"I bet he's thinking of his son," said he.

"Wonder how he died," said Tom.



CHAPTER VIII

BON VOYAGE!

"Now, you see," said Pee-wee, "how a good turn can evolute."

"Can what?" said Tom.

"Evolute."

"It could neverlute with me," observed Roy. "Gee, but we've fallen in soft! You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. I wonder what our sleuth friend, the sheriff, will say."

The sheriff said very little; he was too astonished to say much. So were most of the people of the town. When they heard that "Old Man Stanton" had given Harry Stanton's boat to some strange boys from out of town, they said that the loss of his son must have affected his mind. The boys of the neighborhood, incredulous, went out on the marsh the next day when the rain held up, and stood about watching the three strangers at work and marvelling at "Old Man Stanton's" extraordinary generosity.

"Aw, he handed 'em a lemon!" commented the wiseacre. "That boat'll never run—it won't even float!"

But Harry Stanton's cruising launch was no lemon. It proved to be staunch and solid. There wasn't a rotten plank in her. Her sorry appearance was merely the superficial shabbiness which comes from disuse and this the boys had neither the time nor the money to remedy; but the hull and the engine were good.

To the latter Roy devoted himself, for he knew something of gas engines by reason of the two automobiles at his own house. They made a list of the things they needed, took another hike into Nyack and came back laden with material and provisions. Roy poured a half-gallon or so of kerosene into each of the two cylinders and left it over night. The next morning when he drained it off the wheel turned over easily enough. A set of eight dry cells, some new wiring, a couple of new plugs, a little session with a pitted coil, a little more gas, a little less air, a little more gas, and finally the welcome first explosion, so dear to the heart of the motor-boatist, rewarded Roy's efforts of half a day.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shrieked Pee-wee from outside. "I hung the paint can on the propeller! I'm getting a green shower bath!"

He poked his head over the combing, his face, arms and clothing bespattered with copper paint.

"Never mind, kiddo," laughed Roy, "It's all in the game. She runs like a dream. Step a little closer, ladies and gentlemen, and view the leopard boy. Pee-wee, you're a sight! For goodness' sakes, get some sandpaper!"

The two days of working on the Good Turn were two days of fun. It was not necessary to caulk her lower seams for the dampness of the marsh had kept them tight, and the seams above were easy. They did not bother about following the water-line and painting her free-board white; a coat of copper paint over the whole hull sufficed. They painted the sheathing of the cockpit a common-sense brown, "neat but not gaudy," as Roy said. The deck received a coat of an unknown color which their friend, the sheriff, brought them saying he had used it on his chicken-coop. The engine they did in aluminum paint, the fly-wheel in a gaudy red, and then they mixed what was left of all the paints.

"I bet we get a kind of blackish white," said Pee-wee.

"I bet it's green," said Tom.

But it turned out to be a weak silvery gray and with this they painted the cabin, or rather half the cabin, for their paint gave out.

They sat until long after midnight in the little cabin after their first day's work, but were up and at it again bright and early in the morning, for Mr. Stanton's men were coming with the block and falls at high tide in the evening to haul the Good Turn back into her watery home.

Pee-wee spent a good part of the day throwing out superfluous junk and tidying up the little cabin, while Tom and Roy repaired the rubbing-rail where it had broken loose and attended to other slight repairs on the outside.

The dying sunlight was beginning to flicker on the river and the three were finishing their supper in the cabin when Tom, looking through the porthole, called, "Oh, here comes the truck and an automobile just in front of it!"

Sure enough, there on the road was the truck with its great coil of hempen rope and its big pulleys, accompanied by two men in overalls. Pee-wee could not repress his exuberance as the trio clambered up on the cabin roof and waved to the little cavalcade.

"In an hour more she'll be in the water," he shouted, "and we'll——"

"We'll anchor till daylight," concluded Roy.

In another moment a young girl, laden with bundles, had left the automobile and was picking her way across the marsh. It proved to be the owner of the fugitive bird.

"I've brought you all the things that belong to the boat," she said, "and I'm going to stay and see it launched. My father was coming too but he had a meeting or something or other. Isn't it perfectly glorious how you chopped up the stanchions——"

"Great," said Roy. "It shows the good that comes out of breaking the law. If we hadn't chopped up the stanchions——"

"Oh, crinkums, look at this!" interrupted Pee-wee. He was handling the colored bow lamp.

"And here's the compass, and here's the whistle, and here's the fog-bell," said the girl, unloading her burden with a sigh of relief. "And here's the flag for the stern and here—look—I made this all by myself and sat up till eleven o'clock to do it—see!"

She unfolded a cheese-cloth pennant with the name Good Turn sewed upon it. "You have to fly this at the bow in memory of your getting my bird for me," she said.

"We'll fly it at the bow in memory of what you and your father have done for us," said Tom.

"And here's some fruit, and here's some salmon, and here's some pickled something or other—I got them all out of the pantry and they weigh a ton!"

There was no time for talking if the boat was to be got to the river before dark, and the boys fell to with the men while the girl looked about the cabin with exclamations of surprise.

"Isn't it perfectly lovely," she called to Tom, who was outside encircling the hull with a double line of heavy rope, under the men's direction. "I never saw anything so cute and wasn't it a fine idea giving it to you!"

"Bully," said Tom.

"It was just going to ruin here," she said, "and it was a shame."

It was a busy scene that followed and the boys had a glimpse of the wonderful power of the block and falls. To an enormous tree on the roadside a gigantic three-wheel pulley was fastened by means of a metal band around the lower part of the trunk. Several other pulleys between this and the boat multiplied the hauling power to such a degree that one person pulling on the loose end which was left after the rope had been passed back and forth many times through the several pulleys, could actually move the boat. The hull was completely encircled, the rope running along the sides and around the stern with another rope below near the keel so that the least amount of strain would be put upon her.

They hitched the horses to the rope's end and as the beasts plunged through the yielding marsh the boat came reeling and lurching toward the road. Here they laid planks and rollers and jacked her across. This was not so much a matter of brute strength as of skill. The two men with the aid of the Stanton chauffeur were able, with props of the right length, to keep the Good Turn on an even keel, while the boys removed and replaced the rollers. It was interesting to see how the bulky hull could be moved several hundred feet, guided and urged across a road and retarded upon the down grade to the river by two or three men who knew just how to do it.

Cautiously the rollers were retarded with obstructing sticks, as the men, balancing the hull upright, let her slowly down the slope into the water. Pee-wee stood upon the road holding the rope's end and a thrill went through him when he felt the rocking and bobbing of the boat as it regained its wonted home, and at last floated freely in the water.

"Hang on to that, youngster," called one of the men. "She's where she can do as she likes now."

As the Good Turn, free at last from prosaic rollers and plank tracks, rolled easily in the swell, pulling gently upon the rope which the excited Pee-wee held, it seemed that she must be as pleased as her new owners were, at finding herself once more in her natural home. How graceful and beautiful she looked now, in the dying light! There is nothing so clumsy looking as a boat on shore. To one who has seen a craft "laid up," it is hardly recognizable when launched.

"Well, there ye are," said one of the men, "an' 'tain't dark yet neither. You can move 'er by pullin' one finger now, hey? She looks mighty nat'ral, don't she, Bill? Remember when we trucked her up from the freight station and dumped her in three year ago? She was the Nymph then. Gol, how happy that kid was—you remember, Bill? I'll tell you kids now what I told him then—told him right in front of his father; I says, 'Harry, you remember she's human and treat her as such,' that's what I says ter him. You remember, Bill."

Roy noticed that the girl had strolled away and was standing in the gathering darkness a few yards distant, gazing at the boat. The clumsy looking hull, in which the boys had taken refuge, seemed trim and graceful now, and Roy was reminded of the fairy story of the ugly duckling, who was really a swan, but whose wondrous beauty was unappreciated until it found itself among its own kindred.

"Yes, sir, that's wot I told him, 'cause I've lived on the river here all my life, ain't I, Bill, an' I know. Yer don't give an automobile no name, an' yer don't give an airyplane no name, an' yer don't give a motorcycle nor a bicycle no name, but yer give a boat a name 'cause she's human. She'll be cranky and stubborn an' then she'll be soft and amiable as pie—that's 'cause she's human. An' that's why a man'll let a old boat stan' an' rot ruther'n sell it. 'Cause it's human and it kinder gets him. You treat her as such, you boys."

"How did Harry Stanton die?" Tom asked.

The man, with a significant motion of his finger toward the lone figure of the girl, drew nearer and the boys gathered about him.

"The old gent didn' tell ye, hey?"

"Not a word."

"Hmmm—well, Harry was summat older'n you boys, he was gettin' to be a reg'lar young man. Trouble with him was he didn' know what he wanted. First off, he must have a horse, 'n' then he must have a boat, so th' old man, he got him this boat. He's crusty, but he's all to the good, th' old man is."

"You bet your life he is," said Pee-wee.

"Well, Harry an' Benty Willis—you remember Benty, Bill—him an' Benty Willis was out in the Nymph—that's this here very boat. They had 'er anchored up a ways here, right off Cerry's Hill, an' they was out in the skiff floppin' 'round—some said fishin'."

"They was bobbin' fer eels, that's wot they was doin'," said the other man.

"Well, wotever they was doin' it was night 'n' thar was a storm. An' that's every bloomin' thing me or you or anybody else'll ever know about it. The next day Croby Risbeck up here was out fer his nets an' he come on the skiff swamped, over there off'n that point. An' near it was Benty Willis."

