e given a sum of money, and be his own boss.
That's the law."

"Well, all I hope is that we pick up some decent clue around here,"
said Lil Artha; "Yes, and a bully supper in the bargain, that'll fill a
horrible vacuum, and put us all in fighting condition."

Their arrival created something of a sensation. Dogs began to bark,
roosters to crow, cows to moo, and even a donkey started to bray in a
fearful fashion. Immediately Johnny Spreen, the boy who trapped
muskrats in the winter, came running out from the big barn where he was
probably milking some of the cows, for he held a three-legged stool in
one hand as though it might be a weapon of defense.

The farmer, a long, lanky individual with a keen face, also bobbed in
sight, holding a currycomb; while at the kitchen door could be seen the
buxom figure of his wife, evidently bound to learn what was happening
even if her dinner did burn in consequence.

Three tow-headed, wild-eyed little Trotters, who had been playing at
teeter with a plank laid over a carpenter's "horse" for a seesaw,
ranged themselves all in a row, and gaped their fill at the strange
spectacle of a wagonload of boys all dressed pretty much alike.

"Are you Mr. Trotter?" asked Elmer, as he jumped down, and the other
came forward toward him.

"That's my name, son; what fetches the hull lot of you up this way?
Ameanin' to camp on the lake-shore, it might be? I've heard about the
scouts daown at Hickory Ridge; Johnny yonder's been apinin' to jine 'em
this long time back, but, of course, it ain't to be thunk of, with him
so far away."

"Yes, we are the members of the Wolf Patrol, Mr. Trotter," said Elmer,
who wanted to make a good friend of the farmer in the start. "I'm
Elmer Chenowith; perhaps you know my father, or some of the other
fellows' parents."

He thereupon introduced each one of the boys by name, and even
mentioned the fact that the father of this one or that occupied a
prominent place in the business or professional world of Hickory Ridge
town.

"We haven't exactly come up here to camp out this trip, Mr. Trotter,"
continued the patrol leader, after bowing to the farmer's wife who had
first darted indoors to see that her supper was not burning, and then
hurried to join them.

Elmer knew that the truth might just as well come out in the beginning
as later. On this account he did not intend to hold anything back, but
be perfectly frank with the owner of the lake farm.

"What migh