ly. Paul did not
wish those kind friends who had been so good to the scouts to find any
reason for regretting their courtesy and benevolence.

Then, after all were out, he locked the door, before making for his own
home, in order to finish his preparations, and secure a good breakfast.

Already Stanhope was all astir. Boys who usually slept until the call
for breakfast disturbed their happy dreams, were up and doing. Indeed,
many of them had, if the truth were known, stolen out of bed at various
times before dawn, anxious not to oversleep. For this was to be one of
the greatest days the younger generation of Stanhope had ever known.

The long roll of Bluff Shipley's drum could be heard at intervals, and
how their pulses thrilled at the sound, knowing that it was meant for
them alone! Not since away back in '61, when little Stanhope, then a
village, mustered a company to send to the front to serve their country,
had such intense excitement abounded.

Who could sleep when in some score of homes the hope of the household
was rushing up and down stairs, gathering his possessions, buckling on
his knapsack half a dozen times, and showing all the symptoms of a
soldier going to the wars?

Every girl in town was on the street, many of them to wave farewell to
brother or friend. And besides, there were the envious ones connected
with the "Outcast Troop," as Ted and Ward called their fragment, because
they had been unable to obtain a charter from the National Council,
being backward in many of the requirements insisted on.

These fellows had been delayed in making their start, and were planning
to slip out of town some time later in the day. They possibly wanted to
make sure that the scouts were actually headed in the direction of
Rattlesnake Mountain; for not a few among them secretly doubted whether
Paul and his comrades would have the nerve to venture into that wild
country.

And now, by ones and twos, the young khaki-garbed warriors began to
gather in the vicinity of the church. Each carried a full knapsack, and
all were supplied with a stout, mountain staff, which would assist their
movements later in the day, after the muscles of their legs began to
grow weary.

Paul was amused at the stuffy appearance of those same knapsacks.
Evidently some of the boys' fond mothers or older sisters entertained a
healthy fear that their darling might fare badly at meal time; and they
had been cooking doughnuts, as well as various o