Tom Slade on Mystery Trail | Page 4

affecting the stagger of utter exhaustion. "I bet you knew an easier way up. The bunch told me not to beard the lion in his den, but I'm not afraid of lions. Here I am and you can't get rid of me now. I'm up against it, Slady, and I want a few tips. They say you're the only real scout since Kit Carson. What I'm hunting for is a wild animal, but I haven't been able to find anything except a cricket, two beetles and a cow that belongs on the Hasbrook farm. Don't mind if I stroll along with you a little way, do you? My name is Willetts--Hervey Willetts. I'm with that troop from Massachusetts. I'm an Eagle Scout--all but."
"But's a pretty big word," Tom said.
"You said it," Hervey Willetts said, still wrestling with his breath; "it's the biggest word in the dictionary."
CHAPTER IV
HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING
They strolled on through the woods together, the younger boy's gayety and enthusiasm showing in pleasing contrast to Tom's stolid manner.
He was a wholesome, vivacious boy, this Willetts, with a breeziness which seemed to captivate even his sober companion, and if Tom had felt any slight annoyance at being thus overhauled by a comparative stranger, the feeling quickly passed in the young scout's cheery company.
"They told me down in camp that if I need a guide, philosopher, and friend, I'd better run you down, or up----"
"If you'd gone a little to the left you'd have found it easier," Tom said, in his usual matter-of-fact manner.
"Oh, I suppose you know all the highways and byways and right ways and left ways and every which ways for miles and miles around," Hervey Willetts said. "I guess they were right when they said you'd be a good guide, philosopher, and friend, hey?"
"I don't know what a philosopher is," Tom said, with characteristic blunt honesty, "but I know all the trails around here, if that's what you're talking about."
"Oh, you mean about guides?" Hervey asked, just a trifle puzzled. "That's an expression, guide, philosopher, and friend. It comes from Shakespeare or one of those old ginks; it means a kind of a moral guide, I suppose."
"Oh," said Tom.
"But I need, I need, I need, I need a friend," Hervey said.
"You seem to have lots of friends down there," Tom said.
"A scout is observant, hey?" Willetts laughed.
"I mean you always seem to have a lot of fellows with you," Tom said, ignoring the compliment. "Everybody likes your troop, that's sure. And your troop seems to be stuck on you."
"Good night!" Hervey laughed. "They won't be stuck on me after Saturday. That'll be the end of my glorious career."
"What did you do?" Tom asked, after his customary fashion of construing talk literally.
"Oh, I didn't exactly commit a murder," the other laughed, "but I fell down, Sla--you don't mind my calling you Slady, do you?"
"That's what most everybody calls me," Tom said, "except the troop I was in. They call me Tomasso."
"Sounds like tomato, hey?" Hervey laughed. "No, my troubles are about merit badges. I've bungled the whole thing up. When a fellow goes after the Eagle award, he ought to have a manager, that's what I say. He ought to have a manager to plan things out for him. I tried to manage my own campaign and now I'm stuck--with a capital S."
"How many merits have you got?" Tom asked him.
"Twenty," Hervey said, "twenty and two-thirds. Just a fraction more and I'd have gone over the top."
"You mean a sub-division?" Tom asked.
"That's where the little but comes in," Hervey said. "B-u-t, but. It's a big word, all right, just as you said."
"Is it architecture or cooking or interpreting or one of those?" Tom asked.
Hervey glanced at Tom in frank surprise.
"Maybe it's leather work, or machinery, or taxidermy or marksmanship," Tom continued, with no thought further from his mind than that of showing off.
"Guess again," Hervey laughed.
"Then it must be either music or stalking," Tom said, dully.
His companion paused in his steps, contemplating Tom with unconcealed amazement. "Right-o," he said; "it's stalking. What are you? A mind reader?"
"Those are the only ones that have three tests," Tom said. "So if you have twenty merits and two-thirds of a merit, why, you must be trying for one of those. Maybe they've changed it since I looked at the handbook."
Hervey Willetts stood just where he had stopped, looking at Tom with admiration. In his astonishment he glanced at Tom's arm as if he expected to see upon it the tangible evidences of his companion's feats and accomplishments. But the only signs of scouting which he saw there were the brown skin and the firm muscles.
"They change that book every now and then," Tom said.
Still Hervey continued to look. "What's that belt made out of?" he asked.
"It's fiber from a string tree,"