When the telegraph and the telephone and the speeding autos and thebullying of the hapless village constable failed to reveal any clue tothe burglar at Five Oaks, John Temple proceeded to pooh-pooh the wholebusiness and say that there had never been any burglar, but that in allprobability the maid had been exploring Mary's trinkets just as Mrs.Temple returned and that the "frightful-looking man" whom she had meton the stairs was a myth.
It was then that the maid, groping for any straw in her extremity, saidthat a boy in khaki had darted out from the pantry and across theprivate rear lawn into the woods beyond while she stood at the window.
If she had stuck to the plain truth and not permitted Mr. Temple tobeat her down as to the man she actually did see on the stairs, a greatdeal of suffering might have been saved. But the loss of only onetrinket, and that one of small intrinsic value, seemed to lend color tothe theory that it was the work of a boy rather than of a professionaladult burglar, and the master of Five Oaks, thinking this matter worthinquiring into, called up the constable and laid the thing before himin this new light.
Mr. John Temple had no particular grudge against the Boy Scouts. He wasa rational, hard-headed business man, decisive and practical andwithout much imagination. His lack of imagination was, indeed, his maintrouble. He was not silly enough and he was extremely too busy to bearany active malice toward an organization having to do with boys, andexcept when the scouts were mentioned to him he never gave them athought one way or the other. He was not the archenemy of the movement(as some of the boys themselves thought): he simply had no use for it.
So far as the scout idea had been explained to him by the BridgeboroLocal Council (to whom he had granted five minutes of his time) hethought it consisted of a sort of poetical theory and that money putinto it was simply thrown away. He believed, and he told the Councilso, that ample provision had been made for boys in the form of circusesand movie plays and baseball games for good ones and reformatories andprisons for bad ones, and he referred, as the successful man is so aptto do, to his own poor boyhood and how he had attended to business anddone what was right and so on, and so on, and so on.
Nor had this king of finance cherished any particular resentment towardthe poor creature who had thrown a stone at him. John Temple was a bigman and he was not petty, but he was intensely practical, and he had nopatience with Mr. Ellsworth's notions for the making of good citizens.He had known two generations of Slades; he had never known any of themto amount to anything, and he believed that the proper place for ahoodlum and a truant and an orphan was in an institution. He paid histaxes for the support of these institutions regularly and he believedthey ought to be used for what they were intended for. He thought itwas little less than criminal that the son of Bill Slade should bewandering over the face of the earth when he might be legally placed ina dormitory, eating his three meals a day in a white-washed corridor.
For Mr. Ellsworth, John Temple had only contempt. He looked down uponhim as the man without imagination always looks down upon the man withimagination. Meanwhile the new subtle spirit was working in Tom Sladeand the capitalist had neither the time nor the interest to stoop andwatch the wonderful transformation which was going on.
He was not prompted by any feeling of spite or resentment toward Tomand the scouts when he told the constable about "young Slade." Hebelieved that he was acting wisely and even in Tom's best interests,and it was in vain that his young daughter tried to pull him away fromthe telephone. Mrs. Temple weepingly implored him to remember thehospitality and the courtesy which she and Mary had just enjoyed at thehands of the scouts, but it was of no use. If no one had mentioned Tomhe would never have thought of him, but since Mary had mentioned him hebelieved it was a good time to have Mr. Ellsworth's experiment with Tomlooked into before "all the houses in the neighborhood were robbed." Hedid not mean that, of course; it was simply his way of talking.
It was the second morning after the Silver Foxes' proud recovery ofEsther Blakeley's card that a loose-jointed personage from Salmon RiverVillage sauntered into camp, his face screwed up as if he were studyingthe sun, and surveyed the camp with that frank and leisurely scrutinywhich bespeaks the "Rube." Concealed beneath his coat he wore a badgewhich he had fished out of an unused cooky-jar just before starting,and it swelled his rural pride to feel the weight of it on hissuspender.