"Drowned?" asked Roy.

"Drownded. He must o' tried to keep afloat by clingin' t' the skiff, but she was down to her gunnel an' wouldn' keep a cat afloat. He might o' kep' his head out o' water a spell clingin' to it. All I know is he was drownded when he was found. Wotever become o' that skiff, Bill?"

"And what about Mr. Stanton's son?" Roy asked.

"Well, they got his hat an' his coat that he must a' thrown off an' that's all. Th' old man 'ud never look at the launch again. He had her brought over'n' tied up right about here, an' there she stood till the floods carried her up over this here road and sot her down in the marsh."

"Did the skiff belong with her?" Roy asked.

"Sure enough; always taggin' on behind."

"How did they think it happened?" asked Tom.

"Wall, fer one thing, it was a rough night an' they may uv jest got swamped. But agin, it's a fact that Harry knew how to swim; he was a reg'lar water-rat. Now, what I think is this. Th' only thing 't 'd prevent that lad gettin' ashore'd be his gettin' killed—not drowned, but killed."

"You don't mean murdered?" Tom asked.

"Well, if they was swamped by the big night boat, an' he got mixed up with the paddle wheel, I don't know if ye'd call it murder, but it'd be killin', sure enough. Leastways, they never got him, an' it's my belief he was chopped up. Take a tip from me, you boys, an' look out fer the night boat, 'cause the night boat ain't a-goin' t' look out fer you."

The girl, strolling back, put an end to their talk, but it was clear that she, too, must have been thinking of that fatal night, for her eyes were red and she seemed less vivacious.

"You must be careful," said she, "there are a good many accidents on the river. My father told me to tell you you'd better not do much traveling at night. I want to see you on board, and then I must go home," she added.

She held out her hand and Roy, who was in this instance best suited to speak for the three, grasped it.

"There's no use trying to thank you and your father," he said. "If you'd given us some little thing we could thank you, but it seems silly to say just the same thing when we have a thing like this given to us, and yet it seems worse for us to go away without saying anything. I guess you know what I mean."

"You must promise to be careful—can you all swim?"

"We are scouts," laughed Roy.

"And that means you can do anything, I suppose."

"No, not that," Roy answered, "but we do want to tell you how much we thank you—you and your father."

"Especially you," put in Pee-wee.

She smiled, a pretty wistful smile, and her eyes glistened. "You did more for me," she said, "you got my bird back. I care more for that bird than I could ever care for any boat. My brother brought it to me from Costa Rica."

She stepped back to the auto. The chauffeur was already in his place, and the two men were coiling up their ropes and piling the heavy planks and rollers on board the truck. The freshly painted boat was growing dim in the gathering darkness and the lordly hills across the river were paling into gray again. As the little group paused, a deep, melodious whistle re-echoed from the towering heights and the great night boat came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up midstream. The Good Turn bobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white giant passed. The girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for a moment no one spoke.

"Was your brother—fond of traveling?" Roy ventured.

"Yes, he was crazy for it," she answered, "and you can't bring him back as you brought my bird back—you can't do everything after all."

It was Tom Slade who spoke now. "We couldn't do any more than try," said he. He spoke in that dull, heavy manner, and it annoyed Roy, for it seemed as if he were making fun of the girl's bereavement.

Perhaps it seemed the same to her, for she turned the subject at once. "I'm going to sit here until you are in the boat," she said.

They pulled the Good Turn as near the shore as they could bring her without grounding for the tide was running out, and Pee-wee held her with the rope while the others went aboard over a plank laid from the shore to the deck. Then Pee-wee followed, hurrying, for there was nothing to hold her now.

They clambered up on the cabin, Roy waving the naval flag, and Pee-wee the name pennant, while Tom cast the anchor, for already the Good Turn was drifting.

"Good-bye!" they cried.

"Good-bye!" she called back, waving her handkerchief as the auto started, "and good luck to you!"

"We'll try to do a good turn some day to make up," shouted Pee-wee.



CHAPTER IX

THE MYSTERY

"What I don't understand," said Tom, in his dull way, "is how if that fellow was drowned or killed that night, he managed to get back to this boat again—that's what gets me."

"What?" said Roy.

"What are you talking about?" chimed in Pee-wee.

They were sitting in the little cabin of the Good Turn eating rice cakes, about an hour after the launching. The boat rocked gently at its moorings, the stars glittered in the wide expanse of water, the tiny lights in the neighboring village kept them cheery company as they chatted there in the lonesome night with the hills frowning down upon them. It was very quiet and this, no less than the joyous sense of possession of this cosy home, kept them up, notwithstanding their strenuous two days of labor.

"Just what I said," said Tom. "See that board you fixed the oil stove on? I believe that was part of that skiff. You can see the letters N-Y-M-P-H even under the paint. That strip was in the boat all the time. How did it get here? That's what I'd like to know."

Roy laid down his "flopper" and examined the board carefully, the excited Pee-wee joining him. It was evidently the upper strip of the side planking from a rowboat and at one end, under the diluted paint which they had here used, could be dimly traced the former name of the launch.

"What-do-you-know-about-that?" ejaculated Roy.

"It's a regular mystery," said Pee-wee; "that's one thing I like, a mystery."

"If that's a part of this boat's skiff," said Tom, "then it proves two things. It proves that the boat was damaged—no fellow could pull a plank from it like that; and it proves that that fellow came back to the launch. It proves that he was injured, too. That man said he could swim. Then why should he bring this board back with him unless it was to help him keep afloat?"

"He wouldn't need to drag it aboard," said Roy.

"Now you spoil it all," put in Pee-wee.

"I don't know anything about that," said Tom, "but that board didn't drift back and climb in by itself. It must have been here all the time. I suppose the other fellow—the one they found drowned—might have got it here, some way," he added.

"Not likely," said Roy. "If he'd managed to get back to the launch with the board, he wouldn't have jumped overboard again just to get drowned. He'd have managed to stay aboard."

There was silence for a few minutes while Roy drummed on the plank with his fingers and Pee-wee could hardly repress his excitement at the thought that they were on the track of a real adventure. Tom Slade had "gone and done it again." He was always surprising them by his stolid announcement of some discovery which opened up delectable possibilities. And smile as he would (especially in view of Pee-wee's exuberance), Roy could not but see that here was something of very grave significance.

"That's what I meant," drawled Tom, "when I told her that we could try—to find her brother."

This was a knockout blow.

"This trip of ours is going to be just like a book," prophesied Pee-wee, excitedly; "there's a—there's a—long lost brother, and—and—a deep mystery!"

"Sure," said Roy. "We'll have to change our names; I'll be Roy Rescue, you be Pee-wee Pinkerton, the boy sleuth, and Tom'll be Tom Trustful. What d'you say, Tom?"

Tom made no answer and for all Roy's joking, he was deeply interested. Like most important clues, the discovery was but a little thing, yet it could not be accounted for except on the theory that Harry Stanton had somehow gotten back to the launch after the accident, whatever the accident was. It meant just that—nothing less and nothing more; though, indeed, it did mean more to Pee-wee and as he slept that night, in the gently rocking boat, he dreamed that he had vowed a solemn vow to Mr. Stanton's daughter to "find her brother or perish in the attempt." He carried a brace of pistols, and sailing forth with his trusty chums, he landed in the island of Madagascar, to which Harry Stanton had been carried, bound hand and foot, in an aeroplane. The three, undaunted, then built a Zeppelin and sailed up to the summit of a dizzy crag where they rescued the kidnapped youth and on reaching home, Mr. Stanton gave them a sea-going yacht and a million dollars each for pocket money. When he awoke from this thrilling experience he found that the Good Turn was chugging leisurely up the river in the broad daylight.

The boat behaved very well, indeed. She leaked a little from the strain of launching, but the engine pumped the water out faster than it came in. All day long they lolled in the cockpit or on the cabin roof, taking turns at the steering. Roy, who best understood gas engines, attended to the motor, but it needed very little attention except that it missed on high speed, so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and fished, and had a mess of fresh perch for luncheon.

Naturally, the topic of chief interest was the possibility that Harry Stanton was living, but the clue which appeared to indicate that much suggested nothing further, and the question of why he did not return home, if he were indeed alive was a puzzling one.

"His sister said he had been to Costa Rica, and was fond of traveling," suggested Tom. "Maybe his parents objected to his going away from home so he went this way—as long as the chance came to him—and let them think he was drowned."

Roy, sitting on the cabin roof with his knees drawn up, shook his head. "Or maybe he left the boat again and tried to swim to shore to go home, and didn't make it," he added.

"That's possible," said Tom, "but then they'd probably have found his body."

"We aren't sure he's alive," Roy said thoughtfully, "but it means a whole lot not to be sure that he's dead."

"Maybe he was made away with by someone who wanted the boat," said Pee-wee. "Maybe a convict from the prison killed him—you never can tell. Jiminys, it's a mystery, sure."

"You bet it is," said Roy. "The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby were only here, or Detective Darewell—or some of those story-book ginks they——"

"They probably wouldn't have noticed the plank from the skiff," suggested Pee-wee.

Roy laughed and then fell to thinking. "Gee, it would be great if we could find him!" he said.

And there the puzzling matter ended, for the time being; but the Good Turn took on a new interest because of the mystery with which it was associated and Pee-wee was continually edifying his companions with startling and often grewsome theories as to the fate or present whereabouts of Harry Stanton, until—until that thing happened which turned all their thoughts from this puzzle and proved that bad turns as well as good ones have the boomerang quality of returning upon their author.

