Tom Slade

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For Mr. Ellsworth, John Temple had only contempt. He looked down upon
him as the man without imagination always looks down upon the man with
imagination. Meanwhile the new subtle spirit was working in Tom Slade
and the capitalist had neither the time nor the interest to stoop and
watch the wonderful transformation which was going on.

He was not prompted by any feeling of spite or resentment toward Tom
and the scouts when he told the constable about "young Slade." He
believed that he was acting wisely and even in Tom's best interests,
and it was in vain that his young daughter tried to pull him away from
the telephone. Mrs. Temple weepingly implored him to remember the
hospitality and the courtesy which she and Mary had just enjoyed at the
hands of the scouts, but it was of no use. If no one had mentioned Tom
he would never have thought of him, but since Mary had mentioned him he
believed it was a good time to have Mr. Ellsworth's experiment with Tom
looked into before "all the houses in the neighborhood were robbed." He
did not mean that, of course; it was simply his way of talking.

It was the second morning after the Silver Foxes' proud recovery of
Esther Blakeley's card that a loose-jointed personage from Salmon River
Village sauntered into camp, his face screwed up as if he were studying
the sun, and surveyed the camp with that frank and leisurely scrutiny
which bespeaks the "Rube." Concealed beneath his coat he wore a badge
which he had fished out of an unused cooky-jar just before starting,
and it swelled his rural pride to feel the weight of it on his
suspender.

"Wha'ose boss here?" he asked Pee-wee, who was about his customary duty
of spearing loose papers with a pointed stick.

"No boss," said Pee-wee.

"Wha'ose runnin' the shebang?"

Pee-wee pointed to Mr. Ellsworth's little tent just inside which the
scoutmaster sat on an onion-crate stool, writing.

The official personage sauntered over, watched by several boys, paused
to inspect the wireless apparatus in its little leanto. His inquisitive
manner was rather jarring. By the time he reached Mr. Ellsworth's tent
a little group had formed about him.

"Ya'ou the boss here?"

"Good-morning," said Mr. Ellsworth.

"Ya'ou the boss?"

"No; the boys are boss; anything we can do for you?"

The stranger looked about curiously. "Got permission t' camp here, I
s'pose."

"There's the owner of the property," said Mr. Ellsworth, laughingly,
indicating Roy.

"Hmmm; ye got a young feller here by th' name o' Slade?"

"That's what we have," said the scoutmaster with his usual breezy
pleasantry.

"Well, I reckon I'll hev ter see him."

"Certainly; what for?" Mr. Ellsworth asked rather more interested.

"He's got hisself into a leetle mite o' trouble," the stranger drawled;
"leastways, mebbe he has." He seemed to enjoy being mysterious.

So Tom was called. Roy came with him, and all who were in camp at the
moment clustered about the scoutmaster's tent. Mr. Ellsworth's manner
was one of perfect confidence in Tom and half-amusement at the
stranger's relish of his own authority.

"You don't wish to see him privately, I suppose?"

"Na-o--leastways not 'less he does. Seems you was trespassing araound
Five Oaks t'other day," he said to Tom in his exasperating drawl, and
with deliberate hesitation.

"Good heavens, man!" said Mr. Ellsworth, nettled. "You don't mean to
tell me this boy is charged with trespassing! Why, half a dozen of
these boys accompanied Mrs. Temple and her daughter home--they were
invited into the house." He looked at the stranger, half angry and half
amused. "Mrs. Temple and her daughter were our guests here. We might as
well say they were trespassing!"

"Leastways they din't take nuthin'."

"What do you mean by that?" said the scoutmaster, sharply.

"Ye know a pin was missin' thar?"

"Yes," said Mr. Ellsworth, impatiently.

"An' one o' these youngsters was seen sneakin'--"

"Oh, no," the scoutmaster jerked out; "we don't do any sneaking here.
Be careful how you talk. You are trespassing yourself, sir, if it comes
to that."

There was never a moment in the troop's history, not even in that
unpleasant scene in John Temple's vacant lot, when the boys so admired
their scoutmaster. His absolute confidence in every member of the troop
thrilled them with an incentive which no amount of discipline could
have inspired. It was plain to see that they felt this--all save Tom,
whose face was a puzzle.

