eyes clouded.

The meeting broke up. The boys passed out through the hall calling back
good night. Andy stayed behind.

"Tim's going to fall down," he said bluntly, "and fall down hard."

Don slowly returned the bandages to the first aid kit. "He was trying
tonight."

"Sure he was--tonight. Why didn't he try at the other meetings and cut
out his fooling?"

Don closed the kit and pushed it aside. "If he practiced a couple of
times this week--"

"How are you going to get him to practice?" Andy demanded.

"Ask him."

"Mackerel! Ask _him_ to do extra work? Can't you imagine what he'll tell
you?"

Don could imagine it without much trouble. But he remembered how his last
appeal, when everything seemed lost, had stopped the Danger Mountain
hike. It cost nothing to try. He had no love for the job of intimating to
Tim that his work was not satisfactory. And yet was it fair for him to
keep silent? Was it fair to those scouts who had labored with a will?

He went out to the porch and lifted his voice. "Tim! O Tim!"

An answering cry came faintly.

"Now for the fireworks," said Andy.

Tim came through the gate and advanced as far as the porch steps.

"How about you and Andy and Bobbie practicing a couple of times before
Friday?" Don asked.

There was a long interval of silence.

"All right," said Tim at last. He swung around and walked out the gate.

"Mackerel!" said Andy. "I thought he'd go up in the air."

Wednesday morning Tim practiced at troop headquarters. Thursday
afternoon, as soon as the baseball drill was over, he practiced again.
Friday morning he was even ready for more; but that morning Bobbie had to
weed the vegetable garden in back of his house and could not come around.
Tim went home vaguely disappointed.

That afternoon, at the baseball field, he played a butter-fingered game.
He could not hold the ball, and his throws to bases were atrocious.

"Hi, there!" called Ted. "Go take a walk around the block."

Tim was frightened. "Don't you want me to play tomorrow?"

"Sure I do. Tomorrow you'll be all right. This is your bad day. Go off by
yourself and get the air."

Tim went off to the maple tree and sat down. And by and by he found
himself wondering, not what kind of baseball he would play on the morrow,
but whether he would be good or bad in first aid that night.

He came to troop headquarters after supper with a queer, nervous feeling
in the pit of his stomach. Outside, the Eagles were