"Our first camp-fire brought us bad luck, fellows!" he complained.
"Oh! I don't know," remarked Thad. "It gave us a run for the money; and chances are, we'll never get over laughing at the funny things that happened. Then besides think what it did for Smithy! After what he did I guess there isn't a scout who will ever taunt him about being a coward."
"No, Smithy certainly made good this night; and I pass him up away ahead of me on the roll. He deserves a merit badge, suh, for his true grit," was what the generous Southern lad declared firmly.
"Hear! hear! we'll put in an application to Headquarters for a badge to be given to our comrade Smithy for saving our bacon!" cried Davy Jones.
"Well," declared Giraffe, "it might have been our bacon, in fact; because I saw him sniffing in the direction of the tent where it happens to be lying. A fine lot of scouts 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."