Tom Slade at Black Lake

Tom Slade has just come home from the Great War, but the uniform he wears now is a different kind—one stitched from knot‑tying, trail‑blazing, and the old Scout handbook. He spends his evenings hunched over a map of Temple Camp, tracing the hill trail that once earned him the path‑finder’s badge, and dreaming of the moonlit waters of Black Lake where his fellow Scouts still dive from springboards. Though the battlefields have faded behind him, the call of the woods and the promise of fresh adventure feel more real than any trench he ever knew.

Now, at eighteen and still as restless as ever, Tom is ready to trade city streets for pine‑scented paths, planning a weekend that could test his courage and skill in ways the war never did. With a notebook in hand, he marks the three cabins that sit on the edge of the lake, hinting at a secret rendezvous that will pull him back into the heart of scouting life. Listeners will follow his first steps into the wilderness, feeling the excitement of a boy who refuses to let adulthood dim the spark of his Scout spirit.