A tense silence prevailed. Pee-wee gasped, speechless. Even the exuberant Roy stared. “What do—you—know—about—that!” Doc Carson whispered to Artie Van Arlen. As Westy had been staring spellbound all along, no turn in his thoughts was visible in his features. Warde Hollister, of all the boys in the troop, seemed unperturbed. Level-headed and sensible scout that he was, he had let the others do the hoping, and the shouting. “We don’t get it,” whispered Dorry Benton.
“Look!” whispered Wig Weigand to Warde.
But the figure that came sauntering down the aisle was not Edwin Carlisle, the hero. A queer enough figure he looked in that representative assemblage in his faded trousers and blue flannel shirt. Rough, uncouth and unaccustomed to such environment, he still bore a certain air of serene heedlessness to all this pomp and circumstance, as if he were concerned only with that which was really significant and vital. One could not say of him that he seemed at home, for that would be paying the place an unconscious tribute. His calm assurance and easy strength seemed to imply that the whole world was his home and that one place was much like another to him.
He paused half-way down the aisle and then for the first time the boys in the front row saw him, just as he began to speak. Westy Martin stared aghast like one seeing a ghost and his heart thumped in his throat as he listened.
“I d’no’s I oughter speak out ’n meetin’, as the feller says, but I got somethin’ ter say in this here jamboree.”
A silence like the silence of the grave followed. One astonished girl (it might have been Doris Martin) said something undistinguishable in an amazed, audible whisper.
“I been in the Yallerstone,” drawled the speaker, “an’ I like what you said—you gent. But I’m interested in somethin’ bigger ’n the Yallerstone an’ that’s a kid yer got here. He’s big enough ter make the Yallerstone look like one er them there city grass-plots I see. I’m talkin’ ter you, mister, an’ before you go ter makin’ any plunge yer better listen. I was goner speak out when you says somethin’ ’baout shootin’ deer, but I didn’.
“I’m down off a farm up Dawson way owned by his uncle—this here kid I’m talkin’ ’baout. And if he’s settin’ roun’ here anywheres an’ hears me tell any lies ’baout him he can up an’ call me a liar. Then I’ll let............