run, there was so large a throng present at the opening of the Fair that clusters of people were to be met at every turn. Such an outpouring had never before been known on the first day, thanks to the sagacious advertising of the affair.

“Now you can see the fakir, Hugh, if you just look over to the left,” remarked Billy, after a bit.

At the time they were apparently interested in another fraud who was amusing his audience with side-splitting stories, and reaping a harvest of quarters in return for a fountain pen that may have been worth as much as a dime.

Billy himself kept from facing that way, and he also warned the other not to appear to look too hard.

“See him, don’t you, Hugh?” he asked. “What do you think of the animal?”

“Oh! he’s a slick article, I’ve no doubt, with a glib tongue, and a way of convincing people they must have the stuff he has to dispose of. I can hear him talking, and as you say he’s no ordinary fakir. At this distance I don’t feel any effect of those magnetic black eyes you talked so much about. Where’s the boy?”

“Look a little further to the right and you’ll see Cale,” pursued Billy, who had himself discovered these things with a hasty survey. “He’s leaning against that post, and kicking his toe into the earth while waiting for his cue to push in and buy another bottle of the magic compound that cures all ills.”

“Yes, I see him now, and he certainly does look pretty dejected,” said Hugh. “There’s a sort of slinking air about him too, as if he might be ashamed of what he’s compelled to do, but can’t help himself.”

“That’s what I was saying, Hugh,” declared Billy, eagerly. “He’s sort of weak by nature, and has made some terrible mistake in the past that cuts him to the heart. He might be all right if only we could get him away from that slick fakir who’s using him as his tool.”

“Well, we’ll think it over, Billy,” said the scout master.

“You mean nothing could be done right away, Hugh?”

“There’s no need to hurry,” he was told. “They mean to stay here until the Fair closes Saturday night, because their best harvest will come later on, when people from further out in the country get here. By to-morrow we may have settled on some sort of plan how to offer the poor fellow a helping hand.”

Billy, who always wanted to rush things, gave a big sigh.

“Of course, it’s all right if you say so, Hugh,” he remarked, resignedly, “and I’m willing to wait until to-morrow, or even Friday, to act; but I hope it isn’t put off any longer than that, for something might happen to make him clear out. One of the poor deluded sillies who bought a bottle of medicine might take too much and die; and then the authorities would arrest him for it.”

At the solicitation of Billy, the scout master walked off by himself, presently joining the group around the glib-tongued bogus “doctor,” and listening to what he was saying. He even saw the stool pigeon push through the gathering to demand a bottle of the wonderful cure-all that had so lengthened the days of his respected grandfather that they were unwilling to keep house without its magical presence.

Hugh studied the boy when he had the chance. He realized that Billy had about hit the mark when he described him as one who appeared to have a rather weak nature, easily controlled by a stronger will. Cale’s manner was anything but pleasing; still Hugh did not believe the boy was really vicious or depraved.

“Yes, he ought to be helped to break his associations with that clever scamp,” was what the scout master was deciding in his mind as he watched the ancient game of confidence being played upon the curious throng, with a subsequent purchase by several who had been hesitating, and only waiting for someone else to break the ice, so they could hand up their dollar without being too prominent.

He even managed to follow the boy as he hurried off, and saw how he circled around, dodging through the crowds and finally bringing up at a tent into which he ducked. When he came out immediately afterwards he no longer carried the paper wrapped bottle of medicine. Hugh did not need to see the sign “Old Doctor Merritt” fastened to the dingy canvas to understand that this was the temporary sleeping quarters of the fakir, and also of his helper, who deposited all his pretended purchases back in stock.

Hugh went back to the scouts’ camp, thinking what a shame it was that, for the sake of the small amount of money paid over by these mountebanks and fakirs, the management of the County Fair had sold them the privilege of fleecing the confiding visitors who came from distances, under the belief that Oakvale would protect her guests against all such cheating games as these.

“It’ll never happen again, if the scouts can put our people wise to such a debasing side show sort of business,” Hugh told the others, when they were talking things over at the camp during a temporary lull in the rush of visitors.

“We’ve been able to do a few things that count in the long run,” said Alec. “If future fairs can be conducted without so much of this rowdy sort of selling concessions to fake shows and fakirs with claptrap humbugs to stick the gullible public with, it would be a feather in our caps, I’m telling you, boys.”

Here then was one thing they could concentrate their efforts on that gave promise of paying for the investment of capital and labor. The idea pleased the boys the more it was discussed; and Hugh asked those who were present to push it wherever they had a chance. This was to be in their homes or on the street, until the management of the Fair must feel it their duty to make a statement to the effect that this was the very last occasion when any of these objectionable elements would be admitted to the grounds, or even allowed outside.

Hugh, Arthur and Lige Corbley chanced to be standing there in front of the camp talking with another batch of curious visitors, who wanted to be shown everything connected with scout life under canvas, when there was a sudden loud outcry.

“A runaway!” shouted Lige, as he pushed his way out of the circle of people, for he was a fellow quick to act.

They were just in time to see a vehicle coming dashing along, drawn by a very much excited pair of horses that must have taken fright at some unusually noisy motorcar. Even as the boys looked one of the two men in the rig sprang out, taking his chances. The other was vainly endeavoring to saw the two frantic animals into subjection by pulling at the lines.

He might have succeeded in this, but unfortunately one of the reins broke. Lige was on hand, however, and, clutching hold of the bits close to the mouth of the near horse, he managed to detain the struggling pair until others could come to his assistance.

It was quite exciting while it lasted, and Hugh felt glad that Big Lige had been the one to stop the runaway. The latter shrugged his shoulders when Hugh tried to compliment him, and said it “didn’t amount to a row of beans, in fact was almost too easy!”

“There’s a crowd coming this way, and as sure as you live they’re carrying the man who made that fool jump out of the vehicle!” exclaimed Dale Evans, who had arrived at the camp just in time to see this thrilling runaway.

“Unless I’m mistaken, Arthur,” said Hugh, turning on the other with a smile, “there comes your first patient!”

CHAPTER V.
A CREDIT TO THE