Tom Slade | Page 9

companion listened as they plodded up the hill.
"Well," said Roy, "I haven't slept indoors for two weeks, and I'm not going to for the next six weeks. And the best way to get hunk on a fellow that puts you out of a house is just to sleep outdoors. They can't put you out of there very well. Camp, and you've got the laugh on them!"
"Gee, I thought nobuddy but poor guys slep' outdoors."
"It's the poor guys that sleep indoors," said Roy.
"Don' de wind git on ye?"
"Sure--gets all over you; it's fine."
"My father give me a raw hand-out, all right, and then some more."
"Well, there's no use fighting your pack."
"Yer what?"
"Your pack--as Dan Beard says."
"Who's he--one o' your crowd?"
"You bet he is. 'Fighting your pack' is scrapping with your job--with what can't be helped--kind of. See?"
They walked along in silence, Tom's half-limping sideways gait in strange contrast with his companion's carriage, and soon entered the spacious grounds of the big old-fashioned house which crowned the summit of Blakeley's Hill, one of the show places of the town.
"Can you jump that hedge?" said Roy, as he leaped over it. "This'll be your first sleep outdoors, won't it? If you wake up all of a sudden and hear a kind of growling don't get scared--it's only the trees."
Under a spacious elm, a couple of hundred feet from the house, was a little tent with a flag-pole near it.
"That's where Old Glory hangs out, but she goes to bed at sunset. That's what gives her such rosy cheeks. We'll hoist her up and give her the salute in the morning."
Near the tent was a small fire place of stones, with a rough bench by it and a chair fashioned from a grocery box. Before the entrance stood two poles and on a rough board across these were painted the words, CAMP SOLITAIRE, as Tom saw by the light of the lantern which Roy held up for a moment.
The tent was furnished with a cot, blankets, mosquito-netting, several books on a little shelf, and magazines strewn about with BOYS' LIFE on their covers. On the central upright was a little shelf with a reflector for the lantern, and close to the pole a rickety steamer chair with a cushion or two. The place looked very inviting.
"Now this out here," said Roy, "is my signal pedestal. You know Westy Martin, don't you? He's patrol leader, and he and I are trying out the Morse code; you'll see me hand him one to-night. We're trying it by searchlight first, then, later we'll get down to the real fire works. He lives out on the Hillside Road a little way."
The signal pedestal was a little tower with a platform on top reached by a ladder.
"Doesn't need to be very high, you see, because you can throw a searchlight way up, but we use it daytimes for flag work. Here's the searchlight," Roy added, unwrapping it from a piece of canvas. "Belongs on the touring car, but I use it. I let my father use it on the car sometimes--if he's good.
"Now for the coffee. Sit right down on that parlor chair, but don't lean too far back. Like it strong? No? Right you are. Wait a minute, the lantern's smoking. Never thought what you were up against to-night, did you? You're kidnapped and don't know it. By the time we're through the eats Westy'll be home and we'll say good-night to him.
"Can you beat that valley for signalling? Westy's nearly as high up as we are. Now for the fire and then the plum-duff. Don't be afraid of it-you can only die once. Wish I had some raisin pudding, but my mother turned me down on raisins to-day."
He sat down on the ground near Tom, scaled his hat into the tent, drew his knees up, and breathed a long, exaggerated sigh of fatigue after his few minutes' exertion.
"Let's see, what was I going to ask you? Oh, yes; how'd you get hunk on John Temple?"
"Put a quarantine sign on Sissy Bennett's house."
"What?"
"Sure; didn't yer see it?"
"What for?"
"He's a rich guy, ain't he?"
Roy looked at him, puzzled.
"Dere's a gang comin' over from Hillside ter s'prise him to-night."
"In a car?"
"Ye-re. An' I put de sign up fer ter sidetrack 'em."
"You did?"
In the glare of the glowing fire Roy looked straight at Tom. "How will that--what good--" he began; then paused and continued to look curiously at him with the same concentrated gaze with which he would have studied a trail by night. But that was not for long. A light came into his eyes. Hurriedly he took out his watch and looked at it.
"Nine o'clock," he said, thoughtfully; "they must have started back."
He rose, all the disgust gone from his face, and slapped Tom on the shoulder.
"Ain't he a