"Wha'ose boss here?" he asked Pee-wee, who was about his customary dutyof spearing loose papers with a pointed stick.
"No boss," said Pee-wee.
"Wha'ose runnin' the shebang?"
Pee-wee pointed to Mr. Ellsworth's little tent just inside which thescoutmaster sat on an onion-crate stool, writing.
The official personage sauntered over, watched by several boys, pausedto inspect the wireless apparatus in its little leanto. His inquisitivemanner was rather jarring. By the time he reached Mr. Ellsworth's tenta little group had formed about him.
"Ya'ou the boss here?"
"Good-morning," said Mr. Ellsworth.
"Ya'ou the boss?"
"No; the boys are boss; anything we can do for you?"
The stranger looked about curiously. "Got permission t' camp here, Is'pose."
"There's the owner of the property," said Mr. Ellsworth, laughingly,indicating Roy.
"Hmmm; ye got a young feller here by th' name o' Slade?"
"That's what we have," said the scoutmaster with his usual breezypleasantry.
"Well, I reckon I'll hev ter see him."
"Certainly; what for?" Mr. Ellsworth asked rather more interested.
"He's got hisself into a leetle mite o' trouble," the stranger drawled;"leastways, mebbe he has." He seemed to enjoy being mysterious.
So Tom was called. Roy came with him, and all who were in camp at themoment clustered about the scoutmaster's tent. Mr. Ellsworth's mannerwas one of perfect confidence in Tom and half-amusement at thestranger's relish of his own authority.
"You don't wish to see him privately, I suppose?"
"Na-o--leastways not 'less he does. Seems you was trespassing araoundFive Oaks t'other day," he said to Tom in his exasperating drawl, andwith deliberate hesitation.
"Good heavens, man!" said Mr. Ellsworth, nettled. "You don't mean totell me this boy is charged with trespassing! Why, half a dozen ofthese boys accompanied Mrs. Temple and her daughter home--they wereinvited into the house." He looked at the stranger, half angry and halfamused. "Mrs. Temple and her daughter were our guests here. We might aswell say _they_ were trespassing!"
"Leastways they din't take nuthin'."
"What do you mean by that?" said the scoutmaster, sharply.
"Ye know a pin was missin' thar?"
"Yes," said Mr. Ellsworth, impatiently.
"An' one o' these youngsters was seen sneakin'--"
"Oh, no," the scoutmaster jerked out; "we don't do any sneaking here.Be careful how you talk. You are trespassing yourself, sir, if it comesto that."
There was never a moment in the troop's history, not even in thatunpleasant scene in John Temple's vacant lot, when the boys so admiredtheir scoutmaster. His absolute confidence in every member of the troopthrilled them with an incentive which no amount of discipline couldhave inspired. It was plain to see that they felt this--all save Tom,whose face was a puzzle.
He stood there among them, his belt pulled unnecessarily tight, afterthe fashion of the boy who has always worn a suspender, the trim intentof the scout regalia hardly showing to advantage on his rather clumsyform. His puttees were never well adjusted; the khaki jacket (when hewore it) had a perverse way of working up in back. He presented amarked contrast to Roy's natty appearance and to Westy whose uniformfitted him so perfectly that he seemed to have been poured into it as aliquid into a mould. Both boys looked every inch a scout. Yet therewas something strangely distinctive about Tom as he stood there. Adiscerning person might have fancied his uncouthness as part and parcelof a certain rugged quality which could not be expressed in preciseattire. There was something ominous in the dogged, sullen
look whichhis countenance wore. He seemed a sort of law unto himself, having acertain resource in himself and seeking now neither advice norassistance. He was no figure for the cover of the Scout Handbook, yethe had drawn out of it its full measure of strength; he would accept noone's interpretation of it but his own and thus he stood among them andyet apart--as good a scout as ever raised his hand to take the oath.
