called Black Lake; and here he put up a big open shack with a dozen or so log cabins about it and endowed the whole thing as a summer camp where troops from all over the country might come and find accommodations and recreation in the summer months.

That was not all. Temple Camp was to be a school where scouting might be taught (Oh, he was going to do the right thing, was old John Temple!), and to that end he communicated with somebody who communicated with somebody else, who got in touch with somebody else who went to some ranch or other a hundred miles from nowhere in the woolly west and asked old Jeb Rushmore if he wouldn't come east and look after this big scout camp. How in the world John Temple, in his big leather chair in the Bridgeboro Bank, had ever got wind of Jeb Rushmore no one was able to find out. John Temple was a genius for picking out men and in this case he touched high-water mark.

Jeb Rushmore was furnished with passes over all John Temple's railroads straight through from somewhere or other in Dakota to Catskill Landing, and a funny sight he must have been in his flannel shirt and slouch hat, sprawling his lanky limbs from the platforms of observation cars, drawling out his pithy observations about the civilization which he had never before seen.

There are only two more things necessary to mention in this "side trail" chapter. Tom's father bobbed up after the boy had become a scout. He was a mere shadow of his former self; drink and a wandering life had all but completed his ruin, and although Tom and his companions gave him a home in their pleasant camp it was too late to help him much and he died among them, having seen (if it were any satisfaction for him to see) that scouting had made a splendid boy of his once neglected son.

This brings us to the main trail again and explains why it was that Roy Blakeley had held mysterious conferences with Mary Temple, and suggested to all the three patrols that it would be a good idea to elect Tom to go to Temple Camp to assist in its preparation and management. They had all known that one of their number was to be chosen for this post and Roy had hit on Tom as the one to go because he still lived with Mrs. O'Connor down in Barrel Alley and had not the same pleasant home surroundings as the other boys.

A scout is thoughtful.

Throughout the previous summer Tom had been in Roy's patrol, the Silver Foxes, but when the new Elk Patrol was formed with Connie Bennett, the Bronson boys and others, he had been chosen its leader.

"I think it's just glorious," said Mary Temple, when Tom told her of his plan and of Roy's noble sacrifice, "and I wish I was a boy."

"Oh, it's great to be a boy," enthused Pee-wee. "Gee, that's one thing I'm glad of anyway—that I'm a boy!"

"Half a boy is better than all girl," taunted Roy.

"You're a model boy," added Westy.

"And mother and father and I are coming up in the touring car in August to visit the camp," said Mary. "Oh, I think it's perfectly lovely you and Tom are going on ahead and that you're going to walk, and you'll have everything ready when the others get there. Good-bye."

Tom and Roy were on their way up to the Blakeley place to set about preparing for the hike, for they meant to start as soon as they could get ready. Pee-wee lingered upon the veranda at Temple Court swinging his legs from the rubble-stone coping—those same legs that had made the scout pace famous.

"Oh, crinkums," he said, "they'll have some time! Cracky, but I'd like to go. You don't believe all this about Roy's making a noble sacrifice, do you?" he added, scornfully.

Mary laughed and said she didn't.

"Because that isn't a good turn," Pee-wee argued, anxious that Mary should not get a mistaken notion of this important phase of scouting. "A good turn is when you do something that helps somebody else. If you do it because you get a lot of fun out of it yourself, then it isn't a good turn at all. Of course, Roy knows that; he's only jollying when he calls it a good turn. You have to be careful with Roy, he's a terrible jollier—and Mr. Ellsworth's pretty near as bad. Oh, cracky, but I'd like to go with them—that's one sure thing. You think it's no fun being a girl and I'll admit I wouldn't want to be one—I got to admit that; but it's pretty near as bad to be small. If you're small they jolly you. And if I asked them to let me go they'd only laugh. Gee, I don't mind being jollied, but I would like to go. That's one thing you ought to be thankful for—you're not small. Of course, maybe girls can't do so many things as boys—I mean scouting-like—but—oh, crinkums," he broke off in an ecstasy of joyous reflection. "Oh, crinkums, that'll be some trip, believe me."

Mary Temple looked at the diminutive figure in khaki trousers which sat before her on the coping. It was one of the good things about Pee-wee Harris that he never dreamed how much people liked him.

"I don't know about that," said Mary. "I mean about a girl not being able to do things—scouting things. Mightn't a girl do a good turn?"

"Oh, sure," Pee-wee conceded.

"But I suppose if it gave her very much pleasure it wouldn't be a good turn."

"Oh, yes, it might," admitted Pee-wee, anxious to explain the science of good turns. "This is the way it is. If you do a good turn it's sure to make you feel good—that you did it—see? But if you do it just for your own pleasure, then it's not a good turn. But Roy puts over a lot of nonsense about good turns. He does it just to make me mad—because I've made a sort of study of them—like."

Mary laughed in spite of herself.

"He says it was a good thing when Tom threw a barrel stave in the Chinese laundry because it led to his being a scout. But that isn't logic. Do you know what logic is?"

Mary thought she had a notion of what it was.

"A thing that's bad can't be good, can it?" Pee-wee persisted. "Suppose you should hit me with a brick——"

"I wouldn't think of doing such a thing!"

"But suppose you did. And suppose the scouts came along and gave me first aid and after that I became a scout. Could you say you did me a good turn by hitting me with a brick because that way I got to be a scout? Roy—you got to be careful with him—you can't always tell when he's jollying."

Mary looked at him intently for a few seconds. "Well, then," said she, "since you've made a study of good turns tell me this. If Roy and Tom were to ask you to go with them on their long hike, would that be a good turn?"

"Sure it would, because it would have a sacrifice in it, don't you see?"

"How?"

"Because they'd do it just to please me—they wouldn't really want me."

"Well," she laughed, "Roy's good at making sacrifices."

"Je-ru-salem!" said Pee-wee, shaking his head almost incredulously at the idea of such good fortune; "that'll be some trip. But you know what they say, and it's true—I got to admit it's true—that two's a company, three's a crowd."

"It wouldn't be three," laughed Mary; "it would only be two and a half."

She watched the sturdy figure as Pee-wee trudged along the gravel walk and down the street. He seemed even smaller than he had seemed on the veranda. And it was borne in upon her how much jollying he stood for and how many good things he missed just because he was little, and how cheerful and generous-hearted he was withal.

The next morning Roy