“You’ll have to put in some water,” said Tom. “They’ll be charging for water pretty soon, I’m thinking, if this blamed weather keeps up.” Tom’s suddenly revised plan was to go to Temple Camp for the night. He wanted to visit camp and so far as Whalen was concerned a day one way or the other wouldn’t make any difference. Then, as he got to thinking, he realized the dilemma he was in. How could he go back up the mountain? He certainly wouldn’t accompany the detectives there and witness the arrest of his friend. Yet he had not said that he would not return. Was he, then, to be like all the other irresponsible, undependable recruits who had deserted Ferris? Well, anyway, he would spend the night at Temple Camp, then in the morning he would go down to Kingston by train and call at police headquarters there. He would feel fresh in the morning. And so on and so on.... He was aroused out of his musing by his companion’s voice, “I came near getting held up on this road one night, came near being touched for three hundred bills. But I got by with Lizzie all right. I had to laugh; they got a blow-out. Did I duck! I thought it was a gun.” “I guess there are a lot of hold-ups,” Tom said. His interest was only passive, his mind preoccupied and troubled. The young fellow rattled on, “There was a big truck along here last night—broke down. Some load of hootch, oh boy!” “Yes?” said Tom in a way of half-interest. “I’ll say so. One case was all over the road—puddles, broken glass—I gave ’em the lend of a wrench.” “Did you report them?” Tom asked. “_Naaah_, I should worry. I wouldn’ do the bulls out of a job. I never kidnap nobody else’s job.” Tom seemed interested. Here, at last, was a unique view of law breaking and of detecting and apprehending. “Not for mine,” said the young fellow. “That’s what we pay ’em for and they’re loafin’ most of the time.” Tom reflected. Here was a young fellow, evidently honest. He could be trusted with three hundred dollars. He seemed to be a wholesome, right thinking young fellow. Yet he would not report what he had seen. Was he really an accomplice then? He seemed very rough and crude and vulgar in contrast to Audry Ferris.... “Yer goner get out at Catskill?” he asked. CHAPTER XXXII ALONE It was late in the afternoon when Tom alighted at Catskill. It seemed good to see the familiar surroundings in the riverside town which was so much frequented by the scouts from Temple Camp. There was Sholsen’s Sweet Shop where they bought sodas and cones. There was the platform outside the grain and feed store where they waited for the bus and jollied Pee-wee. It was all like a balm to Tom’s troubled mind. He soon forgot his red-headed companion of the ride and thought of Audry and felt ashamed of his dilly-dallying. A fine mess he had made of it so far. Twenty miles or more above Kingston! The whole day had gone for nothing.