CHAPTER I

If so it chance that you live in the city of New York and should, let us say, stop for a cooling drink of water in the interval of a ball game, pause for a few moments and consider this strange story of old Caleb Dyker and perhaps the water will not taste quite so good to you.

Old Caleb Dyker had never seen the great city of New York; he had never in all his life been away from the little village of West Hurley until he was put out, thrown out, or rather until his little village was taken away from him by the 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, don’t talk about radios, don’t mention the name; you ought to see the radio on that boat—the big cabin cruiser that’s for sale. I’d like to buy that boat, Slady, it’s a pipperino!” Probably he would have bought it and sailed away to South Africa in it quite alone, but for one trifling reason. The price of the boat was two thousand dollars, and Hervey had exactly two nickels.

“A pretty big pipperino, hey?” asked Tom.

“Oh, about seventy-five feet—well, maybe fifty, say. If I had that boat, Slady, I’d beat it for Japan and I’d come back by way of the Suez Canal. Two thousand bucks, that’s cheap for that boat, Slady. If I had two thousand bucks I’d buy that boat in a minute.

“You would, huh?”

“You tell ’em I would. It’s got everything in it, Slady, bunks, cook stove, compass, everything. Why I’d give a couple of hundred bucks just for that compass alone, I would.”

It is hard to say why Hervey would have paid such a price for a compass since he never cared in which direction he went and when you are climbing a tree or a telegraph pole, you need no compass to inform you that you are going up.

“Why, that rich man must want to give it away, Slady,” Hervey continued. “Two thousand bucks! Why it’s worth about, oh about ten or fifteen thousand anyway—maybe twenty. It’s a regular ocean liner. There’s a ladder up the side and everything; you just grab it and—”

“Oh, you swam out to it?” Tom asked. “It’s anchored off shore?”

“You can just kindly mention that I did. I swam out to it and all around it and everywhere. There’s a no trespassing sign; you just grab hold of that and pull yourself right up, easy as pie.”

“I see.”

“Maybe a lot of us could club together and buy it, hey?” said Hervey.

Tom smiled. If the scouts at Temple Camp could have scared up twenty dollars among them they would have been lucky. “We might club together and buy the anchor,” Tom laughed.

“Don’t miss it, Slady; go down and look it over. You can crawl right in through one of the port-holes—I did; it’s a cinch. Any dinner left?”

“You’d better go and ask Chocolate Drop,” said Tom.

With a stick which he always carried, Hervey removed his outlandish rimless hat, cut full of holes, and revolving it upon the end of the stick sauntered up toward the cooking shack singing,

CHAPTER III

It was odd how the memorable series of adventures which befell Tom was thus started by that blithesome visitor at camp, whom they called the wandering minstrel. He set fire to Tom’s imagination in the same careless fashion that characterized all his artless, irresponsible acts, and ambled away again leaving poor Tom to his fate.

Tom went down to Catskill Landing to look at the boat. He did not tell any one he was going because he realized the absurdity of a young camp assistant with thirty dollars a week going to inspect a boat which was for sale for two thousand dollars. He just wanted to look at it; a cat can look at a king.

He did not go about his inspection in Hervey’s original way; he secured permission from the man in whose care the boat had been left, and this man rowed him out to the boat which lay at anchor a hundred feet or so from shore.

Tom felt rather embarrassed at finding that some one representing the owner was to accompany him, and he had an unpleasant feeling that the man knew he was not a likely customer.

“They thinking of buying a boat for the camp?” the caretaker asked as they rowed out.

“Oh, I just thought I’d look her over,” said Tom, non-committally. “It’s a bargain, I hear.”

“These rich fellers get tired of their toys, you know,” said the man. “I suppose if that boat was down New York and he advertised her, she’d be snapped up quick enough.”

“Who is the owner?” Tom asked.

“Homer, his name is; folks got a big place near Greendale. Oak Lodge they call it. He’s in Europe now.”