It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the Good Turn's course would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an old float which they had found, and had ridden gayly upon it; and their course had been so leisurely and rambling that they had not yet reached Poughkeepsie, when all of a sudden the engine stopped.

Roy went through the usual course of procedure to start it up, but without result. There was not a kick left in it. Silently he unscrewed the cap on the deck, pushed a stick into the tank and lifted it out—dry.

"Boys," said he, solemnly, "there is not a drop of gasoline in the tank. The engine must have used it all up. Probably it has been using it all the time——"

"You make me sick," said Pee-wee.

"I have known engines to do that before."

"Didn't I tell you to get gasoline in Newburgh?" demanded Pee-wee.

"You did, Sir Walter, and would that we had taken your advice; but I trusted the engine and it has evidently been using the gasoline while our backs were turned. We should worry! You don't suppose it would run on witch hazel, do you?"

"Didn't I tell——" began Pee-wee.

"If we could only reduce friend Walter to a liquid," said Roy. "I think we could get started all right—he's so explosive."

"Bright boy," said Tom.

"Oh, I'm a regular feller, I am," said Roy. "I knew that engine would stop when there wasn't any more gasoline—I just felt it in my bones. But what care we!

'Oh, we are merry mountaineers, And have no carking cares or fears— Or gasoline.'

Get out the oars, scouts!"

So they got out the oars and with the aid of these and a paddle succeeded in making the shore where they tied up to the dilapidated remnants of what had once been a float.

"There must be a village in the neighborhood," said Tom, "or there wouldn't be a float here."

"Sherlock Holmes Slade is at it again," said Roy. It would have been a pretty serious accident that Roy wouldn't have taken gayly. "Pee-wee, you're appointed a committee to look after the boat while Tomasso and I go in search of adventure—and gasoline. There must be a road up there somewhere and if there's a road I dare say we can find a garage—maybe even a village. Get things ready for supper, Pee-wee, and when we get back I'll make a Silver Fox omelet for good luck."

The spot where they had made a landing was at the foot of precipitous hills between which and the shore ran the railroad tracks. Tom and Roy, carrying a couple of gasoline cans, started along a road which led around the lower reaches of one of these hills. As Pee-wee stood upon the cabin watching them, the swinging cans were brightened by the rays of the declining sun, and there was a chill in the air as the familiar grayness fell upon the heights, bringing to the boy that sense of loneliness which he had felt before.

He was of the merriest temperament, was Pee-wee, and, as he had often said, not averse to "being jollied." But he was withal very sensitive and during the trip he had more than once fancied that Tom and Roy had fallen together to his own exclusion, and it awakened in him now and then a feeling that he was the odd number of the party. He had tried to ingratiate himself with them, though to be sure no particular effort was needed to do that, yet sometimes he saw, or fancied he saw, little things which made him feel that in important matters he was left out of account. Roy would slap him on the shoulder and tousle his hair, but he would ask Tom's advice—and take it. Perhaps Roy had allowed his propensity for banter and jollying to run too far in his treatment of Pee-wee. At all events, the younger boy had found himself a bit chagrined at times that their discussions had not been wholly three-handed. And now, as he watched the others hiking off through the twilight, and heard their laughter, he recalled that it was usually he who was appointed a "committee to stay and watch the boat."

This is not a pleasant train of thought when you are standing alone in the bleakness and sadness and growing chill of the dying day, with tremendous nature piled all about you, and watching your two companions as they disappear along a lonely road. But the mood was upon him and it did not cheer him when Roy, turning and making a megaphone of his hands, called, "Look out and don't fall into the gas tank, Pee-wee!"

He had reminded them that they had better buy gasoline at Newburgh, while they had the chance. Roy had answered jokingly telling Pee-wee that he had better buy a soda in the city while he had the chance, and Tom had added, "I guess the kid thinks we want to drink it."

Well, there they were hiking it up over the hills now in quest of gasoline and still joking him.

If Pee-wee had remembered Roy's generous pleasure in the "parrot stunt," he would have been much happier, but instead he allowed his imagination to picture Tom and Roy in the neighboring village, having a couple of sodas—perhaps taking a flyer at a movie show.

He did as much as he could toward getting supper, and when it grew dark and still they did not return, he clambered up on the cabin roof again and sat there gazing off into the night. But still they did not come.

"Gee, I'm a Silver Fox, anyway," he said; "you'd think he'd want one of his own patrol with him sometimes—gee!"

He rose and went down into the cabin where the dollar watch which hung on a nail told him that it was eight o'clock. Then it occurred to him that it would serve them right if he got his own supper and was in his bunk and asleep when they returned. It would be a sort of revenge on them. He would show them, at least, that he could get along very well by himself, and by way of doing so he would make some rice cakes. Roy was not the only one who could make rice cakes. He, Pee-wee, could make them if nobody stood by guying him.

He had never wielded the flopper; that had been Roy's province; but he could, all right, he told himself. So he dug into Roy's duffel bag for the recipe book which was famous in the troop; which told the secrets of the hunter's stew; which revealed the mystery of plum-duff and raisin pop-overs in all their luscious details and which set you on the right path for the renowned rice cakes.

Between the leaves, right where the rice cake recipe revealed itself to the hungry inquirer, was a folded paper which dropped out as Pee-wee opened the book. For all he knew it contained the recipe so he held it under the lantern and read:

"Dear Mary:

"Since you butted in, Tom and I have decided that it would be better for Pee-wee to go with him, and I'll stay home. Anyway, that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish all right and I should worry.

"Roy."

Pee-wee read it twice over, then he laid it on the locker and sat down and looked at it. Then he picked it up and read it over again. He did not even realize that its discovery among Roy's things would indicate that it had never been sent. Sent or not, it had been written.

So this was the explanation of Roy's invitation that he accompany them on the trip. Mary Temple had asked them to let him go. Yet, despite his present mood, he could not believe that his own patrol leader, Roy Blakeley, could have written this.

"I bet Tom Slade is—I bet he's the cause of it," he said.

He recalled now how he had talked about the trip to Mary Temple and how she had spoken rather mysteriously about the possibility of his going along. So it was she who was his good friend; it was to her he owed the invitation which had come to him with such a fine air of sincerity.

"I always—crinkums, anyway girls always seem to like me, that's one thing," he said. "And—and Roy did, too, before Tom Slade came into the troop."

It was odd how he turned against Tom, making him the scapegoat for Roy's apparent selfishness and hypocrisy.

"They just brought me along for charity, like," he said, "'cause she told them to. Cracky, anyway, I didn't try to make her do that—I didn't."

This revelation in black and white of Roy's real feeling overcame him and as he put the letter back in the book and the book back in the duffel bag, he could scarcely keep his hand from trembling.

"Anyway, I knew it all the time," he said. "I could see it."

He had no appetite for rice cakes now. He took some cakes of chocolate and a couple of hard biscuits and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he went out into the cockpit and listened. There was no sound of voices or footfalls, nothing but the myriad voices of nature, or frogs croaking nearby, of a cheery cricket somewhere on shore, of the water lapping against the broken old wharf as the wind drove it in shoreward.

He returned to the cabin, tore a leaf from his scout notebook and wrote, but he had to blink his eyes to keep back the tears.

"Dear Roy:

"I think you'll have more fun if you two go the rest of the way alone. I always said two's a company, three's a crowd. You've heard me say it and I ought to have had sense enough to remember it. But anyway, I'm not mad and I like you just as much. I'll see you at camp.

"WALTER HARRIS."

"P. S.—If I had to vote again for patrol leader I'd vote for you."

He was particular not to mention Tom by name and to address his note to Roy. He laid it in the frying pan on the stove (in which he had intended to make the rice cakes) and then, with his duffel bag over his shoulder and his scout staff in hand, he stepped from the Good Turn, listening cautiously for approaching footsteps, and finding the way clear he stole away through the darkness.



CHAPTER X

PEE-WEE'S ADVENTURE

A walk of a few yards or so brought him to the railroad track. He was no longer the clown and mascot of the Good Turn; he was the scout, alert, resourceful, bent on hiding his tracks.

He did not know where he was going, more than that he was going to elude pursuit and find a suitable spot in which to camp for the night. Matters would take care of themselves in the daytime. He wanted to follow the railroad tracks, for he knew that would keep him close to the river, but he knew also that it had the disadvantage of being the very thing the boys would suppose it most likely that he would do. For, feel as he would toward them, he did not for a moment believe that they would let him take himself off without searching for him. And he knew something of Tom Slade's ability as a tracker.

"They won't get any merit badges trailing me, though," he said.

So he crossed the tracks and walked a couple of hundred feet or so up a hill, grabbed the limb of a tree, swung up into its branches, let himself down on the other side, and retraced his steps to the tracks and began to walk the ties, northward. He was now thoroughly in the spirit of the escapade and a feeling of independence seized him, a feeling that every scout knows, that having undertaken a thing he must succeed in it.

A walk of about ten minutes brought him to a high, roofed platform beside the tracks, where one or two hogsheads were standing and several cases. But there was no sign of life or habitation. It was evidently the freight station for some town not far distant, for a couple of old-fashioned box-cars stood on a siding, and Pee-wee contemplated them with the joy of sudden inspiration.

"Crinkums, that would be a dandy place to sleep," he thought, for it was blowing up cold and he had but scant equipment.

