THE GRAY ROADSTER
It was Tom Slade. With him was one of the best all-around scouts in
camp, patrol leader of the Royal Bengal Tigers, Eagle Scout and winner
of the Gold Cross, Bert Winton.
"What's this? The annual electrical show?" he asked. "What's the matter
with you kids? Lost, strayed or stolen? Who's this fellow?"
"Look at the bridge, it's gone!" said Roy. "Don't bother to look at it.
It isn't there anyway. We're a couple of pickets--I mean sentinels."
"Well, you guided us through the woods, anyway," said Tom.
"The pleasure is ours," said Roy. "We can sit in a car and guide people
through the woods; we're real heroes. What's the news?"
"Do you know anything about the stage?" Tom asked.
"We know _all_ about it. It's right over there. This fellow comes from
Hillsburgh. He got out and walked ahead and stopped it. Didn't you?
Hervey Willetts blew in from somewhere or other and they're carrying him
to camp. Nothing serious. Got any candy?"
"The crowd from the bus is all right then?"
"Positively guaranteed."
"And Hervey?"
"He's used up another one of his lives, he's only got three left now. He
must have hit the trail after Westy and I left the cove. He's going to
get called down to-morrow. He should worry, he's used to that."
"Where did they run into him?" Tom asked.
"They found him hanging onto one of the horses. Curry thought he was a
ghost, that's all _I_ know. This fellow went ahead and shouted back that
the bridge had sneaked off. Didn't you, Gilly?" It was characteristic of
Roy that he had already found a nickname for Gilbert Tyson.
"Hervey say anything?"
"Mumbled something, I don't know what."
Tom pondered a few moments. "Humph," said he, "that's all right."
He was satisfied about Hervey. The other phases of the episode did not
interest him. What scoutmasters said and thought did not greatly concern
him. He did not give two thoughts to the fact that Hervey was to be
"called down." He had known scouts to be called down before. He had
known credit and glory to miscarry. Hervey had done this thing and that
was all that the young camp assistant cared about. It would not hurt
Hervey to be called down.
The picturesque young assistant, the very spirit and embodiment of
adventure and romance, made a good deal of allowance for visiting
scoutmasters and handbook scouts. He was broad and kind as the trees are
broad and kind; exacting about big things, careless about little things.
They knew all about scouting. He was the true scout. They had their
manuals and handbooks. The great spirit of the woods was his. Hervey had
made good. Why bother more about that?
So he just said, "Not hurt much, huh? Well, if you kids want to go up to
camp, we'll take care of this job."
"Whose car is this, anyway?" asked Bert Winton. "I never saw it before.
It's got bunged up a little, hey?"
Tom looked at the roadster rather interestedly, whistling to himself.
"It's gray," said Bert; "I never saw it before."
"It wasn't damaged in the flood," said Tom.
"Why wasn't it?" Roy demanded.
"Because it's facing down stream. Anything that hit it would have hit it
in the back. I don't know whose it is, but it came here damaged, if you
want to know."
"Sherlock Nobody Holmes, the boy detective," vociferated Roy. "We're not
going to let it worry our innocent young lives, anyway, are we, Gilly?
Oh, here comes somebody along the road! The plot grows thicker!"
Tom and Winton had cut through the woods, direct from the cove where
they had been assisting in throwing together the makeshift dam.
Fortunately the searchlight had made their journey easy. The figure
which now approached along the road turned out to be Ebon Berry, owner
of the wrecked garage, who had ventured forth from his home as soon as
the storm had abated.
"Well, 'tain't no use cryin' over spilled milk, as the feller says," he
observed as he contemplated the ruin all about him.
"You're about cleaned out, Mr. Berry," said Winton. "Whose car is this?
I never saw it before."
"That? Well, now, that belongs to a feller that left it here, oh, I
dunno, mebbe close onto a week ago. I ain't seed him since. Said he'd be
back for it nex' day. I ain't seed nothin' of 'im. I guess that's what
you'd call a racer, now, hain't it?"
"What are you going to do about it?" Tom asked. "It was damaged when it
came here, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it were. Well, now, I don't jes' know _what_ I'd auter do. Jes'
nothin', I guess."
"'Tisn't going to do it any good buried here in the mud," Tom said.
"Well, 'tain't my loss, ony six dollars storage."
"Let's give it the once over," Tom said, in a way of half interest. The
efforts of the night had been so strenuous that his casual interest in
the car was something in the form of relaxation. It interested him as
whittling a stick might have interested him. "Take a squint into that
pocket there, Roy."
There was nothing but a piece of cotton waste in the flap pocket of the
door nearest Roy, but Gilbert Tyson's ransacking of the other one
revealed some miscellaneous paraphernalia; there was a pair of
motorist's gloves, a road map, a newspaper, and two letters.
"Here, I'll give you the light," said Roy, as Tyson handed these things
to Tom.
"You keep the light on the road," said Tom. "Let's have your
flashlight."
"Now we're going to find out where the buried treasure lays hid--I mean
hidden," said Roy. "We're going to unravel the mystery, as Pee-wee would
say. 'Twas on a dark and stormy night----"
"Let's have your flashlight," said Tom, dryly.