there?"

"The Claxton's dog pretty nearly scared it to death; it started climbing and was afraid to stop."

"I see," nodded the boy. "Well, you jerk your foot out of that shoe, and we'll get the kitten easy enough. Are you all ready? Now!"

Molly made the effort to free herself.

"I can't!"

"It's just as easy as falling—if you'll only try."

"It's not easy." She was beginning to lose her temper. "I'm stuck just as fast as I ever was. You haven't done a bit of good." Before she finished the sentence, she was ashamed of her words, for a hurt look overspread the face beneath the red hair.

"Are you sure you can't yank it free?"

"I know I can't."

Very deliberately, he bent down and pulled from his own right foot the white tennis slipper.

"I'm sorry I can't get you loose, but I know how to get your kitten down."

"What are you going to do?"

Without answering, he drew back his slipper in a position to hurl it at the helpless kitten. He measured the distance with his eye, poising the shoe for the most accurate throw possible.

"What—what are you going to do?" She was very close to screaming.

"Hold tight. That kitten might come down right on your head."

"You horrid, horrid—"

"I'll count three slowly, and if your foot isn't out by that time—"

"You—you mustn't do such a thing! You shan't!" Molly gasped her indignation, meanwhile clinging to the tree with both hands.

"Just the same, I'm going to. Get your arm out of the way."

He pulled back his tennis slipper to aim at the kitten. "One!— Two!— Thr—"

A little half-scream interrupted him, and behold! Molly's stockinged foot rested beside its booted mate as she lunged forward to prevent the outrage upon the little black and white kitten.

Strangely enough, the red-headed boy was merely grinning good-naturedly.

"I knew you could," he said. "I knew, if you really wanted to—"

For a little moment, Molly stared sternly at him, before she bit her lower lip with an expression that was somewhere between vexation and relief.

"Why, I—I don't believe you meant to throw your slipper at all," she reproved him.

With a little broader grin, he nodded his head frankly.

"Of course, I didn't. I wouldn't throw anything at your kitten any more than I'd throw anything at ours, and we've got an awfully funny little fellow. All I wanted to do was to get your foot loose." Molly smiled in spite of herself. "Now, if you'll get down on the ground, so I can shinny up the tree a bit, I'll catch the kitten, and then I'll get that shoe of yours."

With her stockinged foot cushioned on the soft grass, Molly watched the boy struggle up the tree and clumsily but gently rescue the kitten from its roost. Afterwards, when the animal lay safely in Molly's arms, he pried loose the shoe from its wedged nook and dropped a bit heavily, to the ground.

"It was splendid of you!" Molly began, and then stopped, horror-struck. "But look at your clothes!"

The red-headed boy glanced down, but continued to smile, in spite of the dark stains that had spread where he gripped the tree-trunk and sundry leaf and nut clusters between his knees.

"I'm always doing something like that. I wish it wasn't the first day of school, though," he added a little ruefully. "It's most schooltime, too."

But now Molly was her practical self once more. "You get your books," she ordered, "and I'll take you down in our automobile. Horace Hibbs (he's an inventor with the Fair Play Factory) has his workshop near the school, and he mixes a sort of patent stuff that just takes any kind of a spot out of your clothes. He's the Scout Master of the Black Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts, too. See, father's getting the car ready now. You come right over."

While Mr. Sefton drove the car, Molly and the red-headed boy sat side by side on the rear seat. After deftly finding out his name (which was Rodman Cree) and his age (fifteen) and his grade (first-year high) Molly began telling him all about Lakeville and about the new high school, which had resulted from the combined efforts of Horace Hibbs, the Fair Play Sporting Goods Factory, and, most of all, the Black Eagles, Lakeville's patrol of Boy Scouts.[1]

"I came pretty near being a Scout last year myself," Rodman said suddenly. "I was all ready to pass my tenderfoot examinations when we moved out on a farm and staid there till we came to Lakeville."

"Oh, that's fine!" Molly assured him briskly. "You'll be taken in with the Black Eagles. You see, Handy Wallace moved to Beloit almost a year ago, and Sandy Anvers was sent East to school; so that leaves only seven. And the patrol is going to do things this year," she went on warmly. "There will be high-school football teams and baseball and basketball teams and everything else, and there will be lots of Black Eagles on every team, too. I just know so."

The boy's face lost its smile. "I'm not sure whether I'd be taken into that bunch or not," he confessed slowly. "I'm not much good at athletics."

"Nonsense! Of course you are!" nodded Molly reassuringly. "And, besides, even if you aren't, you'd be good in just a little while. You only have to try."

"I—I'd like to," he agreed, as the car stopped in front of the Fair Play Factory's annex. "I'd certainly like to."

A round, jolly face showed at the window to the right of the door, and presently Horace himself, Scout Master of the Black Eagle Patrol, middle-aged and good-natured, greeted him from the entrance.

"What can we do for you this morning, Mr. Sefton?" smiled the inventor. "Do you want to buy a pair of skates or some hockey sticks, or shall you wait for the cold weather?"

Molly's father laughed. "We have a young man here who has been climbing a butternut tree, and Molly tells me you own a special brand of stain remover that can handle even accidents like this one."

Horace Hibbs raised his right hand. "Don't say another word. We will send those stains to the Happy Hunting Ground in about two minutes."

By the time Rodman Cree came back to the waiting car, not only was his clothing free from the blemish of the butternut, but his wish to join the Boy Scouts had grown from a very moderate desire to one truly giant-sized. Never before, he thought, had he met anybody who understood boys as did Horace Hibbs; and what the Scout Master told him about the patrol made him wish that he knew scouting from A to Z, and, in addition, could run the hundred in ten seconds, and broad-jump across a river.

"Of course he's fine," agreed Molly, "but just wait till you know the boys in the patrol—Bunny Payton, the patrol leader, and Bi and Nap and S. S. and Jump and Specs and Roundy; and, oh, just wait till you've seen our new high school!"

Up Elm Street the car turned, and down Freemont, pulling to a stop in the middle of the block.

"Look!" cried Molly.

Artistically centered in a big lot, the building stood, with a scrub ball game already in progress on the new diamond. The gray rock side walls, that seemed to be more window than anything else; the graceful lines that rose in exquisite proportion; the main door, with its roofed, stone-pillared veranda on each side,—all made a structure that savored more of a home than a school. It was the sort of place you would enjoy going to, if the teachers only lived halfway up to the building. And the crowd of pupils already gathering for the first day