i shall not prolong this narrative with an account of our return through france, though it is quite likely that i may, at another time, detail one or two of the rather surprising adventures which we encountered on that remarkable journey. for what seemed to me good and sufficient reasons, our progress was made as surreptitiously as possible, it being my intention to keep the whole business quiet until we should report at chalons which was where tom had been stationed.
but, as you probably know, if you have seen any of those misleading news items, we were arrested at langres. here our pleasant hike through the hills, which i had counted upon to restore tom’s mental repose, was rudely brought to an end by the preposterous charge that i was assisting a deserter. the matter was straightened out in an hour, of course, and is too ridiculous to dwell upon. even the army medical men, who should have known better, smiled annoyingly when i stated, what was the plain truth, that it had simply been my intention to afford tom a few days of the old woods life which he loved before presenting him to the authorities. and i have to thank his own irrational stubbornness and crying rebellion, that he was not taken from me altogether.
the incident is of no consequence, but i think you must already have discovered that tom’s memories of scouting, even when he was at his worst, formed the one link which bound his fitful and disordered mind to former days. indeed, it was by this means that i began the task of nursing and diverting him. the merest mention of a camp fire or casual reference to a trail found always a ready response and i have learned myself to love nature and all her beneficent influences and soothing voices, for the knowledge of how she dwelt constantly in the poor brain which could hold naught else.
it remains only to say that the task which i began has been triumphantly completed by a keen-eyed old man who presides over temple camp in the catskills—uncle jeb, the boys call him. and if anyone in this war-torn world could bring peace and poise to a distracted soul, jeb rushmore is that man.
and this brings me to my final task of gathering up the few loose threads of my tale, a thing which i could not do save for tom’s complete recovery. straightway upon our return to bridgeboro, mr. ellsworth, that indefatigable scoutmaster, took him up to temple camp, where he and uncle jeb are now busy getting the big camp ready for the influx of scouts which begins about june.
roy, mr. ellsworth and i lost no time in discussing the proposition of publishing this whole story, and there seemed but one obstacle to our doing so. this was margie clayton, as sweet and patriotic a girl as ever lived, and what good end could be served by proclaiming to the world that the young fellow whom she had liked and trusted was a sneak and a traitor? evidently she had cared for young schmitt—there is no accounting for tastes, and girls are funny things. it was roy, bully scout that he is, who put the clincher upon this discussion by reminding us of some rule or other that a scout must be kind and chivalrous.
and it was miss margie herself who took the clincher off. how she learned the truth about schmitt i have never discovered, but she made known in very unmistakable terms that the fate of the whole schmitt family was nothing to her and that she was very sorry she had ever wasted a good photograph and a good sheet of notepaper on such a creature. as for the photograph, it was not exactly wasted for i returned it to her, and the last time i saw it was during one of my visits to temple camp where it hung in a birchbark frame in tom’s cabin. i did not ask him how it got there.
so, the way being clear, we went ahead with our publishing enterprise and i will conclude with one or two scraps of information which i have lately had from tom. one is in answer to the question of how the cable of the balloon was broken. he thinks now that he must have cut this himself in savage desperation, fearing that toby schmitt would return after falling from the car. if, indeed, he did such a thing he must, of course, have been stark mad, and it is awful to think of him, the prey of such maniac fury, being carried, a lone prisoner in that little car, through clouds and darkness, who shall say how high, and for how long, and finally cast like a shipwrecked mariner upon those lonely mountains.
the harrowing story of that awful night can only be imagined, and perhaps it is better so. no doubt, it is one of god’s mercies that tom should never recall all that happened in that insane combat among the clouds, and in the frightful journey which followed. he believes that he was in the air through another day, but i think that unlikely unless, indeed, the fugitive balloon was born hither and yon upon the changing winds before landing. all he knows is that he crawled out from under that tangled wreckage in the darkness of night.
one or two trifling details he remembers more closely. i asked him how toby schmitt happened to wear an american uniform and he said that evidently it was the custom of that unspeakable creature to wear not only the american, but the french and british uniforms, as occasion and the work in hand suggested. it was the sight of schmitt in uncle sam’s outfit which enraged tom to the point of uncontrollable fury, but whether this was one of the causes or just a result of his nervous state i cannot say. he tells me that in schmitt’s room in the grigou cottage there was the uniform of an english lieutenant, and the jacket of an american y. m. c. a. worker.
but enough of schmitt; my pen rebels at the task of recalling his villainy. as for the tattered german coat which tom wore, he supposes that he found it in the car. he says that his own coat was torn away by schmitt in the struggle and no doubt this was so, since we know that the wretch also wrenched away the cord bearing his scout badge and identification disk.
there is only one more question and neither tom nor myself could have any answer for it. it is whether the germans really believed that they had discovered slade, when in fact the body was that of their own man. very likely they really thought it was slade for, of course, schmitt could not have been known to every subordinate in the german service, and doubtless he was disfigured beyond identification as the result of his tragic fall. where his own mark of identification was, i have no guess, though perhaps, being a spy, he wore none.
it is a matter of rueful memory with me that i should have reverently laid a “tribute from our bridgeboro scouts” upon the grave of that young scoundrel. but perhaps a better spirit of christian charity should incline me to cherish no such angry regrets and i will not begrudge him the few flowers which i left there as a token of the far-off town where he was born.
indeed, i am not of a mood for unavailing bitterness for the cruel war is over and the springtime is come and the flowers are coming forth and the birds are singing in the trees as if to lure one’s thoughts away from the horrid nightmare. and last saturday roy and i made the trip up to temple camp to see old uncle jeb and visit tom in his retreat among those silent, lonely hills.
not a soul was thereabout as we rowed across the lake to the camp shore, and the cabins and pavilion stood reflected in the black water and all the surrounding woods seemed permeated with a solemn stillness. it was at the day’s end and the frogs were sending up their harsh croakings out of the marshy places—those discordant voices which accord so fittingly with the quiet and the dusk.
