it on that branch, Max; it'll be close enough to steam without getting' scorched. How long will it take to dry my shirt out, d'ye think?"

"Oh! perhaps only a matter of fifteen minutes or so," replied the other, as he proceeded to arrange all the other belongings of the unlucky chum on adjacent bushes until, as Bandy-legs declared, it looked like an "Irish wash-day."

Having donned Toby's gray sweater Steve did not feel so badly. He kept turning around by the fire, first warming one side and then the other, and all the while dancing up and down so as to keep his blood in good circulation; for Max had told him to do this, and surely Max knew what was best.

Toby kept the fire going by feeding fresh fuel from time to time. A fire was one of the things Toby certainly loved. Whenever he took the time to ponder over past events that had marked the companionship of these four lads, the various campfires they had shared in common stood out as oases in a desert. Toby was apt to figure past happenings as connected with the time "we had that dandy blaze under the twisted hemlock"; or "that night I built the champion cooking fire any campers ever had along."

By degrees Steve's apparel dried sufficiently for him to get into it again. He did not look very spruce and clean though, after his recent immersion, for the mud had dried. Steve had the appearance of a tramp, as Bandy-legs assured him, knowing that the other was as a rule addicted to taking especial pains with his clothes, pressing them out every week so that the creases would show at the proper angles, and all that nonsense.

"Well, when we get home it's apt to be dusk, anyway," said reckless Steve; "and we won't be meeting up with anybody on the road. If we do I'll dodge in the bushes till they get past. But notice that I got what I went after, boys!"

That was generally the main thing with Steve, to get what he went after, no matter how strenuous a time he experienced in accomplishing his aim. With him the end always justified the means. And looking back over the experiences of the last two years his chums could remember many times when this ambition carried the impetuous one into a heap of trouble, from which he was rescued only after considerable difficulty.

After Steve had fully dressed the four comrades started out once more, bent on following the shore of the big pond the balance of the way around, so as to pot such other incautious frogs as might have been tempted by the brightness of the day to mount the bank, and bask in the sunshine.

"This fine weather isn't going to stay with us, I'm afraid, boys," Max remarked, as they went on, Bandy-legs in advance, for it was his next turn with the target rifle.

"What makes you say that, Max?" demanded Steve, a little testily.

"Well, in the first place there's a queer feeling in the air that seems to tell of a storm coming along," replied the other; "then if you look away over to the southwest you'll see a low bank of clouds. There's some wind in that bunch of clouds if I know anything about weather signs. And besides the paper said we'd have a blow some time soon."

"Hope she gets over with before next week, when we want to hike up into the woods for our first camp this season; that's all I can say," Bandy-legs observed over his shoulder, for he could hear what his chums were talking about, being only a short distance ahead of them, though closer to the shore of the pond.

"C-c-cracky!" burst out Toby, his face taking on an agonized look, as though a sudden thought had struck him, and brought pain.

"What ails you now, Toby?" demanded Steve.

"Why, I was thinking of the c-c-circus that's expectin' to d-d-drop into Carson around about m-m-midnight, that's what!"

"Say, that's a fact," Steve added; "they are showing this afternoon and to-night over at Bloomingdale, and a train will fetch the lot to Carson right after the last performance. If it storms they'll have a warm session getting the cages of animals and the performing elephants off the cars."

"I thought s-s-some of s-s-staying up and g-g-goin' down to see the animals come to t-t-town," admitted Toby; and of course none of the others saw anything wonderful about that, knowing his great love for animals as they did; though Bandy-legs did see fit to try and josh him a little when he saw the chance.

"You certainly missed the biggest thing of your life when you didn't hire out to old Noah," he told Toby. "Just think what a treat it'd been to him, fellers, to stand there and check off all the animals big and little as they walked aboard the ark in pairs, the elephant and the kangaroo, and the little monkey too. But a measly storm oughtn't to keep you at home, Toby."

"But they won't get in till near two in the morning, I'm told," protested Toby; "and I guess my folks'd put the kibosh on my staying out that late on a stormy night."

"Hurrah! did you hear him say all that without a single stagger?" cried the boy with the bow-legs; "wisht my troubles'd be as easy to drop as his stuttering is. But mine stick with me all the time."

"There's a good place ahead of you, Bandy-legs," advised Max; "now show us what you can do. Steve is high notch so far with his gi-gantic mastodon frog. Beat him out at his little game, Bandy-legs, if you can."

The boy with the target rifle quickly added another victim to those whose prized hinder quarters lay in a heap in the trout basket Toby had slung over his shoulder.

"That makes fifteen, and only five more to get to cover the twenty," Steve announced; "but if they were all whoppers like mine, say, the basket wouldn't be big enough to hold them, I reckon."

The hunt went on, and by the time the sun had passed pretty well down the western sky, heading for the black bank of clouds that lay menacingly there, the frog hunters had completed the circuit of the big pond. They had exceeded their expectations also, for several beyond the score had been bagged.

"A good afternoon's work, I take it," remarked Steve, who was feeling very well satisfied, because he had secured the biggest frog ever seen in that part of the country, the patriarch of the lot apparently; nor did the fact that his face was still streaked with dried mud, and his clothes looked like those of a common hobo, seem to detract from his bubbling joy.

They started for home along the road that led to Carson. This was something of a favorite highway, and they were apt to meet various vehicles while tramping over the mile and a half that separated them from home.

Just as he had said he would do, whenever they chanced to meet a carriage Steve proved quick to dodge into the scrub, and after the danger had passed overtake his companions by hurrying. Steve was always good at hurrying; it was his favorite way of doing things, and nothing pleased him better than a chance to sprint, in order to come up with his mates.

They had perhaps covered half of the journey, and the church spires of Carson could be easily seen in the near distance when all at once they noticed a horse and buggy coming at a lively clip along the road.

"Looks like a runaway!" snapped Steve.

"It sure does," admitted Bandy-legs, "and what d'ye think of that, if the girl in the same ain't Bessie French I'll eat my hat!"

"W-what!" almost roared the now excited Steve, stopping in his intention to beat a hasty retreat, the neighboring bushes offering a splendid asylum.

"It's Bessie, all right," said Max; "but about her being run away with, I'm not so sure, because she knows how to handle horses first rate; and that old Bill of the Frenchs' never was known to cut up before."

But Steve apparently did not hear a single word that Max said. He was quivering with