"And what"s that?" Pee-wee asked.
"That there wasn"t," Roy said. "Put it in your pocket and come on."
Though they treated Pee-wee"s find as something of a joke and attached no significance to it, still the discovery of these old papers which had now no meaning for anybody kept recurring to them as they made their way to the old camp. But the consensus of opinion was that these old mildewed remnants of another time were unimportant.
"What good is a letter when the fellow who sent it is already home?" Doc Carson asked.
"What use is a leave of absence that expired two or three years ago?"
Connie Bennett added.
"If that fellow"s away yet, he"s overstaying his leave, that"s sure,"
said Roy.
"What good is a Sunday dinner that somebody ate a couple of years ago?"
Doc queried.
"Maybe he"s up there eating it yet," Will Dawson suggested.
"That"s the way our young hero would do," said Roy.
"Do you mean to say it isn"t important--that dinner?" Pee-wee demanded.
"Sure, all dinners are important," Roy said. "But one two years old isn"t much good. If it was only six months old I wouldn"t say anything, but _two years_--"
"You"re crazy!" vociferated Pee-wee.
"Sure," said Roy, "one dinner is as important as another if not more so.
Deny it if you can."
"Anyway I"m going to see that girl," Pee-wee said.
"At dinnertime?" Roy asked slyly.
"I"m going to find out who that fellow is, I"ve got his finger prints here, too, on this card--"
"G-o-o-d night," laughed Roy. "The boy scout Sherlock Home Sweet Holmes.
I suppose you"ll have that poor girl in Atlanta Penitentiary before you get through."
"Let"s see the finger prints?" Westy asked.
Pee-wee showed him the card and there, sure enough, was a finger print on the face of it and two on the back. It looked as if someone with greasy hands had taken the card up as one usually holds a card....
CHAPTER VII
THEN AND NOW
Within ten or fifteen minutes more they were in the old camp. They entered the reservation territory at its western edge and cutting across soon came to the concrete road which runs north and south through the middle of the camp. This is the Knickerbocker Road which traversed the reservation territory before ever Camp Merritt was heard of, and bears its scanty traffic now through that pathetic scene of ruin and desolation. It is the one feature of the camp that was not of its temporary character.
Up this road through Dumont to the south, there once pa.s.sed a never ceasing procession of autos, encountering guards and sentinels for a mile south of the camp. The atmosphere of military officialdom permeated the public approaches for miles in both directions.
If one were so fortunate as to have a pa.s.s, he could by dint of many stops and absurd inquiries and parleys, succeed in reaching the large gate posts on which was printed UNITED STATES RESERVATION. Through this the Knickerbocker Road, being especially privileged, pa.s.sed without challenge, straight through the middle of the camp and out of its northern extremity, then through the pleasant little town of Haworth.
On either side of this road, within the confines of the camp, were board shacks of every size and variety. They were for every purpose conceivable and, large and small, they were all alike in this, that they had a makeshift, temporary look, and were a delight to the eye of the tried and true camper. They were all alike in this, too, that civilian patriots had charged twenty dollars a day to put them up. This was in odd contrast to the one poor, hapless soul who was to receive three hundred dollars for the work of tearing several of them down.
As the scouts, his one hope now, came up onto the central road and hiked southward toward the main entrance, they scrutinized the weather-beaten and windowless structures on either side for a sign of their friend. But no hint of any human presence was there, no suggestion of life of any kind, save a companionable windmill nearby, the moving wheel of which creaked cheerfully as if to a.s.sure these scout pilgrims that the scene of their destination was not altogether deserted. It seemed a kind of living, friendly thing, in that forlorn surrounding. What surging life it had witnessed, what hearty, reckless, resolute departures! One might fancy it saying as it revolved, "I have seen all, seen the boys come and go, and I alone am left in all this hollow desolation."
The boys paused a moment to watch this lonely sentinel and listen to its creaking.
"That sound would give me the shudders at night, if I didn"t know what caused it," one of them said.
"Shut your eyes, then listen," said Westy. "It sounds kind of spooky, huh?"
"Gee whiz, but this is a lonely place," Roy said. "It reminds you of Broadway, it"s so different. It"s a peach of a place to camp."
"I bet there are ghosts up here," Pee-wee said darkly.
"Sure, you"d better look around for finger prints," Roy said.
"Maybe that old windmill is haunted, hey?" our young hero suggested.
"It needs oil anyway," Roy said.
"You make me tired," said Pee-wee contemptuously. "A ghost can squeak, can"t it?"
"Sure," said Roy, "if it"s rusty."
But for all their banter the old windmill, perhaps because it was the only thing stirring, held them and sobered their thoughts as it would not have done elsewhere. Perhaps they felt a sort of consciousness of its lonely position and fancied it to be something human. It overlooked the obscure path along which they had come; how many forms in khaki had it seen stealing to or from the camp? A. W. O. L. How many truckloads of uproarious boys had it seen driven away? How many maimed and suffering brought back? Surely it had seen much that the most loyal citizens had not been permitted to see. A whimsical thought, perhaps, but what good fun it would be to climb up there and learn some dark and tragic secrets from this lonely old derelict, the only thing with any sign of life that Uncle Sam had left in that forlorn, deserted spot.
Had it any tragic secret? That seemed quite absurd. A creaky old windmill revolving to no purpose in that waste, because it had nothing else to do.
"_Listen!_" said Pee-wee. "Sh-h-h! I heard a noise--up there."
Captivated for the moment by their own mood, they all paused, listening.
Then, not far off, a friendly voice accosted them. It was young Mr.
Blythe coming to greet them. His face wore that uncertain, hovering smile, which had the effect of arousing pity. His eyes had an eager, startled look, like those of a frightened animal. He seemed backward, almost bashful, but his joy at seeing them was unmistakable and sincere.
"Better late than never," laughed Roy. "Here we are bag and baggage; we thought you were a spook or something...."
CHAPTER VIII
PEACE!