p, with a groan that welled
from his very heart.

"Jest a year too late, sir!" he said, in an unsteady voice. "Oh, why
didn't ye come last June? My little Jim was alive then, and the apple
of my eye. If he'd jined the scouts he might a be'n with us right now.
A year too late--it's hard, hard!"

"But you said you have three boys still, Mr. Brush?" said the scout
master.

"So I have, and mighty dear they be to me too!" exclaimed the farmer,
as he proceeded to bring down his ponderous fist on his knee, "and
arter what you've told me this night, sir, they cain't be scouts any
too soon to please me. I've had my lesson, and it was a bitter one. I'm
right glad ye kim along to-night, and camped in my big woods, where we
seen the light o' yer fire."

"And we're glad too, Mr. Brush," said the scout master, while several
of the boys were heard to cough as though taken with a sudden tickling
in their throats.

Long they sat there talking. Mr. Brush became an ardent advocate of the
scout movement, and even made an arrangement for his boys to join the
new patrol being formed, though it would mean many a trip in and out of
Lenox for him in his new cheap motor car, in order that they attend the
weekly meetings.

After all that was an evening long to be remembered. Tom Chesney, who
kept a regular log of the outing, meaning to enter his account in a
competition for a prize that had been offered by a metropolitan daily,
found a fine chance to spread himself when jotting down the
particulars.

The farmer could hardly tear himself away from the crackling fire.
Three times he said he must be going, yet did not stir, which quite
amused Josh Kingsley and Felix Robbins.

"Our scout master sure must have missed his calling when he set out to
be a civil engineer and surveyor," whispered the former in the ear of
Felix.

"That's so," replied the other, "for while he may be a pretty good
civil engineer, he'd made a crackerjack of a lawyer or a preacher. When
he talks somehow you just hang on every word he says, and it convinces
you deep down. That old farmer on a jury would do whatever Mr.
Witherspoon wanted. But it's been worth hearing; and I'm a heap glad to
be a scout, after listening to what he's been saying."

Finally the owner of the woods shook hands all around with them, and
accompanied by his hired man and the two dogs respectfully took his
departure.

CHAPTER XIV

AT THE FOOT OF BIG BEAR MOUNTAIN

It took them a