and was always being kept in for reading
detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by
his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he
walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip
worked hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it
out before school in the morning. Even his recreations were laborious.
He collected cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and
would sit for hours humped up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he
kept in his attic. His dearest possessions were some little pill bottles
that purported to contain grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water from
the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount of Olives. His
father had bought these dull things from a Baptist missionary who
peddled them, and Tip seemed to derive great satisfaction from their
remote origin.

The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that were almost
too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a pleasant voice that
we all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when he had to read poetry
aloud at school, no one ever thought of laughing. To be sure, he was
not at school very much of the time. He was seventeen and should
have finished the High School the year before, but he was always off
somewhere with his gun. Arthur's mother was dead, and his father, who
was feverishly absorbed in promoting schemes, wanted to send the boy
away to school and get him off his hands; but Arthur always begged off
for another year and promised to study. I remember him as a tall, brown
boy with an intelligent face, always lounging among a lot of us little
fellows, laughing at us oftener than with us, but such a soft, satisfied
laugh that we felt rather flattered when we provoked it. In after-years
people said that Arthur had been given to evil ways as a lad, and it is
true that we often saw him with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish
Fanny's boy, but if he learned anything ugly in their company he never
betrayed it to us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am
bound to say that he led us into no worse places than the cattail
marshes and the stubble fields. These, then, were the boys who camped
with me that summer night upon the sand bar.

After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for driftwood.
By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, and the pungent,
weedy smell from the shore increased