sometimes—when he gets to jollying—but you have to laugh at him.”

“Do you know what he told me last summer?” said Raymond; “he was telling me about the echoes and he said if I called Merry Christmas good and hard it would answer Happy New Year!”

“That’s just like him,” said Pee-wee, “you have to look out for him. When I first joined his patrol he told me a lot of stuff. He said if a feller had a malicious look it was a sign he belonged to the militia. He’ll be jollying you and me all the time we’re here—you see if he isn’t. He calls me a scoutlet. And it’ll be the same with you, only worse, because you’re even smaller than I am. What do you say we stick together?”

“I’ll do it,” said Raymond, “but I like Roy,” he added. “I like him better than any of your patrol—I like him better than Tom Slade—a good deal.”

“Tom isn’t so bad,” said Pee-wee, “but he’s kind of queer.”

“He doesn’t look like a scout at all—not this year,” said Raymond.

“He’s thinking mostly about his patrol,” said Pee-wee, “he’s nutty about his patrol. He needs one more member. Roy and two or three others—Westy, he’s pretty near as bad—they made a big rag doll with a punkin for a head and brought it to scout meeting as a new member for Tom’s patrol. Coming up the river there was a scarecrow in a field and Roy said, ‘There’s your new member for you, Tom.’ Oh, gee, but we did have some fun cruising up. Sometimes I got mad when they kidded me, but most of the time I had to laugh—especially when Roy gave an imitation of a dying radiator—gee, that feller’s the limit!”

Raymond enjoyed these tidbits of gossip about the Bridgeboro Troop, the members of which were all more or less heroes to him.

“I like Garry best of all,” he suddenly announced.

“Everybody likes him,” said Pee-wee.

“He’s just as smart as any scout in your troop,” Raymond added, with the faintest note of challenge in his tone.

The welcome sound of the supper horn brought their talk to an end. It was a merry company that gathered about one of the three long boards (the other two were as yet unused) and to the scouts who were visiting Temple Camp for the first time this late evening meal, served by lantern light under the sombre trees with the still, black lake hard by and the frowning hills encompassing them, was most delightful.

There were few among them (least of all Jeb and the scoutmaster) who believed that anything would be accomplished by Tom’s expedition but even a hopeless enterprise seemed more scoutish than doing nothing and Mr. Ellsworth was certainly not the one to deny his scouts any adventure even though it offered nothing more than a forlorn hope.

After supper some one suggested campfire and soon the cheerful, crackling blaze which seems to typify the very spirit of scouting was luring the boys back from pavilion and cabin and they lolled on the ground about it as it grew in volume and glittered in the black water.

“What d’you say we tell riddles?” suggested Pee-wee.

“All right,” said Roy, who was poking the fire. “Riddle number one, How much is twice?”

“Do you stir your coffee with your left hand?” shouted Pee-wee.

“No, with a spoon,” said Roy; “no sooner said than stung!”

“Tell a story, Roy,” some one called, and half dozen others, who had already fallen under Roy’s spell, chimed in, “Sure, go ahead—story, story!”

“Well,” said Roy, drawing his knees up and clasping his hands about them. “Once there was a scout—anybody got a harmonica for some soft music? No? Well, once there was a scout and he was tracking. He came to a stone wall and in climbing over it he fell.”

“Scouts don’t fall,” shouted the irrepressible Pee-wee.

“Who’s telling this?” said Roy. “As he was climbing over the stone wall he fell. He fell on his face—and hurt his feelings. He was self-conscious—I mean sub-conscious—I mean unconscious. He shouted for help.”

“When he was unconscious?” ventured Raymond.

“Sure. But no help came. The sun was slowly sinking. The scout was a fiend on first-aid. He opened his case and got out a bottle of camphor. He smelled it. He opened his eyes slowly and came to——”

“You make me sick!” shouted Pee-wee.

“There was a big scratch on his knee,” Roy continued. “There was a hole in his stocking—about as big as a seventy-five cent piece. He looked about but could not find the piece of stocking the size of a seventy-five cent piece that had come out of the hole. Where was it? The hole was there—the whole hole; but where was the part of the stocking that had been in the hole? He looked about.”

“Topple him over backwards, will you!” called Pee-wee, in a disgusted appeal to Roy’s nearest neighbor.

“He looked about some more. Then he sat up. Then he sat down. He was a scout—he was resourceful. He happened to remember that once he had eaten a doughnut. The doughnut had a hole in it. The hole disappeared. He said to himself——”

But he was not allowed to go further, for somebody inverted him according to Pee-wee’s suggestion, and when the general laugh had subsided a boy who had said very little spoke up, half laughing but evidently in earnest and greatly interested in Roy.

“While we were rowing across the lake,” he said, “you made some remark about your motor-boat being overcrowded on the trip up and I got an idea from some things that were said that two or three of you came up here alone last year. It struck me that you might have had some interesting experiences from the way you spoke. I wanted to go with your friends off to that hill, but I didn’t just like to ask——”

“That’s the trouble with him,” a smaller boy beside him, who was evidently his friend, piped up. “He doesn’t like to butt in—gee, you’d never think he was a hero from the way he acts—or the way he talks either.”

The older boy took the general laugh good-naturedly. “I was just wondering,” he said, “if you wouldn’t tell us something about your trip.”

“He’s had a lot of adventures, too,” piped up the smaller boy, “and saved people’s lives—and things—and won plaudits——”

“Won what?” someone queried.

“Plaudits,” he repeated; “they are things like—like—well, applause, kind of. But he don’t know very much about girls, though.”

“And what is your name?” asked Mr. Ellsworth, amid the general laughter.

“Gordon Lord—and his is Harry Arnold—he can swim two miles and back and he can—he can—he can make raisin pudding,” he concluded, lamely. “And he’s got a tattoo mark on his arm.”

“Delaware?” Roy queried, smiling across the blaze at Arnold.

“No, New Jersey—Oakwood, New Jersey—First Oakwood Troop—Hawk Patrol, we are. I guess we’re a little bit ashamed of our patrol name just now.”

There was silence for a minute as all thought of the tragic message which had fallen into the camp.

“You should worry about the name,” said Roy.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do,” said Mr. Ellsworth, voicing the thought which held all silent, “but sit here and wait, and if we’re sensible we won’t hope for too much. Come, Roy, let our new friends hear about you boys coming up in the Good Turn.”

“It isn’t that big cruiser down at Catskill Landing, is it?” Arnold inquired. “We saw that as