Tom climbed up on the deck of the boat with more reverence for it than ever Hervey Willetts had shown.

It was a cabin cruiser, one of those palatial motor-boats which seem all the more luxurious and attractive for being cosy and small. It had a quaint name, Goodfellow, which somehow seemed appropriate to its combined qualities of snug comfort and sporty trimness. It looked a wide awake, companionable boat.

It seemed to Tom that the owner must be a young man with a predilection for camping, and all the wholesome sport which goes with it, for in the little cabin there were fishing tackle, crab-nets, a tent and all the usual paraphernalia of the scout and adventurer. A mere glimpse at the tiny galley with its oil stove and spotless tins was enough to arouse an appetite.

“It’s a peach all right,” said poor Tom; “it’s a bargain at two thousand, I’ll say that. I wonder why he wants to get rid of it?”

“Got the airplane bug, I guess,” said the man.

“He’s in Europe?” Tom asked.

“Climbin’ mountains in Switzerland; last card I got from him said Loosarne or some such place. If all them mountains was stamped out flat I reckon Switzerland would be as big as the United States. Folks get crazes fer climbin’ them mountains; they got ter go roped together, I hear. What rich folks is after is excitement, I reckon. They go sailin’ on the streets in Veenus, judgin’ from the post cards.”

Tom did not hear these comments on European travel. He was gazing about, feasting his eyes on every enchanting detail and appurtenance of the boat. He derived a kind of foolish comfort from the fact that, the owner being away, the sale of this trim little floating palace could not be consummated for a while at least. Yet he stood a better chance of being struck by lightning than of being able to buy it.

“Well, you couldn’t sell it anyway?” he said in a wistfully, questioning way.

“Couldn’ give no bill o’ sale,” said the man.

“And she won’t go yet then—anyway?”

“Not ’nes she slips her anchor.”

Poor Tom could not drag himself away from the handsome little craft. He vaulted onto the cabin roof and sat with his legs dangling over the cockpit, gazing about at the accessories which spoke so seductively of nautical life; the anchor, the bell, the compass, the brass fog-horn in its canvas cover, the life preservers with Goodfellow printed on them.

Then, like a flash, he ceased his day dreaming and became the practical, alert young fellow that he was. He jumped down off the cabin roof, fully awake to his poverty and the fact that he was wasting this honest man’s time.

“She’s the kind of boat you read about, all right,” he said.

As they rowed shoreward the man gave a little dissertation on boats which Tom later had cause to remember.

“Well, there’s somethin’ about a boat,” he said, “yer fall in love with it. Now nobody ever loved a automobile. I guess that’s why boats is called females in a way of speakin’; named after women and all that. Yer go crazy over a boat. I knowed men, I did, would let their boats rot, ’fore they’d sell ’em. You wouldn’ hear uv nobody doin’ that with a airplane. It’s human natur’, as the feller says.

“You never heered nobody speak affectionate about a automobile, now did yer? Yer heered ’em praise it ’n say it could make the hills ’n all that, but yer never heered nobody speak soft like ’bout one, now did yer? Folks get new autos every year or two, but they stick ter their ole boats.

“When a boat brings a man in out uv a storm he jes’ kind uv loves that boat. He don’t look at his speedometer and say, ‘She done three hundred miles ’n she’s worth that much less.’ No sir, I can show yer half a dozen men ’bout here, up ’n down the river, wouldn’ sell yer their ole scows, no sir, not fer love or money, they wouldn’.

“Take Danny Jellif up here, owns the Daisy; you couldn’ buy the Daisy. ’Cause money don’t count fer nothin’ where there’s love; that’s how I dope it out. Mebbe these rich fellers is different, but not always, I guess. Leastways, yer get ter love a boat, she’s kind uv human. Mebbe Ted Homer is different; he didn’ name her a female name anyway.”

