TOM STARTS FOR HOME
There was nothing now to keep Tom at Temple Camp, yet there was nothing
now to take him home, either. Nothing, indeed, except his work. The
bottom seemed to have dropped out of all his plans, and he lingered on
his lonely hilltop for the remaining day or two before the unsuspecting
tenants of this remote little community should arrive.
Of course he might have stayed and enjoyed his triumph, but that would
not have been Tom Slade. He had not forgotten those stinging and
accusing words of Roy's that morning when they had last met. He did not
remember them in malice, but he could not forget them, and he did not
wish to see Roy. We have to take Tom Slade as we find him.
In those last hours of his lonely stay he did not go down much into
camp, for he wished to be by himself, and not to have to answer
questions about his departed friend, toward whom, strange to say, he
cherished a stronger feeling of attachment than before. He was even
grateful to Thornton for perhaps saving him the humiliation of Margaret
Ellison's refusing to go out with him in his boat. There was no telling
what a girl might say or do, and at least he was well out of that
peril....
He busied himself clearing up the litter about the new cabins and
getting them ready for occupancy. On Saturday morning he went down and
told Uncle Jeb that he was starting for home. He was greatly relieved
that the old man did not ask any questions about his companion. Uncle
Jeb was much preoccupied now with the ever-growing multitude of scouts
and their multifarious needs, and gave slight thought to that little
sprig of a camp up on the hill.
"En so yer ain't fer stayin', Tommy? I kinder cal'lated you'd weaken
when the time come. Ain't goin' ter think better of it, huh?" The old
man, smiling through a cloud of tobacco smoke, contemplated Tom with
shrewd, twinkling, expectant eyes. "Fun's jest about startin' naow,
Tommy. 'Member what I told yer baot them critters. Daont yer go back on
account of no gal."
"I ain't going back on account of a girl," said Tom.
"What train yer thinkin' uv goin' daon on?" the old man asked.
"I'm going to hike it," Tom said.
Uncle Jeb contemplated him for a moment as though puzzled, but after
all, seeing nothing so very remarkable in a hike of a hundred and fifty
miles or so, he simply observed. "Yer be'nt in no hurry ter get back,
huh? Wall, yer better hev a good snack before yer start. You jest tell
Chocolate Drop to put yer up rations fer ter night, too, in case you
camp."
* * * * *
The guests at Temple Camp paid no particular attention to the young
fellow who was leaving. He had not associated with the visiting scouts,
and save for an occasional visit to his isolated retreat, where they
found little to interest them, he had been almost a stranger among them.
Doubtless some of them had thought him a mere workman at the camp and
had left him undisturbed accordingly.
It was almost pitiful, now that he was leaving, to note how slightly he
was known and how little his departure affected the general routine of
pleasure. A few scouts, who were diving from the spring board paused to
glance at him as he rowed across the lake and observed that the "fellow
from up on the hill" was going away. Others waved him a fraternal
farewell, but there was none of that customary gathering at the landing,
which he had known in the happy days when he had been a scout among
scouts at his beloved camp.
But there was one scout who took enough interest in him to offer to go
across in the rowboat with him, on the pretext of bringing it back,
though both knew that it was customary to keep boats on both sides of
the lake. This fellow was tall and of a quiet demeanor. His name was
Archer, and he had come with his troop from somewhere in the west, where
they breed that particular type of scouts who believe that actions speak
louder than words.
"Did that job all by yourself, didn't you?" he asked as they rowed
across. He looked a Tom curiously.
"A friend of mine helped me," Tom said; "he's gone home."
"Why didn't you hit into the main road and go down through Catskill?
You're likely to miss the train this way."
"I'm going to hike home," Tom said.
"Far?"
"In Jersey, about twenty miles from the city."
"Some jaunt, eh?" Archer inquired pleasantly.
"I don't mind it," Tom said.
"What are you goin' home for?"
"Because I want to; because I'm finished," Tom said.
This ended the talk but it did not end Archer's rather curious study of
Tom. He said little more, but as he rowed, he watched Tom with an
intense and scrutinizing interest. And even after Tom had said good-bye
to him and started up the trail through the woods, he rowed around, in
the vicinity of the shore, keeping the boat in such position that he
could follow Tom with his eyes as the latter followed the trail in and
out among the trees.
"Humph," he said to himself; "funny."
What he thought funny was this: being an observant scout he had noticed
that Tom carried more rations than a scout would be likely to take on a
long hike, through a country where food could easily be bought in a
hundred towns and villages, and also that one who limped as Tom did
should choose to go on a hike of more than a hundred miles.
A scout, as everybody knows, is observant. And this particular scout was
good at arithmetic. At least he was able to put two and two
together....