Silver Foxes. He was a whole patrol in himself and held his
own against raillery and banter, his stock of retaliatory ammunition
seeming never to be exhausted.

"I can handle them with both hands tied behind my back," he boasted,
which is readily enough believed since it was mainly his tongue that he
used.

But recruits did not flock to Pee-wee's standard. Perhaps this was
partly because of the fall and winter season when the lure of camping
and roughing it was in abeyance. Perhaps it was because he was so
small that boys were fain to think that scouting was a thing for
children and beneath their dignity.

Once or twice during the winter, Pee-wee piloted some half-convinced
and bashful subject to the troop-room, which was an old railroad car
(of fond memory) down by the river. Here, in the cosy warmth of the
old cylinder stove, the troop played checkers and read and jollied
Pee-wee, which was about all there was to do on winter nights. The
visitors, unimpressed with these makeshift diversions of the off
season, did not return, and so the good old springtime found Pee-wee
still a scout indeed (with something left over) but a scout without a
patrol.

And now the sturdy little missionary began to feel this keenly. Patrol
spirit is usually not much in evidence during the winter; the several
divisions of a troop intermingle and form a sort of club in which an
odd member is quite at home. But with the coming of spring the patrol
spirit becomes aroused. It is a case of "united we stand, divided we
sprawl," as Roy Blakeley was fond of saying. Each patrol goes
separately about its preparations for camping and hiking, does its
shopping, repairs its tents, denounces and ridicules its associate
patrols, and troop unity gives way somewhat to patrol unity. This is
well and as it should be.

It was very much so with the well organized Bridgeboro troop. With the
first breath of spring the Ravens became Ravens, the Elks foregathered
and were Elks and nothing else, and the Silver Foxes began a series of
exclusive meetings at Camp Solitaire under a big shady elm on Roy's
lawn.

The Silver Foxes, imbibing the mirthful spirit of their leader, were
all pretty much alike, and the Ravens were thankful that they were not
like them, and the Elks congratulated themselves that they had more pep
than the Ravens. "The Elks say the Ravens are no good and the Ravens
say the Elks are no good and they're both right; we should worry,"