows, he could see that lonely figure paddling idly about in his canoe. Why did he do that during supper-time, Wilfred wondered. Was he not hungry? This thought occurred to him because, in plain truth, he was himself a little hungry—just a little. He had not been perfectly frank with Tom about the sufficiency of their hasty lunch in Kingston. He just did not want to face that observant, noisy assemblage. Perhaps the solitary canoeist was another new boy—no, that could not be.... Then Wilfred noticed that the distant figure seemed to be clad in white. This became more and more noticeable as the darkness gathered.

The boy on the shore had kept another little secret from Tom Slade. And now, before he exposed this secret to the light, he looked behind him to make sure that none of that gorged and roistering company were emerging. He knew nothing of scout paraphernalia and had brought nothing with him because he owned just nothing.

Excepting one thing—a pathetic equipment. He was so rueful about its appropriateness to scouting, and so fearful that it might arouse humorous comment, that he had kept it in his pocket. It was an old-fashioned opera-glass. When told that signaling and stalking were within the scope of his privileged activities he had asked his mother for this, thinking it might be useful. But there was something so thoroughly “civilized” and old-fashioned about it that he felt rather dubious about having it with him. What would those young Daniel Boones think of an opera-glass?

He now raised this to his eyes and focused it on the figure out on the lake. That solitary idler seemed to leap near him in a single bound. He happened to be facing the camp shore and Wilfred could see a pleasant countenance looking straight at him and smiling. Evidently he knew he was being scrutinized and was amused. Wilfred could see now that he wore a duck jacket. Then, smiling all the while, the stranger waved his hand and Wilfred waved his own in acknowledgment. It seemed as if he had made an acquaintance....

When Tom returned to take him to the stronghold of the Ravens, scouts were pouring out of the “grub shack” like a triumphant army returning from a massacre.

The young assistant, as Wilfred later found, was always in a hurry.

“All right now,” he said, “come ahead if you want to be a Raven.”

They started up through a grove where there were three cabins.

“Who’s that fellow out on the lake?” Wilfred asked.

“What fellow?”

“There’s a fellow out there in a canoe; he’s got a white jacket—I think—I mean he’s all in white.”

“Oh, that’s the doc; that’s the fellow you’ve got a date with—later. Nice chap, too.”

“Doesn’t he eat?”

“Yes, but he’s not a human famine like the rest of this bunch. I suppose he finished early. You often see him flopping around evenings alone like that.”

“It seems funny,” said Wilfred.

“Well, you’re pretty much like him,” Tom laughed. “I suppose he likes to get away from the crowd now and then—you can’t blame him.”

“He’s young, isn’t he?”