Here, let's get a squint at your mug," he added, sitting on the blanket and holding Tom's chin up so as to obtain a good view of his face.

Tom's wonted soberness dissolved under this familiar, friendly treatment, and he said with characteristic blunt frankness, "I'm glad you came. You're just like I thought you were. I hoped all the time that you'd come."

"_Get out!_" said Barnard, giving him a bantering push and laughing merrily. "I bet you never gave me a thought. Well, here I am, as large as life, larger in fact, and now that I'm here, what are you going to do with me? What's that; a light?" he added, glancing suddenly down to the main body of the camp.

"It's just the reflection of this fire in the lake," Tom said; "there isn't anybody but me in camp now. The season is late starting. I guess troops will start coming Sat.u.r.day."

"Yes?" said his companion, rather interested, apparently. "Well, I don't suppose they'll bother us much if we stick up here. What are you doing, building a city? The last time we met was in a hole in the ground, hey?

Buried alive; you remember that? Little old France!"

"I don't want to talk about that," Tom said; "when I told Uncle Jeb about it, it made me have a headache afterwards. I don't want to think about that any more. But I'm mighty glad to see you, and I hope you'll stay. It seems funny, kind of, doesn't it?"

Prompt to avail himself of Tom's apparent invitation to friendly intercourse, his companion lay flat on his back, clasped his hands over his head and said, "As funny as a circus. So here we are again, met once more like Stanley and Livingstone in South Africa. And do you know, you look just like I thought you'd look. I said to myself that Tom Slade has a big mouth--determined."

"I never thought how you'd look," Tom said soberly; "but I said you were happy-go-lucky, and I guess you are. I bet your scouts like you. Can you stay until they come?"

"They're a pack of wild Indians, but they think I'm the only baby in the cradle."

"I guess they're right," Tom said.

"So you're all alone in camp, hey? And making your headquarters up here?

Nice and cosy, hey? Remote and secluded, eh? That's the stuff for me. I tell my scouts, 'Keep away from civilization.' The further back you get the better. Guess they won't bother you up here much, hey? Regular hermit's den. No, I'm just on a flying visit, that's all. Came to New York on biz, and thought I'd run up and give the place the once over. I might loaf around a week or two if you'll let me. Suppose I _could_ stay until the kids get here, if it comes to that; _my_ kids, I mean. After all it would be just a case of beating it back to Ohio and then beating it back here with them."

"You might as well stay here now you're here; I hope you will," Tom said. "As long as you're here I might as well tell you why _I'm_ here, all alone."

"Health?"

"Kind of, but not exactly," Tom said. "These three cabins, the old ones--that one, and that one, and that one," he added, pointing, "are the ones my troop always had. But I forgot all about it and gave them to your troop. That got them sore at me. Maybe I could have fixed it for them, but that would have left you fellows without any cabins, because all the cabins down below are taken for August. So I came up here to build three more; that way, n.o.body'll get left. They don't know I'm doing it. I only got about two weeks now. I guess I can't finish because my arm is lame, on account of that wound--_you_ know. And my shoulder is sore. I wanted to go away before they come--I got reasons."

His companion raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands over his knees, and glanced about at the disordered scene which shone in the firelight. "So that's what you've been up to, hey?" he said.

"When I told you in my letter to address your letters here, that's what I was thinking about," Tom said. "Your troop and my--that other--troop will be good friends, I guess. I'm going home when I get through and I'm going to buy a motor-boat."

"Well--I'll--be--jiggered!" his friend said. "Thomas Slade, you're an old hickory-nut."

"It was just like two trails," Tom said, "and I hit the long one."

"And you're still in the bush, hey? Well, now you listen here. Can I bunk up here with you? All right-o. Then I'm yours for a finished job.

Here's my hand. Over the top we go. On July thirty-first, the flag floats over this last cabin. I'm with you, strong as mustard. Building cabins is my favorite sport. You can sit and watch me. I'm here to finish that job with you--what do you say? Comrades to the death?"

"You can help," said Tom, smiling.

"That's me," said Billy Barnard.

CHAPTER XXI

TOM'S GUEST

Tom liked his new acquaintance immensely, but he did not altogether understand him. His apparently reckless and happy-go-lucky temperament and his breezy manner, were very attractive to sober Tom, but they seemed rather odd in a scoutmaster. However, he could think of no good reason why a scoutmaster should not have a reckless nature and a breezy manner. Perhaps, he thought, it would be well if more scoutmasters were like that. He thought that returned soldiers must make good scoutmasters. He suspected that scoutmasters out west must be different.

Of one thing he felt certain, and that was that the scouts in William Barnard's troop must worship him. If he was different from some scoutmasters, perhaps this could be accounted for by the fact that he was younger. Tom suspected that here was just the kind of scoutmaster that the National Organization was after--one with pep. On the whole, he thought that William Barnard was a bully scoutmaster.

