"France?" Tom queried. For soldiers out of luck were not uncommon in camp.

"No, just hard luck; lost my grip, that's all."

"Well, hang around and maybe you'll pull together. I've seen lots of sh.e.l.l-shock; had it myself, in fact."

"Oh, it's nothing like that."

"Come in and see the Supreme Court in session, won't you? It's great. We have this twice during the summer. Reminds you of the League of Nations in session.... H'lo, Shorty, what are you here for? More merit badges?"

Outside the main pavilion the choicest spirits of camp were loitering; Pee-wee Harris still working valiantly on the end of his breakfast, Roy Blakeley of the Silver Foxes, Bert Winton on from Ohio with the Bengal Tigers, and Brent Gaylong, leader of the Church Mice from Newburgh. He was a sort of scoutmaster and patrol leader rolled into one, was Brent, a lanky, slow moving fellow with a funny squint to his face, and a quiet way of seeing the funny side of things. You had only to look at him to laugh.

"Tickets purchased from speculators not good," he was saying.

Inside, the place was half filled with scouts, with a sprinkling of scoutmasters. The members of the resident Court of Honor were already seated behind a table and business was going forward. Much had already been despatched.

After a little while Mr. Denny came in and sat down. Other scoutmasters sauntered in, and scouts singly and in groups. One proud scout went out with three new merit badges and was vociferously cheered outside.

Another didn't quite make the pathfinder's badge; another the camp honor flag for good turns. Still another got the Life Scout badge, and so it went. Honor jobs for the ensuing week were given out. There were many strictly camp awards, not found in the handbook. The Temple Paddle was awarded to a proud canoeist. Scouts came and went. Sometimes the interest was keen and sometimes it lagged.

Hervey Willetts came sauntering up from the boat landing, his hat at a rakish angle, and trying to balance an oar-lock on his nose. He had an air of wandering aimlessly so that his arrival at the pavilion seemed quite a matter of chance. A morning song was on his lips:

The life of a scout is sweet, is sweet, The rubbish he throws in the street, the street.

He uses soft words, And he shoots all the birds; The life of a scout is sweet.

Being a lone, blithe spirit, a kind of scout skylark as one might say, he had not many friends in camp. The rank and file laughed at him, were amused at his nave independence, and regarded him, not as a poor scout, but rather as not exactly a scout at all. They did not see enough of him; he flew too high. He was his own best companion.

Consequently when he sauntered with a kind of whimsical a.s.surance into that exalted official conclave most of them thought that he had dropped in as he might have dropped into the lake. There was a little touch of pathos, too, in the fact that the loiterers outside did not speak to him as he pa.s.sed in. It was just that they did not know him well enough; he was not one of them. He was the oddest of odd numbers, a stormy petrel indeed, and they did not know how to take him.

So he was alone amid three hundred scouts....

CHAPTER x.x.xII

OVER THE TOP

Tom had waited patiently for Hervey to arrive. His propensity for _not_ arriving had troubled Tom. But whether by chance or otherwise there he was, and Tom lost no time in getting to his feet.

"Before the court closes," he said, "I want to ask to have a blank filled out to be sent to the National Honor Court, on a claim for the Gold Cross award. I would like to get it endorsed by the Local Council to-day so it will get to National Headquarters Monday."

You could have heard a pin drop in that room. The magic words Gold Cross brought every whispering, dallying scout to attention. There was a general rustle of straightening up in seats. The continuous departing ceased. Faces appeared at the open windows.

_The Gold Cross._

Mr. Denny looked at Tom. The young a.s.sistant, in his usual negligee, was very offhand and thoroughly at ease. He seemed to know what he was talking about. All eyes were upon him.

"If you want the detailed statements of the three witnesses written out, that can be done. But the National Court will take the recommendation without that if it's endorsed by the Local Council. That was done in the case of Albert Nesbit, who won the Gold Cross here three years ago. I'd rather do it that way."

"What is the name, Mr. Slade?"

"Willetts--Hervey Willetts. You spell it with two T's."

"This can be done without witnesses, on examination, Mr. Slade."

