THROUGH THE MIST
In my patrol cabin all the fellows were asleep—they’re a sleepy bunch
except when they’re awake. Even Warde seemed to be asleep, but that’s
nothing because I’ve known scouts in my patrol to fall asleep on their
way to our cabin and to undress in their sleep. They go to sleep
beforehand so they won’t have to bother doing it when they get to bed.
That way they save time. Pee-wee is a Raven, and so he didn’t sleep in
our cabin.
I started getting ready to turn in, but I didn’t get very far. I don’t
know, I felt sort of like you do just before exams in school. Kind of, I
don’t know, shaky. Just because Hervey didn’t say anything to Mr.
Arnoldson, that made me think that maybe he would do something crazy. If
he had answered back more I guess I would have felt different.
[Illustration: I SAW SOMEONE SITTING AT THE END OF THE SPRINGBOARD.]
As long as I knew I couldn’t sleep I put my jacket on again because I
hate to be lying down when I can’t sleep, just the same as I don’t like
to be walking around when I’m sleepy. I was wondering what the scouts in
my patrol had been thinking about Warde and me. Because now that I knew
no ’phone message had been received they must have thought it was funny
for us to stay away. I’m patrol leader and I’m supposed to be a shining
example. I guess I’m not so very shiny, but Warde is a good example;
he’s a whole arithmetic.
So I put my jacket on again and went outside. It was pretty dark. Most
always I’m dead to the world at that time of night, and it seemed spooky
to be out when the whole camp was sleeping. _Christopher_, but it was
still. There was a kind of a mist and it seemed to change everything; it
got me all mixed up. I couldn’t tell where the shore of the lake was; it
made the land and the lake sort of the same.
Until then I never knew that there were a lot of things in camp that
make a noise, I mean the boats knocking against the landing and the
weather-vane creaking, and things like that. Because you don’t hear them
in the daytime, or any time when there are other sounds. But believe me,
they gave me the creeps that night. Where I stood I could hardly see the
cabins, the mist was getting so thick. I couldn’t see the tents at all.
I just about knew where the lake began.
All of a sudden I saw something terrible. I saw a thing walking. It was
the same color as the mist, I could only just see it. I couldn’t see
that it had any legs, it just kind of moved, it was the same all the way
down to the ground. I couldn’t stir I was so frightened.
I just stood where I was and, gee, I admit that my heart was thumping. I
heard the chains on the boats clanking and that made me shiver. Lots of
times I’d heard them before, but they sounded spooky that night.
The thing kept going and got to the lake and kept right on walking over
the lake—walked right out over the lake. A little way out it kind of
faded away in the mist. Then I didn’t see it any more. I just stood
there, I couldn’t move....