your headache all gone?" Tom asked.

"Sneaked off just like you," he said; "I was wondering where you were.
I see you were down for the mail. Anything doing?" he asked with
ill-concealed curiosity.

"They're coming," Tom said.

"Who's coming?"

"Roy and the troop," Tom answered.

"Oh. Nothing important, huh?"

"I got some mail for camp; I'm going down to Uncle Jeb's cabin; I'll be
right back," Tom said.

His friend looked at him curiously, anxiously, as Tom started down the
hill.

"I won't make any breaks," Tom said simply, leaving his friend to make
what he would of this remark. The other watched him for a moment and
seemed satisfied.

Having delivered the mail without the smallest sign of discomposure, he
tramped up the hill again in his customary plodding manner. His friend
was sitting on the door sill of one of the new cabins, whittling a
stick. He looked as if he might have been reflecting, as one is apt to
do when whittling a stick.

"You got to tell me who you are?" Tom said, standing directly in front
of him.

"You got a letter? I thought so," his friend said, quietly. "Sit down,
Slady."

For just a moment Tom hesitated, then he sat down on the sill alongside
his companion.

"All right, old man," said the other; "spring it--you're through with me
for good?"

"You got to tell me who you are," Tom said doggedly; "first you got to
tell me who you are."

For a few moments they sat there in silence, Tom's companion whittling
the stick and pondering.

"I ain't mad, anyway," Tom finally said.

"You're not?" the other asked.

"It don't make any difference as long as you're my friend, and you
helped me."

The other looked up at him in surprise, surveying Tom's stolid, almost
expressionless face which was fixed upon the distant camp. "You're
solid, fourteen karat gold, Slady," he finally said. "I'm bad enough,
goodness knows; but to put it over on a fellow like you, just because
you're easy, it's--it just makes me feel like--Oh, I don't know--like a
sneak. I'm ashamed to look you in the face, Slady."

Still Tom said nothing, only looked off through the trees below, where
specks of white could be seen here and there amid the foliage. "They're
putting up the overflow tents," he said, irrelevantly; "there'll be a
lot coming Saturday."

Then, again, there was silence for a few moments.

"I'm used to having things turn out different from the way I expected,"
Tom said, dully.

"Slady----" his