ey live?" was Miss Ladd's next question.

"Byron lives here, so does Mrs. Pruitt. Guy and Mark live in Baltimore."

"Do they live near the Graham's home in Baltimore?"

"Yes, right in the same block. Mark lives next door."

"Good. Now, Glen, we are going to take you back to Mrs. Graham. We
haven't any right to keep you here, but if they beat you any more, we
will complain to the police and take you away never to come back to
them."

"Oh, I wish you would," exclaimed the little fellow, throwing his arms
around the neck of the Guardian who had seated herself on the grass
before him. "I don't want them to scare you with a ghost."

"Scare us with a ghost!" Miss Ladd repeated in astonishment. "What do
you mean by that?"

"They said----" the boy began, but his explanation was interrupted in a
manner so confusing that the group of Camp Fire Girls might easily have
wondered if the world were suddenly assuming all the absurdities of a
clownish paradise in order to be consistent with what was now taking
place.

Addie Graham, the girl of ultra-style and perfume who had behaved so
rudely to little Glen when she discovered the runaway with Katherine and
Hazel in the woods, suddenly dashed into the deeply interested group of
Camp Fire inquisitors, seized the boy in her arms, kissed him with
apparent passionate fondness, and addressed him with a gush of
endearment that must have brought tears to the eyes of an
unsophisticated listener.

CHAPTER XXV.

A LITTLE SCRAPPER.

"Oh, you dear little brother, you dear darling child," almost sobbed
Addie as she seized Glen Irving in her arms and began to shower kisses
on his unwilling face.

The boy shrunk away, or into as small a compass as he was able, to
escape from the "affectionate attack." Plainly it was anything but
pleasing to him.

The "attack," however, did not cease in response to his protest. Addie
held onto her captive with all her strength, at the same time attempting
to soothe his wrath or fear, or both, with as many kisses as she could
force in between the boy's belligerent arms. Glen, conscious of the
presence of friends who, he believed, would go to any extreme to assist
him, fought as he had never fought before, desperately, viciously. He
used his fists and fingernails to good purpose and pulled Addie's hair
until it presented a ludicrous appearance of disarrangement.

Realizing that the boy's actions might prove harmful to his cause if
this affair s