Tom Slade : Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures Part 20

"His wanting the Handbook, too," said Mr. Ellsworth, quietly, "had a certain ring to it."

"Did you ever take a squint at that Handbook of his, Chief?"

"No," said Mr. Ellsworth, smiling wanly; "I'm not as observant as you, Roy."

"He has simply worn it out--it's a sight."

"His mind is not complex," said Mr. Ellsworth, half-heartedly, "yet he's a mystery."

"Everything is literal to Tom, Chief; he sees only two colors, black and white."

There was another pause.

"Why don't you eat a little something, Chief?"

"No, not to-night, Roy. I can't. If that thing is true--if there's no explanation, why, then my whole structure falls down; and John Temple is right." His voice almost broke. "Tom is either no scout at all or else----"

"Or else he's about the best scout that lives," interrupted Roy. "Will you ever forget how he looked as he stood there? Hanged if I can! I've seen pictures enough of scouts--waving flags and doing good turns and holding staves and looking like trim little soldiers----"

"Like you, Roy," smiled Mr. Ellsworth.

"But I never saw anything like that! Did you notice his mouth? His----"

"I know," said Mr. Ellsworth, "he looked like a martyr."

"Whenever you see a picture of a scout," said Roy, "it always shows what a scout can do with his hands and feet; he's tracking or signalling or something like that. _There_ was a picture that shows the other side of it. You never see those pictures in the books.

Cracky, but I'd like to have gotten a snap-shot of him just as he stood there with his mouth set like the jaws of a trap, his eyes ten miles away and his hand clutching that battered old Handbook."

"I'm glad you dropped in, Roy, it cheers me up."

"Oh, I'm a good scout," laughed Roy. "I'm not thinking about you; I'm selfish. I'm the one that hauled Tom across, you know, and I've got _my_ reputation to look after. That's all _I_ care about."

Mr. Ellsworth smiled.

"I'm going to dig out the truth about this between now and to-morrow morning. I may have to trespa.s.s even, but _I_ should worry. What are _you_ going to do?"

"Nothing to-night. In the morning I'll see Mr. Temple and also Tom, and see if I can't get him to talk. What else _can_ I do? What are you going to do?"

"I decline to be interviewed," Roy laughed.

"Well, don't you get into any trouble, Roy."

After the boy had gone, Mr. Ellsworth picked up his own copy of the _Handbook for Boys_, and looked with a wistful smile at the picturesque, natty youngster on the cover, holding the red flags. It always reminded him of Roy.

Roy was satisfied that the only hope of learning anything was to visit the scene of Tom's suspicious, or at least unexplained, departure from the Temple house. About this he knew no more than what the constable had said, but he firmly believed that whatever Tom had done and wherever he had gone, it had been for a purpose. He did not believe that Tom had taken the pin, but he felt certain that if he _had_ been tempted to, he (Roy) would have seen him do so. For a scout is not only loyal, he is watchful. His confidence in Tom, no less than his confidence in himself, made him morally certain that his friend was innocent; and Tom's own demeanor at the time of his arrest made him doubly certain.

A little before dark, Roy put on his Indian moccasins, took his pocket flashlight and a good stock of matches, and started for Five Oaks.

Reaching there, he made sure the veranda was deserted (for which fact he had to thank the chill air) and found it easy to trace Tom's footprints around to the back of the house through the almost bare earth of the new lawn.

In the little recess by the pantry window he felt more secure. The play of his flashlight quickly discovered the painty smear on the windowsill and he examined it closely, as Tom had recently done, but Roy's mental alertness saved him time and trouble. Instead of trying to pick out footprints across the back lawn, he hurried across it, ran along to the end of the fence, and then back again, closely watching the upper rail by the aid of his light. Sure enough, there was a faint smootch of paint and by this easy discovery he had saved himself several hundred feet of difficult tracking. Better still, his own suspicions and the servants' original story were confirmed.

Tom might have gone around the house, but _someone else had climbed through the pantry window_.

For a while Roy and his trusty ally, the pocket flashlight, had a pretty rough tussle of it with the secretive floor of pine-needles in the woods beyond the fence; but Tom's own uncertain pauses and turnings and kneelings helped him, and he was thankful that his predecessor had left these signs of his own movements to guide him. For he now felt certain that Tom had pa.s.sed here in the wake of someone else.

It was a long time before he found himself in the beaten path, having covered a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile where his tracking had been, as he later said himself, like hunting for a pin on a carpet in the dark. He had been on his hands and knees most of the time, shooting his light this way and that, moving the pine-needles carefully away from some fancied indentation, with almost a watchmaker's delicacy of touch. It was not so much tracking as it was the working out of a puzzle, but it brought him at last into the path and then he found something which rendered further tracking unnecessary. This was the flask which had lain beside Tom's father.

And now Roy, with no human presence to distract him as Tom had had, noticed something lying near the flask which Tom had not seen. This was a little sc.r.a.p of pasteboard which had evidently been the corner of a ticket, and holding his flashlight to it he examined it carefully.

There was the termination of a sentence, "...ers' Union," and the last letters of a name, "...ade," which had been written with ink on a printed line.

It meant nothing to him except as the slightest thing means something to a scout, but he began searching diligently for more of the torn fragments of this card. The breeze had been there before him and he had crept on hands and knees many feet in every direction before his search was rewarded by enough of these scattered sc.r.a.ps to enlighten him. But the light which they shed was like a searchlight!

Using his membership card for a background and some pine gum to stick the fragments to it, he succeeded in restoring enough of the card to learn that it was a membership card of the Bricklayers' Union belonging to one William Slade.

Then, all of a sudden, he caught the whole truth and understood what had happened.

CHAPTER XIV

ROY TO THE RESCUE

It was late when Roy reached camp and he spoke to no one. Early in the morning he repaired to Five Oaks to "beard the lion in his den" and have a personal interview with Mr. John Temple.

There was nothing about Mr. Temple or his house which awed Roy in the least. He had been reared in a home of wealth and that atmosphere which poor Tom could not overcome his fear of did not trouble Roy at all. He was as much at ease in the presence of his elders as it is possible for a boy to be without disrespect, but he was now to be put to the test.

He found Mr. Temple enjoying an after-breakfast smoke on the wide veranda at Five Oaks, a bag of golf sticks beside him.

"Good morning, Mr. Temple," said Roy.

If one had to encounter Mr. John Temple at all, this was undoubtedly the best time and place to do it.

"Good morning, sir," said he, brusquely but not unpleasantly.

"I guess maybe you know me, Mr. Temple; I'm Mr. Blakeley's boy."

Mr. Temple nodded. Roy leaned against the rubble-stone coping of the veranda.

"Mr. Temple," said he, "I came to see you about something. At first I was going to ask Mr. Ellsworth to do it, then I decided I would do it myself."

Mr. Temple worked his cigar over to the corner of his mouth, looking at Roy curiously and not without a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt. What he saw was a trim, sun-browned boy wrestling with a charming little touch of diffidence, trying to decide how to proceed in this matter which was so important to him and so trifling to John Temple, but exhibiting withal the inherent self-possession which bespeaks good breeding. He was half sitting on the coping and half leaning against it, his browned, muscular arms pressing it on either side.

Perhaps it was the incongruity of the encounter, or perhaps his recent breakfast and his good cigar, but he said not unpleasantly, "Lift yourself up there and sit down if you want to. What can I do for you?"

Roy lifted himself up on the coping and swung his legs from it and felt at home.