For just a moment Tom hesitated, then he sat down on the sill alongside his companion.

"All right, old man," said the other; "spring it--you're through with me for good?"

"You got to tell me who you are," Tom said doggedly; "first you got to tell me who you are."

For a few moments they sat there in silence, Tom's companion whittling the stick and pondering.

"I ain't mad, anyway," Tom finally said.

"You're not?" the other asked.

"It don't make any difference as long as you're my friend, and you helped me."

The other looked up at him in surprise, surveying Tom's stolid, almost expressionless face which was fixed upon the distant camp. "You're solid, fourteen karat gold, Slady," he finally said. "I'm bad enough, goodness knows; but to put it over on a fellow like you, just because you're easy, it's--it just makes me feel like--Oh, I don't know--like a sneak. I'm ashamed to look you in the face, Slady."

Still Tom said nothing, only looked off through the trees below, where specks of white could be seen here and there amid the foliage. "They're putting up the overflow tents," he said, irrelevantly; "there'll be a lot coming Sat.u.r.day."

Then, again, there was silence for a few moments.

"I'm used to having things turn out different from the way I expected,"

Tom said, dully.

"Slady----" his friend began, but paused.

And for a few moments there was silence again, save for the distant sound of splashing down at the lake's edge, where scouts were swimming.

"Slady----listen, Slady; as sure as I sit here ... Are you listening, Slady? As sure as I sit here, I'm going to tell you the truth--every gol darned last word of it."

"I never said you lied," Tom said, never looking at him.

"No? I tried not to tell many. But I've been _living_ one; that's worse.

I'm so contemptible I--it's putting anything over on _you_--that's what makes me feel such a contemptible, low down sneak. That's what's got me.

I don't care so much about the other part. It's _you_--Slady----"

He put his hand on Tom's shoulder and looked at him with a kind of expectancy. And still Tom's gaze was fixed upon the camp below them.

"I don't mind having things go wrong," Tom said, with a kind of pathetic dullness that must have gone straight to the other's heart. "As long as I got a friend it doesn't make any difference what one--I mean who he is. Lots of times the wrong trail takes you to a better place."

"Do you know where it's taking you _this_ time? It isn't a question of _who_ I am. It's a question of _what_ I am--Slady. Do you know what I am?"

"You're a friend of mine," Tom said.

His companion slowly drew his hand from Tom's shoulder, and gazed, perplexed and dumfounded, into that square, homely, unimpa.s.sioned face.

"I'm a thief, Slady," he said.

"I used to steal things," Tom said.

CHAPTER XXVII

THORNTON'S STORY

It was very much like Tom Slade that this altogether sensational disclosure and startling announcement did not greatly agitate him, nor even make him especially curious. The fact that this seductive stranger was his friend seemed the one outstanding reality to him. If he had any other feelings, of humiliation at being so completely deceived, or of disappointment, he did not show them. But he did reiterate in that dull way of his, "You got to tell me who you are."

"I'm _going_ to tell, Slady," his friend said, with a note of sincerity there was no mistaking; "I'm going to tell you the whole business. What did _you_ ever steal? An apple out of a grocery store, or something like that? I thought so. You wouldn't know how to steal if you tried; you'd make a bungle of it."

"That's the way I do, sometimes," Tom said.

"Is it? Well, you didn't this time--old man. If I'm your friend, I'm going to be worth it. Do you get that?"

"I told you you was."

"Slady, I never knew what I was going to get up against, or I would never have tried to swing this thing. If you'd turned out to be a different kind of a fellow I wouldn't have felt so much like a sneak.

It's _you_ that makes me feel like a criminal--not those sleuths and bloodhounds out there. Listen, Slady; it's a kind of a camp-fire story, as you would call it, that I'm going to tell you."

He laid his hand on Tom's arm as he talked and so they sat there on the rough sill of the cabin doorway, Tom silent, the other eager, anxious, as he related his story. The birds flitted about and chirped in the trees overhead, busy with their morning games or tasks, and below the voices of scouts could be heard, thin and spent by the distance, and occasionally the faint sound of a diver with accompanying shouts and laughter which Tom seemed to hear as in a dream. Far off, beyond the mountains, could be heard the shrill whistle of a train, bringing scouts, perhaps, to crowd the already filled tent s.p.a.ce. And amid all these distant sounds which, subdued, formed a kind of outdoor harmony, the voice of Tom's companion sounded strangely in his ear.

"My home is out in Broadvale, Ohio, Slady. Ever hear of it? It's west of Dansburg--about fifty miles. I worked in a lumber concern out there. Can you guess the rest? Here's what did it, Slady, (and with admirable dexterity he went through the motions of shuffling cards and shooting c.r.a.ps). I swiped a hundred, Slady. Don't ask me why I did it--I don't know--I was crazy, that's all. So _now_ what have you got to say?" he inquired with a kind of recklessness, releasing Tom's arm.

"I ain't got anything to say," said Tom.

"They don't know it yet, Tommy, but they'll know it Monday. The accountants are on the job Monday. So I beat it, while the going was good. I started east, for little old New York. I intended to change my name and get a job there and lay low till I could make good. I thought they'd never find me in New York. My right name is Thornton, Slady. Red Thornton they call me out home, on account of this brick dome. Tommy, old boy, as sure as you sit there I don't know any more about the boy scouts than a pig knows about hygiene. So now you've got my number, Slady. What is it? Quits?"

"If you knew anything about scouts," Tom said, with the faintest note of huskiness in his voice, "you'd know that they don't call quits. If I was a quitter, do you suppose I'd have stuck up here?"

Thornton gazed about him at the three new cabins, which this queer friend of his had built there to rectify a trifling act of forgetfulness; he looked at Tom's torn shirt, through which his bruised shoulder could be seen, and at those tough scarred hands.

"So now you know something about them," Tom said.

"I know something about _one_ of them, anyway," Thornton replied admiringly.

"If a fellow sticks in one way, he'll stick in another way," Tom said.

"If he makes up his mind to a thing----"

"You said it, Slady," Thornton concurred, giving Tom a rap on the shoulder. "And now you know, you won't tell? You won't tell that I've gone to New York?" he added with sudden anxiety.

"Who would I tell?" Tom asked. "n.o.body ever made me do anything yet that I didn't want to do." Which was only too true.

Thornton crossed one knee over the other and talked with more ease and a.s.surance. "I met Barnard on the train coming east, Slady. He has red hair like mine, so I thought I'd sit down beside him; we harmonized."

Tom could not repress a smile. "He told me in a letter that he had red hair," he observed.

"Red as a Temple Camp sunset, Tommy old boy. You're going to like that fellow; he's a hundred per cent, white--only for his hair. He's got scouting on the brain--clean daft about it. He told me all about you and how he and his crew of kids were going to spend August here and make things lively. Your crowd----"

"Troop," Tom said.