“Some climb, hey?” he breathed, laughing, and affecting the stagger of utter exhaustion.  “I bet you knew an easier way up.  The bunch told me not to beard the lion in his den, but I’m not afraid of lions.  Here I am and you can’t get rid of me now.  I’m up against it, Slady, and I want a few tips.  They say you’re the only real scout since Kit Carson.  What I’m hunting for is a wild animal, but I haven’t been able to find anything except a cricket, two beetles and a cow that belongs on the Hasbrook farm.  Don’t mind if I stroll along with you a little way, do you?  My name is Willetts—­Hervey Willetts.  I’m with that troop from Massachusetts.  I’m an Eagle Scout—­all but.”

“But’s a pretty big word,” Tom said.

“You said it,” Hervey Willetts said, still wrestling with his breath; “it’s the biggest word in the dictionary.”

CHAPTER IV

HERVEY LEARNS SOMETHING

They strolled on through the woods together, the younger boy’s gayety and enthusiasm showing in pleasing contrast to Tom’s stolid manner.

He was a wholesome, vivacious boy, this Willetts, with a breeziness which seemed to captivate even his sober companion, and if Tom had felt any slight annoyance at being thus overhauled by a comparative stranger, the feeling quickly passed in the young scout’s cheery company.

“They told me down in camp that if I need a guide, philosopher, and friend, I’d better run you down, or up——­”

“If you’d gone a little to the left you’d have found it easier,” Tom said, in his usual matter-of-fact manner.

“Oh, I suppose you know all the highways and byways and right ways and left ways and every which ways for miles and miles around,” Hervey Willetts said.  “I guess they were right when they said you’d be a good guide, philosopher, and friend, hey?”

“I don’t know what a philosopher is,” Tom said, with characteristic blunt honesty, “but I know all the trails around here, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you mean about guides?” Hervey asked, just a trifle puzzled.  “That’s an expression, guide, philosopher, and friend.  It comes from Shakespeare or one of those old ginks; it means a kind of a moral guide, I suppose.”

“Oh,” said Tom.

“But I need, I need, I need, I need a friend,” Hervey said.

“You seem to have lots of friends down there,” Tom said.

“A scout is observant, hey?” Willetts laughed.

“I mean you always seem to have a lot of fellows with you,” Tom said, ignoring the compliment.  “Everybody likes your troop, that’s sure.  And your troop seems to be stuck on you.”

“Good night!” Hervey laughed.  “They won’t be stuck on me after Saturday.  That’ll be the end of my glorious career.”

“What did you do?” Tom asked, after his customary fashion of construing talk literally.