[Transcriber's Note: An Indian scout sign drawing was inserted here.]
The old Indian scout sign, which is the title of this chapter, means
_There is nothing new along this trail and it brings you back to the
same place._ If you are already acquainted with Tom Slade and his
friends you will be safe in skipping this chapter but, otherwise, you
would better read it for it will tell you a little of Tom's past history
and of the other scouts with whom you are to become acquainted in this
volume.
To know just how all this election business came about we must go back a
year or so to a time when Tom Slade was just a hoodlum down in Barrel
Alley and believed with all his heart that the best use a barrel stave
could be put to was to throw it into the Chinese laundry. He had heard
of the Boy Scouts and he called them "regiment guys" and had a
sophisticated contempt for them.
Then all of a sudden, along had come Roy Blakeley, who had shown him
that he was just wasting good barrel staves; that you could make a
first-class Indian bow out of a barrel stave. Roy had also told him that
you can't smoke cigarettes if you expect to aim straight. That was an
end of the barrel as a missile and that was an end of _Turkish Blend
Mixture_--or whatever you call it. There wasn't any talk or
preaching--just a couple of good knockout blows.
Tom had held that of all the joys in the mischievous hoodlum program
none was so complete as that of throwing chunks of coal through
streetcar windows at the passengers inside. Then along had come Westy
Martin and shown him how you could mark patrol signs on rocks with
chunks of coal--signs which should guide the watchful scout through the
trackless wilderness. Exit coal as a missile.
In short, Tom Slade awoke to the realization not only that he was a
hoodlum, but that he was out of date with his vulgar slang and bungling,
unskilful tricks.
Tom and his father had lived in two rooms in one of John Temple's
tenements down in Barrel Alley and John Temple and his wife and daughter
lived in a couple of dozen rooms, a few lawns, porches, sun-parlors and
things up in Grantley Square. And John Temple stood a better chance of
being struck by lightning than of collecting the rent from Bill Slade.
John Temple was very rich and very grouchy. He owned the Bridgeboro
National Bank; he owned all the vacant lots with their hospitable "Keep
Out" signs, and he had a controlling interest in pretty nearly
everything else in town--except his own temper.
Poor, lazy Bill Slade and his misguided son might have gone on living in
John Temple's tenement rent free until it fell in a heap, for though Mr.
Temple blustered he was not bad at heart; but on an evil day Tom had
thrown a rock at Bridgeboro's distinguished citizen. It was a random,
unscientific shot but, as luck would have it, it knocked John Temple's
new golf cap off into the rich mud of Barrel Alley.
It did not hurt John Temple, but it killed the goose that laid the
golden eggs for the Slades. Mr. Temple's dignity was more than hurt; it
was black and blue. He would rather have been hit by a financial panic
than by that sordid missile from Barrel Alley's most notorious hoodlum.
Inside of three days out went the Slades from John Temple's tenement,
bag and baggage.
There wasn't much baggage. A couple of broken chairs, a greasy
dining-table which Tom had used strategically in his defensive
operations against his father's assaults, a dented beer-can and a few
other dilapidated odds and ends constituted the household effects of the
unfortunate father and son.
Bill Slade, unable to cope with this unexpected disaster, disappeared on
the day of the eviction and Tom was sheltered by a kindly neighbor, Mrs.
O'Connor.
His fortunes were at the very lowest ebb and it seemed a fairly safe
prophesy that he would presently land in the Home for Wayward Boys, when
one day he met Roy Blakeley and tried to hold him up for a nickel.
Far be it from me to defend the act, but it was about the best thing
that Tom ever did so far as his own interests were concerned. Roy took
him up to his own little Camp Solitaire on the beautiful lawn of the
Blakeley home, gave him a cup of coffee, some plum duff (Silver Fox
brand, patent applied for), and passed him out some of the funniest
slang (all brand new) that poor Tom had ever heard.
That was the beginning of Tom's transformation into a scout. He fell for
scouting with a vengeance. It opened up a new world to him. To be sure,
this king of the hoodlums did not capitulate all at once--not he. He was
still wary of all "rich guys" and "sissies"; but he used to go down and
peek through a hole in the fence of Temple's lot when they were
practising their games.
