“I said it was the troop I was thinking about,” Warde observed, “but I guess it’s really that kid I’m thinking about as much as anything.” “You mean Mrs. Corbett’s kid?” Westy asked.
“No, Pee-wee, Young Faithful. Huh, that’s a pretty good name for him, hey?”
“He’s all there,” Westy said.
“He’s not going to Yellowstone,” said Warde. “Not even a member of his patrol is. Yet, by golly, here he is standing on his head on account of me.”
“Yop, that’s him all right,” said Westy.
“How’d you make out this summer?” Warde asked. “We got a couple of cards from you up at camp. Who’s that fellow in the snap-shot you sent me?”
“Oh, he’s a farm hand at my uncle’s; he’s been all over, on whaling cruises and everything. My father calls him a contemptible scoundrel because he’s—I don’t know just why—because he’s been a sort of tramp—I guess. He helped start a war in a South Sea island and they kidnapped the king.”
“That sounds pretty good,” said Warde.
“Now that we’re all alone,” said Westy, purposely avoiding the subject of his own summer, “I want to tell you that was some stunt you did. I signed my name and I signed it good and black; I think I broke my fountain pen.”
“I’ll bring you one from the Yellowstone,” Warde laughed; “if I go,” he added.
“I think you’ll go all right,” said Westy. “You know how it is, Hollie, when a fellow gets home after being away; everybody seems kind of strange. That’s the way it seemed with me to-night; that’s why I didn’t say much, I guess. But now that I’m seeing you all alone I’ll tell you that that was one peach of a thing you did. I’m expecting to get post cards from you next summer showing the petrified forests and Inspiration Point and the Old Faithful Inn and all those places—you see.”
“You seem to know all about them,” said Warde.
“Sure,” said Westy, with a note of wistfulness in his voice. “I’ve read a lot about it; I was—eh— There’s another thing I want to say to you while we’re alone. You said you didn’t go to Europe last summer so you could be with the troop. You said the troop always comes first with you. I guess you didn’t mean that as a shot at me, did you? Because I went away somewhere else this summer?”
“What are you talking abo............