"And, fellows," continued Elmer, "I think that on the strength of this, not to speak of Felix saying he would have refused to accept a tainted title if he had won after Lil Artha was kidnaped, we ought to give our fellow scouts over there a cheer. Yes, and send them a letter congratulating them on the new spirit of fairness that has sprung up among them."
It was put in the form of a motion, and carried unanimously. So three cheers and a tiger were given with a will; and later on the letter was written, which Elmer himself promised to deliver to Matt Tubbs, the loan of that fine motorcycle still holding good.
And this, then, was the way the great hike went through. Lil Artha, of course, was the pride of the troop for his fine work; but the other fellows who had done the best they knew how were not forgotten in the chronicles of the event, as written in the log book of the secretary.
The only serious accident of the affair was the sprain which Henry Cobb had been unfortunate enough to receive, and which was likely to make him limp for many weeks. But it had afforded a tremendous amount of fun, and at the same time proved that the fact of a boy belonging to the scouts need not detract in the least from his manly qualities.
Vacation was now nearly at an end, and presently the scouts would be taking up their school duties for the new year. The summer that had passed had really been the most delightful one in all their experience; and they looked forward hopefully to other good times ahead, when, as scouts, they might be given the privilege of learning many of the secrets of Nature and of building up sturdy and manly characters under the influence of the splendid rules governing the organization.
But there was one grumbler out of the number starting out for Little Falls, and this was Nat. He never could get entirely over the cruel fate that had allowed those trapped plotters to get off "so easy" and was often heard to mutter that if Elmer had not happened to be along there might have been a different story to tell. But like a lot of fellows, Nat's "bark was more savage than his bite," and perhaps, after all, had he been allowed his own sweet way, he might have remembered how he had faithfully promised not to harbor the spirit of revenge when he signed the roster of the Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts' troop.
THE END.
The next story of this Series (Number Six), which can be found on sale everywhere, is called "The Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts' Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day."