He went up to the nearest car and felt of the sliding door. It was the least bit open, owing to its damaged condition, and by moving it a very few inches more he could have slipped inside. But he paused to examine the pasters and chalk marks on the body. One read "Buffalo—4—LLM." There were the names of various cities and numerous strange marks. It was evident the car had been quite a globe-trotter in its time, but as it stood there then it seemed to Pee-wee that so it must have stood for a dozen years and was likely to stand for a dozen years more.

He slid the door a little farther open on its rusty hinges and climbed inside. It was very dark and still and smelled like a stable, but suddenly he was aware of a movement not far from him. He did not exactly hear it, but he felt that something was moving. For a moment a cold shudder went over him and he stood stark still, not daring to move. Then, believing that his imagination had played a trick, he fumbled in his duffel bag, found his flashlight and sent its vivid gleam about the car. A young fellow in a convict's suit stood menacingly before the door with one hand upon it, blinking and watching the boy with a lowering aspect. His head was close-shaven and shone in the light's glare so that he looked hardly human. He had apparently sprung to the door, perhaps out of a sound sleep, and he was evidently greatly alarmed. Pee-wee was also greatly alarmed, but he was no coward and he stood his ground though his heart was pounding in his breast.

"You ain't no bo," said the man.

"I—I'm a scout," stammered Pee-wee, "and I was going to camp here for the night. I didn't know there was anyone here."

The man continued to glare at him and Pee-wee thought he had never in his life seen such a villainous face.

"I'll—I'll go away," he said, "I was only going to sleep here."

The convict, still guarding the door, leered brutally at him, his head hanging low, his lips apart, more like a beast than a man.

"No, yer won't go 'way, nuther," he finally said; "yer ain't goin' ter double-cross me, pal. Wot d'yer say yer wuz?"

"A scout," said Pee-wee. "I don't need to stay here, you were here first. I can camp outdoors."

"No, yer don't," said the man. "You stay whar yer are. Yer ain't goin' ter double-cross me."

"I don't know what you mean by that," said Pee-wee.

The convict did not offer him any explanation, only stood guarding the door with a threatening aspect, which very much disconcerted Pee-wee. He was a scout and he was brave, and not panicky in peril or emergency, but the striped clothing and cropped head and stupid leer of the man before him made him seem something less than human. His terror was more that of an animal than of a man and his apparent inability to express himself save by the repetition of that one sentence frightened the boy. Apparently the creature was all instinct and no brains.

"Yer gotta stay here," he repeated. "Yer ain't goin' ter double-cross me, pal."

Then it began to dawn on Pee-wee what he meant.

"I guess I know about you," he said, "because I heard about your—getting away. But, anyway, if you let me go away I won't tell anyone I saw you. I don't want to camp here now. I'll promise not to go and tell people, if that's what you're afraid of."

"Wot's in that bag?" asked the man.

"My camping things."

"Got any grub?"

"I've got two biscuits and some chocolate."

"Gimme it," said the man, coming closer.

He snatched the food as fast as it was taken out of the bag, and Pee-wee surmised that he had not eaten since his escape from prison for he devoured it ravenously like a famished beast.

"Got any more?" he asked, glaring into the boy's face menacingly.

"No, I'm sorry I haven't. I escaped, too, as you might say, from my friends—from the fellers I was with. And I only brought a little with me."

After a few minutes (doubtless from the stimulating effects of the food), the convict's fear seemed to subside somewhat and he spoke a little more freely. But Pee-wee found it very unpleasant being shut in with him there in the darkness, for, of course, the flashlight could not be kept burning all the time.

"I wouldn't do yer no hurt," he assured Pee-wee. "I t'ought mebbe yer wuz a de-coy. Yer ain't, are ye?" he asked suspiciously.

"No, I'm not," said Pee-wee, "I'm just what I told you——"

"I ain't goin' ter leave ye go free, so ye might's well shut up. I seen pals double-cross me—them ez I trusted, too. Yer square, I guess—only innercent."

"I'd keep my word even with—I'd keep my word with you," said Pee-wee, "just the same as with anyone. Besides, I don't see what's the use of keeping me here. You'll have to let me go some time, you can't keep me here forever, and you can't stay here forever, yourself."

"If ye stan' right 'n' show ye're game," said the convict, "thar won't no hurt come to ye. This here car's way-billed fer Buff'lo, 'n' I'm waitin' ter be took up now. It's a grain car. Yer ain't goin' ter peach wot I tell ye, now? I wuz put wise to it afore I come out by a railroad bloke. I had it straight these here cars would be picked up fer Buff'lo the nex' day after I done my trick. But they ain't took 'em up yet, an' I'm close ter starvin' here."

Pee-wee could not help but feel a certain sympathy with this man, wretch though he was, who on the information of some accomplice outside the prison, had made his escape expecting to be carried safely away the next day and had been crouching, half-starved, in this freight car ever since, waiting.

"What will you do if they don't take up the car for a week?" he asked. "They might look inside of it, too; or they might change their minds about taking it."

He was anxious for himself for he contemplated with terror his threatened imprisonment, but he could not help being concerned also for this miserable creature and he wondered what would happen if they both remained in the car for several days more, with nothing to eat. Then, surely, the man would be compelled to put a little faith in him and let him go out in search of food. He wondered what he should do in that case—what he ought to do; but that, he realized, was borrowing trouble. Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said that it is always bad to play false. Well, then, would it be bad to play false with an escaped felon—to double-cross him? Pee-wee did not know.

His companion interrupted his train of thought "They don' look inside o' way-billed empties—not much," he said, "an' they don't let 'em stan' so long, nuther. I got bad luck, I did, from doin' my trick on a Friday. They'll be 'long pretty quick, though. They reckisitioned all th' empty grain cars fer Buff'lo. I'm lookin' ter hear th' whistle any minute, I am, an' I got a pal waitin' fer me in the yards up ter Buff'lo, wid the duds. When I get there 'n' get me clo's changed, mebbe I'll leave ye come back if me pal 'n' me thinks ye kin be trusted."

"I can be trusted now just as much as I could be trusted then," said Pee-wee, greatly disturbed at the thought of this enforced journey; "and how could I get back? I guess maybe you don't know anything about scouts—maybe they weren't started when you were—— Anyway, a scout can be trusted. Anybody'll tell you that. If he gives his word he'll keep it. I don't know anything about what you did and if you ask me if I want to see you get captured I couldn't tell you, because I don't know how I feel. But if you'll let me go now I'll promise not to say anything to anyone. I don't want to go to Buffalo. I want to go to my camp. As long as I know about you, you got to trust me some time and you might as well trust me now."

If the fugitive could have seen Pee-wee's earnest face and honest eyes as he made this pitiful appeal, he might have softened a little, even if he had not appreciated the good sense of the boy's remarks.

"I'd ruther get me other duds on fust, 'n' I'd like fer ter hev ye meet me pal," he said, with the first touch of humor he had shown. "Now, if yer go ter cuttin' up a rumpus I'll jest hev ter brain ye, see?"

Pee-wee leaned back against the side of the car in the darkness as despair seized him. He had always coveted adventure but this was too much and he felt himself to be utterly helpless in this dreadful predicament. Even as he stood there in a state of pitiable consternation, a shrill whistle sounded in the distance, which was echoed back from the unseen hills.

"Dat's a freight," said the convict, quickly.

Pee-wee listened and his last flickering hope was extinguished as he recognized the discordant rattle and bang of the slow-moving train, emphasized by the stillness of the night. Nearer and nearer it came and louder grew the clank and clamor of the miscellaneous procession of box cars. It was a freight, all right.

"If—if you'll let me get out," Pee-wee began, on the very verge of a panic, "if you'll let me get out——"

The convict fumblingly took him by the throat. He could feel the big, coarse, warm fingers pressing into the sides of his neck and it gagged him.

"If yer open yer head when we're bein' took up, I'll brain yer, hear that?" he said. "Gimme that light, gimme yer knife."

He flashed on the light, tore the scout knife from Pee-wee's belt, and flung the frightened boy against the side of the car. Keeping the light pointed at him, he opened the knife. The spirit of desperate resolve seemed to have reawakened within him at the sound of that long-hoped-for train and Pee-wee was no more to him than an insect to have his life trampled out if he could not be used or if his use were unavailing. Here, unmasked, was the man who had braved the tempestuous river on that dreadful night. Truly, as the sheriff had said, "desperate characters will take desperate chances."

"If yer open yer head or call out or make a noise wid yer feet or poun' de side o' de car or start a-bawlin' I'll brain ye, ye hear? Nobody gets me alive. An' if anybody comes in here 'cause o' you makin' a noise and cryin' fer help, yer'll be the fust to git croaked—see?"

He pointed the light straight at Pee-wee, holding the open jack-knife in his other hand, and glared at him with a look which struck terror to the boy's heart. Pee-wee was too frightened and exhausted to answer. He only shook his head in acknowledgment, breathing heavily.

In a few minutes the train had come abreast of them and stopped. They could hear the weary puffing of the engine, and voices calling and occasionally they caught the gleam of a lantern through the crack in the car. Pee-wee remained very still. The convict took his stand in the middle of the car between the two sliding doors, lowering and alert, holding the flashlight and the clasp knife.

Soon the train moved again, then stopped. There were calls from one end of it to the other. Then it started again and continued to move until Pee-wee thought it was going away, and his hope revived at the thought that escape might yet be possible. Then the sound came nearer again and presently the car received a jolt, accompanied by a bang. The convict was thrown a little, but he resumed his stand, waiting, desperate, menacing. Those few minutes must have been dreadful ones to him as he watched the two doors, knife in hand.

