"I won't let anybody boss me," Peewee yelled.

Roy vaulted upon the table, while the others crowded about, Tom all the while laughing silently. This was just what he liked.

"Owing to the absence of our beloved scoutmaster," Roy shouted, "and the sudden rise in the world of Toma.s.so Slade, alias Lucky Luke, alias Sherlock n.o.body Holmes, and his unwillingness to run this show, because he saw General Pershing and is too chesty, I nominate for boss and vice-boss of this meeting, Blakeley and Harris, with a platform...."

"We don't need any platform," Peewee shouted; "haven't we got the table?"

"It's better to stand on the table than to stand on ceremonies," Dorry Benton vociferated.

"Sure, or to stand on our dignity like Toma.s.so Slade," Westy Martin shouted.

"Put away your hammer, stop knocking," Doc said. "Are we going to hike to-morrow or are we going to the city?"

"Answered in the affirmative," Roy said.

"Which are we going to do?" Peewee yelled.

"We are!" shouted Roy.

"Do we go to the city?" Doc asked seriously.

"Posilutely," said Roy; "that's why I'm asking who's boss of this meeting; so we can take up a collection."

"All right, go ahead and be boss as long as you're up there," Connie Bennett said, "only don't stand on the cake."

"Don't slip on the icing," Westy shouted.

"I'll slip on your neck if you don't shut up," Roy called. "If I'm boss, I'd like to have some silence."

"Don't look at me, _I_ haven't got any," Peewee piped up.

"Thou never spak'st a truer word," Westy observed.

"I would like to have a large chunk of silence," said Roy; "enough to last for at least thirty seconds."

"You'd better ask General Slade," said Doc; "he's the only one that carries that article around with him."

"How about that, Tommy?" Wig Weigand asked pleasantly.

Tom smiled appreciatively, and seemed on the point of saying something, but he didn't.

There was one other scout, too, who made a specialty of silence in that hilarious Bedlam, and that was a gaunt, thin, little fellow with streaky hair and a pale face, who sat huddled up, apparently enjoying the banter, laughing with a bashful, silent laugh. He made no noise whatever, except when occasionally he coughed, and the others seemed content to let him enjoy himself in his own way. His eyes had a singular brightness, and when he laughed his white teeth and rather drawn mouth gave him almost a ghastly appearance. He seemed as much of an odd number as Tom himself, but not in the same way, for Tom was matter-of-fact and stolid, and this little gnome of a scout seemed all nerves and repressed excitement.

"Let's have a chunk of silence, Alf," Roy called to him.

"Go ahead," Doc shouted.

"If there's going to be a collection, let's get it over with," Westy put in.

Roy, standing on the table, continued:

"SCOUTS AND SCOUTLETS:

"Owing to the high cost of silence, which is as scarce as sugar at these meetings, I will only detain you a couple of minutes...."

"Don't step on the cake," Doc yelled.

"The object of this meeting is, to vote on whether we'll go into the city to-morrow and get some stuff we'll need up at camp.

"Artie has got a list of the things we need, and they add up to four dollars and twenty-two cents. If each fellow chips in a quarter, we'll have enough. Each fellow that wants to go has to pay his own railroad fare--Alf is going with me, so he should worry.

"I don't suppose that Marshall Slade will condescend and we should worry. If we're going up to camp on the first of August, we'll have to begin getting our stuff together--the sooner the quicker--keep still, I'm not through. We were all saying how numbers look funny on scout cabins--five, six, seven. It reminds you too much of school. Uncle Jeb said it would be a good idea for us to paint the pictures of our patrol animals on the doors and scratch off the numbers, because the way it is now, the cabins all look as if they had automobile licenses, and he said Daniel Boone would drop dead if he saw anything like that--Cabin B 26.

_Good night!_"

"Daniel Boone is already dead!" shouted Peewee.

"Take a demerit and stay after school," Roy continued. "So I vote that we buy some paint and see if we can't paint the heads of our three patrol animals on the three cabins. Then we'll feel more like scouts and not so much like convicts. If we do that, it will be thirty cents each instead of twenty-five."

Before Roy was through speaking, a scout hat was going around and the goodly jingle of coins within it, testified to the troops' enthusiasm for what he had been saying. Tom dropped in three quarters, but no one noticed that. He seemed abstracted and unusually nervous. The hat was not pa.s.sed to little Alfred McCord. Perhaps that was because he was mascot....

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM'S HAND CLUNG TO THE BACK OF THE BENCH. Tom Slade at Black Lake--Page 44]

CHAPTER VIII

FIVE, SIX, AND SEVEN

Then Tom Slade stood up. Any one observing him carefully would have noticed that his hand which clung to the back of the bench moved nervously, but otherwise he seemed stolid and dull as usual. For just a second he breathed almost audibly and bit his lip, then he spoke. They listened, a kind of balm of soothing silence pervaded the room, because he spoke so seldom these days. They seemed ready enough to pay him the tribute of their attention when he really seemed to take an interest.

"I got to tell you something," he said, "and maybe you won't like it.

Those three cabins are already taken by a troop in Ohio."

"Which three?" Westy Martin asked, apparently dumbfounded.

"Oh boy, suppose that was true!" Roy said, amused at the very thought of such a possibility.

"Which three?" Westy repeated, still apparently in some suspense.

"Toma.s.so has Westy's goat," Roy laughed.

"Look at the straight face he's keeping," Doc laughed, referring to Tom.

"I might as well tell you the truth," Tom said. "I forget things sometimes; maybe you don't understand. Maybe it was because I wasn't here last year--maybe. But I didn't stop to think about those numbers being your--our--numbers. Now I can remember. I a.s.signed those cabins to a troop in Ohio. They wanted three that were kind of separate from the others and--and--I--I didn't remember."

He seemed a pathetic spectacle as he stood there facing them, jerking his head nervously in the interval of silence and staring amazement that followed. There was no joking about it and they knew it. It was not in Tom's nature to "jolly."