ope
that he would put in a dramatic appearance just in the nick of time,
with the report of a sensational discovery--the tracks of a bear or a
wild cat, for instance. It is significant that they would have been
quite ready to believe him, whatever he had said.

But Mr. Warren knew, as his troop did not, of Hervey's saying that he
wasn't so stuck on eagles, and he was satisfied from the talk that he
had had with him that Hervey's erratic and fickle nature had asserted
itself in the very moment of high responsibility. He could not help
liking Hervey, but he would never again allow the cherished hopes of the
troop to rest upon such shaky foundation.

Whatever lingering hopes the troop might have had of a last minute
triumph were rudely dispelled when Hervey came sauntering into camp at
about four o'clock twirling his hat on the end of a stick in an
annoyingly care-free manner. Tom Slade saw him passing Council Shack
intent upon his acrobatic enterprise of tossing the hat into the air and
catching it on his head, as if this clownish feat were the chief concern
of his young life.

"You going to be on hand at five?" Tom queried in his usual off-hand
manner.

"What's the use?" Hervey asked. "There's nothing in it for me."

Tom leaned against the railing of the porch, with his stolid, half
interested air.

"Nothing in it for me," Hervey repeated, twirling his hat on the stick
in fine bravado.

"So you've decided to be a quitter," Tom said, quietly.

Hervey winced a bit at this.

"You know you said you weren't so stuck on eagles," Hervey reminded him,
rather irrelevantly.

"Well, I'm not so stuck on quitters either," Tom said.

"What's the good of my going? I'm not getting anything out of it."

"Neither am I," said Tom.

"You got stung when you made a prophecy about me, didn't you?" Hervey
said with cutting unkindness. "You and I both fell down, hey? We're punk
scouts--we should bother our heads."

Again he began twirling his hat on the stick. "I couldn't sit with my
troop, anyway," he added; "I'm in Dutch."

"Well, sit with mine, then; Roy Blakeley and that bunch are all from my
home town; they're nice fellows. You know Pee-wee Harris--the little
fellow that fell off the springboard?"

"I ought to like him; we both fell down."

"Well, you be on hand at five o'clock and don't make matters worse, like
a young fool. If you've lost the eagle, you've lost it. That's no reason
you should slight Mr. Temple, who