He liked rowing in the choppy water. It meant the first energetic work he had done all day. For just ten or fifteen minutes he put all his fine vigor into his encounter with the wind-blown river. It would be easier rowing back, he thought.

It was dusk when he tied the skiff to the Goodfellow’s rail and climbed into the cockpit. The gay, striped awning which had covered this at the time of his first visit was blown to shreds which fluttered in the breeze like a dozen or more forlorn pennants. One faded remnant had wound itself like a bandage around one of the nickeled stanchions.

The boys of the neighborhood had evidently used the boat to fish from, for several rusty bait cans rolled about the deck as the Goodfellow rode the choppy water. The noise they made was emphasized by the surrounding stillness. A little leaden sinker hurried back and forth and here and there in a kind of bewildered way, rolling under seats and out again, as if it had lost its way.

Tom rested on the long seat which ran around the deck with the rail for its back. The little sliding cabin door was closed and its rusty rollers creaked as the boat rocked. On the bulkhead at either side of this tiny door hung a circular life preserver. On each of these was printed Goodfellow. In his abstraction and distress of mind, he thought wistfully how Pee-wee Harris had once likened such a life preserver to a doughnut. It is odd how such irrelevant thoughts flit through a troubled mind.

As he gazed at the name printed in black letters, he recalled how he had first been captivated by it. Goodfellow. Not good scout, not good citizen. But just goodfellow. He mused upon the name. And from musing upon the name he came to think of Whal—Anson Dyker. He had been a mere boy when he did that rash, insane thing. Tom’s heart went out to him now. There was something touching about the man. Must he die? Die! He, Tom’s rescuer and friend? Must he sit in a chair and....

He tried to think, tried to think all by himself. With his simple, honest mind, he tried to think—out there in the boat that he loved. He had no book knowledge to help him, no fine spun principles. He had gone to Audry in his trouble and perplexity and she had shown him the way. And now, in the deepness of his sorrow, he had braved the rising wind and come out here to his first love—just to be alone.

And she, too, helped him. Here in the little cruiser, where Audry would not have dared to venture on such a night, surrounded by the dark water and enveloped by the solemn twilight, Tom Slade found himself. With the mighty mountains flanking him on either shore, the towering, rugged heights clothed in the dim silent forests that he loved, he thought—in his own simple, boyish way. These things, the water, the woods, the mountains, were his books....

“There is a law—capital punishment,” he mused. “But if a man, a citizen, doesn’t believe in that, they can’t make him serve on a jury. It—it isn’t just the same—maybe—but I won’t—I can’t do anything that makes me feel mean. They can’t make a man testify against his wife. Or a woman testify against her husband. That shows that love and all things like that are stronger than citizenship—that shows they admit it themselves. They make allowance for human nature. We didn’t send German Americans to the front—I know because I was there. They let people think they did, but they didn’t. Stern duty—yes. Talk is cheap. Goodfellow, that’s—that’s one good word—if—if anybody should ask you....”

Tom Slade could lift any small scout at Temple Camp by the collar and hold him out straight with one arm. And the squirming youngster would always wriggle his neck afterward from that iron clutch. The hand which was accustomed to doing this now tightened on the rail against which he leaned. And the power of a resolution which Audry Ferris dreamed not of, was in that brown hand. And his eyes, inscrutable and grim, looked straight at the name Goodfellow, on one of the life preservers before him. Half-closed, grimly determined, they looked.

And the frowning mountains on either side of the darkening river were no stronger nor more immovable than Tom Slade, scout. No maid (unless it were the Goodfellow) and no scout organization with all its fine program of character building and citizenship could feel the blame, or perchance take the credit, for his towering, defiant resolve.

It was just Tom Slade of Barrel Alley who once upon a time had knocked a city marshal flat with a quick right-handed violation of the law, because that dignitary had set a beer can on his mother’s picture. It was that same right hand which struck the railing now. Tom Slade of Barrel Alley.

“If anybody thinks,” said he, “that I’m going to squeal on a friend, they’ve got—one—more—good—long—think. Maybe I might give away the one that saved my life—some day—maybe I might. But not while I’m conscious!”

Thus this good fellow came through the storm, just as the gallant little Goodfellow, his first love, had braved so many storms out there in the wide river, neglected and alone.