d; "I don't
want to be here when they come. After they see the cabins you can tell
them how I didn't know who you were until long after I--I made the
mistake. They'll admit that this was the only thing for me to do;
they'll admit it when they know about it. The only thing is, that I
thought about it before they did, that's all. You got to admit it's the
scout way, 'cause a scout wouldn't try to sneak out of anything the easy
way."

"I don't know if it's the scout way," his companion said, "but it's the
Tom Slade way."

"I got to be thankful I was a scout," Tom observed.

"I think the scouts have to be thankful," his friend said, with a note
of admiration ringing in his voice.

"They thought I forgot how to be a scout," Tom said. "Now they'll see."

Barnard raised himself to a sitting posture, clasped his hands over his
knees, in that attitude which had come to be characteristic of him about
their lonely camp-fire, and glanced about at the results of Tom's long,
strenuous, lonesome labors. And he thought how monotonous it must have
been there for Tom through those long days and nights that he had spent
alone on that isolated hilltop. As he glanced about him, the completed
work loomed large and seemed like a monument to the indomitable will and
prowess of this young fellow who seemed to him so simple and
credulous--almost childlike in some ways. He wondered how Tom could ever
have raised those upper logs into their places. It seemed to him that
the trifling instance of thoughtlessness which was the cause of all this
striving, was nothing at all, and in no way justified those weeks of
wearisome labor. A queer fellow, he thought, was this Tom Slade. There
was the work, all but finished, three new cabins standing alongside the
other three, and all the disorder of choppings and bits of wood lying
about.

He glanced at Tom Slade where he sat near him by the fire, and noticed
the torn shirt, the hand wrapped in a bandage, the bruised spot on that
plain, dogged face, where a chunk of wood had flown up and all but
blinded him. He noticed that big mouth. The whimsical thought occurred
to him that this young fellow's face was, itself, something like a knot
of wood; strong and stubborn, and very plain and homely. And yet he was
so easily imposed upon--not exactly that, perhaps, but he was simple
withal, and trusting and credulous....

"If I get back before Saturday I can see that fellow," Tom said, "and
buy his boat. He com