“Well, and you’ll all be disappointed,” said Hervey with a kind of heedlessness that nettled his scoutmaster.  “And if anybody should ask you about it, any of the troop, you can just say that I found out something and that I’m not so stuck on the Eagle award, after all.  That’s what you can tell them.”

“Well, I will tell them no such thing, for I would be ashamed to tell them that.  I think we all know what the highest honor is.  Perhaps the boys are not such reckless young adventurers as you, but they know what the highest scout honor is.  And I think if you will be perfectly honest with me, Hervey, you’ll acknowledge that something new has caught your fancy.  Come now, isn’t that right?”

“Right the first time,” said Hervey with a gayety that quite disgusted his scoutmaster.

“Well, go your way, Hervey,” he said coldly.

CHAPTER XVII

HERVEY GOES HIS WAY

So Hervey went his way alone, and a pretty lonesome way it was.  The members of his troop made no secret of their disappointment and annoyance, he was clearly an outsider among them, and Mr. Warren treated him with frosty kindness.  Hervey had been altogether too engrossed in his mad career of badge-getting to cultivate friends, he was always running on high, as the scouts of camp said, and though everybody liked him none had been intimate with him.  He felt this now.

In those two intervening days between his adventure in the elm tree and the big pow-wow on Saturday night, he found a staunch friend in little Skinny, who followed him about like a dog.  They stuck together on the bus ride down to the regatta on the Hudson and were close companions all through the day.

Hervey did not care greatly for the boat races, because he could not be in them; he had no use for a race unless he could win it.  So he and Skinny fished for a while over the rail of the excursion boat, but Hervey soon tired of this, because the fish would not cooeperate.  Then they pitched ball on the deck, but the ball went overboard and Mr. Warren would not permit Hervey to dive in after it.  So he made a wager with Skinny that he could shinny up the flag-pole, but was foiled in his attempt by the captain of the boat.  Thus he was driven to the refuge of conversation.

Balancing himself perilously on the rail in an unfrequented part of the steamer, he asked Skinny about the coveted award.  “They’re not going to put you through a lot of book sprints, are they?” he inquired.

“I’m going to get it Saturday night,” Skinny said.  “I bet all my troop will like me then, won’t they?  I have to stand up straight when I go on the platform.  Some fellows get a lot of clapping when they go on the platform.  I know two fellows that are going to clap when I go on.  Will you clap when I go on?  Because I like you a lot.”

“I’ll stamp with both feet,” said Hervey.