SHADOWS
Tom, Brent and Uncle Jeb were not the only persons who waited that
night for the camp-fire to die. All unknown to each other two boys
lingered in the darkness. One was a slim little fellow with big,
staring eyes, a queer gnome of a boy, who stole out of the Elks
patrol cabin and stood with his gaze fixed on the dying embers,
listening and eagerly waiting for the last watchers to withdraw. He
intended to steal back alone and search for his precious compass.
For this little trinket meant more to him than he had been willing
for that hilarious company to believe.
Now that he had at last achieved the glory of a real scout suit he
could wear this little appurtenance dangling from his scout belt in
the flaunting manner of Pee-wee Harris. In the store at Kingston he
had bashfully tried this suit on (to the great amusement of his
companion, Curry) and he had looked like a bolster in it. But no
size seemed to fit him. Poor Skinny would never look trim. As he
waited there in the darkness, watching the last faint glow of the
fire, he had not a little the appearance of an hour glass, with his
belt drawn so absurdly tight that his clothing seemed to bulge above
and below it.
The other boy who waited for the fire to die was not a scout. He sat
on a rough bench up at the roadside just where the path led down
through the woods into camp. Approaching along this road one reached
a sign with an arrow pointing down into the woods and with the words
_To Temple Camp_ printed on it. A trail wound down the wooded slope
to the sprawling scout community at the lakeside. At this point
where the trail left the road stood the old bench and close by it a
post surmounted by a huge letter-box where the rural carrier left the
camp mail.
The spot was a pleasant loitering place as was evidenced by the many
carved initials on the bench and the post. No part of the camp was
visible from this spot though sometimes a little glint of silvery
water was discoverable through the trees. But at night two distinct
glowing areas could be seen from the wayside seat. Many a new scout
had been fooled by these. It was one of the popular jokes of camp to
take a new arrival up to the road at night, and then send him forth
to find the northern-most glow, which was only the reflection of the
camp-fire in the distant lake. Even so good a scout as Bert Winton,
who was a Vermont Eagle, had gone hiking down into the dark woods in
search of this fire and had gone clear around the camp and come out
up at the end of the lake where Tenderfoot Cove is, only to see the
glow reduced to a little glinting patch on the water.
The boy who was not a scout had come along the road looking for the
camp. At Leeds, the nearest village, he had been told where to turn
down into the woods. But now that he had reached the spot he
hesitated, for the two bright areas down there in the woods told him
that the camp people were still about. It was his intention to enter
the camp unseen. He was very weary and was not averse to sitting on
the bench and waiting. Now and then he glanced furtively up and down
the dark road as if fearful that he might be discovered, and once
when an auto sped by, throwing a momentary glare over the spot, he
cringed and breathed quickly.
He was about sixteen, this boy, and tall of stature with a litheness
about him which suggested the cautious stealth of an animal. His
eyes were gray and large, but he kept them half closed and used them
with a kind of darting agility. When he arose and stepped across the
road for a better look at the glowing areas, there was a certain
elasticity in his step, a silent springiness, very suggestive of wild
life and extraordinarily graceful. He laid his hands against his
hips and narrowed his eyes in studious concentration on those distant
spots of light. It was a fine, unconscious posture.
The path of least resistance for a boy's hands at this moment would
have been his trousers pockets, but the trousers worn by this boy had
no pockets. They were gingham trousers and afforded their wearer not
one single carrying facility. This boy had grown used to pocketless
trousers and accustomed himself to that picturesque way of standing
with his hands against his hips.
For several minutes he gazed steadily at those distant glowing
patches. His narrowed eyes became steely in this concentration. A
fine, inspiring figure of a scout, baffled and yet resolved, he made
as he stood there. Suddenly some little creature of the woodland
made a sound in its nightly prowling and the boy turned with
lightning rapidity, listening fearfully. Then he resumed his study
of the distant patches of light. He was vivisecting them at long
distance, comparing the flickering movements one with another.
"I'll be--Those aren't two fires," said he. "There's only one. The
other's just a reflection. The two of them move alike."
It was not so bad for a boy who was not a scout. Still, when this
boy set about doing a thing he usually succeeded. The very night
before he had essayed to do a daring thing, a dreadful thing. And he
had succeeded.