let's you out, see? Come ahead before your mother changes her mind."

Poor Mrs. Piper had not yet made up her mind, so she could not very well
change it. Scoutmaster Ned had made up her mind for her.

"I'll have to get Sally Flint ter come over and visit with me," said
Mrs. Piper doubtfully.

"Just the one," said Scoutmaster Ned. "She'll keep you company and
you'll have a little peace with this youngster gone. Mrs. Piper, if I
had my way I'd chloroform every boy in creation. I wonder you look so
young with a wild Indian like that around."

"Oh, I ain't lookin' so young," she smiled, greatly pleased.

Before she realized it she was shaking hands with Scoutmaster Ned while
her other arm was around Peter. "I'm going to come here and stay a
month," the young man said. "I'm going to churn butter and eat pie--if I
can escape from that outfit. Well good-bye, we're off. I hope the old
bus runs."

"It looks reel smart with all the blue paint," said Mrs. Piper.

"Handsome is as handsome does," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Climb in, Pete,
what are you scared of? It won't eat you. Anybody'd think you were
stalking--stepping so carefully. Know what stalking is? They'll show
you."

Mrs. Piper stood holding her gingham apron to her eyes as they rode off.
It was of exactly the same pattern as Peter's shirt. He looked funny
sitting rather fearfully on the front seat. She had never dreamed of
seeing him enthroned amid such sumptuousness. Perhaps some day he would
go away and come back _rich_--a hero. Her Peter. And this stranger
liked him. She was weeping because she had never heard her boy called
Pete since his father died. She liked to hear him called Pete, it was so
friendly, and recalled the past so vividly....

As if Scoutmaster Ned would have called him anything else than Pete!

CHAPTER XXXVII

HINTS

They showed him. As Scoutmaster Ned had told him they would do, they
showed him. And Peter Piper was in dreamland; it was all too good to be
true. They showed him how to track and stalk. And how to signal.

Nick showed him how to make a smudge fire, and Peter was doubly sure,
then, that Nick would win the cup. In the nights he dreamed of the
winning of that cup, of Nick winning it. Yes, they showed him. Fido
Norton showed him how to track a rabbit, and a small-sized, pocket
edition of a scout in the Elephant Patrol showed him (very difficult)
how to trail a hop-toad. Charlie Norris showed him how to use a deadly
koda