one. It’s the spirit that makes the scout, not clothes, and I’m just a little glad you didn’t accept my offer, Dale. Keep on saving for it, and, when you’ve enough, come to me. Meanwhile–you say you didn’t get the drill very well?”

“No, sir. I was rank.”

“That’s because you’re new to it, and to the crowd, and everything. It really isn’t hard. If you can come around to my house after supper to-morrow night, I’ll coach you up in half an hour so you can’t make a mistake next Friday if you try. That’ll put you on even terms with the rest of the troop, and make you forget this little matter of clothes. How about it?”

Dale’s eyes brightened. “That would be corking, sir! Of course I can come, only won’t it be a trouble to you?”

“Not a bit. Come any time after seven. You know where I live, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be there, all right; and thank you ever so much for helping me.”

“You needn’t,” smiled the scoutmaster. “It will be a pleasure.” He dropped his hand and was turning away when his glance rested on the boy’s solid-looking shoulders and then traveled on down over the lithe frame. “Play football?” he asked, with a touch of fresh interest.

Dale nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir; as much as I’ve had time for, that is. Do–do you think I’d have any show for the team?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. See Sherman Ward; he’s captain. The season’s half over, but we need weight behind the line, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d do. Try it, anyhow. Good night; see you to-morrow.”

Dale found his cap and slipped out of the building, a pleasant glow stealing over him. “He’s corking!” he muttered, as he followed the flagged walk that led past the shadowy bulk of the stone church to the street. “He makes a fellow feel–well, sort of as if he belonged!”

He had been a chump to let himself be troubled by Ranny Phelps’s brusqueness. “Of course he was peeved when I made such a mess of things,” he thought. “Just wait till next Friday, though, and he’ll–”

Dale’s progress along the walk and his train of thought stopped abruptly at one and the same time. He had reached the side of the squat stone tower that faced the street, but was still in the shadow, when the voice of Ranny Phelps, somewhat shrill with temper and unmistakably scornful of accent, smote suddenly on his ears.

“The idea of a mucker like that being in Troop Five–and in my own patrol, too! It’s simply sickening! You saw him to-night; so stupid he couldn’t even learn the drill, and did anybody ever see such clothes? They look as if they’d come out of the rag-bag.”

An indistinguishable murmur in another voice seemed merely to goad the irate patrol-leader to increased frenzy.

“That’s just it–a common newsboy! He’ll be an ornament to the troop, won’t he? He’ll make a fine-looking scout, he will! I can just see what a rotten mess he’ll make of the line if we should have to march in public. Mr. Curtis must be crazy to take in such riffraff, and I’ve half a mind to tell him–”

The rest of the remark was indistinguishable, for the speakers were moving away from the church in the direction of the better class, residential section. Presently, even the rising and falling murmur of voices ceased, but still the figure in the shadow of the church tower did not stir. When at last he moved slowly forward into the circle of an electric light, something of the hard grayness of the stone might almost have come into his face.

“‘A scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other scout,’” he said, half aloud, as he turned in an opposite direction to that taken by Phelps and his companion.

Then he laughed. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sound. There was no mirth in it; only scorn, derision, and, under all the rest, a note of pain that could not quite be hidden.

CHAPTER III
THE SILVER LINING

“Say, fellows, did you hear about Jimmy Warren’s kid brother?” eagerly inquired Court Parker, skipping up to a group gathered about the school steps next morning.

From force of habit, expectant grins wreathed several faces. “Huh!” grunted Bob Gibson, suspiciously. “What’s the joke?”

“Joke!” repeated the latest comer, indignantly. “There isn’t any joke. What gave you that idea? It came pretty near being serious, I can tell you. One of the electric feed-wires got loose in the storm yesterday, and hung down in front of Jimmy’s house on Pine Street. Before anybody else saw it, that crazy kid Georgie had to go out and grab hold of it with both hands.”

He paused an instant for breath, and a concerted exclamation went up from the crowd that had gathered swiftly about him. “Gee!” exclaimed stout Harry Vedder. “And the current still on, I s’pose?”

“Of course it was! Dad told me how many volts. I forget. Anyhow, Georgie got hold and couldn’t let go. They said he yelled to beat the band, and then went clean out. A crowd got around right away, but nobody seemed to know what to do. One man ran in and started ’phoning for ’em to turn off the current; and while he was gone, what do you think happened? A kid with a bunch of papers came along, and jumped right in and grabbed hold of Georgie to pull him off the wire. They said that when the current hit him it was like being kicked by a horse. He went clean across the street and banged his head an awful whack on the curb. He got up sort of groggy, but he must have been a game one, for he came right back, wrapped some newspapers around his hands, and had Georgie loose in a jiffy!”

“Great!” came in an appreciative chorus. Then one of the third-grade boys piped up curiously. “But what good was the newspaper?”

“Insulation, of course,” spoke up Sherman Ward, from the outskirts of the group. He was tall enough to look over the heads of most of the fellows, and spoke with a certain authority. “If he hadn’t used them he’d have got the shock as he did the first time. That’s some idea, though, fellows. I don’t believe I’d have remembered, right off the bat, that paper was a non-conductor. Who was he, Court?”

“Nobody knows; that’s the funny part of it.” Court thrust back a dangling lock of brown hair with a characteristic gesture. “It was pretty near dark, and everybody was excited, and all that, Mrs. Warren told Dad when he was over this morning. She said she only noticed that he wasn’t so very tall and carried his papers in a bag over one shoulder. She forgot all about him till after they’d got the kid into the house and the doctor had come. Then when she sent somebody out to see, the chap had gone.”

At once the throng of boys was plunged into a fever of interested speculation. The idea of an unknown appearing suddenly out of the darkness, doing his spectacular stunt, and slipping away again without revealing himself appealed tremendously to the imagination. The fact that he was a boy and quite possibly one of themselves vastly increased the interest. One after another the various fellows with paper routes were suggested, but for the most part as quickly dismissed. One was too tall, another delivered in a different part of town, two more were part of the present assemblage and reluctantly denied any connection with the affair.

“Maybe it was that fellow Tompkins,” doubtfully suggested Bob Gibson, when most of the other possibilities had been exhausted. “He goes past Pine Street, doesn’t he?”

A sudden low laugh