Tom Slade at Black Lake Part 6

No one but Tom had arrived at the office and for just a few moments, standing there near Miss Ellison's typewriter and with the prosy letter files about, he was again in France. He could hear the booming of the great guns again, see the flashes of fire....

He sat down and wrote,

DEAR MR. BARNARD:

I got your letter and I am the same Tom Slade. I was going to ask you where you lived in America so I could know you some more when we got back, but when the doctors came to take me away, I didn't see you anywhere. I had to stay in the hospital three weeks, but it wasn't on account of my arm, because that wasn't so bad. It was the sh.e.l.l-shock that was bad--it makes you forget things even after you get better.

I was sorry early this morning that I gave you those cabins, because they're the same ones that my own troop always used to have, and it was a crazy thing for me to forget about that. But now I'm glad, because I have thought of another scheme. I thought of it while I was lying in bed last night and couldn't sleep. So now I'm glad you have those cabins. And you bet I'm glad you wrote to me. It's funny how things happen.

Maybe you'll remember how I thought I was going to die in that hole, and you said how we could dig our way out with your helmet, because if a fellow _has_ to do something he can do it. I'm glad you said that, because I thought about it last night. And thinking of that made me decide I would do something.

I would like it if you will write to me again before summer, and you can send your letters care of Temple Camp, Black Lake.

When you come, you bet I'll be glad to see you.

Your friend, TOM SLADE.

When Tom had sealed and stamped this letter, he laid the other one on Miss Margaret Ellison's desk, thinking that she might be interested to read it.

CHAPTER XI

TOM AND ROY

Anxious that his letter should go as soon as possible, Tom went down in the elevator and was about to cross the street and post it when he ran plunk into Roy, who was waiting on the steps.

"Good night, look who's here," Roy said, in his usual friendly tone; "I might have known that you were upstairs. You've got the early bird turning green with envy."

"I always come early Sat.u.r.days," Tom said.

"I want to tell you that I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you last night, Tom," Roy spoke up. "I see now that it wasn't so bad. I guess you have a whole lot to do up in the office, and maybe you just forgot about how we always had the hill cabins. You can't do _everything_ you want to do, gee I realize that."

"I can do anything I want to do," Tom said.

Roy looked at him as if he did not quite understand.

"Going back on people isn't the way to square things," Tom said. "You got to make things right without anybody losing anything. There's always two ways, only you've got to find the other one."

Roy did not quite understand the drift of his friend's talk, it was not always easy to follow Tom, and indeed he did not care much what Tom meant; he just wanted him to know that their friends.h.i.+p had not been wrecked--could not be wrecked by any freakish act of Tom's.

"I don't care thirty cents what anybody says," Tom said; "I got to be fair."

"I'm not mad, you old grouch," Roy said, "and you should say sixty cents, because the price of everything is double. We should worry. I was waiting here to meet you so as to tell you that I don't know why you did that and I don't care. People have done crazier things than that, I should hope. We can bunk in tents, all right. So don't be sore, Toma.s.so.

I'm sorry I said what I did and I know perfectly well that you just didn't think. You don't suppose I really meant that I thought you knew anybody in that troop out in Ohio, do you? I just said it because I was mad. Gee whiz, I know you wouldn't give anybody the choice before _us_--before your own fellows. I was mad because I was disappointed. But now I know how maybe you were all kind of--you know--rattled on account of being so busy.

"I ain't mad," said Tom, in his dull, stolid way; "I got to go across the street and mail this letter."

"And you'll come to meeting next Friday night?" Roy asked, anxiously.

"I don't know," Tom said.

"And I'm going to tell the fellows that you a.s.signed five, six, and seven, to that Ohio troop just because you were thinking about something else when you did it, and that you didn't know anything more about those fellows than if they were the man in the moon," Roy paused a moment. "Did you?" he said conclusively.

"You can tell them whatever you want to," Tom said. "You can tell them that I didn't know anything about them if you want to. I don't care what you tell them."

Roy paused, hardly knowing what to say. In talking with Tom one had to get him right just as a wrestler must get his victim right and Roy knew that he must watch his step, so to speak.

"You can tell them they won't lose anything," Tom said.

"They'll lose something all right if they lose _you_, Toma.s.so," Roy said, with a note of deep feeling in his voice. "But we're not going to lose you, I can tell you that. They think you have no use for the scouts any more, because you met so many people in France, and know a lot of grown-up people."

"Is that what they think?" Tom asked.

They both stepped aside for Margaret Ellison, the Temple Camp stenographer, to pa.s.s in, and spoke pleasantly with her until she had entered the elevator.

"I don't care what they think," Roy said; "a scout is observant. Can't I see plain enough that you have your pioneer scout badge on? That shows you're thinking about the scouts."

"I put it on for a reason," said Tom.

"You bet your life you did," Roy said, "and it shows you're a scout.

Once a scout, always a scout; you can't get away from that, Toma.s.so."

"Maybe you'll find that out," Tom said, his meaning, as usual, a little cloudy.

"I don't have to find it out, Tom," Roy said. "Don't you suppose I know where you stand? Do you think I'll ever forget how you and I hiked together, and how we camped up on my lawn together, when you first got to be a scout--do you think I will? I always liked you better than any fellow, gee whiz, that's sure. And I know you think more of us than you do of any one else, too. Don't you?"

"I got to go and mail this letter," Tom said.

"First you've got to say that you're for the scouts first, last and always," said Roy gayly, and standing in his friend's path.

Tom looked straight at him, his eyes glistening.

"Do you have to ask me that?" he said.

And then was when the trails went wrong, and didn't cross right and come out right. Roy went up in the elevator to get some circulars from Temple Camp office, and Tom, on his way back from across the street went into the bank to speak with Mr. Temple's secretary. And the girl spoiled everything, as Peewee Harris always said that girls are forever doing.

She was in a great hurry to get the cover off her machine and other matters straightened out, before Mr. Burton came in, so she did not trouble herself to talk much with Roy. She did, however, think to call after him just as he was leaving and he heard her words, with a kind of cold chill, as he stepped into the elevator.

She called to him in her sweetest tone, "Isn't it too funny! A scoutmaster, named Barnard, from out in Ohio who is going to be up at camp knew Tom in France. Won't they have a perfectly _scrumptious_ vacation together, talking about old times?"

CHAPTER XII

THE LONG TRAIL