oderate-sized valise, and either dispose of the trunk with the rest of
its contents or send them back home. To this Binney angrily replied that
he would see General Lyle about it.

The new arrival gave further offence that morning by turning up his nose
at the breakfast prepared by one of the camp-cooks, and declaring it
unfit for white men to eat. He also refused, point-blank, to help unload
a car when requested to do so by one of the division engineers, saying
that it was not the kind of work he had been engaged to perform.

He was only brought to a realizing sense of his position by a severe
reprimand from General Lyle himself, who declared that, upon the next
complaint brought to him of the boy's conduct, he should discharge him.
He also said that only the fact of Binney's having been sent there by
his old friend Mr. Meadows prevented him from doing so at once. The
chief closed his remarks by advising Binney to take the other Brimfield
boy of the party as an example worthy of copying. Thereupon all the
prize scholar's bitterness of feeling was directed against unsuspecting
Glen, and he vowed he would get even with that young nobody yet.

Chapter XIII.

BINNEY GIBBS AND HIS MULE.

The effect on Binney Gibbs of General Lyle's reprimand was good,
inasmuch as it brought him to a realizing sense of his true position in
that party, and showed him that, if he wished to remain a member of it,
he must obey orders, even when they were issued in the form of polite
requests. So, after that, he made a virtue of necessity, and obeyed
every order with a scrupulous exactness, though generally with an
injured air, and a protesting expression of countenance as though he
were being imposed upon. It was a great mortification to him to be
obliged to send home his trunk, and more than half his supply of
clothing, together with a number of other cherished luxuries, such as a
rubber bathtub, a cork mattress, a rubber pillow, half a dozen linen
sheets, several china plates, cups, and saucers, besides some silver and
plated ware, all of which he relinquished with a heavy heart and many
lamentations.

The only thing in the shape of a valise, with which to replace his
trunk, that he could purchase in the railroad settlement, was one of
those cheap affairs made of glazed leather, such as are often seen in
the hands of newly landed immigrants. As Binney brought this into the
camp, it at once attracted universal attention. The boys