“Oh! well, if you’re in such a hurry as that, come round to my house to-night; we’re going to have a Christmas celebration there.” And the tall scoutmaster walked off, laughing.
Thus on Christmas Eve did Godey drop off the fence on the side of the boy scouts, whose code of chivalry is only an elaboration of the first Christmas message: “Peace on earth, good will to men!”
CHAPTER XIV
A RIVER DUEL
With the enlisting of Godey and his gang, who mainly represented whatever tendency there might be to youthful rowdyism in the demure little town, the whole vicinity of the tidal river was won over to the Boy Scout Movement.
The new recruits, those who gave in their names on Christmas Eve as would-be scouts, together with one or two later additions, were formed into a second patrol, of which Godey became patrol leader, called the Foxes in honor of the commonest animal of moderate size to be found in their woods; the red fox being prevalent, too, among the white sand-hills, the Sugarloaf Dunes, that formed part of the wild coast near the mouth of the Exmouth River.
Those milky dunes, formed of pale sand which was popularly supposed to have drifted down from New Hampshire to the sea and to have been swept in here by the winds and tides of ages, were a sort of El Dorado to the boys of the little town far up the tidal river.