Chapter XVIII: The Day Before

So it seemed that Tom Slade had brought the rescued oriole, bag and baggage, back to camp, and had said nothing of the circumstance of his finding it. He was indeed a queer, uncommunicative fellow.

Surely, thought Hervey, this scout supreme could have no thought of personal triumphs, for he was out of the game where such things were concerned, being already the hero of scout heroes, living among them with a kind of romantic halo about his head.

Hervey was a little puzzled as to why Tom had not given him credit for finding that little stranger who was now a sort of mascot in the camp. For the whole scout family had taken very kindly to Orestes.

In the loneliness of the shadow under which he spent those two days, Hervey would have welcomed the slight glory which a word or two from Tom Slade might have brought him. But Tom Slade said nothing. And it was not in Hervey's nature to make any claims or boasts. He soon forgot the episode, as he forgot almost everything else that he had done and got through with. Glory for its own sake was nothing to him. He had climbed the tree and got his scout suit torn into shreds and that was satisfaction to him.

The next and last day before that momentous Saturday was camp clean-up day, for with the lake events on Labor Day the season would about close. All temporary stalking signs were taken down, original conveniences in and about the cabins were removed, troop and patrol fire clearings were raked over, two of the three large mess boards were stored away, and most of the litter cleared up generally. What was done in a small way each morning was done in a large way on this busy day, and every scout in camp did his share.

Hervey worked with his own troop, the members of which gave him scant attention. If they had ignored him altogether it would have been better than according him the cold politeness which they showed. No doubt their disappointment and humiliation were keen, and they showed it.

"What'll I do with this eagle flag?" one of them called, as he displayed an emblem with an eagle's head upon it, which one of the sisters of one of the boys had made in anticipation of the great event.

"Send it back to her," another shouted. "We ought to have a flag with a chicken's head on it. We counted our chickens before they were hatched."

"_Some_ fall-down; we should worry," another said, busy at his tasks.

"Eagle fell asleep at the switch, didn't you, Eagle?"

They called him Eagle in a kind of ironical contempt, and it cut him more than anything else that they said.

"Eagle with clipped wings, hey?" one of the troop wits observed.

"Help us take down this troop pole, will you?" Will Connor, Hervey's patrol leader, called. "We should bother about the eagle; our eagle isn't hatched yet."

"Some eggs are rotten," one of the Panthers retorted, which created a general laugh.

Hervey turned scarlet at this and his hands trembled on the oven stone which he was casting away. He dropped it and stood up straight, only to confront the stolid face of the young camp assistant looking straight at him.

"Getting all cleared up?" Tom asked in his usual sober but pleasant way.

Hervey Willetts was about to fly off the handle but something in Tom's quiet, keen glance deterred him.

"You fellows going home soon?"

"Tuesday morning," volunteered the Panthers' patrol leader. "We usually don't stick to the finish. We're a troop of quitters, you know."

"What did you quit?" asked Tom, taking his informant literally.

"Oh, never mind."

"It's all right, as long as you don't quit each other," Tom said, and strolled on to inspect the work of the other troops.

Hervey followed him and in a kind of reckless abandonment said, "Well, you see you were wrong after all--I don't care. You said I'd win it. So I put one over on you, anyway," he laughed in a way of mock triumph. "Tom Slade is wrong for once; how about that? The rotten egg put one over on you. See? I'm the rotten egg--the rotten egg scout. I should bother my head!"

"Go back and pick up those stones, Willetts," said Tom quietly, "and pile them up down by the woodshed."

"You didn't even tell them I saved that little bird, did you?" Hervey said, giving way to his feelings of recklessness and desperation. "What do you suppose _I_ care? I don't care what anybody thinks. I do what I do when I do it; that's me! I don't care a hang about your old badges--I----"

"Hervey," said Tom; "go back and pile up those stones like I told you. And don't get mad at anybody. You do just what I tell you."

"Did you hear----"

"Yop. And I tell you to go back there and keep calm. I'm not interested in badges either; I'm interested in scouts. They'll never be able to make a badge to fit you. Now go back and do what I told you. Who's running this show? You or I?"