THE LONE FIGURE
Wilfred Cowell saw Temple Camp for the first time as no other boy had
ever seen it, for he went there not as a scout, but to become a scout.
It was not only new but strange to him. He saw it first as the Ford
emerged out of the woods road which ran from the highway to the
clearing. No car but a Ford (which is the boy scout among cars) ever
approached the remote camp site. And there about him were the
buildings—cabins and rustic pavilions and tents for the overflow. If the
invincible little flivver had rolled twenty feet more it would have
taken an evening dip in the lake.
Wilfred had not supposed that the camp would break so suddenly upon him.
He would have preferred to see it from a distance, to have had an
opportunity of preparing for the ordeal of introduction. But he might
have saved himself the fear of public presentation, for Temple Camp was
eating. And when Temple Camp ate it presented a lesson in concentration
which could not be excelled.
Not a scout was to be seen save one lonely figure paddling idly in a
canoe out in the middle of the lake. Wilfred wondered why he was not at
supper. He felt that he would like to approach his new life via this
lonely figure, to be out there with him first, before the crowd beheld
him. Then he remembered that he was not to go upon this lake—except as
an idle passenger. Might he not paddle? He might not row or dive or—but
might he not paddle? Well, not vigorously—as the others did. But as that
figure silhouetted by the background of the mountain was doing?
No, he would not get himself into a position where he might be expected
to exert himself more than he should. He would eschew the lake and stick
to the stalking, and the birch bark work. He was in the hands of the
powers that be and he would keep his promise _to the letter_.
One thing Wilfred was glad of and that was that he and Tom had stopped
for a little supper in Kingston. He would not have to enter that great
shack whence emanated the sound of what seemed like ten billion knives
and forks and plates.
“Sure you don’t want to eat?” Tom asked.
“No, I had plenty.”
“All right, come ahead then.”
Tom led the way to the administration shack where a young man in scout
attire asked Wilfred questions, writing the answers pertaining to age,
parentage, residence, etc., in the blank spaces on an index card.
“Your folks are at this address all summer?”
“What?”
“They don’t go away?”
“No, sir, they stay in Bridgeboro.”
“You know how to swim?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You want the bills or shall we send them to your folks.”
Wilfred seemed bewildered. It was an evidence of how little he knew
about scouting and the modern camp life of boys, that it had never
occurred to him (nor to his mother either) that camps are often well
organized and well managed communities, where bills are rendered and
board paid. The boy flushed.
“That’s all right,” said Tom quickly; “I’ll see you later about that.”
“Yes, sir,” said the scout clerk pleasantly.
“What do you mean you’ll see him about it later,” Wilfred asked rather
peremptorily, as they went out. “I didn’t——”
“Yes, you did,” laughed Tom. “You heard me say you were my guest, didn’t
you? That was the idea all along; your mother understands it, anyway.
Now look here, Billy; I’ve got a sort of a scholarship—understand? Never
you mind about my relations with this camp. I can bring a fellow here
and let him stay all summer without either you or I being under
obligations to anybody—see? So don’t start in trying to tell me how to
run my job. All _you_ have to do is to make good so I’ll be glad I
brought you up here. All _you_ have to do is to be a good scout and you
can do that by keeping the promise you made back home and doing the
things your promise doesn’t prevent you from doing—there are a whole lot
of things, believe _me_; look in the handbook.
“Now you bang around here a little while till I let the resident
trustees and Uncle Jeb know I’m here, and then I’ll take you up to the
Ravens’ cabin; by that time they’ll be through eating—I hope. Make
yourself at home—that’s where we have camp-fire, up there.” He hurried
away leaving Wilfred standing alone in the gathering twilight.
The boy strolled down to the lakeside and looked out upon the dark
water. With all its somber beauty the scene was not one to cheer a new
boy. Throughout the day that sequestered expanse of water was gay with
life and the dense, wooded heights around it echoed to the sounds of
voices of scouts bathing, fishing, rowing. One could dive from the
springboard on the gently sloping camp shore and hear another diver
splash into the placid water from the solemn depths of the precipitous
forest opposite. You could make the ghost dive any time, as they said.
But now, with the enlivening carnival withdrawn and the community
adjourned to the more substantial delights of the “grub shack,” the lake
and its surrounding hills imparted a feeling of loneliness to the
solitary watcher, and made him uncertain—and homesick.
Through the fast deepening shadows, he could see that lonely figure
paddling idly about in his canoe. Why did he do that during supper-time,
Wilfred wondered. Was he not hungry? This thought occurred to him
because, in plain truth, he was himself a little hungry—just a little.
He had not been perfectly frank with Tom about the sufficiency of their
hasty lunch in Kingston. He just did not want to face that observant,
noisy assemblage. Perhaps the solitary canoeist was another new boy—no,
that could not be.... Then Wilfred noticed that the distant figure
seemed to be clad in white. This became more and more noticeable as the
darkness gathered.
The boy on the shore had kept another little secret from Tom Slade. And
now, before he exposed this secret to the light, he looked behind him to
make sure that none of that gorged and roistering company were emerging.
He knew nothing of scout paraphernalia and had brought nothing with him
because he owned just nothing.
Excepting one thing—a pathetic equipment. He was so rueful about its
appropriateness to scouting, and so fearful that it might arouse
humorous comment, that he had kept it in his pocket. It was an
old-fashioned opera-glass. When told that signaling and stalking were
within the scope of his privileged activities he had asked his mother
for this, thinking it might be useful. But there was something so
thoroughly “civilized” and old-fashioned about it that he felt rather
dubious about having it with him. What would those young Daniel Boones
think of an opera-glass?
He now raised this to his eyes and focused it on the figure out on the
lake. That solitary idler seemed to leap near him in a single bound. He
happened to be facing the camp shore and Wilfred could see a pleasant
countenance looking straight at him and smiling. Evidently he knew he
was being scrutinized and was amused. Wilfred could see now that he wore
a duck jacket. Then, smiling all the while, the stranger waved his hand
and Wilfred waved his own in acknowledgment. It seemed as if he had made
an acquaintance....
When Tom returned to take him to the stronghold of the Ravens, scouts
were pouring out of the “grub shack” like a triumphant army returning
from a massacre.
The young assistant, as Wilfred later found, was always in a hurry.
“All right now,” he said, “come ahead if you want to be a Raven.”
They started up through a grove where there were three cabins.
“Who’s that fellow out on the lake?” Wilfred asked.
“What fellow?”
“There’s a fellow out there in a canoe; he’s got a white jacket—I
think—I mean he’s all in white.”
“Oh, that’s the doc; that’s the fellow you’ve got a date with—later.
Nice chap, too.”
“Doesn’t he eat?”
“Yes, but he’s not a human famine like the rest of this bunch. I suppose
he finished early. You often see him flopping around evenings alone like
that.”
“It seems funny,” said Wilfred.
“Well, you’re pretty much like him,” Tom laughed. “I suppose he likes to
get away from the crowd now and then—you can’t blame him.”
“He’s young, isn’t he?”
“Mmm, ’bout my age. Well, here we are; what do you think of the Ravens’
perch? Artie! Where’s Artie? Is Artie there? Tell him to come out and
grab this prize before somebody else gets it. Aren’t you through eating
yet, Pee-wee? Put down that jelly roll and go and find Artie!”