“when the frogs begin croaking,” said roy, “then you know that pretty soon the scouts will begin coming.”
we found uncle jeb smoking his pipe under the lean-to of the boarded-up cooking shack looking for all the world as if he were waiting for some rattling old stage-coach which he was to pilot across the scorching western plain. there was peace in his keen gray eyes and a refreshing whiff of the prairies in his brown, furrowed skin and drooping, gray moustache.
“waiting for the boys to come, uncle jeb?” i asked, after the greeting.
“they’ll be comin’ purty quick naow, i reckin,” he drawled.
“find it lonesome here?”
“’tain’t never lonesome,” he said, “but i like to see the youngsters coming.”
“i suppose you know that roy and i together are going to write some stories about temple camp,” i ventured, as a pleasantry.
he looked at roy with a humorous twinkle in his eye.
“and we’re going to put you in, uncle jeb,” said roy.
“thar’s a youngster over yonder would fit into a story-book,” uncle jeb drawled, “kind of a char-ac-ter, as you might say. lives over thar through the woods whar you see the smoke goin’.”
he told us we would probably find tom over that way for he had gone after milk. so we took our way along the woods path, which was filled with memories for roy, until we came to a road with open country beyond, which, being private land, he had never crossed before. perhaps a hundred yards or so distant stood an old white farmhouse with the familiar paraphernalia of barnyard and adjacent outbuildings, making, i thought, a pleasant scene of old-fashioned farm life.
as we followed the cowpath across the fields we became aware of two figures sitting on a rail fence, and i waved my hand to tom, who answered with a cheery greeting to us both. it was good to see him looking so hale and ruddy.
but it was in a kind of trance that i saw him lower himself from the fence to come and meet us. for a second i stood gaping, then grasped roy’s arm in speechless amazement. for there before me, swinging his legs from the fence, was archibald archer!
yes, it was none other than archibald archer as large as life, larger, in fact, with his freckled face lighted up so that he was just one enormous grin; archibald archer, home from the wars, and once more enthroned among his favorite apple trees which ere long must pay him their luscious tribute. his feet were quite bare, he wore trousers of gaudy bed tick with suspenders brazenly conspicuous, and a straw hat as big as a parachute.
“well—i’m flabbergasted!” i managed to gasp as i took his proffered hand; “i knew your home was near temple camp, but i didn’t know how near.”
“i’m mustered out,” he informed me.
“i think i like you even better in your ancestral domains,” i said, shaking his hand with right good will, “and i congratulate you that you are back in your orchards once more. i might have known that it would take more than a world war to kill you. tell me, how is the souvenir business?
“i got some mustarrd gas in a vinegarr jarr,” he said. “want to see it?”
“thank you,” i answered, “but i have had enough gas for one war. i think you are yourself quite enough of a souvenir for me. i shall not lose track of you again. roy and i intend to put you where we can always have you handy.” and i winked at my young literary partner.
“i got a piece of wirre from a wirreless, too,” archer persisted, as if his store was inexhaustible.
the doubtful nature of this last-mentioned memento gave me an uncomfortable feeling that i was being made fun of, so i retorted with severe sarcasm, “i do not care for that, but if you have a ring or two from the bell of rheims cathedral i might be willing to accept it.”
“if you want to see the belles,” he said, “come to the barrn dance on saturrday night.”
it was useless trying to down him.
“and how are all your friends on the other side?” i inquired, venturing upon a new tack. “sir douglas haig and papa clemenceau? i hope they are quite well.”
“pretty smarrt,” he answered, “but they couldn’t come home with me on account of being busy.”
“too bad,” said i; “and general pershing and your old college chum, marshal foch—how are they?”
“fine and dandy. they sent theirr kind regarrds to you.”
“their kind what?” said tom in that sober way of his.
“regarrrrds!” repeated archer.
“once more,” said tom.
but for answer archer toppled him off the fence, where he had reseated himself, to the amusement of roy, who sat down on the ground, drew his knees up, clasped his hands about them, and laughed so that he shook.
“humpty dumpty tomasso,” he said.
and, do you know, i think that right there, with roy blakeley laughing his merry laugh and the famous, patent-applied-for scout smile spread all over his roguish face, is the place to end this rambling story. for in that laugh, as in the spring breeze, there is promise. and if you will but hold your hand to your ear, scout fashion, and fancy that you can hear his joyous uproar, you may take it as a reminder that the bloody warpath has, after all, brought us back to the solemn, friendly trees and the placid lake of the beloved camp once more, and that we are parting but to meet again in the scouts’ own season, which is the good old summertime.