Then came more shunting and banging and calling and answering, a short, shrill whistle and more moving and then at last the slow, continuous progress of the car, which was evidently now at last a part of that endless miscellaneous procession, rattling along through the night with its innumerable companions.

"It's lucky for them," said the convict, through his teeth, as he relaxed.

Pee-wee hardly knew what he meant, he had scarcely any interest, and it was difficult to hear on account of the noise. He was too shaken up to think clearly, but he wondered, as the rattling train moved slowly along, how long he could go without food, how he would get back from Buffalo, and whether this dreadful companion of his would take his stand, like an animal at bay, whenever the train stopped.

After a little time, when he was able to get a better grip on himself and realize fully his terrible plight, he began to think how, after all, the scout, with all his resource and fine courage, his tracking and his trailing and his good turns, is pretty helpless in a real dilemma. Here was an adventure, and rather too much of a one, and neither he nor any other scout could extricate him from his predicament. In books they could have done it with much brave talk, but in real life they could do nothing. He was tired and frightened and helpless; the shock of the pressure of those brutal fingers about his neck still distressed him, and his head ached from it all.

What wonder if in face of this tragical reality, the scouts with all their much advertised resource and prowess should lose prestige a little in his thoughts? Yet it might have been worth while for him to pause and reflect that though the scout arm is neither brutal nor menacing, it still has an exceedingly long reach and that it can pin you just as surely as the cruel fingers which had fixed themselves on his own throat.

But he was too terrified and exhausted to think very clearly about anything.



CHAPTER XI

TRACKS AND TRAILING

When the engineer blew the whistle which the convict had heard with such satisfaction and Pee-wee with such dread, it was by way of warning two dark figures which were about to cross the tracks. Something bright which they carried shone in the glare of the headlight.

"Here comes a freight," said Tom.

"Let it come, I can't stop it," said Roy. "Je-ru-salem, this can is heavy."

"Same here," said Tom.

"I wouldn't carry another can of gas this far for a prince's ransom—whatever in the dickens that is. Look at the blisters on my hand, will you? Gee, I'm so hungry I could eat a package of tacks. I bet Pee-wee's been throwing duck fits. Never mind, we did a good turn. 'We seen our duty and we done it noble.' Some grammar! They ought to put us on the cover of the manual. Boy scouts returning from a gasoline hunt! Good turn, turn down the gas, hey? Did you ever try tracking a freight train? It's terribly exciting."

"Keep still, will you!" said Tom, setting down his can. "Can't you see I'm spilling the gasoline? Don't make me laugh."

"The face with the smile wins," Roy rattled on. "For he ain't no slouch, but the lad with the grouch—— Pick up your can and get off the track—safety first!"

"Well, then, for goodness' sake, shut up!" laughed Tom.

It had been like this all the way back, Tom setting down his can at intervals and laughing in spite of himself at Roy's nonsense.

When they reached the boat Roy looked inside and called Pee-wee.

"Where is our young hero, anyway?" he said.

But "our young hero" was not there. They poured the gas into the tank and then went inside where Roy discovered the note in the saucepan. He read it, then handed it to Tom and the two stood for a moment staring at each other, too surprised to speak.

"What do you suppose has got into him?" exclaimed Tom.

"Search me; unless he's mad because we left him here."

Tom looked about as if in search of some explanation, and as usual his scrutiny was not unfruitful.

"It looks as if he had started to get supper," said he: "there's the rice——"

A sudden inspiration seized Roy. Pulling out the recipe book from his duffel bag he opened it where the letter to Mary Temple lay. "I thought so," he said shamefacedly. "I left the end of it sticking out to mark the place and now it's in between the leaves. That's what did the mischief; he must have found it."

"You ought to have torn it up before we started," said Tom.

"I know it, but I just stuck it in there when I was brushing up my memory on rice cakes, and there it's been ever since. I ought never to have written it at all, if it comes to that."

Tom made no answer. They had never mentioned that incident which was such an unpleasant memory to them both.

"Well, we've got to find him, that's all," said Tom.

"Gee, it seems as if we couldn't possibly get along without Pee-wee now," Roy said. "I never realized how much fun it would be having him along. Poor kid! It serves me right for——"

"What's the use of thinking about that now?" said Tom, bluntly. "We've just got to find him Come on, hurry up, get your flashlight. Every minute we wait he's a couple of hundred feet farther away."

For the first time in all their trip, as it seemed to Roy, Tom's spirit and interest were fully aroused. He was as keen as a bloodhound for the trail and instinctively Roy obeyed him.

They hurried out without waiting for so much as a bite to eat and with the aid of their flashlights (and thanks to the recent rains) had no difficulty in trailing Pee-wee as far as the railroad tracks.

"He'd either follow the track," said Tom, "or else the road we took and hide somewhere till we passed. He wouldn't try any cross-country business at night, I don't believe."

"Poor kid!" was all Roy could say. The thought of that note which he had carelessly left about and of Pee-wee starting out alone haunted him and made him feel like a scoundrel. All his gayety had vanished and he depended on Tom and followed his lead. He remembered only too well the wonderful tracking stunt that Tom had done the previous summer, and now, as he looked at that rather awkward figure, kneeling with head low, and creeping along from tie to tie, oblivious to all but his one purpose, he felt a certain thrill of confidence. By a sort of unspoken understanding, he (who was the most all-round scout of them all and looked it into the bargain) had acted as their leader and spokesman on the trip; and Tom Slade, who could no more talk to strangers, and especially girls, than he could fly, had followed, envying Roy's easy manner and all-around proficiency. But Tom was a wizard in tracking, and as Roy watched him now he could not help realizing with a pang of shame that again it was Tom who had come to the rescue to save him from the results of his own selfishness and ill-temper. He remembered those words, spoken in Tom's stolid way on the night of their quarrel. "It's kind of like a trail in your mind and I got to hit the right trail." He had hit the right trail then and brought Roy to his senses, and now again when that rude, selfish note cropped up to work mischief it was Tom who knelt down there on the railroad tracks, seeking again for the right trail.

"Here it is," he said at last, when he had closely examined and smelt of a dark spot on one of the ties. "Lucky you let him clean the engine; he must have been standing in the oil trough."

"Good he had his sneaks on, too," said Roy, stooping. "It's like a stamp on a pound of butter."

It was not quite as clear as that, but if Pee-wee had prepared his sneaks especially for making prints on wooden ties he could scarcely have done better. In order to get at the main bearings of the engine he had, with characteristic disregard, stood plunk in the copper drain basin under the crank-case. The oil had undoubtedly softened the rubber sole of his sneakers so that it held the clinging substance, and in some cases it was possible to distinguish on the ties the half-obliterated crisscross design of the rubber sole.

"Come on," said Tom, "this thing is a cinch."

"It's a shame to call it tracking," said Roy, regaining some measure of his wonted spirits as they hurried along. "It's a blazed trail."

And so, indeed, it was while it lasted, but suddenly it ceased and the boys paused, puzzled.

"Listen for trains," warned Tom.

"There won't be any along yet a while," said Roy. "There's one stopped up there a ways now."

They could hear the shunting up the track, interspersed with faint voices calling.

"Here's where he's put one over on us," said Roy. "Poor kid."

"Here's where he's been reading Sir Baden-Powell, you mean. Wait till I see if he worked the boomerang trick. See that tree up there?"

It was amazing how readily Tom assumed that Pee-wee would do just what he had done to elude pursuit.

"Tree's always a suspicious thing," said he; "this is a Boer wrinkle—comes from South Africa."

He did not bother hunting for the tracks in the hubbly ground, but made straight for the tree.

"Poor kid," was all he could say as he picked up a few freshly fallen leaves and a twig or two. "He's good at climbing anyway." He examined one of the leaves carefully with his flashlight. "Squint around," he said to Roy, "and see if you can find where he stuck his staff in the ground."

Roy got down, poking his light here and there, and parting the rough growth.

"Here it is," said he.

Oh, it was all easy—too easy, for a scout. It gave them no feeling of triumph, only pity for the stout-hearted little fellow who had tried to escape them.

A more careful examination of the lower branches of the tree and of the ground beneath was enough. Tom did not even bother about the prints leading back to the railroad, but went back to the tracks and after a few minutes picked up the trail again there. This they followed till they came to the siding, now deserted.

Here, for a few minutes, it did seem as if Pee-wee had succeeded in baffling them, for the prints leaving the ties ran over to the siding and there ended in a confused collection of footprints pointing in every direction. Evidently, Pee-wee had paused here, but what direction he had taken from this point they could not see.

"This has got me guessing," said Tom.

"He was tangoing around here," said Roy, pointing his flashlight to the ground, "that's sure. Maybe the little Indian walked the rail."

But an inspection of the rail showed that he had not done that, unless, indeed, the recent rain had obliterated the marks.

They examined the platform carefully, the steps, the one or two hogsheads, but no sign did they reveal.

"It gets me," said Tom, as they sat down on the edge of the platform, dangling their legs.

"He swore he wouldn't go near a railroad—remember?" said Roy, smiling a little wistfully.

Tom slowly shook his head.

"It's all my fault," said Roy.

"Meanwhile, we're losing time," said Tom.

"You don't suppose——" began Roy. "Where do you suppose that freight stopped? Here?"