Mr. Ellsworth said nothing, only winked his eye at the boys, for he saw
which way the wind was blowing. Tom Slade, king of the hoodlums, had the
scout bug and didn't know it.
Then, when the time was ripe, Mr. Ellsworth called him down into the
field one day for a try at archery. Tom scrambled down from the fence
and shuffled over to where the scouts waited with smiling, friendly
faces; but just at that moment, who should come striding through the
field but John Temple--straight for the little group.
What happened was not pleasant. John Temple denounced them all as a gang
of trespassers, ordered them out of his field and did not hesitate to
express his opinion of Tom in particular. Mr. Ellsworth then and there
championed the poor fellow and prophesied that notwithstanding his past
the scouts would make a man of him yet.
After that Tom Slade came out flat-footed and hit the scout trail. He
was never able to determine to whom he should be most grateful, Roy
Blakeley or Mr. Ellsworth, but it was the beginning of a friendship
between the two boys which became closer as time passed.
There is no use retelling a tale that is told. Tom had such a summer in
camp as he had never dreamed of when he used to lie in bed till noontime
in Barrel Alley, and all that you shall find in its proper place, but
you must know something of how Temple Camp came into being and how it
came by its name.
John Temple was a wonderful man--oh, he was smart. He could take care of
your property for you; if you had a thousand dollars he would turn it
into two thousand for you--like a sleight-of-hand performer. He could
tell you what kind of stocks to buy and when to sell them. He knew where
to buy real estate. He could tell you when wheat was going up or
down--just as if there were a scout sign to go by. He had everything
that heart could wish--and the rheumatism besides.
But his dubious prophesy as to the future of Tom Slade, king of the
hoodlums, came out all wrong. Tom was instrumental in getting back a pin
which had been stolen from Mary Temple, and when her father saw the boy
after six months or so of scouting he couldn't have been more
surprised--not even if the Bridgeboro Bank had failed.
Then poor old John Temple (or rich old John Temple) showed that he had
one good scout trait. He could be a good loser. He saw that he was all
wrong and that Mr. Ellsworth was right and he straightway built a
pavilion for the scouts in the beautiful woods where all the surprising
episodes of the summer which had opened his eyes had taken place.
But you know as well as I do that a man like John Temple would never be
satisfied with building a little one-troop camping pavilion; not he. So
what should he do but buy a tract of land up in the Catskills close to a
beautiful sheet of water which was called Black Lake; and here he put up
a big open shack with a dozen or so log cabins about it and endowed the
whole thing as a summer camp where troops from all over the country
might come and find accommodations and recreation in the summer months.
That was not all. Temple Camp was to be a school where scouting might be
taught (Oh, he was going to do the right thing, was old John Temple!),
and to that end he communicated with somebody who communicated with
somebody else, who got in touch with somebody else who went to some
ranch or other a hundred miles from nowhere in the woolly west and asked
old Jeb Rushmore if he wouldn't come east and look after this big scout
camp. How in the world John Temple, in his big leather chair in the
Bridgeboro Bank, had ever got wind of Jeb Rushmore no one was able to
find out. John Temple was a genius for picking out men and in this case
he touched high-water mark.
Jeb Rushmore was furnished with passes over all John Temple's railroads
straight through from somewhere or other in Dakota to Catskill Landing,
and a funny sight he must have been in his flannel shirt and slouch hat,
sprawling his lanky limbs from the platforms of observation cars,
drawling out his pithy observations about the civilization which he had
never before seen.
There are only two more things necessary to mention in this "side trail"
chapter. Tom's father bobbed up after the boy had become a scout. He was
a mere shadow of his former self; drink and a wandering life had all but
completed his ruin, and although Tom and his companions gave him a home
in their pleasant camp it was too late to help him much and he died
among them, having seen (if it were any satisfaction for him to see)
that scouting had made a splendid boy of his once neglected son.
This brings us to the main trail again and explains why it was that Roy
Blakeley had held mysterious conferences with Mary Temple, and suggested
to all the three patrols that it would be a good idea to elect Tom to go
to Temple Camp to assist in its preparation and management. They had all
known that one of their number was to be chosen for this post and Roy
had hit on Tom as the one to go because he still lived with Mrs.
O'Connor down in Barrel Alley and had not the same pleasant home
surroundings as the other boys.
A scout is thoughtful.