Tom Slade at Temple Camp Part 8

"Won't you come in?" said Roy. "I don't know whose boat this is, but you're welcome. I guess we didn't do any damage. We chopped up a couple of broken stanchions, that's all."

"I guess we'll let ye off without more'n ten year uv hard labor," said the man, sipping his coffee. "But I'll give ye a tip. Get away from here as soon's ye can,--hear? Old man Stanton owns this boat an' he's a bear.

He'd run ye in fer trespa.s.s and choppin' up them stanchions quick as a gun. Ye come oft'n that outer road, ye say? Strangers here?"

"I can see now that road is flooded," said Tom. "Guess it isn't used, is it?"

"This is all river land," said the man. "In extra high tides this here land is flooded an' the only ones usin' that thar road is the fishes.

This rain keeps up another couple of days an' we get a full moon on top o' that the old hulk'll float, by gol! Ye didn't see no men around here last night now, did ye?"

"Not a soul," said Roy.

"'Cause there was a prisoner escaped up yonder last night an' when I see the smoke comin' out o' yer flue contraption here I thought like enough he hit this shelter."

"Up yonder?" Tom queried.

"You're strangers, hey?" the man repeated.

"We're on a hike," said Tom. "We're on our way to Haverstraw and----"

"Thence," prompted Pee-wee.

"_Thence_ to Catskill Landing, and _thence_ to Leeds and _thence_ to Black Lake," mocked Roy.

"Well, thar's a big prison up yonder," said the man.

"Oh, Sing Sing?" Roy asked. "I never thought of that."

"Feller scaled the wall last night an' made off in a boat."

The boys were silent. They had not realized how close they were to Ossining, and the thought of the great prison whose name they had often heard mentioned sobered them a little; the mere suggestion of one of its inmates scaling its frowning wall on such a night and setting forth in an open boat, perhaps lurking near their very shelter, cast a shadow over them.

"Are you--are you _sure_ you didn't see a--a crouching shadow when you went out and got that gasoline can last night?" Pee-wee stammered.

"I'm sorry," said Roy, "but I didn't see one crouching shadow."

"His boat might have upset in the storm," Tom suggested. "The wind even shook this boat; it must have been pretty rough out on the river."

"Like enough," said the man. "Des'pret characters'll take des'pret chances."

"What did he do?" Pee-wee asked, his imagination thoroughly aroused.

"Dunno," said the man. "Burglary, like enough. Well now, you youngsters have had yer shelter'n the wust o' the storm's over. It's goin' ter keep right on steady like this till after full moon, an' the ole shebang'll be floppin' roun' the marsh like enough on full moon tide. My advice to you is to git along. Not that you done no damage or what _I'd_ call damage--but it won't do no good fer yer to run amuck o' Ole Man Stanton.

'Cause he's a reg'lar grizzly, as the feller says."

The boys were silent a moment. Perhaps the thought of that desperate convict stealing forth amid the wind and rain still gripped them; but it began to dawn upon them also that they had been trespa.s.sing and that they had taken great liberties with this ramshackle boat.

That the owner could object to their use of it seemed preposterous. That he could take advantage of the technical "damage" done was quite unsupposable. But no one knows better than a boy how many "grouchy" men there are in the world, and these very boys had once been ordered out of John Temple's lot with threat and menace.

"Does _everybody_ call him 'Old Man' Stanton?" Pee-wee asked. "Because if they do that's pretty bad. Whenever somebody is known as 'Old Man' it sounds pretty bad for him. They used to say 'Old Man Temple'--he's a man we know that owns a lot of railroads and things; of course, he's reformed now--he's a magnet----"

"Magnate," corrected Roy.

"But they _used_ to call him 'Old Man Temple'--everybody did. And it's a sure sign--you can always tell," Pee-wee concluded.

"Wall, they call _me_ 'Ole Man Flint,'" said the visitor, "so I guess----"

"Oh, of course," said Pee-wee, hastily, "I don't say it's always so, and besides you're a--a----"

"Sheriff," Mr. Flint volunteered.

"So you got to be kind of strict--and--and grouchy--like."

The sheriff handed his empty cup to Roy and smiled good-naturedly.

"Where does Old Man Stanton live?" asked Tom, who had been silent while the others were talking.

"'Long the Nyack road, but he has his office in Nyack--he's a lawyer,"

said the visitor, as he drew his rubber hat down over his ears.

"Can we get back to Nyack by that other road?"

"Whatcher goin' to do?"

"We'll have to go and see Old Man Stanton," Tom said, "then if we don't get pinched we'll start north."

Mr. Flint looked at him in astonishment.

"I wouldn't say we've done any damage," said Tom in his stolid way, "and I believe in that about any port in a storm. But if he's the kind of a man who would think different, then we've got to go and tell him, that's all. We can pay him for the stanchions we chopped up."

"Wall, you're a crazy youngster, that's all, but if yer sot on huntin'

fer trouble, yer got only yerself to blame. Ye'll go before a justice uv the peace, the whole three uv year, and be fined ten dollars apiece, likely as not, an' I don't believe ye've got twenty-five dollars between the lot uv yer."

"Right you are," said Roy. "We are poor but honest, and we spurn--don't we, Pee-wee?"

"Sure we do," agreed Pee-wee.

"Poverty is no disgrace," said Roy dramatically.

The man, though not overburdened with a sense of humor, could not help smiling at Roy and he went away laughing, but scarcely crediting their purpose to venture into the den of "Old Man Stanton." "They're a queer lot," he said to himself.

Within a few minutes the boys had gathered up their belongings, repacked their duffel bags and were picking their way across the marsh toward the drier road.

"We're likely to land in jail," said Pee-wee, mildly protesting.

"It isn't a question of whether we land in jail or not," said Tom, stolidly; "it's just a question of what we ought to do."

"_We_ should worry," said Roy.