Tom said nothing for a few moments. Then he jumped down and kneeling with his light began again examining the confusion of footprints near the siding. Roy watched him eagerly. He felt guilty and discouraged. Tom was apparently absorbed with some fresh thought. Around one footprint he drew a ring in the soil. Then he got up and crept along by the rail throwing his light upon it. About twelve or fifteen feet along this he paused, and crossing suddenly, examined the companion rail exactly opposite. Then he straightened up.

"What is it?" asked Roy. But he got no answer.

Tom went back along the rail till he came to a point twelve or fifteen feet in the other direction from the group of footprints, and here he made another careful scrutiny of both rails. The group of footprints was outside the track and midway between the two points in which he seemed so much interested.

"This is the end of our tracking," he said at length.

"What's the matter?"

"Come here and I'll show you. See that footprint—it's only half a one—the front half—see? That's the last one of the lot. That's where he climbed into the car—see?"

Roy stood speechless.

"See? Now come here and I'll show you something. See those little rusty places on the track? It's fresh rust—see? You can wipe it off with your finger. There's where the wheels were—see? One, two, three, four—same on the other side, see? And down there," pointing along the track, "it's the same way. If it hadn't been raining this week, we'd never known about a freight car being stalled here, hey? See, those footprints are just half-way between the rusty spots. There's where the door was. See? This little front half of a footprint tells the story. He had to climb to get in—poor kid. He went on a railroad train, after all."

Roy could say nothing. He could only stare as Tom pointed here and there and fitted things together like a picture puzzle. The car was gone, but it had left its marks, just as the boy had.

"You put it into my head when you mentioned the train," said Tom.

"Oh, sure; I put it into your head," said Roy, in disgust. "I'm a wonderful scout—I ought to have a tin medal! It was you brought me that letter back. It was Pee-wee got the bird down and won a boat for us—and I've turned him out of it," he added, bitterly.

"No, you——"

"Yes, I have. And it was you that tracked him, and it was you spelled this out and it's you—it's just like you, too—to turn around and say I put it into your head. The only thing I've done in this whole blooming business is try to insult Mary Temple—only—only you wouldn't let me get away with it," he stammered.

"Roy," interrupted Tom, "listen—just a minute." He had never seen Roy like this before.

"Come on," said Roy, sharply. "You've done all you could. Come on back!"

Tom was not much at talking, but seeing his friend in this state seemed to give him words and he spoke earnestly and with a depth of feeling.

"It's always you," said Roy. "It's——"

"Roy," said Tom, "don't—wait a minute—please. When we got back to the boat I said we'd have to find him—don't go on like that, Roy—please! I thought I could find him. But you see I can't—I can't find him."

"You can make these tracks talk to you. I'm a——"

"No, you're not; listen, please. I said—you remember how I said I wanted to be alone with you—you remember? Well, now we are alone, and it's going to be you to do it, Roy; it's going to be you to bring Pee-wee back. Just the same as you made me a scout a year ago, you remember? You're the only one can do it, Roy," he put his hand on Roy's shoulder, "and I'll—I'll help you. And it'll seem like old times—sort of—Roy. But you're the one to do it. You haven't forgotten about the searchlight, have you, Roy? You remember how you told me about the scout's arm having a long reach? You remember, Roy? Come on, hurry up!"



CHAPTER XII

THE LONG ARM OF THE SCOUT

As Tom spoke, there came rushing into Roy's memory as vivid as the searchlight's shaft, a certain dark night a year before when Tom Slade, hoodlum, had stood by his side and with eyes of wonder watched him flash a message from Blakeley's Hill to the city below to undo a piece of vicious mischief of which Tom had been guilty. He had turned the heavens into an open book for Westy Martin, miles away, to read what he should do.

A thrill of new hope seized Roy.

"So you see it will be you, Roy."

"It has to be you to remind me of it."

"Shut up!" said Tom.

They ran for the boat at top speed, for, as they both realized, it was largely a fight against time.

"That train was dragging along pretty slow when it passed us," said Tom.

"Sure, 'bout a million cars," Roy panted. "There's an up-grade, too, I think, between here and Poughkeepsie. Be half an hour, anyway, before they make it. You're a wonder. We'll kid the life out of Pee-wee for riding on a train after all. 'Spose he did it on purpose or got locked in?"

"Locked in, I guess," said Tom. "Let's try scout pace, I'm getting winded."

The searchlight which had been an important adjunct of the old Nymph had not been used on the Good Turn, for the reason that the boys had not run her at night. It was an acetylene light of splendid power and many a little craft Harry Stanton had picked up with it in his nocturnal cruising. Pee-wee had polished its reflector one day to pass the time, but with the exception of that attention it had lain in one of the lockers.

Reaching the boat they pulled the light out, connected it up, and found to their delight that it was in good working order.

"My idea," said Roy, now all excitement, "is to flash it from that hill, then from the middle of the river. Of course, it's a good deal a question of luck, but it seems as if somebody ought to catch it, in all these places along the river. Be great if we could find him to-night, hey?"

"They'd just have to hold him till we could get there in the boat—they couldn't get him back here."

"No sooner said than stung," said Roy; "hurry up, bring that can, and some matches and—yes, you might as well bring the Manual anyway, thought I know that code backwards."

"You're right you do," said Tom.

He was glad to see Roy himself again and taking the lead, as usual.

"If there was only one of these telegraph operators—guys, as I used to call them—star-gazing, we'd pass the word to him, all right."

"A word to the guys, hey? Come on, hustle!"

A strenuous climb brought them to the brow of a hill from which the lights of several villages, and the more numerous lights of Poughkeepsie could be seen.

"Now, Tomasso, see-a if you know-a de lesson—queeck! Connect that up and—look out you don't step on the tube! I wish we had a pedestal or something. When you're roaming, you have to do as the Romans do, hey? Open your Manual to page 232. No!" he said hurriedly looking over Tom's shoulder. "Care of the fingernails! That's 259 you've got. What do you think we're going to do, start a manicure parlor? There you are—now keep the place to make assurance doubly sure. Here goes! Hello, folks!" he called, as he swung the long shaft fan-wise across the heavens. "Now, three dots for S?"

"Right," said Tom.

Roy sent three short flashes into the night, then paused and sent a longer flash of about three seconds. Another pause, then three of the longer flashes, then a short one, two long ones and a short one.

"S-T-O-P—stop," he said.

"Right-o," concurred Tom.

"Now F—two shorts, a long and a short—is it?"

"You know blamed well it is," said Tom.

Thus the message was sent.

"Stop freight going north; boy locked in car. Hold. Friends coming up river in boat flying yellow flag."

They had on board a large yellow flag with TEMPLE CAMP on it, and Roy thought of this as being the best means of identifying the boat for anyone who might be watching for it along the shore.

Three times they flashed the message, then hurried back to the boat and chugged out, anchoring in midstream. The course of the river is as straight as an arrow here. The lights in the small towns of Milton and Camelot were visible on either side; tiny lights flickered along the railroads that skirted either shore, and beyond in the distance twinkled the lights on the great bridge at Poughkeepsie.

"We're right in the steamer's path here," said Tom; "let's hurry."

Roy played the shaft for a minute to attract attention, then threw his message again and again into the skies. The long, bright, silent column seemed to fill the whole heaven as it pierced the darkness in short and long flashes. The chugging of the Good Turn's engine was emphasized by the solemn stillness as they ran in toward shore, and the splash of their dropping anchor awakened a faint echo from the neighboring mountains.

"Well, that's all we can do till morning," said Roy. "What do you say to some eats?"

"Gee, it's big and wild and lonely, isn't it?" said Tom.

They had never thought of the Hudson in this way before.

After breakfast in the morning they started upstream, their big yellow camp flag flying and keeping as near the shore as possible so as to be within hail. Now that the black background of the night had passed and the broad daylight was all about them, their hope had begun to wane. The spell seemed broken; the cheerful reality of the morning sunlight upon the water and the hills seemed to dissipate their confidence in that long shaft, and they saw the whole experience of the night as a sort of fantastic dream.

But Pee-wee was gone; there was no dream about that, and the boat did not seem like the same place without him.

The first place they passed was Stoneco, but there was no sign of life near the shore, and the Good Turn chugged by unheeded. They ran across to Milton where a couple of men lolled on a wharf and a few people were waiting at the little station. They could not get in very close to the shore on account of the flats, but Roy, making a megaphone of an old newspaper, asked if a flash message had been received there. After much shouting back and forth, he learned that the searchlight had been seen but had been thought to be from one of the night boats plying up and down the river. It had evidently meant nothing to the speaker or to anyone else there. Roy asked if they would please ask the telegraph operator if he had seen it.

"He'd understand it all right," he said, a bit disheartened. But the answer came back that the operator had not seen it.

At Poughkeepsie they made a landing at the wharf. Here expressmen were moving trunks about, a few stragglers waiting for some boat peered through the gates like prisoners; there was a general air of bustle and a "city" atmosphere about the place. A few people gathered about, looking at the Good Turn and watching the boys as they made their way up the wharf.

"Boy Scouts," they heard someone say.

There was the usual good-natured curiosity which follows scouts when they are away from home and which they have come to regard as a matter of course, but the big yellow flag seemed to carry no particular meaning to anyone here.

They walked up to the station where they asked the operator if he had seen the searchlight message or heard anything about it, but he had not. They inquired who was the night watchman on the wharf, hunted him out, and asked him. He had seen the light and wondered what and where it was. That was all.

"Foiled again!" said Roy.

