THE END OF THE TRAIL
Yes, that was a great meeting--it was a _peach_ of a meeting!
"You broke your word," accused Tom, as Roscoe elbowed his way in.
"I did nothing of the kind. I asked you to trust a soldier's honor. You
know more about a soldier's honor now than you did before, don't you?"
"_Good-night!_" laughed Roy. "No more soldier's honor for you! Hey,
Tomasso? You've had enough of it."
Indeed he had had altogether too much of it. But his embarrassment
passed as the bulk of the crowd, not involved in this surprising turn of
affairs, took its way homeward, leaving the scouts and a few others in
the hall. And soon things worked around so that Roscoe saw Tom alone.
Not altogether alone, either, for Margaret Ellison was with him. How Roy
and Pee-wee chanced to miss this I do not know.
The girl said very little, but stared at him until at last he said, "Are
you looking at that scar? It don't look good, but it'll go away, I
guess."
"How did you get it?" she asked.
"He gave his place to another man," said Roscoe, "and was dumped into
the ocean alone."
"A chunk of wood banged me in the forehead," said Tom simply.
"Tom, I want you to do me a favor," said Roscoe, while Margaret
continued to gaze at him. "It's a terribly impolite thing to suggest,
but if you'd be willing to walk over to East Bridgeboro with Margaret, I
could go home and get my things together. I'm afraid I'll miss the only
train. You come to my house afterward and go to the train with me. You
don't mind, do you, Marge? He'll protect you from the lions and tigers."
If she minded she didn't show it.
"I--ain't dressed up," said Tom awkwardly.
"I'm so glad of that!" she said.
* * * * *
Never in his life had he walked with a girl anywhere near his own age,
and he felt just as he had felt that gala day when he had chatted with
her in Temple Camp office. And because he was flustered and knew of
nothing in particular to say, he repeated just what he had said
then--that he could see she liked Roscoe, and he added that he didn't
blame her, for Roscoe was "so good-looking in his uniform--kind of."
To this she made no answer; but after a few minutes she said, "Will you
take me through Barrel Alley where you used to live?"
So Tom took her through Barrel Alley, answering her questions about his
experiences and telling of spies and torpedoings and his rescue and
cruise to South America simply, almost dully, as if they were things
which were not worth talking about.
When they came behind John Temple's big bank building, they stood on the
barrel staves whence the alley derived its name and counted the floors
and picked out the windows of Temple Camp office.
"You'll come in and see Mr. Burton in the morning, won't you?" she said.
"Maybe," said Tom.
The good scout trail, which had wound over half the earth, took them on
down that poor, sordid alley, and he showed her the tenement where he
had once lived.
"The day we got put out," he said simply, "the sheriff stood a beer can
on my mother's picture."
"Oh!" she said; "and then?"
"Nothing then," said Tom, "only I knocked him into the gutter. I got
arrested."
They came out into the brighter light and clearer air of Main Street,
and now the good scout trail, which indeed had not disappointed him, led
them toward the quiet river and the willows and the hilly banks and
across the bridge, from which he showed her the troop's cabin boat (soon
to be plastered with Liberty Loan posters), and into the rural quiet of
East Bridgeboro.
"I said it was a trail," said Tom.
"Yes?"
"I mean everything you do--kind of. It's just a trail. You don't know
where it'll take you."
"It's just brought you back to the same place, hasn't it?" she said.
"But it won't stop," said Tom. "It don't make any difference, anyway, as
long as you hit the right one. Once I thought it was kind of a crazy
notion about everything you do being a trail. But now I know different.
And if you do the wrong thing, you get on the wrong trail, that's all.
Maybe you don't understand exactly what I mean."
"I do understand."
"It's brought me right back to where I'm talking to you again the same
as on Registration Day. So you see it's a good trail. I got a kind of an
idea that there can be a trail in your brain--like.--Often I think of
things like that that I can't make other people understand--not even Roy
sometimes.--I guess maybe girls understand better."
"Maybe," she said. "Do you see I'm wearing the little badge you gave me
yet?"
They strolled on, following the trail, and neither spoke for a few
minutes.
"In the end you don't get misjudged," said Tom simply, "because if you
get on the right trail it'll bring you to the right place. If you've got
the right on your side, you got to win."
"And that's why we'll win the war," she said.
"A feller that maybe got drowned told me about a little girl in London
that got blown up while she was studying her lessons. And when I heard
that I knew we'd win."
"Uncle Sam's like you, Tom," she laughed. "When he makes up his mind to
do a thing.... Do you remember how you told me you had a good muscle?
Uncle Sam's got a good muscle, don't you think?"
"I was thinking something like that when I looked at Roscoe to-night,"
he said. "We got to trust to Uncle Sam."
"The whole world is trusting to Uncle Sam now."
"He's got the muscle," said Tom.
"Yes."
The trail led through a fragrant avenue of evergreens now, through a
solitude where Tom had often hiked, and presently they turned into the
path which formed the short cut to the girl's home. Across the river, on
the top of the bank building, they could see the Stars and Stripes
waving in the small field of brightness thrown by the searchlight. And
all else was darkness.
So, chatting idly, but all the while, coming to know each other better,
they passed the log on which Tom and Roscoe had sat and talked, and
strolled on through the dark, silent grove, where the lions and tigers
were, and where the lonely screech-owl still hooted his dismal song.
THE END