friend began, but paused.

And for a few moments there was silence again, save for the distant
sound of splashing down at the lake's edge, where scouts were swimming.

"Slady----listen, Slady; as sure as I sit here ... Are you listening,
Slady? As sure as I sit here, I'm going to tell you the truth--every gol
darned last word of it."

"I never said you lied," Tom said, never looking at him.

"No? I tried not to tell many. But I've been _living_ one; that's worse.
I'm so contemptible I--it's putting anything over on _you_--that's what
makes me feel such a contemptible, low down sneak. That's what's got me.
I don't care so much about the other part. It's _you_--Slady----"

He put his hand on Tom's shoulder and looked at him with a kind of
expectancy. And still Tom's gaze was fixed upon the camp below them.

"I don't mind having things go wrong," Tom said, with a kind of pathetic
dullness that must have gone straight to the other's heart. "As long as
I got a friend it doesn't make any difference what one--I mean who he
is. Lots of times the wrong trail takes you to a better place."

"Do you know where it's taking you _this_ time? It isn't a question of
_who_ I am. It's a question of _what_ I am--Slady. Do you know what I
am?"

"You're a friend of mine," Tom said.

His companion slowly drew his hand from Tom's shoulder, and gazed,
perplexed and dumfounded, into that square, homely, unimpassioned face.

"I'm a thief, Slady," he said.

"I used to steal things," Tom said.

CHAPTER XXVII

THORNTON'S STORY

It was very much like Tom Slade that this altogether sensational
disclosure and startling announcement did not greatly agitate him, nor
even make him especially curious. The fact that this seductive stranger
was his friend seemed the one outstanding reality to him. If he had any
other feelings, of humiliation at being so completely deceived, or of
disappointment, he did not show them. But he did reiterate in that dull
way of his, "You got to tell me who you are."

"I'm _going_ to tell, Slady," his friend said, with a note of sincerity
there was no mistaking; "I'm going to tell you the whole business. What
did _you_ ever steal? An apple out of a grocery store, or something like
that? I thought so. You wouldn't know how to steal if you tried; you'd
make a bungle of it."

"That's the way I do, sometimes," Tom said.

"Is it? Well, you didn't this time--old man. If I'm your friend, I'm
going to be wort