"Yer want me ter hand ye one?"
"No, sure not."
"Well then, was I lyin"?"
"Surest thing you know."
There was a pause.
"Gimme a nickel "n" I"ll leave ye off," said Tom magnanimously.
The boy laughed and asked, "What do you want the nickel for?"
"Fer a cup o" coffee."
Roy paused a minute, biting his lip ruminatively, frankly contemplating him.
"I can make you a better cup of coffee," said he, "than any lunch wagon juggler in this town. You"re halfway up the hill now; come on up the rest of the way--just for a stunt. Ever up on the hill?"
Tom hesitated.
"Come on, you"re not in a hurry to get home, are you? I"ll give you some plum-duff I made and you can have a belt axe to chop it with if you want to. Come on, just for a stunt."
"Who"s up dere?"
"Just "Yours sincerely.""
"Yer live in de big house, don"cher?"
"Not fer me; guess again. Nay, nay, my boy, _I_ live in Camp Solitaire, with a ring round it. Anybody steps inside that ring gets his wrist slapped and two demerits. I let the house stay there on account of my mother and father and the cat. Don"t you worry, you won"t get within two hundred feet of the house. The house and I don"t speak."
Tom, half suspicious but wanting a cup of coffee, shuffled along at Roy"s side. The scout"s offhand manner and rather whimsical way of talking took the wind out of his belligerence, and he allowed himself so far to soften toward this "rich guy" as to say,
"Me an" our house don"t speak neither; we wuz chucked."
"Chucked?"
"Ye-re, put out. Old John Temple done it, but I"m hunk all right."
"When was that?"
"Couple o" days ago."
He told the story of the eviction and his 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 n.o.buddy 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 sc.r.a.pping 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 s.p.a.cious 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 s.p.a.cious 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?"