"_Good night!_" said Roy.

Tom said nothing. He had been watching Mr. Rushmore and hanging with rapt attention on his every word.

They found the hill on the opposite sh.o.r.e not as steep as it had looked from across the water, and here at its base, in the dim solitude by the sh.o.r.e, was Temple Camp. There was a large open pavilion built of untrimmed wood, which would accommodate eight or ten troops, allowing to each some measure of privacy and there were as many as a dozen log cabins, some large enough for two or three patrols, others intended evidently to accommodate but one. There was a shack for the storage of provisions and equipment, in which the boys saw among other things piles upon piles of wooden platters.

"Not much dishwashing here," said Pee-wee, joyfully.

Here, also, were half a dozen tents and every imaginable article necessary to camp life. Close by was a cooking shack and outside this several long mess boards with rough seats; and just beyond was a spring of clear water.

Jeb Rushmore had a cabin to himself upon the outside of which sprawled the skins of as many as a dozen different sorts of animals--the trophies of his life in the West.

John Temple had certainly done the thing right; there was no doubt of that. He had been a long time falling, but when he fell he fell hard.

Temple Camp comprised one hundred acres of woodland--"plenty of room to grow in," as Jeb said. It was more than a camp; it was really a community, and had somewhat the appearance of a frontier trading post.

In its construction very little bark had been taken from the wood; the whole collection of buildings fitted well in their wild surroundings; there wasn't a jarring note.

But Temple Camp was unique not only in its extent, its rustic character and its magnificent situation; it was the fulfilment of a grand dream which John Temple had dreamed. Any troop of scouts could, by making timely application to the trustees, go to Temple Camp and remain three weeks without so much as a cent of cost. There was to be absolutely no favoritism of any kind (and Jeb Rushmore was the man to see to that), not even in the case of the Bridgeboro Troop; except that troops from cities were to be given preference over troops from country districts.

Jeb Rushmore was to be the camp manager, working with the trustees and the visiting scoutmasters; but as it turned out he became a character in this scout village, and if he fell short in executive capacity he more than made up for it in other ways. Before the first season was over people came miles to see him. There were also a doctor and a cook, though a troop occupying a cabin could do its own cooking and mess by itself if it chose.

There were some rather interesting rules and regulations. If a scout won a merit badge while at camp this ent.i.tled his whole troop to lengthen its stay by two days, if it so elected. If he won the life scout badge, four extra days was the reward of his whole troop. The star badge meant an extra week, the eagle badge ten extra days. A scout winning the bronze cross was ent.i.tled with his troop to occupy "Hero Cabin" and to remain two extra weeks at camp. The silver cross meant three extra weeks; the gold cross four extra weeks. If a troop could not conveniently avail itself of this extra time privilege in the current season it could be credited with the time and use it, whole or piecemeal, in subsequent seasons.

On the lake there were to be several boats which were not yet ready, and every scout winning a life saving medal was to have a boat named for him. At the time the boys arrived there was only one boat and that was named _Mary Temple_.

CHAPTER XIV

HERO CABIN

The history of Temple Camp during that gala season of its opening would fill a book; but this is not a history of Temple Camp, and we must pa.s.s at once to those extraordinary happenings which shook the little scout community to its very center and cast a shadow over the otherwise pleasant and fraternal life there.

By the middle of July every inch of s.p.a.ce in the pavilion was occupied, and among the other troops which lodged there was the little troop from down the Hudson, of which Garry Everson was the leader. Tom had tried to procure cabin accommodations for these good friends, but the cabins had all been spoken for before their application came and they had to be content with the less desirable quarters. During the early days of their stay the Bridgeboro Troop arrived in a blaze of glory; the Ravens, with their pride and delight, Doc Carson, first aid boy; the rest of the Silver Foxes with Westy Martin, Dorry Benton and others; and Tom's own patrol, the Elks, with Connie Bennett, the Bronson boys, the famous O'Connor twins, all with brand new outfits, for this was a new patrol.

