great city of New York.

If it is a good rule never to hit a fellow under your size, then the great city of New York is not a very good scout, for it knocked the poor little village of West Hurley clean off the map.

And that was because the great city of New York wanted a drink of water.

So poor Caleb Dyker, dazed and bewildered at this pathetic eviction from all that was near and dear to him, became a tramp and wanderer. And that is how Tom Slade fell in with him.

Tom Slade himself had something of the spirit of the tramp and wanderer. He was assistant at Temple Camp, the big scout community in the Catskills, and was the hero of every boy who spent the summer there. But he was restless. Perhaps his service overseas had made him so, and at the time of this singular chain of happenings the roving spirit was upon him.

Yet it is unlikely that he would have gone away from Temple Camp, that year at all events, if he had not fallen in with the queer personage who all unwittingly gave impetus to his dormant wanderlust.

It is funny, when you come to think of it, how these two, poor old Caleb Dyker and Tom, first met at a little crystal spring by the wayside where they had both paused for a drink of water. Because, you know, this whole story hinges on a drink of water as one might say....

CHAPTER II

Poor Tom; of all the ridiculous errands to be on, that one of tramping down to Catskill Landing was the most ridiculous. Because Tom was a poor young fellow, and was no more able to buy the boat than Hervey Willetts (one of the young scouts of camp) was able to give an accurate and rational account of it.

It was really Hervey who started this whole thing, Hervey Willetts who started so many things. In his purposeless wanderings he had roamed to Catskill Landing one day and (as usual) had not returned for dinner.

“Why didn’t you come back for dinner?” asked the young assistant, rather annoyed.

“Slady, Catskill Landing is thirteen miles and you can’t hear the dinner horn that far. Besides, thirteen is an unlucky number.”

“We’ll have to get a radio if we want you to come home for dinner,” said Tom. “We’ll have to broadcast the dinner call.”

“Slady, 

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