h in hopes of eluding the enemy in this way.

Taking pity on the poor fellow Phil assured him the coast was clear,
and that he was safe in coming out.

Such a woe begone figure he presented.

It seemed like a shame to laugh, but the boys could not have helped it
had their lives depended on keeping sober faces.

Besides looking like a drowned rat, poor Lub found that his face was
already swelling up. His jaws looked as they may have done when he had
the mumps. One eye threatened to be lost altogether, on account of the
puffiness all around it. His nose had received due attention, and even
his hands had failed to come through the scorching fire unscathed.

Despite all this Lub tried to grin, although the effort was, as X-Ray
said pretty much of a "ghastly failure."

"I know I'm a sight to behold, fellows," whimpered Lub. "I guess I
deserve all I got, too, for being such a fool. But how was I to know
that old hornets' nest almost lying on the ground under the bush was
_loaded_!"

"What did you take it for?" asked Phil.

"Why," replied Lub, "I supposed it was a regular giant puff-ball, one of
the toad-stool kind that go off with a crack and a puff of smoke when
you kick 'em."

"Then you actually kicked it?" cried Phil.

"Just what I did--oh! murder!" gasped Lub, feeling of his enlarged head
in dismay.

"And it went off, all right, I bet you?" asserted Ethan, uproariously.

"A million of 'em came hustling out and started to eating me up," Lub
went on to explain, plaintively. "I killed 'em in droves, but there was
always a fresh lot. Then I ran--you saw how I had to carry on. Guess it
wasn't any laughing matter to _me_! And it isn't right now. If I keep on
swelling like I am I'll bust. Talk to me about having the big
head--bein' President of the United States wouldn't make my cranium
swell any more. Phil, ain't you going to do something for a chum that's
had trouble?"

"Sure, I am," announced Phil, readily. "Ethan, find some mud, and let it
be clay if you can. Hurry and get it here. While you're doing it I'll
take the sting out with ammonia. It's lucky I thought to fetch some
along."

Lub only too willingly put himself wholly in the hands of his friends.
The ammonia smarted at first, but by degrees the pain began to
disappear, as the poison was neutralized by the remedy.

"I have to be careful not to let a drop of it get in your eyes, because
it would smart terribly," Phil told the patient.

"Yes, I know