But the little fellow improved each day and
every one noticed it.
In time the feeling toward Tom subsided until nothing was left of it
except a kind of passive disregard of him. Organized resentment would
not have been tolerated at Temple Camp and it is a question whether the
scouts themselves would have had anything to do with such a conspiracy.
But the feeling had changed toward him and was especially noticeable in
certain quarters.
Perhaps if he had lived among his own troop and patrol as one of them
the estrangement would have been entirely forgotten, but he lived a life
apart, seeing them only at intervals, and so the coldness continued. As
the time drew near for the troop to leave, Tom fancied that the feeling
against him was stronger because they were thinking of the extra time
they might have had along with the honor they had lost, but he was
sensitive and possibly imagined that. He sometimes wondered if Roy and
the others were gratified to know that these good friends of their happy
journey to camp could remain longer. But the camp was so large and the
Honor Troop stayed so much by itself that the Bridgeboro boys hardly
realized what it meant to that little patrol up at Hero Cabin. Tom often
thought wistfully of the pleasant cruise up the river and wondered if
Roy and Pee-wee thought of it as they made their plans to go home in the
_Good Turn_.
Two friends Tom had, at all events, and these were Jeb Rushmore and
Garry Everson.
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