ound that some of the other
fellows didn't like it; but we had the order to march, and we had to
go; that's Scout Law No. 7. But the same law says that we can reason
about an order if we don't think it's fair, and I don't think that was
fair.'

'What does the patrol-leader say?' said Mr. Elliott, turning to Arthur
Graydon.

'I gave the order to march because it seemed to me the thing was too
silly from beginning to end,' cried Arthur. 'I'm not going to scout
about with a parcel of dirty, ragged wharf-rats. I think we should
look a lot of idiots if we did.'

'Now, Mr. Elliott,' said Billy, 'what do you say?'

'Not a word, Billy,' replied Mr. Elliott quietly. 'Not a syllable.
This is a thing for the patrol to decide for themselves.'

There was a short silence, then Billy murmured gently:

'What do you think, Mr. Elliott, that B.-P. would say if he was here?'

Mr. Elliott smiled, and shook his head. He was not to be drawn that
way.

'I'll tell you this much, Billy,' he remarked, 'that I think he would
do exactly as I am doing--leave it to the patrol. The very foundation
of the thing, you know, is to teach you to stand on your own legs.'

'Why not vote upon the question?' suggested Dick Elliott; and the idea
was received with a burst of applause.

'Yes,' said Mr. Elliott, 'that's a good plan. Hold a secret ballot, so
that every member of the patrol may feel quite free to express his real
feelings. We can soon arrange that.'

He took a sheet of plain foolscap from his writing-table, and carefully
divided it into eight equal pieces, and gave each boy a piece. From
the mantelshelf he took a tall china vase, and placed that on the
writing-table.

'Now,' said he, 'I propose that each of you shall go out in turn to the
hall table. There you will mark your papers. A circle means that the
voter is willing to meet the boys from Skinner's Hole in friendly
contest; a cross means that he is not willing. When a paper is marked
it will be folded across the middle with the mark inside, brought back,
and dropped into the vase. In that way the ballot will be perfectly
secret, and you may freely express your feelings.'

There was deep silence as the boys voted in turn according to their
patrol numbers. The party in the study kept their backs to the
writing-table, so that a voter was not even seen to drop his paper in,
and within five minutes the eight votes were in the vase which served
as ballot-box.

The bo