“I didn’t drop my whistle,” the little fellow piped up, as if that were his chief concern.

“Good,” said Tom, in an effort to interest him and put him at ease.  “That’s a dandy whistle; tell us about it.  Because we’re your friends, you know.”

“Am I going to see my mother and father?”

“You bet.  Away down there is a big camp where there are lots of boys and you’re going to stay there till they come and get you.”

“They sent me to the spring to get water and I took my whistle so I could soak it in the water, because that makes it go good.  I made it myself, that whistle.”

Tom, his clothes torn, his face and hands bleeding from scratches, sat upon the edge of a big rock with the little fellow drawn tight against him.

“And when you whistled we came and got you, hey?  That’s the kind of fellows we are.  And I bet I know how that nice sweater got frayed, too.  A little bird did that.”

“I left it hanging on a tree near the spring when they sent me to get water,” the boy said, “and I left it there all night.”  He poked his finger in the frayed place as if he were proud of it.

“And I’ll show you who did it,” Tom said; “because that little thief is right down there in that big camp.  And I’ll show you the turtle you carved your initials on too.  Because he came to our camp, too.  There’s so much fun there.  And you’re going to step very carefully and hold on to me, and we’re going down, down, down, till we get to that camp where there is a man that knows how to make dandy crullers.  I bet you like crullers?”

A camp where even birds and turtles go, and where they know how to make crullers, was a magic place, not to be missed by any means.  And little Anthony Harrington was already undecided as to whether he would rather live there than at home.

CHAPTER THE LAST

Y-EXTRA!  Y-EXTRA!

The ragged little newsboys in the big city shouted themselves hoarse.  “Y-extree!  Y-extra!  Anthony Harrington safe!  Rescued by Boy Scouts!  Y-extree!  Mister!”

And those who bought the extras learned how the kidnappers of Anthony Harrington allowed him to purchase for nine cents a turtle from a little farm boy whom he met at the station at Catskill.  And of how that turtle walked off and gave the whole thing away.  Llewellyn and Orestes got even more credit than Tom Slade, but he did not care, for a scout is a brother to every other scout, and it was all in the family.

And so, as I said in the beginning, if you should visit Temple Camp, you will hear the story told of how Llewellyn, scout of the first-class, and Orestes, winner of the merit badges for architecture and music, were by their scouting skill and lore instrumental in solving a mystery and performing a great good turn.

They are still there, the two of them; one in her elm, the other in Tenderfoot Pond.  And Orestes (but this is strictly confidential) has a little scout troop of her own, tenderfeet with a vengeance, for they are out of the eggs scarcely ten days.