fore she cooked them."

"How about the hawks--those are hawks, aren't they?"

"Sure. Red-shouldered hawks. I s'pose I oughtn't to have taken them,
but I wanted to try taming some. I knew where there was a nest, and last
spring I got up the tree with climbers and took two. They were awful
funny the way they'd sit up and cry whenever they saw me coming. I guess
I must have fed 'em too much, or something, for they died in about a
week. I won't try it again, you bet!"

Paul looked rather sheepish as he made this confession, and hurried on
to another subject. "It's the same way about the eggs. I used to take
only one out of a nest, but Mr. Curtis said even that was pretty hard on
the birds, so I stopped. I haven't taken any since I've been a scout.
It's more fun, really, taking pictures."

"Pictures of birds' eggs?"

"Oh, eggs and nests and birds--anything wild. It's dandy sport. I've got
quite a lot of good ones if you'd like to see them."

Frank quickly acquiesced, and as Paul went over to a desk for the
photograph book, his eyes followed the boy with an odd expression in
them. Hitherto he had regarded Trexler with a certain measure of
tolerance as a queer, unsociable sort of fellow, who seldom took
part in the sports and pastimes of the troop, but preferred moping by
himself. It had never occurred to him that the solitary rambles could
be productive of anything like the results he saw about him. As he
glanced again at the case, a dawning respect began to fill him for
the boy who could do all this and yet remain so modest that not a
whisper of it leaked out among his companions.

That respect deepened as Frank turned the pages of the album and
examined scores of photographs of feathered wild things. There were not
alone pictures of the commoner birds, but many of the shyer sort, like
the cardinal, the oven-bird, and several varieties of thrush which rarely
emerge from the deep woodland, and they had been taken in all sorts of
positions. Trexler had even succeeded in getting a very good photograph
of the great blue heron, and his account of the difficulties of that
enterprise filled Sanson with enthusiasm.

"It must be great!" he exclaimed eagerly. "I wish I could go along with
you some time and see how you do it."

"Why don't you? I'd like to have you--awfully."

There could be no mistaking the earnestness of the invitation, and Frank
took it up promptly.

"All right; that's a go. You let me know the next time