of. Once I chucked stones at Pee-wee and swiped Mary's ball. Now I want to take him along—a little bit for his sake, but mostly for hers. And I want to go alone with you for my own sake, because—because," he hesitated, "because I want to be alone with you. But I got to hit the right trail—you taught me that——"

"Well, go ahead and hit it," said Roy, "it's right outside the door."

Tom looked at him steadily for a few seconds as if he did not understand. You might have seen something out of the ordinary then in that stolid face. After a moment he turned and went down the hill and around the corner of the big bank building, passed Ching Woo's laundry, into which he had once thrown dirty barrel staves, picked his way through the mud of Barrel Alley and entered the door of the tenement where Mrs. O'Connor lived. He had not slept there for three nights. The sound of cats wailing and trucks rattling and babies crying was not much like the soughing of the wind in the elms up on the Blakeley lawn. But if you have hit the right trail and have a good conscience you can sleep, and Tom slept fairly well amid the din and uproar.

Anyway, he slept better than Roy slept. All night long the leader of the Silver Foxes was haunted by that letter. The darkness, the breeze, the soothing music of crickets and locusts outside his little tent dissipated his anger, as the voices of nature are pretty sure to do, and made him see straight, to use Tom's phrase.

He thought of Tom making his lonely way back to Barrel Alley and going to bed there amid the very scenes which he had been so anxious to have him forget. He fancied him sitting on the edge of his cot in Mrs. O'Connor's stuffy dining room, reading his Scout Manual. He was always reading his Manual; he had it all marked up like a blazed trail. Roy got small consolation now from the fact that he had procured Tom's election. If Tom had been angry at him, his conscience would be easier now; but Tom seldom got mad.

In imagination he followed that letter to the Temple home. He saw it laid at Mary's place at the dining table. He saw her come dancing in to breakfast and pick it up and wave it gaily. He saw John Temple reading his paper at the head of the table and advising with Mary, who was his partner in the Temple Camp enterprise. He knew it was for her sake quite as much as for the scouts that Mr. Temple had made this splendid gift, and he knew (for he had dined at Grantley Square) just how father and daughter conferred together. Why, who was it but Mary that told John Temple there must be ten thousand wooden plates and goodness knows how many sanitary drinking cups? Mary had it all marked in the catalogues.

Roy pictured her as she opened the letter and read it,—that rude, selfish note. He wondered what she would say. And he wondered what John Temple would think. It would be such a surprise to her that poor little Pee-wee was not wanted.

In the morning Roy arose feeling very wretched after an all but sleepless night. He did not know what he should do that day. He might go up to Grantley Square and apologize, but you cannot, by apology, undo what is done.

While he was cooking his breakfast he thought of Pee-wee—Pee-wee who was always so gay and enthusiastic, who worshipped Roy, and who "did not mind being jollied." He would be ashamed to face Pee-wee even if that redoubtable scout pacer were sublimely innocent of what had taken place.

At about noon he saw Tom coming up the lawn. He looked a little shamefaced as Tom came in and sat down without a word.

"I—I was going to go down to see you," said Roy. "I—I feel different now. I can see straight. I wish I hadn't——"

"I've got a letter for you," said Tom, disinterestedly. "I was told to deliver it."

"You—were you at Temple's?"

"There isn't any answer," said Tom, with his usual exasperating stolidness.

Roy hesitated a moment. Then, as one will take a dose of medicine quickly to have it over, he grasped the envelope, tore it open, and read:

"Dear Mary—Since you butted in Tom and I have decided it would be best for Pee-wee to go with him and I'll stay home. Anyway, that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish, all right, and I should worry.

"Roy."

He looked up into Tom's almost expressionless countenance. "Who—told—you to deliver it—Tom?"

"I told myself. You said you'd call the whole thing off for two cents. But you ought not to expect me to pay the two cents——"

"Didn't I put a stamp on it?" said Roy, looking at the envelope.

"If you want to put a stamp on it now," said Tom, "I'll go and mail it for you—but I—I didn't feel I cared to trust you for two cents—over night."

Through glistening eyes Roy looked straight at Tom, but found no response in that dogged countenance. But he knew Tom, and knew what to expect from him. "You old grouch," he shouted, running his hand through Tom's already tousled and rebellious hair. "Why don't you laugh? So you wouldn't trust me for two cents, you old Elk skinflint, wouldn't you. Well, then, the letter doesn't get mailed, that's all, for I happen to have only one stamp left and that's going to Pee-wee Harris. Come on, get your wits to work now, and we'll send him the invitation in the form of a verse, what d'you say?"

He gave Tom such a push that even he couldn't help laughing as he staggered against the tent-pole.

"I'm no good at writing verse," said he.

"Oh, but we'll jolly the life out of that kid when we get him away," said Roy.

It is a wise precept that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Pee-wee Harris never dreamed of the discussion that had taken place as to his going, and he accepted the invitation with a glad heart.

On the momentous morning when the trio set forth upon their journey, Mary Temple, as glad as they, stood upon the steps at Grantley Square and waved them a last good-bye.

"Don't forget," she called, "we're coming up in the car in August to visit you and see the camp and that dreadful Jeb or Job or Jib or whatever you call him, who smokes a corn-cob pipe—ugh!"

The last they saw of her was a girlish shrug of disgust at that strange personage out of the West about whom (largely for her benefit) Roy and others had circulated the most outlandish tales. Jeb Rushmore was already ensconced in the unfinished camp, and from the few letters which had come from him it was judged that his excursion east had not spoiled him. One of these missives had been addressed to Mister John Temple and must have been a refreshing variation from the routine mail which awaited Mr. Temple each morning at the big granite bank. It read: