"That's mostly the only thing that makes me wish I was going to stay,"

Tom said; "so's I'd know you better. I bet you'll keep those fellows on the jump; I bet you won't be all the time preaching to them. Mostly, the way my troop comes is across the lake. They hike up from Catskill through the woods. If your troop comes on the afternoon train, maybe both troops will come up through the woods together, hey? I'd like to see some of those scouts of yours. I bet they're crazy about you. You never told me much about them."

"We've been building cabins, Tommy, old boy."

"Yes, but now the work is nearly finished, all we have to do is clear up, and I'd like to hear something about your troop. Have they got many merit badges?"

"'Bout 'steen. Look here, Tommy boy; I think the best thing for you to do is to forget your grouch at Ray, or Roy, or whatever you call him, and just make up your mind to stay right here. This job you've done----"

"You mean _we_," Tom interrupted.

"Well, _we_, then--it's going to wipe out all hard feeling and everything is going to be all hunk. You'll make a better scoutmaster to the whole bunch than I will. I'm better at work than I am at discipline, Tom. I can't pull that moral suasion bunk at all. I'm pretty nifty at swinging an axe, but I'm weak on the good turn and duty stuff."

"You did _me_ a good turn, all right," Tom said, with simple grat.i.tude in his tone.

"But I mean the big brother stuff," his companion said; "I'm not so much of a dabster at that. You're the one for that--you're a scoutologist."

"A what?" Tom said.

"A scout specialist. One who has studied scoutology. You're the one to manage, what's-his-name, Peewee? And that other kid--Ray----"

"Roy," Tom corrected him.

"I was in hopes you'd weaken and decide to stay and we'd--they'd--elect you generalissimo of the allied troops, like old Foch."

Tom only shook his head. "I don't want to be here," he said; "I don't want to be here when they come. After they see the cabins you can tell them how I didn't know who you were until long after I--I made the mistake. They'll admit that this was the only thing for me to do; they'll admit it when they know about it. The only thing is, that I thought about it before they did, that's all. You got to admit it's the scout way, 'cause a scout wouldn't try to sneak out of anything the easy way."

"I don't know if it's the scout way," his companion said, "but it's the Tom Slade way."

"I got to be thankful I was a scout," Tom observed.

"I think the scouts have to be thankful," his friend said, with a note of admiration ringing in his voice.

"They thought I forgot how to be a scout," Tom said. "Now they'll see."

Barnard raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands over his knees, in that att.i.tude which had come to be characteristic of him about their lonely camp-fire, and glanced about at the results of Tom's long, strenuous, lonesome labors. And he thought how monotonous it must have been there for Tom through those long days and nights that he had spent alone on that isolated hilltop. As he glanced about him, the completed work loomed large and seemed like a monument to the indomitable will and prowess of this young fellow who seemed to him so simple and credulous--almost childlike in some ways. He wondered how Tom could ever have raised those upper logs into their places. It seemed to him that the trifling instance of thoughtlessness which was the cause of all this striving, was nothing at all, and in no way justified those weeks of wearisome labor. A queer fellow, he thought, was this Tom Slade. There was the work, all but finished, three new cabins standing alongside the other three, and all the disorder of choppings and bits of wood lying about.

He glanced at Tom Slade where he sat near him by the fire, and noticed the torn shirt, the hand wrapped in a bandage, the bruised spot on that plain, dogged face, where a chunk of wood had flown up and all but blinded him. He noticed that big mouth. The whimsical thought occurred to him that this young fellow's face was, itself, something like a knot of wood; strong and stubborn, and very plain and homely. And yet he was so easily imposed upon--not exactly that, perhaps, but he was simple withal, and trusting and credulous....

"If I get back before Sat.u.r.day I can see that fellow," Tom said, "and buy his boat. He comes home early Sat.u.r.day afternoons. He said I could have it for a hundred dollars if I wanted it. I got twenty-five dollars more than I need."

"You're rich. And the girl; don't forget _her_. She's worth more than a hundred and twenty-five."

"I'm going to give her a ride in it Sunday, maybe," Tom said.

For a few minutes neither spoke, and there was no sound but the crackling of the blaze and the distant voices of scouts down on the lake. "You can hear them plain up here," Tom said; "are your scouts fond of boating?"

Still his companion did not speak.

"Well, then," he finally said; "if you're going Thursday that means you go to-morrow. I was going to try to talk you into changing your mind, but just now, when I was piking around, and taking a squint at the work and at your face, I saw it wouldn't be any use. I guess people don't influence you much, hey?"

"Roy Blakeley influenced me a lot."

"Well then," said Barnard, "let's put the finishing touch on this job while both of us are here to do it. What do you say? Shall we haul up the flagpole?"

The shortest way down the hill in the direction of the new property was across a little gully over which they had laid a log. This was a convenient way of going when there was no burden to be borne. The hauling and carrying were done at a point some hundred feet from this hollow. In the woods beyond, they had cut and hewn a flagstaff and since two could easily carry it, Barnard's idea was that this should be done then, so that he might have Tom's a.s.sistance.

With Barnard, to think was to act, he was all impulse, and in two seconds he was on his feet and headed for their makeshift bridge across the gully. Tom followed him and was startled to see his friend go tumbling down into the hollow fully three feet from where the log lay.

Before Tom reached the edge a scream, as of excruciating pain, arose, and he lost not a second in scrambling down into the chasm, where his companion lay upon the rocks, holding his forehead and groaning.

CHAPTER XXIII

FRIENDS

"Take your hand off your forehead," Tom said, trying gently to move it against the victim's will; "so I can tell if it's bad. Don't be scared, you're stunned that's all. It's cut, but it isn't bleeding much."

"I'm all right," Barnard said, trying to rise.

"Maybe you are," Tom said, "but safety first; lie still. Can you move your arms? Does your back hurt?"

"I don't want any doctor," Barnard said.

"See if you can--no, lie still; see if you can wiggle your fingers. I guess you're just cut, that's all. Here, let me put my handkerchief around it. You got off lucky."

"You don't call _that_ lucky, do you?" Barnard asked. "My head aches like blazes."

"Sure it does," said Tom, feeling his friend's pulse, "but you're all right."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM HELPED BARNARD TO THEIR CABIN. Tom Slade at Black Lake--Page 134]

"I got a good bang in the head," said Barnard; "I'll be all right," he added, sitting up and gazing about him. "Case of look before you leap, hey? Do you know what I did?"

"You stepped on the shadow instead of the log," Tom said. "I was going to call to you, but I thought that as long as you're a scout you'd know about that. It was on account of the fire--the way it was shining.

That's what they call a false ford----"

"Well, the next time I hope there'll be a Maxwell or a Packard there instead," Barnard said in his funny way.

"A false ford is a shadow across a hollow place," Tom said. "You see them mostly in the moonlight. Don't you remember how lots of fellows were fooled like that, trying to cross trenches. The Germans could make it look like a bridge where there wasn't any bridge--don't you remember?"

"_Some_ engineers!" Barnard observed. "Ouch, but my head hurts! Going down, hey? I don't like those shadow bridges; it's all a matter of taste, I suppose. Oh boy, how my head aches!"

"If it was broken it wouldn't ache," said Tom consolingly, "or you wouldn't know it if it did. Can you get up?"

"I can't go up as quick as I came down," Barnard said, sitting there and holding his head in a way that made even sober Tom smile, "but I guess I can manage it."