of a friendship.

They heard the man behind the lock-boxes come through the little gate.
They heard the gate swing shut. They felt a presence near them.

"Well, what do you find to interest you, boys?" they heard a drawling
voice ask.

"We were--we were just wishing that we had been at the strawberry
festival--the one a year ago last June," replied Warde Hollister.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TEST

The three scouts took their way along the road in silence. Pee-wee was
subdued and even Roy sobered. Warde alone seemed composed. Perhaps none
of them had realized until now how much they had grown to like young
Blythe. And this appalling revelation was the sequel, the end, of that
merry, novel camping adventure. They were not fired by the dramatic
character of their discovery; they were just cast down. _This_ was
what it had all come to....

Pee-wee was the first to regain some of his former spirit. "Just the
same, maybe that fellow's mother will get the letter," said he; "so
that's one good thing. And later we're going to Temple Camp, that's
another. And Warde is a first class scout, so gee whiz, we ought to be
all good and glad, that's sure." But for all that, Pee-wee did not seem
good and glad.

He tried again. "A fellow ought to be glad when he gets to be a first
class scout, that's one sure thing. Even if I were in the Silver Foxes
I'd be glad. And anyway it's good you had your fourteen mile hike to-day
because now you can let Mr. Ellsworth and the local council know and he
can go over the ground Sunday. That's the way he usually does. You can
write up your account to-morrow and the next day. Then you can try for
any merit badge you want. I bet you'll get a lot of them. I bet your
father will be glad when you tell him you're in the first class, hey?...
I bet Roy will be proud, too," he added.

Roy made no response, only walked along silently.

"There won't be any badge, Kid," said Warde kindly. "There isn't going
to be any account written of this. And Mr. Ellsworth isn't going to go
over the ground.... He isn't going to see that picture."

For a few moments none of them spoke. Several men raking hay in a nearby
field waved to them, as people do to scouts, and the three waved their
arms in answer, but there was not much enthusiasm in their act. The
birds chirped among the bordering trees. A nimble little chipmunk paused
upon a stone wall, looked at them pertly, and disappeared in a crevice
of rock. And so t