He stood there among them, his belt pulled unnecessarily tight, after
the fashion of the boy who has always worn a suspender, the trim intent
of the scout regalia hardly showing to advantage on his rather clumsy
form. His puttees were never well adjusted; the khaki jacket (when he
wore it) had a perverse way of working up in back. He presented a
marked contrast to Roy's natty appearance and to Westy whose uniform
fitted him so perfectly that he seemed to have been poured into it as a
liquid into a mould. Both boys looked every inch a scout. Yet there
was something strangely distinctive about Tom as he stood there. A
discerning person might have fancied his uncouthness as part and parcel
of a certain rugged quality which could not be expressed in precise
attire. There was something ominous in the dogged, sullen look which
his countenance wore. He seemed a sort of law unto himself, having a
certain resource in himself and seeking now neither advice nor
assistance. He was no figure for the cover of the Scout Handbook, yet
he had drawn out of it its full measure of strength; he would accept no
one's interpretation of it but his own and thus he stood among them and
yet apart--as good a scout as ever raised his hand to take the oath.

"One o' these youngsters went daown stairs and raound the haouse t' th'
pantry 'n' he was seen to go without warrant of law crost Temple's lawn
and inter his private woods." The man had his little spats of legal
phraseology, of course, and Mr. Ellsworth could almost have murdered
him for his "without warrant of law."

"Any one of you boys go 'without warrant of law'?" asked the
scoutmaster, with an air of humorous disgust.

"I did," said Tom simply.

The scoutmaster looked at him in surprise.

"What for, Tom?"

There was a moment's silence.

"I've got nothing to say," said Tom.

Doc. Carson, who was of all things observant, noticed a set appearance
about Tom's jaw and a far-away look in his eyes as if he neither knew
nor cared about any of those present.

"I s'pose if we was to search ye we wouldn't find nothin' on ye t'
shouldn't be thar?"

"I am a scout of the sec--I am a scout," said Tom, impassively. "No one
will search me."

It would be hard to describe the look in Mr. Ellsworth's eyes as he
watched Tom. There was confidence, there was admiration, but withal an
almost pathetic look of apprehension and suspense. He studied Tom as a
pilot fixes his gaze intently upon a rocky shore. Tom did not look at
him.

"Ye wouldn't relish bein' searched, I reckon?" the constable said with
an exasperating grin of triumph.

Then the thunderbolt fell. Calmly Tom reached down into his pocket and
brought forth the little class pin.

"I know what you want," he said. "I didn't know first off, but now I
know. You couldn't search me--I wouldn' leave--let you. I could handle
a marshal, and I'm stronger now than I was then. But you can't search
me; you can't disgrace my patrol by searchin' them--or by searchin' me
--'cause I wouldn't lea--let you. Get away from me!" with such
frantic suddenness that they started. "Don't you try to take it from
me! I'm a scout of--I'm a scout--mind! Where's Roy?"

"Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice tense with emotion.

"Where's Roy?" the boy asked, ignoring him.

Roy stepped forward as he had done once before when Tom was in trouble,
and they made an odd contrast. "Here, Tom."

"You take it an' give it to Mary Temple and tell her it's tossin' it
back--kind of. She'll know what I mean. You know how to go to places
like that--but they get me scared. Tell her it's instead of the rubber
ball, and that I sent it to her."

"Oh, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice almost breaking, "is that all
you have to say--Tom?"

"I'm a scout--I'm obeyin' the law--that's all," said Tom, doggedly. He
seemed to be the only one of them all who was not affected, so sure did
he feel of himself.

"Do I have to get arrested?" said he.

"Ye-es, I reckon I'll hev to take ye 'long," said the constable,
advancing.

Tom never flinched.

Roy tried to speak but could only say, "Tom--"

Mr. Ellsworth put his palm to his forehead and held it there a moment
as if his head throbbed.

"Can I have my book?" Tom asked as the constable, taking his arm, took
a step away.

It was Pee-wee who glided, scout pace, over to the Silver Foxes' tent.
In the unusual situation it never occurred to him that he, a Raven, was
entering it uninvited. Esther Blakeley's triumphant post card hung
there but he never noticed it. He brought the well-thumbed Handbook
with T. S. on it, and it was curious to see that he gave it to Roy
instead of to Tom.

But Tom noticed his bringing it. "I'm glad you did your tracking stunt,
Pee-wee," he said, with just a little quiver in his voice.

Roy handed him the book. Then, just as they started off, Mr. Ellsworth,
gathering himself together as one coming out of a trance, accosted the
departing constable.

"This boy was placed in my charge by the court in Bridgeboro," said he,
holding the man off.

"That don't make no difference," drawled the man. "I got a right to go
anywheres for a fugitive or a suspect. A guardian writ wouldn't be no
use to ye in a criminal charge." And he smiled as if he were perfectly
willing to explain the law for the benefit of the uninitiated.