Three small cabins had been reserved for them and in these they settled down, each patrol by itself and flying its own flag. Tom, by reason of his duties, which identified him with the camp as a whole rather than with any troop or patrol, occupied the cabin with Jeb Rushmore, and though he was much with the Elks, he had delegated Connie Bennett to subst.i.tute as patrol leader for the time being.

Garry Everson was a general favorite. Not only had his stunt of receiving the signal message and restoring the fugitive Pee-wee won him high regard with the Bridgeboro boys, but his quiet manner and whimsical humor had made him many friends throughout the camp. He was tall and slim, but muscular; the water seemed to be his specialty; he was an expert at rowing and paddling, he could dive in a dozen different ways and as for swimming, no one at Temple Camp could begin to compete with him.

Tom's friendship with Garry Everson had grown quite intimate. They were both interested in tracking and made many little trips together, for Tom had much time to himself.

One morning, as Tom, according to rule, was making his regular inspection of the pavilion, he lingered for a few minutes in Garry's corner to chat with him.

"You're not getting ready to go?" he asked in surprise, noticing that some of the troop's paraphernalia had been packed.

"Beginning to get ready," said Garry. "Sit down. Why didn't you bring your knitting?"

"I can't stay long," said Tom. "I've got to inspect the cabins yet, and then I've got to make up the program for campfire yarns to-night. By the way, couldn't _you_ give us a spiel?"

"Oh, sure," said Garry. "_The Quest of the Honor Medal_. I'll tell how n.o.body ever gets into danger here--or imperils his life, as Pee-wee would say. I'm going to put a notice up on one of the trees and get you to read another at mess with the regular announcements: Wanted; by scout seeking honor medal; someone willing to imperil his life. Suitable reward. Apply Temple Camp pavilion. Signed, Would-be Hero."

Tom laughed.

"I'm like old What's-his-name, Caesar. Ready to do the conquest act, but nothing more to conquer. Believe me, it's no cinch being a would-be hero. Couldn't you get bitten by a rattlesnake on one of your tracking stunts? Get your foot on him, you know, and he'll be wriggling and squirming to get his head free, and his cruel fangs will be within an inch of your ankle and you'll just begin to feel them against your stocking----"

"Don't," laughed Tom.

"When all of a sudden I'll come bounding out of the thicket, and I'll grab him by the head and force his cruel jaws shut and slip an elastic band around his mug. That ought to pull the silver cross, hey? And I and my faithful followers would get three extra weeks in camp."

"Would you like to stay longer?" Tom asked.

"Foolish question, number three million. Haven't we had the time of our young lives? I never knew two weeks to go so fast. Never mind, we've got two days more--and two days _only_ unless I get some answers to my 'ad.'"

"Where's your patrol this morning?"

"Stalking; they've a date with a robin. I would have gone along except I didn't see much chance of any of them imperilling their lives taking snapshots of robins. So I stayed home to do a little packing--things we won't need again. But no use thinking about that, I suppose; that's what I tell them. We've had some good times, all right. Seems a pity we have to go just when Mr. Temple and his daughter have come. You're a lucky kid; you stay till the last gun is fired, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm going to stay till we close up. Come on, stroll up the hill with me. I've got to raise the colors. If you've only two days more there's no use moping around in here."

"All right, wait a minute and I'll be with you--dry the pensive tear, as your friend Roy would say. He's an all-around scout, isn't he?"

"Yes, he came right off the cover of the Manual, Mr. Ellsworth says."

"You're a bully troop, you fellows. Gee, I envy you. Trouble with us,"

he continued, as they walked up the hill together, "is we haven't any scoutmaster. I'm scoutmaster and patrol leader rolled into one. We're going to get better organized this winter. There's only just the seven of us, you know, and we haven't got any money. You might think that because we live in a country village on the Hudson everything's fine and dandy. But there's blamed little money in our burg. Four of our troop have to work after school. One works all day and goes to night school down to Poughkeepsie. I saved up two years to buy that canoe I was in when I caught your message."

