spent the busiest day of her career gathering up the loads of
extinguishers, hose and other equipment before she was laid up for
alteration, and the Scouts for many days thereafter found that their
spare time was well taken up with their work at headquarters.

From the hour that the Woodbridge Academy closed until ten o'clock in the
evening they toiled like beavers. Bruce, always a capable manager,
divided the patrols into working squads and assigned them to the various
tasks to be accomplished. Those who were handy with carpentering tools
he set to work making a new fire patrol body for the automobile. Those
who excelled at the forges he assigned to the task of making brackets and
metal clamps with which to fasten the extinguishers onto the motorcycles.
Some were appointed ladder makers, others were painters, and still
others were buffers and polishers, who shined up the tarnished sides of
the tanks and took the rust off the axes and pike heads. And when they
all became active the interior of headquarters was a veritable beehive
for busyness.

The boys did not devote all their time to building work, however, for
they realized that to win honors at the firemen's tournament, in which
they meant to compete, they would have to be well drilled in every branch
of fire fighting. Consequently every evening, just before dusk, the
entire troop assembled in the field back of headquarters.

Scaling ladder drills, first aid work, rescue work, bucket brigade
drills, and hose coupling contests were indulged in until the lads worked
with the precision and accuracy of trained fire fighters. For the sake
of unity Bruce had been appointed fire chief, having charge of all three
patrols. The entire squad was under his command and in a very few days
he had systematized their work to the point where there was scarcely a
lost motion or a false move.

Indeed, the Scouts drilled with such vigor and enthusiasm that inside of
an hour they would be completely tired out. Then, while they were
resting, Bruce would put them through a sharp oral drill on the rudiments
of firemanship as set forth in the September number of _Boy's Life_
until, to quote Jiminy Gordon, "They could say it backwards, or upside
down, and do it blindfolded."

Gradually after weeks of toil the fleet of fire fighting motorcycles
assumed a business-like appearance. And as for "Old Nanc" she, redolent
with the odors of fresh red paint, loomed above them all exactly l