always had for poor Tom.

Three years before, when Tom Slade, hoodlum, had been deserted by his
wretched, drunken father and left a waif in Bridgeboro, Mr. Ellsworth
had taken him in hand, Roy had become his friend, and John Temple,
president of the Bridgeboro Bank, noticing his amazing reformation, had
become interested in him and in the Boy Scouts as well.

It had proven a fine thing for Tom and for the Scouts. Mr. Temple had
endowed a large scout camp in the Catskills, which had become a vacation
spot for troops from far and near, and which, during the two past
summers, had been the scene of many lively adventures for the Bridgeboro
boys.

But Tom had to thank Temple Camp and its benevolent founder for
something more than health and recreation and good times. When the troop
had returned from that delightful woodland community in the preceding
autumn and Tom had reached the dignity of long trousers, the question
of what he should do weighed somewhat heavily on Mr. Ellsworth's mind,
for Tom was through school and it was necessary that he be established
in some sort of home and in some form of work which would enable him to
pay his way.

Perhaps Tom's own realization of this had its part in inclining him to
go off to war. In any event, Mr. Ellsworth's perplexities, and to some
extent his anxieties, had come to an end when Mr. Temple had announced
that Temple Camp was to have a city office and a paid manager for the
conduct of its affairs, which had theretofore been looked after by
himself and the several trustees and, to some extent, by Jeb Rushmore,
former scout and plainsman, who made his home at the camp and was called
its manager.

Whether Jeb had fulfilled all the routine requirements may be a
question, but he was the spirit of the camp, the idol of every boy who
visited it, and it was altogether fitting that he should be relieved of
the prosy duties of record-keeping which were now to be relegated to the
little office in Mr. Temple's big bank building in Bridgeboro.

So it was arranged that Tom should work as a sort of assistant to Mr.
Burton in the Temple Camp office and, like Jeb Rushmore, if he fell
short in some ways (he couldn't _touch_ a piece of carbon paper without
getting his fingers smeared) he more than made up in others, for he knew
the camp thoroughly, he could describe the accommodations of every
cabin, and tell you every by-path for miles around, and his knowledge of
the place showed in every