CHAPTER XXIX

THE DISTANT WHISTLE

So now you know the way we hike. Sometimes even it’s worse than that. Tom Slade (he’s camp assistant) says it’s best to have a destination when you start. But if you have a destination when you start, what’s the use of going anywhere? What’s the use of going to a destination if you’ve got one already? I should worry about the Handbook. But anyway you needn’t write to me to ask if you can go on one of my special crazy hikes next summer because already nine Scouts want to go. Even now I could tell you what kind of a one it’s going to be, only I won’t. You just wait.

We got to Catskill half an hour before it was time for the train and we went to the Polar Ice Cream Parlor and had ice cream. I treated them to regular fifteen cent plates of ice cream, not cones. It says in there _Get a Polar cone_. _It’s a bear._ Believe me, the fifteen cent plates are elephants. That ice cream place is a branch of Temple Camp.

While we were in there Will Dawson was kind of funny acting--he didn’t say much. I thought maybe he was feeling mean because nobody knew how Dub had saved his life. Will and Dub and I were the only ones that knew anything about it. Nobody knew anything about Will taking the boat that night. Once while we were eating Will went over and spoke to the man that keeps the place.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him when he came back.

He said, “Nothing, I was just asking about the train.”

“There’s plenty of time,” Dub said. “It doesn’t leave till three-ten.”

“I bet you’re sorry to go, hey Dub?” I said.

He said, “Sure I’m sorry, I never said I wasn’t.”

“I bet you’d like to be Bobby Easton, hey?” the kid asked him.

“Never mind about Bobby Easton,” I said.

“_You mean never mind about an honor Scout?_” the kid screamed at me.

“Will you please keep your mouth shut about Bobby Easton,” I said. “Run over to the post office and ask them how much two cent stamps are to-day.”

We started for the station and Pee-wee and Sandy walked ahead. Will and Dub and I walked together.

“Well, we’re pretty near at the end of the end,” Dub said.

Jiminies, I felt terribly sorry for him, he was so nice about it. He was the kind of a fellow you get to like more and more all the time. Believe me, you see all kinds at Temple Camp. Some of them go up there as if they were going to wrap up the place and take it home with them. Fresh. Dub didn’t even look like a Scout because he didn’t have any Scout suit, only the hat, and it made him look funny at camp. And I _was_ thinking how he really had the Gold Medal for life saving, only he didn’t have it, like you might say. Gee whiz, he didn’t have anything that _showed_ he was a Scout. But he was one just the same, you can bet. I guess he was as poor as any fellow that ever went up to Temple Camp. He only had just the money for his board and he didn’t have any to spend. He didn’t even have a troop or a patrol with him. He didn’t butt in much, but the Scouts that knew him liked him. He wouldn’t say much when he was out with us, he’d just laugh.

I said, “How do you feel, Dub, now that you’re going?”

“I feel full of ice cream,” he said.

“Do you feel sore at us, even just a little bit?” I asked him.

He started laughing and he said, “What for, I’d like to know?”

“You know as well as I do,” I told him. “Because only for Will and I keeping still you might have had the Gold Medal--even your Eagle badge too, maybe? You’re so quiet, I thought maybe after all you were sore. Are you?”

“You have to be quiet when Pee-wee’s around,” he said. “A fellow doesn’t get a chance to say anything.”

I said, “Will you let me tell Pee-wee and Sandy so they’ll know what you are before you go? They won’t let on at camp. Then all the four of us will make you the full salute, Dub. Gee Dub, Will and I feel mean. I know you’ve got to go and we can’t help you that way. But just the same I want everybody at camp to know all about you--what you really are. It makes us feel mean, doesn’t it Will?”

Will said, “I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t feel so very mean.”

Oh but I was good and mad. You never saw me when I was good and mad. I said, “Well, if you don’t feel mean, _I do_. You’d be back in Bridgeboro if it wasn’t for him. It’s just the same as if Dub gives you a present of staying the rest of the season. It’s as good as the Burnside award--what he does for you. _And you don’t feel mean!_ I’d like to know how you do feel.”

“I feel kind of worried,” Will said.

“Yes, for fear they’ll find out at camp that Dub Smedley went home on account of you. _I’m going to tell the whole camp anyway!_”

“And go back on your promise,” Dub said. “I guess I will have to feel sorry for myself if not even my best pals are good scouts.”

“I didn’t mean it, I’ll keep my promise,” I said.

“But I’ll tell you this, you’re a Gold Medal Scout and an Eagle Scout, and the best scout that ever came to Temple Camp. And if you had what was coming to you you’d be wearing the Gold Medal now.”

“What, on this jacket?” he said.

“Yes, on that jacket,” I said. “You can put a scout suit on a dummy in a clothing store, can’t you? And does that make him a Scout?”

“Some argument,” Dub said. “I kind of like you when you’re mad.”

“Yes and you make me mad,” I said. “Because I have to feel mean. And Will does too, I bet he does. And another thing, it spoils the whole summer for me, your going home.”

“I wish I was going to have the hike back with you,” he said.

“There won’t be much fun in it,” I told him.

There were a lot of people waiting over at the station. We just sat there on a baggage truck waiting. Will went in the station and came out again. He said he wanted to find out if the train was on time. I was kind of sore at him because he said he didn’t feel mean, but I wasn’t going to be scrapping with him and let Dub see it. He kept looking at his watch all the time. I said, “What’s the idea? Are you in a hurry for Dub to go?”

Pee-wee said, “Let’s tell riddles while we’re waiting.”

I said, “I don’t feel like telling riddles.”

Sandy said, “Shall we play _Follow your leader_?”

“I don’t feel like doing that either,” I said.

So we just sat there on the baggage truck, swinging our legs. Pee-wee was eating some milk chocolate that he bought in the station. All of a sudden we heard a train whistling.

“Here she comes,” I said.