Wilfred Cowell saw Temple Camp for the first time as no other boy had ever seen it, for he went there not as a scout, but to become a scout. It was not only new but strange to him. He saw it first as the Ford emerged out of the woods road which ran from the highway to the clearing. No car but a Ford (which is the boy scout among cars) ever approached the remote camp site. And there about him were the buildings—cabins and rustic pavilions and tents for the overflow. If the invincible little flivver had rolled twenty feet more it would have taken an evening dip in the lake. Wilfred had not supposed that the camp would break so suddenly upon him. He would have preferred to see it from a distance, to have had an opportunity of preparing for the ordeal of introduction. But he might have saved himself the fear of public presentation, for Temple Camp was eating. And when Temple Camp ate it presented a lesson in concentration which could not be excelled.
Not a scout was to be seen save one lonely figure paddling idly in a canoe out in the middle of the lake. Wilfred wondered why he was not at supper. He felt that he would like to approach his new life via this lonely figure, to be out there with him first, before the crowd beheld him. Then he remembered that he was not to go upon this lake—except as an idle passenger. Might he not paddle? He might not row or dive or—but might he not paddle? Well, not vigorously—as the others did. But as that figure silhouetted by the background of the mountain was doing?
No, he would not get himself into a position where he might be expected to exert himself more than he should. He would eschew the lake and stick to the stalking, and the birch bark work. He was in the hands of the powers that be and he would keep his promise to the letter.
One thing Wilfred was glad of and that was that he and Tom had stopped for a little supper in Kingston. He would not have to enter that great shack whence emanated the sound of what seemed like ten billion knives and forks and plates.
“Sure you don’t want to eat?” Tom asked.
“No, I had plenty.”
“All right, come ahead then.”
Tom led the way to the administration shack where a young man in scout attire asked Wilfred questions, writing the answers pertaining to age, parentage, residence, etc., in the blank spaces on an index card.
“Your folks are at this address all summer?”
“What?”
“They don’t go away?”
“No, sir, they stay in Bridgeboro.”
“You know how to swim?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You want the bills or shall we send them to your folks.”
Wilfred seemed bewildered. It was an evidence of how little he knew about scouting and the modern camp life of boys, that it had never occurred to him (nor to his mother either) that camps are often well organized and well managed communities, where bills are rendered and board paid. The boy flushed.
“That’s all right,” said Tom quickly; “I’ll see you later about that.”
“Yes, sir,” said the scout clerk pleasantly.
“What do you mean you’ll see him about it later,” Wilfred asked rather peremptorily, as they went out. “I didn’t——”
“Yes, you did,” laughed Tom. “You heard me say you were my guest, didn’t you? That was the idea all along; your mother understands it, anyway. Now look here, Billy; I’ve got a sort of a scholarship—understand? Never you mind about my relations with this camp. I can bring a fellow here and let him stay all summer without either you or I being under obligations to anybody—see? So don’t start in trying to tell me how to run my job. All you have to do is to make good so I’ll be glad I brought you up here. All you have to do is to be a good scout and you can do that by keeping the promise you made back home and doing the things your promise doesn’t prevent you from doing—there are a whole lot of things, believe me; look in the handbook.
“Now you bang around here a little while till I let the resident trustees and Uncle Jeb know I’m here, and then I’ll take you up to the Ravens’ cabin; by that time they’ll be through eating—I hope. Make yourself at home—that’s where we have camp-fire, up there.” He hurried away leaving Wilfred standing alone in the gathering twilight.
The boy strolled down to the lakeside and looked out upon the dark water. With all its somber beauty the scene was not one to cheer a new boy. Throughout the day that sequestered expanse of water was gay with life and the dense, wooded heights around it echoed to the sounds of voices of scouts bathing, fishing, rowing. One could dive from the springboard on the gently sloping camp shore and hear another diver splash into the placid water from the solemn depths of the precipitous forest opposite. You could make the ghost dive any time, as they said.
But now, with the enlivening carnival withdrawn and the community adjourned to the more substantial delights of the “grub shack,” the lake and its surrounding hills imparted a feeling of loneliness to the solitary watcher, and made him uncertain—and homesick.
Through the fast deepening shadows, he could see that lonely figure paddling idly about in his canoe. Why did he do that during supper-time, Wilfred wondered. Was he not hungry? This thought occurred to him because, in plain truth, he was himself a little hungry—just a little. He had not been perfectly frank with Tom about the sufficiency of their hasty lunch in Kingston. He just did not want to face that observant, noisy assemblage. Perhaps the solitary canoeist was another new boy—no, that could not be.... Then Wilfred noticed that the distant figure seemed to be clad in white. This became more and more noticeable as the darkness gathered.
The boy on the shore had kept another little secret from Tom Slade. And now, before he exposed this secret to the light, he looked behind him to make sure that none of that gorged and roistering company were emerging. He knew nothing of scout paraphernalia and had brought nothing with him because he owned just nothing.
Excepting one thing—a pathetic equipment. He was so rueful about its appropriateness to scouting, and so fearful that it might arouse humorous comment, that he had kept it in his pocket. It was an old-fashioned opera-glass. When told that signaling and stalking were within the scope of his privileged activities he had asked his mother for this, thinking it might be useful. But there was something so thoroughly “civilized” and old-fashioned about it that he felt rather dubious about having it with him. What would those young Daniel Boones think of an opera-glass?
He now raised this to his eyes and focused it on the figure out on the lake. That solitary idler seemed to leap near him in a single bound. He happened to be facing the camp shore and Wilfred could see a pleasant countenance looking straight at him and smiling. Evidently he knew he was being scrutinized and was amused. Wilfred could see now that he wore a duck jacket. Then, smiling all the while, the stranger waved his hand and Wilfred waved his own in acknowledgment. It seemed as if he had made an acquaintance....
When Tom returned to take him to the stronghold of the Ravens, scouts were pouring out of the “grub shack” like a triumphant army returning from a massacre.
The young assistant, as Wilfred later found, was always in a hurry.
“All right now,” he said, “come ahead if you want to be a Raven.”
They started up through a grove where there were three cabins.
“Who’s that fellow out on the lake?” Wilfred asked.
“What fellow?”
“There’s a fellow out there in a canoe; he’s got a white jacket—I think—I mean he’s all in white.”
“Oh, that’s the doc; that’s the fellow you’ve got a date with—later. Nice chap, too.”
“Doesn’t he eat?”
“Yes, but he’s not a human famine like the rest of this bunch. I suppose he finished early. You often see him flopping around evenings alone like that.”
“It seems funny,” said Wilfred.
“Well, you’re pretty much like him,” Tom laughed. “I suppose he likes to get away from the crowd now and then—you can’t blame him.”
“He’s young, isn’t he?”
“Mmm, ’bout my age. Well, here we are; what do you think of the Ravens’ perch? Artie! Where’s Artie? Is Artie there? Tell him to come out and grab this prize before somebody else gets it. Aren’t you through eating yet, Pee-wee? Put down that jelly roll and go and find Artie!”