Tom, clutching his Handbook, walked along at the man's side. He seemed
utterly indifferent to what was happening.

There were no camp-fire yarns that night.

CHAPTER XIII

HE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE

Mr. Ellsworth did not respond to the call for supper that evening and
Artie, who was cookee for the week, did not go to his tent a second
time. The two patrols ate at the long board under a big elm tree; Tom's
vacant place was conspicuous, but very little was said about the
affair. It was noticeable that the Ravens made no mention of it out of
respect to the other patrol.

After supper Roy went alone to Mr. Ellsworth's tent. There was a
certain freedom of intimacy between these two, partly, no doubt,
because Roy's father was on the Local Council. The scoutmaster had no
favorites and the close relation between himself and Roy was not
generally apparent in the troop. It was simply that Roy indulged in a
certain privilege of intercourse which Mr. Ellsworth's cordial
relations at the Blakeley home seemed to encourage, and I dare say
Roy's own buoyant and charmingly aggressive nature had a good deal to
do with it. He also (though in quite another way than Tom) seemed a law
unto himself.

Arranging himself with drawn up knees upon the scoutmaster's cot, he
began without any introduction.

"Did you notice, Chief" (he often called the scoutmaster chief) "how he
kept saying, 'I am a scout'?"

"Yes, I did," said Mr. Ellsworth, wearily. "It's the one ray of hope."

"Did you notice how he said he was obeying the law?"

"Yes, he did; I had forgotten that."

"His wanting the Handbook, too," said Mr. Ellsworth, quietly, "had a
certain ring to it."

"Did you ever take a squint at that Handbook of his, Chief?"

"No," said Mr. Ellsworth, smiling wanly; "I'm not as observant as you,
Roy."

"He has simply worn it out--it's a sight."

"His mind is not complex," said Mr. Ellsworth, half-heartedly, "yet
he's a mystery."

"Everything is literal to Tom, Chief; he sees only two colors, black
and white."

There was another pause.

"Why don't you eat a little something, Chief?"

"No, not to-night, Roy. I can't. If that thing is true--if there's no
explanation, why, then my whole structure falls down; and John Temple
is right." His voice almost broke. "Tom is either no scout at all or
else----"

"Or else he's about the best scout that lives," interrupted Roy. "Will
you ever forget how he looked as he stood there? Hanged if I can! I've
seen pictures enough of scouts--waving flags and doing good turns and
holding staves and looking like trim little soldiers----"

"Like you, Roy," smiled Mr. Ellsworth.

"But I never saw anything like that! Did you notice his mouth? His----"

"I know," said Mr. Ellsworth, "he looked like a martyr."

"Whenever you see a picture of a scout," said Roy, "it always shows
what a scout can do with his hands and feet; he's tracking or
signalling or something like that. There was a picture that
shows the other side of it. You never see those pictures in the books.
Cracky, but I'd like to have gotten a snap-shot of him just as he stood
there with his mouth set like the jaws of a trap, his eyes ten miles
away and his hand clutching that battered old Handbook."

"I'm glad you dropped in, Roy, it cheers me up."

"Oh, I'm a good scout," laughed Roy. "I'm not thinking about you; I'm
selfish. I'm the one that hauled Tom across, you know, and I've got
my reputation to look after. That's all I care about."

Mr. Ellsworth smiled.

"I'm going to dig out the truth about this between now and to-morrow
morning. I may have to trespass even, but I should worry. What
are you going to do?"

"Nothing to-night. In the morning I'll see Mr. Temple and also Tom, and
see if I can't get him to talk. What else can I do? What are you
going to do?"

"I decline to be interviewed," Roy laughed.

"Well, don't you get into any trouble, Roy."

After the boy had gone, Mr. Ellsworth picked up his own copy of the
Handbook for Boys, and looked with a wistful smile at the
picturesque, natty youngster on the cover, holding the red flags. It
always reminded him of Roy.

Roy was satisfied that the only hope of learning anything was to visit
the scene of Tom's suspicious, or at least unexplained, departure from
the Temple house. About this he knew no more than what the constable
had said, but he firmly believed that whatever Tom had done and
wherever he had gone, it had been for a purpose. He did not believe
that Tom had taken the pin, but he felt certain that if he had
been tempted to, he (Roy) would have seen him do so. For a scout is not
only loyal, he is watchful. His confidence in Tom, no less than his
confidence in himself, made him morally certain that his friend was
innocent; and Tom's own demeanor at the time of his arrest made him
doubly certain.