"One o' these youngsters went daown stairs and raound the haouse t' th'pantry 'n' he was seen to go without warrant of law crost Temple's lawnand inter his private woods." The man had his little spats of legalphraseology, of course, and Mr. Ellsworth could almost have murderedhim for his "without warrant of law."
"Any one of you boys go 'without warrant of law'?" asked thescoutmaster, with an air of humorous disgust.
"I did," said Tom simply.
The scoutmaster looked at him in surprise.
"What for, Tom?"
There was a moment's silence.
"I've got nothing to say," said Tom.
Doc. Carson, who was of all things observant, noticed a set appearanceabout Tom's jaw and a far-away look in his eyes as if he neither knewnor cared about any of those present.
"I s'pose if we was to search ye we wouldn't find nothin' on ye t'shouldn't be thar?"
"I am a scout of the sec--I am a scout," said Tom, impassively. "No onewill search me."
It would be hard to describe the look in Mr. Ellsworth's eyes as hewatched Tom. There was confidence, there was admiration, but withal analmost pathetic look of apprehension and suspense. He studied Tom as apilot fixes his gaze intently upon a rocky shore. Tom did not look athim.
"Ye wouldn't relish bein' searched, I reckon?" the constable said withan exasperating grin of triumph.
Then the thunderbolt fell. Calmly Tom reached down into his pocket andbrought forth the little class pin.
"I know what you want," he said. "I didn't know first off, but now Iknow. You couldn't search me--I wouldn' leave--let you. I could handlea marshal, and I'm stronger now than I was then. But you can't searchme; you can't disgrace my patrol by searchin' them--or by searchin'me--'cause I wouldn't lea--let you. _Get away_ from me!" with suchfrantic suddenness that they started. "Don't you try to take it fromme! I'm a scout of--I'm a scout--mind! Where's Roy?"
"Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice tense with emotion.
"Where's Roy?" the boy asked, ignoring him.
Roy stepped forward as he had done once before when Tom was in trouble,and they made an odd contrast. "Here, Tom."
"You take it an' give it to Mary Temple and tell her it's tossin' itback--kind of. She'll know what I mean. You know how to go to placeslike that--but they get me scared. Tell her it's instead of the rubberball, and that I sent it to her."
"Oh, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice almost breaking, "is that allyou have to say--Tom?"
"I'm a scout--I'm obeyin' the law--that's all," said Tom, doggedly. Heseemed to be the only one of them all who was not affected, so sure didhe feel of himself.
"Do I have to get arrested?" said he.
"Ye-es, I reckon I'll hev to take ye 'long," said the constable,advancing.
Tom never flinched.
Roy tried to speak but could only say, "Tom--"
Mr. Ellsworth put his palm to his forehead and held it there a momentas if his head throbbed.
"Can I have my book?" Tom asked as the constable, taking his arm, tooka step away.
It was Pee-wee who glided, scout pace, over to the Silver Foxes' tent.In the unusual situation it never occurred to him that he, a Raven, wasentering it uninvited. Esther Blakeley's triumphant post card hungthere but he never noticed it. He brought the well-thumbed Handbookwith T. S. on it, and it was curious to see that he gave it to Royinstead of to Tom.
But Tom noticed his bringing it. "I'm glad you did your tracking stunt,Pee-wee," he said, with just a little quiver in his voice.
Roy handed him the book. Then, just as they started off, Mr. Ellsworth,gathering himself together as one coming out of a trance, accosted thedeparting constable.
"This boy was placed in my charge by the court in Bridgeboro," said he,holding the man off.
"That don't make no difference," drawled the man. "I got a right to goanywheres for a fugitive or a suspect. A guardian writ wouldn't be nouse to ye in a criminal charge." And he smiled as if he were perfectlywilling to explain the law for the benefit of the uninitiated.
Tom, clutching his Handbook, walked along at the man's side. He seemedutterly indifferent to what was happening.
There were no camp-fire yarns that night.
CHAPTER XIII
HE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE
Tom Slade : Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures Page 12