CHAPTER XX.
UNCLE JEB At five o'clock every seat around the open air platform was occupied.
Every bench out of Scout Chapel, the long boards on which the hungry multitude lined up at supper-time, every chair from Council Shack and Main Pavilion, and many a trunk and cedar chest from tents and cabins and a dozen other sorts of makeshift seating accommodations were laid under contribution for the gala occasion.

And even these were not enough, for the whole neighboring village turned out in a body, and gaping summer boarders strolled into the camp in little groups, thankful for something to do and see.
There was plenty doing.

Those who could not get seats sprawled under the trees in back of the seats and a few scouts perched up among the branches.
Upon the makeshift rustic platform sat the high dignitaries, scoutmasters, trustees--the faculty, as Hervey was fond of calling them.
In the big chair of honor in the center sat Mr.John Temple and alongside him Commissioner Something-or-Other and Committeeman Something Else.

They had come up from the big scout wigwam, in the dense woods on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-third Street, New York.
Resounding cheers arose and echoed from the hills when old Uncle Jeb Rushmore, retired ranchman and tracker, and scout manager of the big camp, took his seat among the high dignitaries.

He made some concession to the occasion by wearing a necktie which was half way around his neck, and by laying aside his corn-cob pipe.
Tom Slade, who sat beside his superior, looked none the less romantic in the scout regalia which he wore in honor of the occasion.