Tom Slade on the River

go with them or tell them about an idea you have, they just laugh at you, or don't pay any attention. It just goes in one ear and out the other-because there'

e was telling me about the echoes and he said if I called M

ller had a malicious look it was a sign he belonged to the militia. He'll be jollying you and me all the time we're here-you see if he isn't.

added. "I like him better than any of your patr

said Pee-wee, "but

a scout at all-not thi

punkin for a head and brought it to scout meeting as a new member for Tom's patrol. Coming up the river there was a scarecrow in a field and Roy said, 'There's your new member for you, Tom.' Oh, gee,

bout the Bridgeboro Troop, the members of

st of all," he s

ikes him," s

our troop," Raymond added, with the f

ds (the other two were as yet unused) and to the scouts who were visiting Temple Camp for the first time this late evening meal, served

d by Tom's expedition but even a hopeless enterprise seemed more scoutish than doing nothing and Mr. Ellsworth w

s to typify the very spirit of scouting was luring the boys back from pavilion and cabin a

e tell riddles?"

s poking the fire. "Riddle nu

fee with your left ha

said Roy; "no soon

ozen others, who had already fallen under Roy's

e was a scout-anybody got a harmonica for some soft music? No? Well, once there was

," shouted the irr

ll he fell. He fell on his face-and hurt his feelings. He was self-co

nconscious?" v

s a fiend on first-aid. He opened his case and got out a bottle o

sick!" shou

. He looked about but could not find the piece of stocking the size of a seventy-five cent piece that had come out of the hole. W

ou!" called Pee-wee, in a disguste

-he was resourceful. He happened to remember that once he had eaten a doughn

e's suggestion, and when the general laugh had subsided a boy who had said very lit

t an idea from some things that were said that two or three of you came up here alone last year. It struck me that you might have had

ntly his friend, piped up. "He doesn't like to butt in-gee, you'd neve

redly. "I was just wondering," he said, "if yo

ped up the smaller boy, "and saved peop

?" someon

like-like-well, applause, kind of. But he

asked Mr. Ellsworth, am

and back and he can-he can-he can make raisin pudding," he

ied, smiling across

od Troop-Hawk Patrol, we are. I guess we're a l

all thought of the tragic messag

rry about the

hich held all silent, "but sit here and wait, and if we're sensible we won't hope for t

skill Landing, is it?" Arnold inquired

a pippin, isn't it? Guess it belongs to a millionaire, hey? No, ours is just a little cabin launch-poo

ckings and stone-walls i

favorite posture before the fire, with his hands clasped abou

name is-Lord? Pee-wee Harris over there is the Gordon Lord of our

Pee-wee got very tired (here he dodged a missile from Pee-wee) and so we were all glad wh

rl (oh, he's a regular gallant little lad, he is); he got the bird down

funny, ain't they?"

the Hudson, then we started north.

in a book," int

Ellsworth who poked up the fire and resumed

ggested, slyly, indicat

. "I repeat, the shadows of night were tumbling. It beg

n the middle of a big marsh. So we plowed our way through the muc

and we settled down for the night. The rain came down in sheets and pillowcases and things and the cruel wind played havoc-

e'd better beat it. He told us some more about the old grouch, and I guess Pee-wee and I thought the best thing to do was to hike it right along for Haverstraw and not wait for trouble. We had chopped up a couple of old stanchions for firewood-worth about two Canadian dimes, they wer

s the kind of a gink Old Crusty was we'd have to go and see him and tell him what we'd d

ded a wad of uprooted

ff must have thought Tom was crazy. He gave us a-some kind

suggested Arn

told him he ought not to kick-he'd been shouting for adventures and here was a good one. So we trotted

Arnold. "You've g

you think Ol

escaped

he father of the little girl whose pet b

ws thinner,"

, hair ruffled up, spectacles half-way down

only way we could square ourselves was to take the boat away; he said it belonged to his son who was dead, and that he didn't want it and we were welcome to it and he'd send us a couple of men to help us launch

shook h

me two men and Mr. Stanton's chauffeur to jack the boat over and launch her for us. The girl came along, too, in their au

voy

e off a little way and kept staring at it. Gee, the boat did look pretty nice when she got in the water. I thought maybe she was kind of thinking about her brother, you know, and it put it into my head to ask one of the men ho

found the skiff broken and swamped to her gunwale and right near it the body of the other fellow. The launch was riding on her anchor same as the night before. The men said Mr. Stanton was so broken up that he had the boat hauled ashore and a flood carried her up on the mars

I could see she'd been crying all right, and she said we must

d Arnold, t

, can you? I guess we all felt kind of sober when we said good-bye and she told us to be careful. Tom told her we'd try to do a real good turn some day to pay her back, b

sore at him because I didn't like to hear him joking, sort of, about a fellow that was dead, especially after what the fellow's father and sister had done for us, but he came right back at me by pointing to the board we had the oil stove on. What do you think he did? He showed us the letters N Y M P H u

of gumps. Those fellows had been out in the skiff and they couldn't have use

arry Stanton was injured and clung to that board. But why should he have pulled it aboard the launch? And what

s. Pee-wee and I had hauled it out

no one had noticed it till you

ervant," said R

sed Arnold. He drummed on a log with his f

?" said Roy, addin