olled into one. We're
going to get better organized this winter. There's only just the seven
of us, you know, and we haven't got any money. You might think that
because we live in a country village on the Hudson everything's fine and
dandy. But there's blamed little money in our burg. Four of our troop
have to work after school. One works all day and goes to night school
down to Poughkeepsie. I saved up two years to buy that canoe I was in
when I caught your message."

"Well, you caught it all right," said Tom, with a note of pride in his
usually expressionless voice.

"We'll come out all right, though," said Garry, cheerily. "That's what
I'm always telling them; only we're so gol-blamed poor."

"I know what it is," said Tom, after a pause. "Maybe that's what makes
us such good friends, sort of. I lived in a tenement down in Bridgeboro.
I've got to thank Roy for everything--Roy and Mr. Ellsworth. They all
treat me fine and you'd never know most of them are rich fellows; but
somehow--I don't just know how to tell you---- but you know how a scout
is supposed to be a brother to every other scout. Well, it seems to me,
kind of, as if a poor fellow is a brother to every other poor
fellow--and--and--I understand."

"It's easy to see they all think a lot of you," said Garry. "Well, we've
had a rattling good time up here and I don't suppose we'll feel any
worse about going away than lots of others will. If you miss one thing
you usually have another to make up. We're all good friends in our
little troop--we have more fun than you could shake a stick at, joshing
each other about different kinds of heroic stunts, to win an honor
medal, and some of them have thought up the craziest things----"

"I wish you could stay," said Tom.

"Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as some old duffer
said."

The wooded hill sloped upward behind the camp for a distance of some
hundred yards, where it was broken by a sheer precipice forming one side
of a deep gully. This was the work of man, having once been a railroad
cut, but it had been in disuse for many years and was now covered with
vegetation. You could walk up the hill till you came to the brink of
this almost vertical chasm, but you could no more scramble down it than
you could scramble down a well. On the opposite side of the cut the hill
continued upward and the bridging of the chasm by the scouts themselves
had been a subject of much discussion; but up to the presen