A little before dark, Roy put on his Indian moccasins, took his pocket
flashlight and a good stock of matches, and started for Five Oaks.
Reaching there, he made sure the veranda was deserted (for which fact
he had to thank the chill air) and found it easy to trace Tom's
footprints around to the back of the house through the almost bare
earth of the new lawn.

In the little recess by the pantry window he felt more secure. The play
of his flashlight quickly discovered the painty smear on the windowsill
and he examined it closely, as Tom had recently done, but Roy's
mental alertness saved him time and trouble. Instead of trying to pick
out footprints across the back lawn, he hurried across it, ran along to
the end of the fence, and then back again, closely watching the upper
rail by the aid of his light. Sure enough, there was a faint smootch of
paint and by this easy discovery he had saved himself several hundred
feet of difficult tracking. Better still, his own suspicions and the
servants' original story were confirmed.

Tom might have gone around the house, but someone else had climbed
through the pantry window.

For a while Roy and his trusty ally, the pocket flashlight, had a
pretty rough tussle of it with the secretive floor of pine-needles in
the woods beyond the fence; but Tom's own uncertain pauses and turnings
and kneelings helped him, and he was thankful that his predecessor had
left these signs of his own movements to guide him. For he now felt
certain that Tom had passed here in the wake of someone else.

It was a long time before he found himself in the beaten path, having
covered a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile where his tracking
had been, as he later said himself, like hunting for a pin on a carpet
in the dark. He had been on his hands and knees most of the time,
shooting his light this way and that, moving the pine-needles carefully
away from some fancied indentation, with almost a watchmaker's delicacy
of touch. It was not so much tracking as it was the working out of a
puzzle, but it brought him at last into the path and then he found
something which rendered further tracking unnecessary. This was the
flask which had lain beside Tom's father.

And now Roy, with no human presence to distract him as Tom had had,
noticed something lying near the flask which Tom had not seen. This was
a little scrap of pasteboard which had evidently been the corner of a
ticket, and holding his flashlight to it he examined it carefully.
There was the termination of a sentence, "...ers' Union," and the last
letters of a name, "...ade," which had been written with ink on a
printed line.

It meant nothing to him except as the slightest thing means something
to a scout, but he began searching diligently for more of the torn
fragments of this card. The breeze had been there before him and he had
crept on hands and knees many feet in every direction before his search
was rewarded by enough of these scattered scraps to enlighten him. But
the light which they shed was like a searchlight!

Using his membership card for a background and some pine gum to stick
the fragments to it, he succeeded in restoring enough of the card to
learn that it was a membership card of the Bricklayers' Union belonging
to one William Slade.

Then, all of a sudden, he caught the whole truth and understood what
had happened.

CHAPTER XIV

ROY TO THE RESCUE

It was late when Roy reached camp and he spoke to no one. Early in the
morning he repaired to Five Oaks to "beard the lion in his den" and
have a personal interview with Mr. John Temple.

There was nothing about Mr. Temple or his house which awed Roy in the
least. He had been reared in a home of wealth and that atmosphere which
poor Tom could not overcome his fear of did not trouble Roy at all. He
was as much at ease in the presence of his elders as it is possible for
a boy to be without disrespect, but he was now to be put to the test.

He found Mr. Temple enjoying an after-breakfast smoke on the wide
veranda at Five Oaks, a bag of golf sticks beside him.

"Good morning, Mr. Temple," said Roy.

If one had to encounter Mr. John Temple at all, this was undoubtedly
the best time and place to do it.

"Good morning, sir," said he, brusquely but not unpleasantly.

"I guess maybe you know me, Mr. Temple; I'm Mr. Blakeley's boy."

Mr. Temple nodded. Roy leaned against the rubble-stone coping of the
veranda.

"Mr. Temple," said he, "I came to see you about something. At first I
was going to ask Mr. Ellsworth to do it, then I decided I would do it
myself."

Mr. Temple worked his cigar over to the corner of his mouth, looking at
Roy curiously and not without a touch of amusement. What he saw was a
trim, sun-browned boy wrestling with a charming little touch of
diffidence, trying to decide how to proceed in this matter which was so
important to him and so trifling to John Temple, but exhibiting withal
the inherent self-possession which bespeaks good breeding. He was half
sitting on the coping and half leaning against it, his browned,
muscular arms pressing it on either side.

Perhaps it was the incongruity of the encounter, or perhaps his recent
breakfast and his good cigar, but he said not unpleasantly, "Lift
yourself up there and sit down if you want to. What can I do for you?"

Roy lifted himself up on the coping and swung his legs from it and felt
at home.

