s throat and
would not come out. And as he stood there, bearing up under that mortal
blow, the conquering legion, consisting of the two members of the East
Ketchem school board, withdrew with an air of great collusiveness and
dignified solemnity to the shore.

Then, and only then, did Scoutmaster Ned sit up and rub his eyes,
holding his splitting sides, the while he gazed after that official
delegation constituting the entire school board. He gave one look at the
fixer (and the fixer's face was worth looking at) and at the gaping
countenances all about him. Then he fell back again and shook as if he
had a fit and rolled over and buried his face in his folded arm and
roared and roared and roared.

"Retreat! Retreat across the line! A disorderly retreat! That is our
only hope! Who will lead a disorderly retreat?"

The desperate cry was not unanswered. "_I will!_" said Fido Norton. "Get
the stuff together! Every scout for himself! Our freedom hangs on a
disorderly retreat! Vaccination--I mean evacuation--is our only hope!
Our freedom is more dear than our lives! Give me vacation or give me
death! We've been foiled by a school principal disguised as a boy scout!
Remember his pal, the manual training teacher? Spies! Traitors! We fell
into their clutches. Follow me, we will foil the schools yet! Every
scout grab his own stuff, or anybody else's, and retreat as disorderly
as possible. Our liberty is at stake! I love the west shore so muchly
now that I wouldn't even knock the West Shore Railroad."

CHAPTER XL

GUESS AGAIN

Alas, such is fame! The thunderous voice of P. Harris was mute, his
blankly staring eyes spoke volumes, libraries in fact, but they did not
make a noise. The voice which had aroused the echoes at Temple Camp,
which had filled the crystal back room at Bennett's Candy Store in
Bridgeboro, was still. And it did not speak again for--nearly twenty
minutes. Even then it did not speak in its former tone of thunder. It
could not have been heard for more than--oh, half a mile.

The first occasion on which the voice of Scout Harris arose to its
former height was on the last day before West Ketchem summoned its
bronzed scouts over to the makeshift school which had been prepared in a
vacant, old-fashioned mansion. They had had plenty of fun in the
meantime and they went with a good will. Far be it from me to publish
any unworthy hopes, but if your school should ever burn down in the
summer, try camping in