d-boiled" is a word which might have been coined specially to
describe him. The cropped hair on his round head was sandy, his skin a
sun-blistered red, and his lips had deep cracks in them. His nose did
not add to his beauty any more than the knife-scar around his neck,
which looked as if someone had barely failed in an attempt to cut off
his head.

The feature that saved the young fellow's face from a look of
unmitigated "toughness" was his pale gray eyes, whose steady, fearless
look seemed to contend with a whimsical gleam of humour.

Pinkey listened, with the disciplined patience of the army, to the
recital of the exploit that had won the War Cross for him, but there was
a peculiar glint in his light eyes. As Smith drew to a conclusion,
Pinkey slowly lifted his leg, stiffened by a machine-gun bullet, over
the horse's neck and sat sideways.

The applause was so vociferous, so spontaneous and hearty, that nothing
approaching it ever had been heard at The Colonial. But it stopped as
suddenly, for in the middle of it Pinkey gathered himself and sprang
through the air like a flying-squirrel, to bowl the Smith boy over. "You
said you wouldn't tell about that 'Craw de gare,' ner call me a hero,
an' you've gone and done it!" he said, accusingly, as he sat astride of
him. "I got feelin's jest like grown-up folks, and I don't like to be
laughed at. Sorry, Big Boy, but you got this comin'!" Thereupon, with a
grin, Pinkey banged his host's head on the gravel.

The two were surrounded when this astonishing incident was over and it
was found that not only was the Smith boy not injured but seemed to be
used to it and bore no malice. The guests shook hands with the boys and
congratulated them; they examined the War Cross that Pinkey produced
reluctantly from the bottom of the flour-sack in which he carried his
clothing, and finally Mr. Appel presented the purse in a speech to which
nobody listened--and the Smith boy shocked everybody by his extravagance
when he gave five of it to the driver of the laundry wagon.

"I was shore pinin' to step in the middle of a horse," was Pinkey's
explanation of their eccentric arrival. "It kinda rests me."

While all this was happening Wallie stood holding his lemonade tray.
When he could get close, he welcomed the Smith boy and was introduced to
Pinkey, and stood around long enough to learn that the latter and Helene
Spenceley knew each other.

Nobody, however, was interested in seeing his r