d clasped the heavy plush covers over all three. Then she sat down by
the window and patted the dog with one thin hand while with the other
she lifted the kitchen apron again to those poor old eyes. Thus they sat
silently.

It was just an echo, a faint, belated echo of the great war....

CHAPTER III

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

To know something of the circumstances which caused this letter to reach
Mrs. Haskell like a ghost out of the past, we shall have to betake
ourselves to Bennett's Fresh Confectionery and Ice Cream Parlor on Main
Street in Bridgeboro, New Jersey. And that is by no means a bad sort of
place to begin, for Bennett had the genial habit of filling an ice cream
cone so that the cream stood up on top like the dome on the court house
in Bridgeboro, and extended down into the apex, packed tight and hard.

It was long before the great sensation in Hicksville, and on a certain
pleasant day early in vacation, that Roy Blakeley, leader of the Silver
Fox Patrol, and several scouts of the First Bridgeboro Troop were lined
up along Bennett's counter partaking of refreshment. To be exact, they
had finished and were waiting for Walter, alias Pee-wee Harris to
finish, for Pee-wee had the true scout thoroughness and went down to the
very bottom of things.

"How is it you boys aren't off camping this summer?" Mr. Bennett asked
sociably, as he leaned against the fixtures behind the counter.

"We should worry about camp this year," Roy said. "We've been fixing up
our old railroad car for a meeting-place down by the river and we're
going to stay home and earn some money to buy a rowboat and a canoe and
start a kind of a camp of our own down there."

"We're going to build a float," Pee-wee said, digging with his spoon.

"Sure, and a sink," Roy said, "so we can wash our hands of Bridgeboro.
We'll be dead to the world down there. We're going to lead the simple
life like a lot of simps. We're going to catch salt fish in the salt
marshes and everything. All we need is a treasury; you didn't happen to
see one around anywhere, did you?"

"If I should happen to see a treasury I'll let you know," Mr. Bennett
laughed.

"We need a standing capital," said Artie Van Arlen, leader of the
Ravens.

"We wouldn't care if it was lying down as long as we had it," Roy said.

"We'd like some assessments," Pee-wee said.

"You mean assets," Doc Carson laughed.

"It's the same only different," said Roy.

"What we want is a fe