“Oh, lots of girls are good fellows,” said Tom. “Well, I reckon you know more about ’em than I do,” said the man as he rowed.

This was not the case, for indeed Tom knew very little about them. This was his first love affair. He was madly in love with Goodfellow. And it was pathetic that this beauteous damsel of his heart was so far beyond his reach. He was like a pauper in love with a princess and he felt that he would do anything in the world to win her. Anything? Well, most anything....

CHAPTER IV

If Tom Slade owned that boat he would make a cruise down the coast in it. As he hiked back to Temple Camp he thought of what he would do and where he would go and who he would take along—if he only owned that boat. He would rechristen it the—the—the—no, he wouldn’t rechristen it at all; Goodfellow was a crackerjack name, he would call it Goodfellow.

And now as he thought of the name it seemed a particularly happy name for a boat, an inspiration, as Pee-wee Harris would have said. It meant trusty and fair and square, with a true sportsman’s broad code of honor.

Goodfellow. Tom mused upon the name. It suggested pal, it suggested daring, and just a touch of blithesome recklessness. Above all it seemed to Tom to suggest pal. Good scout, good citizen, good pupil, good son, good brother; all good, no doubt, but such names for a boat! “Goodfellow,” said Tom, “that’s one peach of a name.” Could it be that being a good fellow was really better than being any of these other things? Or was it just that the name was blithesome and sportive?

And just then he came upon the stranger. He came upon him at a little crystal spring by the wayside where hikers from Temple Camp often paused for a cooling drink. Out of deference to this little spring, the stone wall which bordered the road had been made to form a semicircle at the spot, leaving the water free to bubble up.

And at this spot, where the cold, hard wall respectfully stepped aside, to allow the spring to make its kindly presence known to the thirsty wayfarer, some flat stones projected from the rough, loose masonry, to form several seats. The Temple Camp boys never used these stone shelves, for by instinct they preferred the top of the wall. Therefore, it looked the more peculiar to Tom to see sitting on one of these hospitable projections the queerest, most wizened looking little old man that he had ever seen.

The little shelf on which he sat was so unobtrusive that he seemed to be sitting on nothing at all, in the very center of the small semicircle of stone wall. He looked like some whimsical statue sitting there with his two shrivelled hands resting on his crazy cane. His old-fashioned steel-rimmed spectacles rested at such a rakish angle on his nose that one of his eyes looked over one lens, while the other looked under the opposite one. And there was a strange, bright stare in his eyes which might once upon a time have suggested shrewdness. The whole whimsical aspect of this funny little old man was emphasized by the fact of his looking straight ahead of him the while he talked; his interest in Tom’s presence seemed quite impersonal.

Tom was nothing if not personal and hearty and, seating himself near this queer personage, he stretched his legs out in front of him, clasped his hands in back of his head, and said, “Well, you taking a rest?”

“It’s all right to drink this water if you want to,” said the old man in a crisp, choppy voice.

“You said it,” laughed Tom; “no germs here, you can bet.”

Then having rested momentarily he kneeled down, drinking out of his cupped hands while the little old man looked straight ahead of him, his withered hands clasped upon his cane.

“You needn’t be ashamed to drink that water,” he said, “it’s honest water; all water that comes out of springs is honest.”

“Well,” laughed Tom as he lifted his cupped hands for another cooling draught, “this water certainly needn’t be ashamed to look anybody in the face.”

The water, indeed, seemed carefree and of a good conscience. It trickled down off Tom’s face and neck as if it had a clean record and not a care in the world. He arose not only refreshed but cleansed. “You bet it’s good, pure water,” he said.

The little old man continued looking straight ahead of him and when he spoke it was with a kind of crisp finality, like an oracle speaking. It amused Tom, and he sat on the ground with his hands clasped around his drawn-up knees, listening to the queerest tirade he had ever heard.

CHAPTER V

“You never drink out of the Ashokan Reservoir, do you?” the old man asked.

