on I could hardly breathe, but I
could hear him hollering and banging with a stone or something up
against that thing. I heard him say we could dig our way out with his
helmet. Pretty soon I didn't know anything.

"The next thing I knew there was fresh air and people were carrying
me on a stretcher. When I tried to call for that fellow it made me
sob--that's the way it is when you're shell-shocked. You wring your
hands, too. Even--even--now--if I hear a noise----"

Tom Slade broke down, and began wringing his hands, and his face which
shone in the firelight was one of abject terror. And in another moment
he was crying like a baby.

CHAPTER XVII

ON THE LONG TRAIL

That night he bunked in Uncle Jeb's cabin, and slept as he had not slept
in many a night. In the morning his stolid, stoical nature reasserted
itself, and he set about his task with dogged determination. Uncle Jeb
watched him keenly and a little puzzled, and helped him some, but Tom
seemed to prefer to work alone. The old man knew nothing of that
frightful malady of the great war; his own calm, keen eyes bespoke a
disciplined and iron nerve. But his kindly instinct told him to make no
further reference to the war, and so Tom found in him a helpful and
sympathetic companion. Here at last, so it seemed, was the medicine that
poor Tom needed, and he looked forward to their meals, and the quiet
chats beside their lonely camp-fire, with ever-growing pleasure and
solace.

He hauled out from under the porch of the main pavilion the logs which
had been saved from the fire that had all but devastated the camp during
its first season, and saved himself much labor thereby. These he wheeled
up the hill one by one in a wheelbarrow. There were enough of these logs
to make one cabin, all but the roof, and part of another one.

When Tom had got out the scout pioneer badge which Roy had noticed on
him, it had been by way of defying time and hardship and proclaiming his
faith in himself and his indomitable power of accomplishment. As the
work progressed it became a sort of mania with him; he was engrossed in
it, he lived in it and for it. He would right his wrong to the troop by
scout methods if he tore down the whole forest and killed himself. That
was Tom Slade.

Up on the new woods property, which included the side of the hill away
from the camp, he felled such trees as he needed, hauling them up to the
summit by means of a block and falls, where he trimmed