At all events he seemed to be pretty skillful at woodcraft. The next morning he set to work in real earnest and Tom took fresh hope and courage from his strenuous partner.

"This is _your_ job," his friend would say; "all I'm doing is helping; sort of a silent partner, as you might say."

But for all that he worked like a slave, relieving Tom of the heavier work, and at night he was dog tired, as he admitted himself. Thus the work went on, and with the help of his new friend, Tom began to see light through the darkness. "We'll get her finished or bust a trace,"

Barnard said. They bunked together in one of the old cabins and Tom enjoyed the isolation and the pioneer character of their task. Relieved of the tremendous strain of lifting the logs alone, his shoulder regained some of its former strength and toughness, and the confidence of success in time cheered him no less than did the amusing and sprightly talk of his friend.

Barnard had not been there two days when his thoughtfulness relieved Tom of one of the daily tasks which had taken much time from his work. This was to follow the trail down the hillside and through the woods to where it ran into the public road and wait there for the mail wagon to pa.s.s and get the letters. "I'll take care of that," he said, as soon as Tom answered his inquiry as to how mail was received at camp, "don't you worry. I have to have my little hike every day."

There was quite an acc.u.mulation of mail when Uncle Jeb, looking strange and laughable in his civilized clothes, as Barnard called them, arrived on Sat.u.r.day morning. The bus, which brought him up from Catskill, brought also the advance guard of the scout army that would shortly over-run the camp.

These dozen or so boys and Uncle Jeb strolled up to visit the camp on the hill, and Uncle Jeb, as usual, expressed no surprise at finding that Tom's visitor had come. "Glad ter see yer," he said; "yer seem like a couple of Robinson Crusoes up here. Glad ter see yer givin' Tommy a hand."

"I got a right to say he's my visitor, haven't I?" Tom asked, without any attempt at hinting. "'Cause I knew him, as you might say, over in France. We catch fish in the brook and we don't use the camp stores much."

"Wall, naow, I wouldn' call this bein' in the camp at all; not yet, leastways," Uncle Jeb said, including the stranger in his shrewd, friendly glance. "Tommy, here, is a privileged character, as the feller says. En your troop's coming later, hain't they? I reckon we won't put you down on the books. You jes stay here with Tommy till he gets his ch.o.r.e done. You're visitin' him ez I see it. n.o.body's a goin' ter bother yer up here."

So there was one troublesome matter settled to Tom's satisfaction. He had wanted to consider Barnard as his particular guest on their hillside retreat and not as a pay guest at the camp. He was glad for what Uncle Jeb had said. But he was rather surprised that Barnard had not protested against this hospitality. What he was particularly surprised at, however, was a certain uneasiness which this scoutmaster from the west had shown in Uncle Jeb's presence. But it was nothing worth thinking about, certainly, and Tom ceased to think about it.

CHAPTER XXII

AN ACCIDENT

The time had now come when each day brought new arrivals to the camp, and August the first loomed large in the near future. It was less than a week off. The three new cabins stood all but completed, and thanks to the strenuous and unfailing help of his friend from the West, Tom knew that his scout dream of atonement was fulfilled.

"When they get here," he said to Uncle Jeb, "just tell them that they are to bunk in the cabins up on the hill. Barnard will be here to meet his own troop, and he'll take them up to the new cabins. Roy and the fellows will like Barnard, that's sure. It'll be like a kind of a little separate camp up on the hill; two troops--six patrols."

"En yer ain't a goin' ter change yer mind en stay, Tommy?"

"Nope," said Tom; "I don't want to see them. I'm going down Thursday.

They'll all be here Sat.u.r.day, I suppose."

In those last days of the work, little groups of scouts would stroll up from the main body of the camp to watch the progress of the labor, but the novelty of this form of entertainment soon pa.s.sed, for the big camp had too many other attractions. In those days of hard work, Tom's liking for his friend had ripened into a feeling of admiring affection, which his stolid but generous nature was not slow to reveal, and he made the sprightly visitor his confidant.

One night--it might have been along about the middle of the week--they sprawled wearily near their camp-fire, chatting about the work and about Tom's future plans.

"One thing, I never could have finished it without you," Tom said, "and I'm glad you're going to stay, because you can be a kind of scoutmaster to both troops. I bet you'll be glad to see your own fellows. I bet you'll like Roy, too, and the other fellows I told you about. Peewee Harris--you'll laugh at him. He has everybody laughing. Their own scoutmaster, Mr. Ellsworth, is away, so it'll be good, as you might say, for them to have you. One thing I like about you, and that is you're not always talking about the law, and giving lectures and things like that.

You're just like another fellow; you're different from a lot of scoutmasters. You're not always talking about the handbook and good turns and things."

His companion seemed a bit uncomfortable but he only laughed and said, "Actions speak louder than words, don't they, Tommy? We've _lived_ it, and that's better, huh?"