They made inquiries of almost everyone they saw, going into a nearby hotel and several of the stores. They inquired at the fire house, where they thought men would have been up at night who might be expected to know the Morse code, but the spokesman there shook his head.

"A fellow who was with us got locked in a freight car," Roy explained, "and we signaled to people up this way to stop the train."

The man smiled; apparently he did not take Roy's explanation very seriously. "Now if you could only get that convict that escaped down yonder——"

"We have no interest in him," said Roy, shortly.

He and Tom had both counted on Poughkeepsie with its police force and fire department and general wide-awakeness, and they went back to the Good Turn pretty well discouraged, particularly as the good people of whom they had inquired had treated them with an air of kindly indulgence, smiling at their story, saying that the scouts were a wide-awake lot, and so forth; interested, but good-naturedly skeptical. One had said, "Are you making believe to telegraph that way? Well, it's good fun, anyway." Another asked if they had been reading dime novels. The patronizing tone had rather nettled the boys.

"I'd like to have told that fellow that if we had been reading dime novels, we wouldn't have had time to learn the Morse code," said Roy.

"The Motor Boat Heroes!" mocked Tom.

"Yes, volume three thousand, and they haven't learned how to run a gas engine yet! Get out your magnifying glass, Tom; what's that, a village, up there?"

"A house."

"Some house, too," said Roy, looking at the diminutive structure near the shore. "Put your hand down the chimney and open the front door, hey?"

But as they ran in nearer the shore other houses showed themselves around the edge of the hill and here, too, was a little wharf with several people upon it and near it, on the shore, a surging crowd on the edge of which stood several wagons.

"Guess they must be having a mass meeting about putting a new spring on the post-office door," said Roy. "Somebody ought to lay a paperweight on that village a windy day like this. It might blow away. Close your throttle a little, Tom and put your timer back; we'll run in and see what's up."

"You don't suppose all that fuss can have anything to do with Pee-wee, do you?" Tom asked.

"No, it looks more as if a German submarine had landed there. There wouldn't be so much of a rumpus if they'd got the kid."

But in another moment Roy's skeptical mood had changed as he saw a tall, slender fellow in brown standing at the end of the wharf with arms outspread.

"What's he doing—posing for the movies?"

"He's semaphoring," Tom answered.

"I'll be jiggered if he isn't!" said Roy, all interest at once. "C—O—M—E—— I—(he makes his I too much like his C)—N. What do you know about that! Come in!"

The stranger held what seemed to be a large white placard in either hand in place of a flag and his motions were not as clear-cut as they should have been, but to Roy, with whom, as he had often said, the semaphore code was like "pumpkin pie," the message was plain.

As they ran alongside the wharf the khaki-clad signaler greeted them with the scout salute.

"Pretty brisk out on the water this morning?" he said. "We got your message—we were out canoeing last night; you use the International code, don't you?"

"Have you got him?" Roy asked anxiously.

"Oh, yes, he's here; pulled in somewhere around midnight, I guess. He stayed all night with one of our troop; he's up there now getting his breakfast. Great kid, isn't he?" he laughed. "He was telling us about rice cakes. We're kind of out of date up here, you know. I was a little balled up on your spacing," he added as they went up the wharf. "I haven't got the International down very good. Yes, we were drifting around, a couple of us, telling Ford jokes, when you sprung it on us."

"Have you got the signaling badge?" said Roy.

"Oh, yes, I managed to pull that; I'm out for the star now."

"You'll get it," said Tom.

"Is the kid all right?" Roy asked.

"Oh, sure; but he had some pretty rough handling, I guess. It was quite a little movie show when we dragged the other one out. Lucky the station agent and the constable were there. He's up there now waiting for the men from Ossining."

Through the surging crowd Tom and Roy could see, sitting on a bench at the station, a man in convict garb, with his hands manacled together and a guard on either side of him. In the broad light of day he was a desperate-looking creature, as he sat with his ugly head hanging low, apparently oblivious to all about him.

"I don't understand," said Roy.

"Didn't you know about him?"

"Not a thing—except we did know someone got away from Sing Sing the other night—but we never thought——"

"Didn't you know he was in the same car? That's why the little fellow couldn't get away. He'd have come back to you, sure."

Roy doubted it, but he said nothing and presently the mystery was cleared up by the arrival on the scene of Pee-wee himself, accompanied by several scouts. They were laughing merrily and seemed greatly elated that the boat had come; but Pee-wee was rather embarrassed and held back until Roy dragged him forward.

"Kiddo," said he, looking straight into the boy's face, "the Good Turn couldn't have lived another day without you. So you did hit the railroad after all, didn't you? Gee, it's good to see you; you've caused us more worry——" he put his arm over Pee-wee's shoulder and turned away with him, and the others, being good scouts, had sense enough not to follow.

"Pee-wee," said Roy, "don't try to tell me—that can wait. Listen, kiddo. We're in the same boat, you and I. We each wrote a letter that we shouldn't have written, but yours was received and mine wasn't—thanks to Tom. We've got to forget about both those letters, Pee-wee. I was ashamed of mine before I'd finished writing it. There's no good talking about it now. You're with us because we want you with us, not because Mary Temple wanted it, but because I want you and Tom wants you; do you hear? You know who it is that's always doing something for someone and never getting any credit for it, don't you? It's Tom Slade. He saved me from being a crazy fool—from sending that letter to Mary. And I came to my senses the next day. He tracked you to that car, only it always seems to work around so that someone else gets all the glory. It makes me feel like a—— Listen to them over there now, talking about signaling. Pee-wee, you gave us an awful scare. It didn't seem natural on top of the cabin last night without you—you little mascot! We're not going to have another word to say about this, kid—I'm your patrol leader, remember. We're going to hit it straight for camp now—the three of us—the Big Three—and you're with us because we can't do without you. Do you get that?"

"Roy," said Pee-wee, speaking with difficulty. "I—I had an—adventure."

"Well, I should think you did."



CHAPTER XIII

TEMPLE CAMP

The scouts of the village stood upon the wharf and waved a last good-bye to the three as the Good Turn chugged merrily away.

"I'm going to give that fellow the full salute," said Tom, raising his hand to his forehead. "He's a wonder."

The scouts on shore received this tribute to their comrade with shouts, throwing their hats in the air and giving three lusty cheers for the "Silver Foxes and the Elks" as the launch, swerving out into midstream, bent her course for Catskill Landing.

"He sure is a wonder," said Roy.

"I told him all about you," chimed in Pee-wee, "and all the stunts you can do."

"He seems to be prouder of his Ford jokes than of his signal work," laughed Roy. "He——"

"Oh, crinkums, he knows some dandy Ford jokes, and his wrist is so strong from paddling that he can stick a shovel in the ground and turn it around with one hand; oh, he's got that paddle twist down fine, Roy; but, gee, he says you're all right; even before you came he said that; as soon as I told him who it was that signaled——"

"Do you think they'll come up?" Roy interrupted.

"Sure they will; I told them all about the camp and how they could have a cabin to themselves—they're only a small troop, one patrol, and he wants to know you better; gee, I told him all about you and how you could——"

"All right, kiddo," laughed Roy.

"They're coming up in August. Say, that fellow's got eleven merit badges, but the one thing he's crazy to get is the gold cross."

"He'll get it," said Tom, who had been wiping the engine.

"He says the trouble is," added Pee-wee, "that he can't save anybody's life with great danger to his own—that's what it says in the Manual, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Tom, quietly.

"He says the trouble is nobody ever gets in danger. The trouble with his troop is they all know how to swim and they're so blamed clever that he never has a chance to rescue one of them. He said he tipped the canoe over with one fellow and the fellow just wouldn't be saved; he swam around and dived and wouldn't let Garry imperil his life—and that's the only way you can do it, Roy. You've got to imperil your own life, and he says he never gets a chance to imperil his life."

"Must be discouraging," said Roy.

"Oh, jiminys, you'd laugh to hear him talk; he's got that quiet way about him, Roy—sober like. I told him there's lots of different ways a feller can imperil his life."

"Sure, fifty-seven varieties," said Roy. "Well, I'm glad they treated you so well, kid, and I hope we'll have a chance to pay them back. What do you say we tie up in Kingston and have a soda?"

Early the next day they came in sight of Catskill Landing. Roy stood on top of the cabin like Columbus, his rapt gaze fixed upon the dock.

"We have arrove," said he. "Gee, I'm sorry it's over."



The trip had been enjoyable, but now their every thought was centered upon Temple Camp to which they were so near and they were filled with delightful anticipations as they made ready for the hike which still lay before them. The boating club, with the hospitality which a love of the water seems always to inspire in its devotees, gave them a mooring buoy and from this, having made their boat fast, they rowed ashore and set out with staves and duffel bags for the quaint little village of Leeds.

The distance to Leeds depends upon who is making the journey, or from whom you get your information. The farmers will tell you it is five miles. The summer boarders are likely to tell you that it is ten. To be exact, it is somewhere between two miles and twenty miles, and you can't get back to Catskill Landing for dinner.

"I think it's ten miles there and twenty miles back," said Roy; "we should worry! When we get to Leeds we make our grand dash for the lake."

"Like Peary," said Pee-wee, already bubbling over with excitement.

"Something like him, yes."

Their way took them through a beautiful hilly country and for a while they had glimpses of the river, which brought them pleasant reminiscences of their rambling, happy-go-lucky voyage.

"Who does the Good Turn belong to?" Tom asked.

