Project Gutenberg's Tom Slade at Black Lake, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

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Title: Tom Slade at Black Lake

Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Illustrator: Howard L. Hastings

Release Date: July 30, 2006 [EBook #18943]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: TOM HAULED THE LOGS BY MEANS OF A BLOCK AND FALL.
Tom Slade at Black Lake--Frontispiece (Page 96)]

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TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE

By
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of
THE TOM SLADE AND THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

Illustrated by
HOWARD L. HASTINGS

Published with the approval of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers--New York

Made in the United States of America

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Copyright, 1920, by GROSSET & DUNLAP

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PREFACE.

Several persons have asked me when Tom Slade was ever going to grow up
and cease to be a Scout. The answer is that he is already grown up and
that he is never going to cease to be a Scout. Once a Scout, always a
Scout. To hear some people talk one would think that scouting is like
the measles; that you get over it and never have it any more.

Scouting is not a thing to play with, like a tin steam-engine, and then
to throw aside. If you once get caught in the net of scouting, you will
never disentangle yourself. A fellow may grow up and put on long
trousers and go and call on a girl and all that sort of thing, but if he
was a Scout, he will continue to be a Scout, and it will stick out all
over him. You'll find him back in the troop as assistant or scoutmaster
or something or other.

I think Tom Slade is a very good example. He left the troop to go and
work on a transport; he got into the motorcycle messenger service; he
became one of the greatest daredevils of the air; he came home quite
"grown up" as you would say, and knuckled down to be a big business man.

Th