True--nobody but Tom Slade. His hands were covered with blisters so that he must wind his handkerchief around one of them to ease the chafing of the axe handle. His hair was streaky and dishevelled and needed cutting, so that he looked not unlike one of those hardy pioneers of old. And now, with some of the rough material for the last cabin strewn about him and with but two weeks in which to finish the work, he was confronted with a new handicap. The old pain caused by the wound in his arm returned, and the crippled muscles rebelled against this excessive usage. Well, that was just a little obstacle in the long trail; he would put the burden on the other arm. "I'm glad I got two," he said. He tried to calculate the remainder of the work in relation to the time he had to do it. For of one thing he was resolved, and that was to be finished and gone before those two troops arrived, the troop from the west and his own troop from Bridgeboro. They were to find these six cabins waiting for them. Everything would be all right.... He mopped his brow off, and rewound the handkerchief about his sore hand. The fingers smarted and tingled and he wriggled them to obtain a little relief from their cramped condition. He buttoned up his flannel shirt which he always left wide open when he worked, and laid his axe away in one of the old familiar cabins. It chanced to be one in which he and Roy had cut their initials, and he paused a moment and glanced wistfully at their boyish handiwork. Then he went down. As he passed through Temple Lane he saw that Uncle Jeb had been busy taking down the board shutters from the main pavilion--ominous reminder of the fast approaching season. Soon scouts would be tumbling all over each other hereabouts. The springboard had been put in place at the lake's edge, too, and a couple of freshly painted rowboats were bobbing at the float, looking spick and glossy in the dying sunlight. Temple Camp was beginning to look natural and familiar. "I reckon it'll be a lively season," Uncle Jeb said, glancing about after his own strenuous day's work. "Last summer most of the scouts was busy with war gardens and war work and 'twas a kind of off season as you might say. I cal'late they'll come in herds like buffaloes this summer." "Every cabin is booked until Columbus Day," Tom said; "and all the tent space is assigned." "Yer reckon to finish by August first?" Uncle Jeb asked. "I'd like to finish before anybody comes," Tom said; "but I guess I can't do that. I'll get away before August first, that's sure. You have to be sure to see that 5, 6 and 7 go to my troop, and the new ones to the troop from Ohio. You can tell them it's a kind of a surprise if you want to. You don't need to tell 'em who did it. It's nice up there on that hill. It's a kind of a camp all by itself. Do you remember that woodchuck skin you gave Roy? It's hanging up there in the Silver Fox's cabin now." "What's the matter with your hand?" Uncle Jeb inquired.