Then Harry told him all about his adventure out on the ocean and how he found the dead man in the boat, and the money.

“Funny thing, too,” he said; “but we were trying to dope out the meaning of that letter, all sitting around the camp-fire. We even thought we could see the old gent. Old veteran, isn’t he? Huh, that’s just what we thought. Blamed funny thing, a camp-fire.”

Jib Jab didn’t say anything, only just looked straight ahead of him. Harry just kept smoking and swinging his legs.

“Guess we hit it about right, hey?” he said.

Jib Jab just kept looking straight ahead of him.

“Pretty near,” he said. He sounded kind of strange. Even still he didn’t put the money in his pocket, or the water-soaked letter either, but they just stayed where Harry threw them, on the bathrobe.

“Pretty tough, being broke,” Harry said.

“Bet the old gent’ll be proud to see you. Under Grant, I suppose?”

“Sherman,” Jib Jab said, very quiet.

Then neither of them spoke for about a couple of minutes, only Harry asked him for a light.

“Ever get mixed up with the boy scouts, Jib?” Harry asked him.

Jib Jab just shook his head.

“Well, listen here,” Harry said; “and here’s the test of whether you’re really human.”

“I guess I’m pretty human,” Jib Jab said, very low.

Then Harry said, “We ran into a party of scouts, Jib, who went up to Elm Center to see if a fellow they saw in a moving picture was you. I guess it was all right. They had an idea of winning that reward; you know about the offer, of course?”

“Yes, I knew,” Jib Jab said.

“How about this old gent you’re named after? Friend of your father’s? I thought as much. Pretty rich, I suppose? Good. Now, Jib, you and I know what it is to go broke. I’ve gone broke forty-eleven times. And we’re both keen for adventure; that’s our trouble, I guess. There’s a fellow over where we’re camping, a young fellow, with a bunch of little tenderfoot scouts. They came up to hunt for you and to get that reward. They’re broke. They need some mazuma to start in with. They need a hundred. Do they get it?”

Jib Jab said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, first you’re willing to go home?”

“Do you have to ask me that?”

“All right then,” Harry said; “here’s the plan of campaign and General Pershing himself couldn’t plan it better. You’re going home, that’s settled. Prodigal son, and all that stuff. But first you’ve got to be discovered. Give us another light, will you? I put it to you from man to man, or from tramp to what-is-it, you can’t go home without being discovered. You’ve got to come over our way and get yourself discovered. These scouts need a shack to meet in and a lot of stuff. They want to give their scoutmaster a welcome home. He was in the scrap same as you and I. It all hangs on that hundred dollars, Jib. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be the goat. That young fellow Gaylong is a double barrel scout and he’s trying to pull through with that outfit of kids. He wouldn’t take a cent as an ordinary present. I’ve got his number. Of course, if you’ve got the instinct of a baboon that doesn’t mean anything to you. But all over the fences in this happy berg, Costello is wanting to know if you’re human. You can’t show you’re human just by taking off that bear skin and washing your face. I want to know if you’re human or not.”

“Run out and ask Costello for a couple of marvellous, matchless matches, will you, Roy?”