"Well, you caught it all right," said Tom, with a note of pride in his usually expressionless voice.

"We'll come out all right, though," said Garry, cheerily. "That's what I'm always telling them; only we're so gol-blamed poor."

"I know what it is," said Tom, after a pause. "Maybe that's what makes us such good friends, sort of. I lived in a tenement down in Bridgeboro.

I've got to thank Roy for everything--Roy and Mr. Ellsworth. They all treat me fine and you'd never know most of them are rich fellows; but somehow--I don't just know how to tell you---- but you know how a scout is supposed to be a brother to every other scout. Well, it seems to me, kind of, as if a poor fellow is a brother to every other poor fellow--and--and--I understand."

"It's easy to see they all think a lot of you," said Garry. "Well, we've had a rattling good time up here and I don't suppose we'll feel any worse about going away than lots of others will. If you miss one thing you usually have another to make up. We're all good friends in our little troop--we have more fun than you could shake a stick at, joshing each other about different kinds of heroic stunts, to win an honor medal, and some of them have thought up the craziest things----"

"I wish you could stay," said Tom.

"Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as some old duffer said."

The wooded hill sloped upward behind the camp for a distance of some hundred yards, where it was broken by a sheer precipice forming one side of a deep gully. This was the work of man, having once been a railroad cut, but it had been in disuse for many years and was now covered with vegetation. You could walk up the hill till you came to the brink of this almost vertical chasm, but you could no more scramble down it than you could scramble down a well. On the opposite side of the cut the hill continued upward and the bridging of the chasm by the scouts themselves had been a subject of much discussion; but up to the present time nothing had been done and there was no way to continue one's ascent of the hill except to follow along the edge of the cut to a point where the precipice was low enough to allow one to scramble down--a walk of several miles.

Right on the brink of this old overgrown cut was a shack which had probably once been used by the workmen. Although on the Camp property it was rather too far removed from the other buildings to be altogether convenient as a living place, but its isolated situation had attracted the boys, and the idea of calling it Hero Cabin was an inspiration of Roy's. Mr. Keller, one of the trustees, had fallen in with the notion and while deprecating the use of this remote shack for regular living quarters, had good-naturedly given his consent that it be used as the honored domicile of any troop a member of which had won an honor medal.

Perhaps he thought that, honor medals being not so easily won, it would be quite safe to make this concession.

In any event, it was quite enough for the boys. A committee was formed with a member from each troop to make the shack a suitable abode for a hero and his court. Impulsive Roy was the moving spirit of the plan; Pee-wee was its megaphone, and in the early days of the Bridgeboro troop's stay a dozen or more scouts had worked like beavers making a path up through the woods, covering the shack with bark, and raising a flagpole near it. They had hiked into Leeds and bought material for a flag to fly above the shack showing the name, HERO CABIN, and they had fitted it with rustic bunks inside.

The idea was a good one, the boys had taken a great deal of pride and pleasure in the work of preparation, the whole thing had given rise to much friendly jealousy as to what troop should be honored by residence here and what fortunate scout should be escorted to this new abode amid acclamations. Probably every troop in camp had dreams of occupying it (I am sure that Pee-wee had), and of spending its "honor time" here.

But apparently Mr. Keller, who was not much given to dreaming, was right in his skeptical conjecture for Hero Cabin remained unoccupied, though Tom made it a point to tramp up and raise and lower the colors there each day.

"Some day, maybe next season," said he as they stood on the brink and gazed across the deep gully, "they'll bring somebody up here riding on their shoulders. You can't win an honor medal every day in the week. I think the bronze cross would be enough for _me_--let alone the silver or the gold one. I'd be satisfied with that, wouldn't you?"