"I think it belongs to Honorable Pee-wee Harris," said Roy. "He did the trick that won it."

"I'll tell you who she belongs to," said Pee-wee. "She belongs to the First Bridgeboro Troop, Boy Scouts of America."

"Raven, Fox and Elk!" said Roy. "Right you are, Pee-wee. United we stand, divided we squall."

A tramp of a couple of hours over country roads brought them to Leeds, and they hiked along its main street contributing not a little to its picturesqueness with their alert, jaunty air, their brown complexions which matched so well with the scout attire, their duffel bags and their long staves. More than one farmer and many an early summer boarder stared at them and hailed them pleasantly as they passed along.

"I like this village," said Pee-wee.

"I'll have it wrapped up for you," said Roy; "Take it, or have it sent?"

"How do we get to Black Lake?" Tom asked of a man who was lounging outside one of the shops.

"Ye ain't goin' to walk it, be ye?" he answered, scrutinizing them curiously.

"Right you are," said Roy. "How did you guess?"

"Ye got a pooty smart walk afore ye," the man said, dubiously.

"Well, we're pretty smart boys," said Roy. "Break it to us gently, and let us hear the worst."

"Baout five mile 'f ye take th' hill rud."

"Gracious, goodness me!" said Roy, "are they all the same length?"

"Haouw?"

"The miles; lads, I'm just reckless enough to do it."

"Wall," drawled their informant, "Ye go 'long this rud t'l ye come t' a field whar thar's a red caouw, then ye cut right through th' middle uv it 'n' go on over a stun wall 'n' ye'll come to a woods rud. Ye foller that t'l ye come to a side path on the left on it that goes up hill. Black Lake's t'other side that hill. Ye got to pick yer way up through the woods 'long that path if ye kin foller it, 'n' when ye git t' the top ye kin look daown 'n' see th' lake, but ye'll have a smart climb gettin' daown th' hill."

"That's us," said Roy. "Thanks—thanks very much."

When they had gone a little way he halted Tom and Pee-wee with a dramatic air.

"Lads," said he, "we've got the Motor Boat Heroes and the Dauntless Chums and Submarine Sam beaten to a frazzle! We're the Terrible Trio Series, volume two million. Lads, get out your dirks and keep up stout hearts. We have to cut through the middle of a red cow! That man said so!"

Three-quarters of an hour more along an apparently disused road and they came upon a trail which was barely discernible, leading up a steep and densely wooded hill. In places they had to climb over rugged terraces, extricating themselves from such mazes of tangled underbrush as they had never before seen. Now and then the path seemed to peter out and they found it again with difficulty and only by the skilful use of scout tracking lore. The long, steep climb was filled with difficulties, but they pressed on amazed at the wildness all about them.

At last, by dint of much hard effort and after many wasted steps through loss of the trail, they came out upon the summit, and looked down upon a sight which sent a thrill to all three. The other side of the hill was, perhaps, not as steep as the side which they had mounted, but it was thickly wooded and at its base was a sheet of water surrounded by lofty hills, all covered with dense forest, which extended right down to the water's edge. The lake was perhaps a mile long, and lay like a dark jewel amid the frowning heights which closed it in. The trees along shore were dimly reflected in the still, black water. The quiet of the spot was intense. It was relieved by no sign of habitation, save a little thin, uncertain column of smoke which rose from among the trees on the farther shore.

The solemnity of the scene, the blackness and isolation of that sheet of water, the dense woods, rising all around it and shutting out the world, was quite enough to cast a spell on anyone, and the three boys looked about them awestruck and for a moment speechless.

"Jiminy crinkums!" said Pee-wee, at length.

Tom only shook his head.

"Reminds you of Broadway and Forty-second Street," said Roy.

They started down the hill and found that their descent was quite as difficult as the ascent had been, but at last they reached the foot and now, from this lower viewpoint they could catch a glimpse of the wood interior on the opposite shore. There were several log cabins harmonizing in color with the surrounding forest and, therefore, inconspicuous. Farther from the shore the boys glimpsed another and larger structure and at the water's edge they now saw a boat drawn up.

It was evident that the way they had come was not the usual way to reach the camp, for there was no sign of trail along the shore, and to pick their way around, with the innumerable obstacles which beset the way, would have taken several hours.

"It must be lively around here on Saturday nights with the crowd out doing their marketing, and the movie shows——" began Roy.

"Aw, shut up!" said Pee-wee.

They raised their voices in unison and shouted, and the echo resounded from the hills across the water, almost as loud and distinguishable as their own call. Roy yelled long and loud, slapping his open lips with the palm of his hand, and a pandemonium of similar sounds came back as if from a multitude of voices.

"I tell you, when John Temple does a thing he does it right!" said Pee-wee. "Gee, you can't deny that!"

In a few moments a man approached on the opposite shore and leisurely got into the boat. As he rowed across, he looked around once in a while, and as the boat drew near the boys saw that its occupant had iron gray hair, a long drooping moustache, and a face deeply wrinkled and browned almost to a mulatto hue.

"Hello," called Roy. "Is that Temple Camp over there? I guess we came in the back way."

"Thet's it," said the man. "You some o' the Bridgeboro boys?"

His voice was low and soft, as of one who has lived long in the woods by himself. There was a humorous twinkle in his eye which the boys liked. He was long and lanky and wore khaki trousers and a coarse gray flannel shirt. His arms, which were bare, were very sinewy. Altogether, the impression which he made on the boys was that he was perfectly self-possessed and at ease, so absolutely sure of himself that nothing in all the wide world could frighten him or disconcert him. The President of the United States, kings, emperors, millionaires—including John Temple—might want to be rowed across and this man would come leisurely over and get them, but he would not hurry and he would be no more embarrassed or flustered at meeting them than a tree would be. Nature, the woods and mountains and prairies, had put their stamp upon him, had whispered their secrets to him, and civilization could not phase him. That was the way he struck the boys, who from being scouts had learned to be observant and discerning.

"Are you Mr. Rushmore?" Tom asked, and as the man nodded assent he continued, "My name is Tom Slade; we're members of the Bridgeboro Troop and I'm the one selected to help you. I don't know if you expected me yet, but my scoutmaster and Mr. Temple thought I better come ahead of the other fellows so's to help you and get acquainted—like. These fellows came with me just for fun, but, of course, they want to help get things ready. The rest are coming up in July."

This was a good deal for Tom to say at a stretch, and it fell to the voluble Pee-wee later to edify Mr. Rushmore with all the details of their trip, winding up with a glowing peroration on Roy's greatness.

"Waal, I reck'n I'm glad ye've come—the hull three on ye," Jeb Rushmore drawled.

"That's some trail over that hill," said Roy, as they rowed across. "We lost it about a dozen times."

"Thet? Thet ain't no trail," said Jeb. "Thet's a street—a thurafare. I'm a-goin' t' test you youngsters out follerin' thet on a dark night."

"Have a heart!" said Roy. "I could never pick that out with a flashlight."

"A what? Ye won't hev no light o' no sort, not ef I know it."

The boys laughed. "Well, I see we're up against the real thing," said Roy, "but if that's a thoroughfare, I'd like to see a trail—that's all."

"Ye don' need ter see it," drawled Jeb. "Ye jest feel it."

"You must have a pretty good sense of touch," said Roy.

"Ye don' feel it with your hands, youngster, ye jest sense it."

"Good night!" said Roy.

Tom said nothing. He had been watching Mr. Rushmore and hanging with rapt attention on his every word.

They found the hill on the opposite shore not as steep as it had looked from across the water, and here at its base, in the dim solitude by the shore, was Temple Camp. There was a large open pavilion built of untrimmed wood, which would accommodate eight or ten troops, allowing to each some measure of privacy and there were as many as a dozen log cabins, some large enough for two or three patrols, others intended evidently to accommodate but one. There was a shack for the storage of provisions and equipment, in which the boys saw among other things piles upon piles of wooden platters.

"Not much dishwashing here," said Pee-wee, joyfully.

Here, also, were half a dozen tents and every imaginable article necessary to camp life. Close by was a cooking shack and outside this several long mess boards with rough seats; and just beyond was a spring of clear water.

Jeb Rushmore had a cabin to himself upon the outside of which sprawled the skins of as many as a dozen different sorts of animals—the trophies of his life in the West.

John Temple had certainly done the thing right; there was no doubt of that. He had been a long time falling, but when he fell he fell hard. Temple Camp comprised one hundred acres of woodland—"plenty of room to grow in," as Jeb said. It was more than a camp; it was really a community, and had somewhat the appearance of a frontier trading post. In its construction very little bark had been taken from the wood; the whole collection of buildings fitted well in their wild surroundings; there wasn't a jarring note.

But Temple Camp was unique not only in its extent, its rustic character and its magnificent situation; it was the fulfilment of a grand dream which John Temple had dreamed. Any troop of scouts could, by making timely application to the trustees, go to Temple Camp and remain three weeks without so much as a cent of cost. There was to be absolutely no favoritism of any kind (and Jeb Rushmore was the man to see to that), not even in the case of the Bridgeboro Troop; except that troops from cities were to be given preference over troops from country districts. Jeb Rushmore was to be the camp manager, working with the trustees and the visiting scoutmasters; but as it turned out he became a character in this scout village, and if he fell short in executive capacity he more than made up for it in other ways. Before the first season was over people came miles to see him. There were also a doctor and a cook, though a troop occupying a cabin could do its own cooking and mess by itself if it chose.