"I don't mind having things go wrong," Tom said, with a kind of pathetic dullness that must have gone straight to the other's heart. "As long as I got a friend it doesn't make any difference what one--I mean who he is. Lots of times the wrong trail takes you to a better place." "Do you know where it's taking you _this_ time? It isn't a question of _who_ I am. It's a question of _what_ I am--Slady. Do you know what I am?" "You're a friend of mine," Tom said. His companion slowly drew his hand from Tom's shoulder, and gazed, perplexed and dumfounded, into that square, homely, unimpassioned face. "I'm a thief, Slady," he said. "I used to steal things," Tom said. CHAPTER XXVII THORNTON'S STORY It was very much like Tom Slade that this altogether sensational disclosure and startling announcement did not greatly agitate him, nor even make him especially curious. The fact that this seductive stranger was his friend seemed the one outstanding reality to him. If he had any other feelings, of humiliation at being so completely deceived, or of disappointment, he did not show them. But he did reiterate in that dull way of his, "You got to tell me who you are." "I'm _going_ to tell, Slady," his friend said, with a note of sincerity there was no mistaking; "I'm going to tell you the whole business. What did _you_ ever steal? An apple out of a grocery store, or something like that? I thought so. You wouldn't know how to steal if you tried; you'd make a bungle of it." "That's the way I do, sometimes," Tom said. "Is it? Well, you didn't this time--old man. If I'm your friend, I'm going to be worth it. Do you get that?" "I told you you was." "Slady, I never knew what I was going to get up against, or I would never have tried to swing this thing. If you'd turned out to be a different kind of a fellow I wouldn't have felt so much like a sneak. It's _you_ that makes me feel like a criminal--not those sleuths and bloodhounds out there. Listen, Slady; it's a kind of a camp-fire story, as you would call it, that I'm going to tell you." He laid his hand on Tom's arm as he talked and so they sat there on the rough sill of the cabin doorway, Tom silent, the other eager, anxious, as he related his story. The birds flitted about and chirped in the trees overhead, busy with their morning games or tasks, and below the voices of scouts could be heard, thin and spent by the distance, and occasionally the faint sound of a diver with accompanying shouts and laughter which Tom seemed to hear as in a dream. Far off, beyond the mountains, could be heard the shrill whistle of a train, bringing scouts, perhaps, to crowd the already filled tent space. And amid all these distant sounds which, subdued, formed a kind of outdoor harmony, the voice of Tom's companion sounded strangely in his ear.