“Well I don’t exactly drink out of the Ashokan Reservoir,” Tom said. “But you know it’s pretty hard to get away from the Ashokan Reservoir when you’re down in New York.”

“New York is a thief,” the old man said.

“Now who’s calling names?” Tom laughed.

“If you drink any water that comes from the Ashokan Reservoir, you’re accessory to a thief,” the old man said. “Drink spring water. Miles and miles of country was stole to make the Ashokan Reservoir. The village where I lived, West Hurley, was wiped out to make the Ashokan Reservoir. My home was took away from me.

“Why did New York have to come way up here for water? That water is poison—it has sorrow in it. If you drink that water you drink a bitter cup of sorrow. Every drink you take of it you’re drinking sorrow. Drink spring water. You’re a young man, don’t mix yourself up with a crime; keep your hands clean.”

“I don’t see how I’m going to keep my hands clean unless I wash them,” Tom laughed; “and down in New York the only way you can wash your hands is to turn on the faucet. What’s the big idea, anyway, Cap?”

“My name is Dyker,” said the old man.

“Mine’s Tom Slade,” said Tom. “You seem to have a grouch against the Ashokan Reservoir. You should worry. I suppose they had to clear away the valley to make room for it. What’s done is done; I wouldn’t let it bother my young life if I were you.”

“I’m seventy-three year old,” said the little old man, “and from the day they drove me out of my house ’til this very minute, I never drank a drop out of that cup of sorrow—”

“It’s a pretty big cup all right,” Tom laughed. “You wouldn’t laugh if you’d ’a’ been put out of your home. On that day I swore I’d never drink a drop of water out of that reservoir, and I kept that vow. I tramped as far as New York City, I did, but not a drop of it did I touch; I bought spring water and drank it. I wouldn’t drink sorrow any more than I’d wash my hands in another’s blood.”

Something in the little old man’s voice caused Tom’s mood of banter to change and he gave a quick glance up at the whimsical, pathetic figure sitting there looking straight ahead across the fields. The withered hands were trembling and the funny rustic cane, memento of the woods and companion of his lonely travels, was shaking as if in very sympathy.

Of a sudden Tom’s heart was touched by this aged wanderer. And then, as if by some new fight, he saw the poor old creature’s crazy vow as something fine and heroic.

To set the vast Ashokan Reservoir at defiance was certainly a conception worthy of one cast in a heroic mould. To go to New York City and still not drink of the supply from that distant sea, was surely something in the nature of a stunt. Right or wrong, sane or insane, this poor little old man was made of strong material, the kind of stuff that heroes and martyrs are made of.

And Tom resolved that he would cease joking with him.

CHAPTER VI

“Well,” said Tom, “where I belong we don’t bother much with the Ashokan Reservoir; we drink spring water at camp. I guess none of these places around here get water from the big reservoir. I belong at Temple Camp. You’ve heard of that place? It’s right in among the hills over there—big boy scout camp, you know.

“You say you’ve been batting around the country for twelve years? That gets me; that’s my middle name, flopping around like a tramp—I don’t mean a tramp,” he added kindly, “but a kind of a vagabond. Wherever there’s adventure, that’s the place for me.”

His voice was cheery, his manner offhand and friendly. It was hard not to like Tom, and it was easy to fall in the way of being confidential with him. He sat there on the ground, his knees up and his hands about them. His pleasant, expectant look seemed to encourage friendliness.

“I’m assistant manager over at the camp,” he said, “and I listen to more blamed troubles every day than you could shake a stick at, kids’ quarrels’ and one thing or another. But I’ll be jiggered if I ever heard any one say anything against the Ashokan Reservoir. I always thought it was a nice big reservoir; I hiked around it once. Pretty big engineering feat, I guess,” he added, in a way that seemed to invite confidences. “It’s a regular young ocean, I’ll say that.”

“I suppose you know the ocean is cruel,” said the old man, looking straight ahead of him.