“I want to say what I think of you for doing what you did, Hugh Hardin,” he declared resolutely, his jaws set as though in grim determination. “It was white of you, that’s right, and I’ll never forget it.”
“Oh! that’s all right, Lige,” answered Hugh pleasantly, as he thrust out his hand toward the other impulsively. “It was a shame that Mr. Garrison said what he did, and of course we all knew the charge was silly; but he’s so rattled he hardly knew what he was doing. I’m glad I happened to see that man grab hold of your brother and the watch slip out of his fingers. I think Billy, here, must have noticed it all, too, but things happened so fast that his breath was taken away, just as mine was for a minute or so. Better forget all about it, Lige. No harm has been done, you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Hugh,” replied the other boy with a sigh, as he eagerly accepted the offered hand, “but it makes me ashamed to think of all I’ve done to break up that scout troop of yours, and here you keep Benjy from being arrested just as if I’d been one of your best friends. I don’t understand it, I tell you! Why should you so much as lift a finger to help a feller that has been so ugly all along, and pestered you and your crowd as I’ve done? Tell me that, Hugh!”
“Why, Lige,” the assistant scout master replied, his kindly smile holding the attention of the other boy, “I suppose it must be because we are scouts, and we believe in doing the right thing, even when it’s an enemy that’s in trouble. If you had ever looked up the habits of scouts, you wouldn’t have to ask me that question. It’s given me more pleasure to be able to lend you a helping hand than ever you could get out of it, and that’s a fact, Lige.”
Lige shook his head, but his eyes did not fall before that steady look.
“I never knew that was what scouts believed in,” he said slowly, as an eager, wistful glow came into his eyes. “I always thought they were only a bunch of sissies that liked being dressed up in khaki suits and parading around in a silly way. Then there was that time you helped put out the fire up at my aunt’s; I seemed to begin to get my eyes opened then, and I’ve been doing a heap of thinking ever since. Hugh, do you think that you’d care to tell me a lot more about this scout racket if I came around to your house some time you set? Honest, I’d like to hear what it stands for.”