your boys will be able to come.

"Sincerely yours,

"JOHN THORNTON."

For an instant there was a dazed silence throughout the room. Then a
yell broke forth which could have been heard--and was--as far as the
green. Breaking ranks, boys clutched one another in exuberant embraces
and pranced madly about the hall. Then there was more shouting, and
throwing-up of hats, and general disorder, which Mr. Curtis made no
attempt to check. When failing breath brought comparative quiet, he
raised his hand for silence.

"I gather that the invitation meets with your approval," he remarked with
a smile. "Shall I send Mr. Thornton the grateful acceptance of the whole
troop?"

"You bet!" came back promptly and emphatically from a dozen voices.
"Wough! He's _some_ good sport!" "Think of it, fellows! A new mess-shack!
A whole week in camp in April!" "Pinch me, somebody; I don't believe
I'm awake at all!"

The last speaker was promptly accommodated, and after a little
additional skylarking, things quieted down. Before the meeting broke
up, Mr. Curtis wrote a letter of sincere thanks and acceptance to
John Thornton, which each one of the scouts signed with a flourish.
After that, with youthful inconsequence, they hustled home to obtain
parental sanction.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WAR!

In some miraculous fashion the necessary permission was obtained by
each and every one of the boys of Troop Five, and bright and early on
the morning after school closed the whole crowd was packed into the
motor-truck, jouncing southward over roads very much the worse for
spring thaws. It was, in fact, a vastly more uncomfortable trip than the
one last summer. But overhead the skies were cloudless; warm breezes,
faintly odorous of spring and growing things, caressed their cheeks,
and youth was in their hearts. What cared they for hard seats, for
jolts and jounces, for mud-holes, delays, and the growing certainty of a
late arrival? A thrilling week, golden with possibilities, lay before
them, and nothing else mattered. They chattered and sang and ate, and
stopped by wayside springs, and ate again. The sun was setting when
they lumbered into Clam Cove and tumbled out of the truck to find the old
_Aquita_ waiting at the landing. Then came the chugging passage of
the bay, and the landing at the new dock they had not even heard of, but
where they did not pau