"The winner isn't a good subject for examination," said Tom; "I think the witnesses would be better."

"Just so."

"I might say," said Tom, "that this is the first chance I've had to tell about this thing. On the night of the storm I sent Willetts from the cove and told him to catch the bus and stop it before it reached the bridge. I didn't think he could do it but I didn't say so. He had two miles to go through the storm, running all the way. The wind was in his face. Of course we all know what the storm was. His scoutmaster had told him not to leave camp. If this was an emergency then it comes under By-law Twenty-seven. You'll have to decide that. It was on account of the flood I took him, not on account of the bus. The lake was running out."

"Did he reach the bus?" Mr. Fuller asked.

"He reached the bus, but he doesn't know how. The last he remembered is that he fell because his foot was caught in a hole. I don't know, n.o.body knows how he did that thing. Here's a man who was in the woods that night and saw him. He met him about half way and says he was so exhausted and excited he couldn't speak. He told this man that he had to _hurry on to save some people's lives_. He meant the people in the bus.

How he got from the place where he fell to the bus is a mystery. When he did get there he couldn't speak, so he grabbed one of the horses. His foot was wrenched and he was unconscious.

"When they got him in the bus he muttered something and they thought he was talking about his foot. It was the bridge he was talking about. But what he said prompted Mr. Carroll to send another scout forward, and _he_ stopped the bus. That's all there is to it. He got there and it nearly killed him. Darby Curren, who is here to tell you, thought he was a spook.

"Now these three people, Mr. Hood, Darby Curren and Mr. Carroll, can tell you what they know about it. It's one of those cases where the real facts didn't come out. Hervey Willetts saved the lives of twenty-two people at _grave danger_ to his own. That satisfies the handbook. He doesn't care four cents about the Gold Cross, but right is right, and I'm here to see that he gets it. Stand up, Hervey. Stand out in the aisle." Suddenly Tom was seated.

So there stood the wandering minstrel, alone. Even his champion was not in evidence. Nor was his troop there to share the glory with him. His scoutmaster was there, but he seemed too dazed to speak. And so the stormy petrel stood alone, as he would always stand alone. Because there was no one like him.

"Willetts is the name? Hervey Willetts?"

"I got a middle name, but I don't bother with it."

"What troop?"

And so the cut and dried business, so strange and unattractive to Hervey, of filling in the blank, went on. He did not greatly care for indoor sports. There was a lull in the general interest. Scouts began lounging and whispering again.

In that interval of restlessness, an observant person might have noticed, sitting in the back part of the room, the rather ungainly figure of the tall fellow, Brent Gaylong, organizer of the Church Mice of Newburgh. He seemed to be the center of a clamoring, interested, little group.

Roy Blakeley's brown, crinkly hair could be seen through the gaps made by other heads. Gaylong's knees were up against the back of the seat in front of him, thus forming a sort of slanting desk, on which he held a writing tablet. His head was c.o.c.ked sideways as if in humorous but stern criticism of his own work. On somebody's suggestion he wrote something then crossed it out. There were evidently too many cooks at the broth, but he was ludicrously patient and considerate, being no doubt chief cook himself. There was something very funny about his calm, preoccupied demeanor amid that clamoring throng. The proceedings in the room interested him not.

Nor did the business interest many others now. There was a continuous drift toward the door and the crowd of loiterers outside increased and became noisy. The wandering minstrel stood alone.

The voice of the chairman droned on, "Hill cabin twenty-two. Right. We will talk with these gentlemen afterwards. It may be a week or two before you get this, Willetts. It has to come from the National Court of Honor. Meanwhile, the Camp thanks you, and is proud of you, for your extraordinary feat of heroism. It's most unusual----"

"Trust him for that," some one interrupted.

"I could run faster than that if I had sneaks," said Hervey.

"I'm afraid no one would have seen you at all, then," said Mr. Carlson.

"All you've got to do is double your fists and look through them and you can see a mile. It's like opera gla.s.ses."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "STAND UP, HERVEY. STAND OUT IN THE AISLE." Tom Slade's Double Dare. Page 190]