"No."
"Oh, of course not! You'd have one if you were a Scout. Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"How did you get down there?" Rodman asked.
"Fell down, you chump!" snapped Specs.
Rodman wanted to snap back, "Well, fall up here, then!" But he fought back the temptation. Instead, "Sit tight," he called, "and I'll have you out in a jiffy."
Back in the woods, wild grapevines twined over the trees. It was the work of only a few minutes to cut and trim one eight or ten feet long and lower it over the sandy cliff.
"Grab hold," he called to Specs, "and you can walk up the side of this sloping sand-pit as easy as falling off a log. Ready! Up you come! Steady there! Careful! Careful! There you are, safe and sound and on top of the world once more. Now, is there a fragrant fern anywhere around here?"
At seven o'clock that evening the Boy Scouts of the Black Eagle Patrol met in their clubhouse. Before seven-thirty they had threshed out the problem of electing another member, and there was not a dissenting vote when the name of Rodman Cree was proposed to fill the patrol roster.
"Which is just as it should be," Horace Hibbs approved. "Unless every single one of us thinks he is the best fellow for the place, he should not be invited to join. Now, if Specs—"
"Yes, Specs!" groaned Bi. "We'll never convert Specs; no, not in a thousand years. He says Rodman is no good, and I guess he'll grow long white whiskers before he'll admit he's wrong. No, siree, if we wait for Specs to make it unanimous, this patrol will be one man shy the rest of its life."