tle-scarred boys, and the wreckage incident
to an enlivening occasion. When his comrades found Bud, the argument
had narrowed down to Bud and the boy from the country, the other
wranglers having dropped out for heavy repairs. The fight, which had
been started to avenge ancient wrongs, particularly the wrongs of the
bill-board, only added new wrongs to the list. The country boy was
striking wildly, and trying to clinch his antagonist, when the town
marshal--the bogie-man of all boys--stopped the fight. But of course
no town marshal can come into the thick of a discussion in Boyville
and know much of the merits of the question. So when the marshal of
Willow Creek saw Bud Perkins putting the finishing touches of a good
trouncing on a strange boy, and also saw Bill Pennington's boy, and
Henry Sears's boy, and Mrs. Carpenter's boy, and old man Jones's boy
dancing around in high glee at the performance, he quietly gathered in
the boys he knew, and let the stranger go.

[Illustration: _The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy
repair_.]

Now no boy likes to be marched down the main street of his town with
the callous finger of the marshal under his shirt-band. The spectacle
operates distinctly against the peace and dignity of Boyville for
months thereafter. For passing youths who forget there is a morrow
jibe at the culprits and thus plant the seeds of dissensions which
bloom in fights. It was a sweaty, red-faced crew that the marshal
dumped into Pennington's grocery with, "Here, Bill, I found your boy
and these young demons fightin' down 't the circus ground, and I took
'em in charge. You 'tend to 'em, will you?"

Mr. Pennington's glance at his son showed that Piggy was unharmed. A
swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a bill of health. But
when Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
laughed till he shook all over; for Bud, with a rimless hat upon a
towselled head, with a face scratched till it looked like a railroad
map, with a torn shirt that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled
back, with trousers so badly shattered that two hands could hardly
hold them together,--as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a
second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed his
laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack clamoring to
tell all in one breath, the history of the incident that had led to
Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy pictures of th