JIB JAB'S STORY
Then Harry told him all about his adventure cut on the ocean and how he
found the dead man in the boat, and the money.
"Funny thing, too," he said; "but we were trying to dope out the meaning of
that letter, all sitting around the camp-fire. We even thought we could see
the old gent. Old veteran, isn't he? Huh, that's just what we thought.
Blamed funny thing, a camp-fire."
Jib Jab didn't say anything, only just looked straight ahead of him. Harry
just kept smoking and swinging his legs.
"Guess we hit it about right, hey?" he said.
Jib Jab just kept looking straight ahead of him.
"Pretty near," he said. He sounded kind of strange. Even still he didn't
put the money in his pocket, or the water-soaked letter either, but they
just stayed where Harry threw them, on the bathrobe.
"Pretty tough, being broke," Harry said.
"Bet the old gent'll be proud to see you. Under Grant, I suppose?"
"Sherman," Jib Jab said, very quiet.
Then neither of them spoke for about a couple of minutes, only Harry asked
him for a light.
"Ever get mixed up with the boy scouts, Jib?" Harry asked him.
Jib Jab just shook his head.
"Well, listen here," Harry said; "and here's the test of whether you're
really human."
"I guess I'm pretty human," Jib Jab said, very low.
Then Harry said, "We ran into a party of scouts, Jib, who went up to Elm
Center to see if a fellow they saw in a moving picture was you. I guess it
was all right. They had an idea of winning that reward; you know about the
offer, of course?"
"Yes, I knew," Jib Jab said.
"How about this old gent you're named after? Friend of your father's? I
thought as much. Pretty rich, I suppose? Good. Now, Jib, you and I know
what it is to go broke. I've gone broke forty-eleven times. And we're both
keen for adventure; that's our trouble, I guess. There's a fellow over
where we're camping, a young fellow, with a bunch of little tenderfoot
scouts. They came up to hunt for you and to get that reward. They're broke.
They need some mazuma to start in with. They need a hundred. Do they get
it?"
Jib Jab said, "What do you mean?"
"Well, first you're willing to go home?"
"Do you have to ask me that?"
"All right then," Harry said; "here's the plan of campaign and General
Pershing himself couldn't plan it better. You're going home, that's
settled. Prodigal son, and all that stuff. But first you've got to be
discovered. Give us another light, will you? I put it to you from man to
man, or from tramp to _what-is-it, you can't go home without being
discovered._ You've got to come over our way and get yourself discovered.
These scouts need a shack to meet in and a lot of stuff. They want to give
their scoutmaster a welcome home. He was in the scrap same as you and I.
It all hangs on that hundred dollars, Jib. I'm sorry, but you'll have to be
the goat. That young fellow Gaylong is a double barrel scout and he's
trying to pull through with that outfit of kids. He wouldn't take a cent as
an ordinary present. I've got his number, Of course, if you've got the
instinct of a baboon that doesn't mean anything to you. But all over the
fences in this happy berg, Costello is wanting to know if you're human. You
can't show you're human just by taking off that bear skin and washing your
face. I want to know if you're _human_ or not."
"Run out and ask Costello for a couple of marvelous, matchless matches,
will you, Roy?"