"It's about Tom Slade, Mr. Temple. I know you don't like him and
haven't much use for any of us scouts, and I was afraid if Mr.
Ellsworth came to see you there might be an argument or something like
that, but there couldn't be one with me because I'm only a kid and I
don't know how to argue. But there's another reason too; I stood for
Tom--brought him into the troop--and he's my friend and whatever is
done for him I want to do it. I'll tell you what he did--you
know, he's changed an awful lot since you knew him. I don't say a
fellow would always change so much but he's changed an awful
lot. You'd hardly believe what I'm going to tell you if you didn't know
about his changing. It was his own father, Mr. Temple, that took Mary's
pin--it wasn't Tom. I'm dead sure of it, and I'll tell you how I know.

[Illustration: "SOMETIMES A FELLOW is AFRAID OF A GIRL."]

"I think he went out of the room where the rest of us were that day
because he was afraid he might see you--ashamed, you know--kind of. I'd
have felt the same way if I had thrown stones at you. Well, he went
around the house--I don't know just why he did that--but anyway, he
found tracks there and he found a paint smudge on the window-ledge
where the burglar climbed out. There's another smudge on the fence
where the burglar got over. Tom tracked him and found it was his own
father and he got the pin from him, but I suppose maybe he was afraid
to come and give it to Mary. You know, sometimes a fellow is afraid of
a girl--"

John Temple smiled slightly.

"And he was afraid of you, too, I suppose, and that's where he fell
down, keeping the pin in his pocket. I know it was his father because-here.
I'll show you, Mr. Temple. Here's his membership card in a union
with his name on it, and this is what I think. He stopped in the woods
and tore this up so there wouldn't be anything on him to show his name
and that was just when Tom found him. Tom wouldn't tell about it
because it's one of our laws that a scout must be loyal. So I want to
give this pin to Mary and then I want Tom to go back with me because
it's our troop birthday pretty soon--we've been going two years and--"

"Come around and show me your smudge and your tracks," said Mr. Temple.
"If what you say is true you can go down in the car with me and I'll
withdraw the complaint and do what I can to have the matter expedited.
You might let me have the pin."

"Couldn't I give it to Mary?"

"Yes, if she's about."

It was there in the spacious veranda that Roy handed Mary the pin and
told her exactly what Tom had asked him to say.

The chauffeur who saw Mr. Temple step into the touring car followed by
Roy, carrying the golf sticks, was a little puzzled. He was still more
puzzled to hear his master making inquiries about tracking. After they
had gone a few hundred yards he was ordered to stop and then he saw Roy
run back to the house and return with two more golf sticks which his
master had forgotten.

If John Temple had had the least recollection of that scene in his own
vacant lot in Bridgeboro, he might have recalled the prophetic words of
Mr. Ellsworth, "by our fruits shall you know us, Mr. Temple."

Doubtless, he had forgotten that incident. The tracking business,
however, interested him; he was by no means convinced, but he was
sufficiently persuaded to say the word which would free Tom. Roy's
assumption of full responsibility in regard to the golf sticks amused
him, and Roy's general behaviour pleased him more than he allowed Roy
to know.

He had no particular interest in the scouts, but away down in the heart
of John Temple was a wish for something which he could not procure with
his check-book, and that was a son. A son like Roy would not be half
bad. He rather liked the way the boy had sat on the coping and swung
his legs.

CHAPTER XV

LEMONADE AND OLIVES

It fell out that on one of those fair August days there came out from
Bridgeboro a picnic party of people who were forced to take their
nature by the day, and following in the wake of these, as the peanutman
follows the circus, there came that trusty rear-guard of all such
festive migrations,--Slats Corbett, the "Two aces" (Jim and Jakie
Mattenburg), two of the three O'Connor boys (the other one had mumps),
and, yea, even Sweet Caporal himself.

The petrified mud of Bridgeboro was upon their clothes, the dust of it
was in the corners of their unwashed eyes. They wore no badges but if
they had these should have shown a leaden goat superimposed upon a
tomato can, with a tobacco-label ribbon, so suggestive were they of
street corners and vacant lots and ash heaps.

It was a singular freak of fate that the destiny of the carefullynurtured
Connover Bennett should have been involved with this gallant
crew.

The picnic was conducted according to the time-honored formula of such
festivities. There were lemonade and cold coffee in milk bottles; there
were sandwiches in shoe boxes; there were hard-boiled eggs with
accompanying salt in little twists of brown paper; there were olives
and hat-pins to extract them with, and there were camel's hair shawls
to "spread on the damp ground."

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