nd removing nails from it, there were implements enough for
all. Some of the scouts worked above, loosening the boards from the
roofs, while others on the ground pulled the tar-paper and nails from
these and made an orderly pile of them.

Such was the nature of their work during the first two or three days and
they found it strenuous but neither too difficult nor heavy. And work
was relieved somewhat by the comedy element furnished by Pee-wee who
rolled off a roof on one occasion while eating a sandwich.

"Take the nails out of him, pull the sandwich out of his hands, and pile
him up with the boards," Roy called from a neighboring roof. "He's
docked thirty cents for the time lost in rolling down."

"He ought to have an emergency brake," Westy suggested, as the young
Raven clambered up to his place again, sandwich and all, and proceeded
working with the sandwich in one hand and a hammer in the other.

"Didn't you say that's all roofs are good for?" Pee-wee vociferously
demanded. "To roll off of?"

"To roll _down_, I said," Roy answered from his own perch among the
beams of the next shack.

"Did you ever hear of anybody rolling up?" the young hero demanded.

"Sure," said Roy; "didn't you ever roll up and go to sleep? You never
rolled _down_, and went to sleep, did you? That shows what you know
about geometry."

"That's not geometry," Pee-wee shouted. "I took geometry last year."

"It's about time you put it back," Roy called.

"Look out or you'll take another tumble," Westy added.

"He didn't put the last one back yet," Roy observed.

"There goes your sandwich," another one of the Silver Foxes called with
glee, as that precious remnant of Pee-wee's lunch went tumbling and
separating down the slanting roof.

"Now you see what you made me do!" he fairly screamed.

"Food is coming down," Roy laughed.

This is a fair sample of the fun and banter which accompanied their work
and helped to make it easy and pleasant. Occasionally a harmless
missile, perchance a luscious fragment of some honorably discharged
tomato, would float gracefully from roof to roof bathing the face of
some unsuspecting toiler with the crimson hue of twilight. And once
again the weather-stained old shacks would seem alive with merriment and
laughter.

As for Blythe he witnessed this merry progress with simple, grateful
pleasure. He had expected to see the work done, but he had not expected
to see it conjured by scout magic into a kind of