we'd be, camped away up here, far from
our base of supplies, and to run out of bacon the first thing. What's a
breakfast without coffee and bacon; tell me that?"

But apparently none of the others were so much given to thinking about
the delights of eating as Giraffe, for nobody answered his question.

Thad had pulled Allan aside.

"What did I tell you about that boy?" he whispered, as he watched the
emotions that flitted across the now flushed face of the proud Smithy,
receiving the homage of his fellow scouts.

"Well, you were right, that's all; he did have the pluck as you said,
and he showed it too. I never saw a better piece of grit, never," was
the reply the Maine boy gave to the question.

"His mother and aunts may have done their level best to make a sissy out
of him; and we always believed they had come mighty near doing it too;
but I tell you, Allan, I just feel sure that his father or grandfather
must have been a brave soldier in their day. There's warrior blood in
Smithy's veins, in spite of his pale face, and his girlish ways."

"Oh! it won't take long for him to get rid of all those things," said
the other, confidently. "Already we've seen him accept that tattered old
pair of pajamas from Davy Jones; either of us might have hesitated to
put 'em on, because of the laugh they'd raise. I think Davy only fetched
them along to get a rise from the boys. Smithy is all right, Thad. Given
a few months with us, and his mother won't know her darling angelic
little boy."

"Say, Thad," sang out Step-hen just then; "what d'ye reckon could have
happened to the fellers that own the bear? We've been talking it over,
and no two think alike. Some say they got tired feeding the beast, and
turned him loose on the community, to browse off poor scouts, camping
out for the first time. Then others got the notion that p'raps some
hobos might have stopped the show foreigners, and took their money,
letting the bear shuffle off by himself."

"We'll just have to take it out in guessing, and let it go at that," was
the reply Thad made. "You see, we haven't anything to go by. The bear
wasn't carrying any message fastened to his collar, or anything of the
sort that I could see."

"Now you're joking, Thad; the only message he had about him was a hungry
one, and it showed on his face and in the way he begged," Bob White
remarked.

"But, oh! dear me, don't I hope then that the two foreign chaps are hot
on the trail of their lost