"How about your country's flag. Do you know its composition and history and the customary forms of respect due it?"
"Yes, sir." The boy was both eager and confident in his replies.
Horace Hibbs smiled. "One more question: Would you like to join the Black Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts?"
There was no formal "Yes, sir!" this time. Instead, Rodman Cree gulped once or twice, as if it were difficult to speak, and then fairly shouted, "You bet I would!"
"In that case," pronounced Horace Hibbs judicially, fitting the tips of his fingers together, "I see no reason why you should not take the tenderfoot tests at once. Bunny, will you get us a rope?"
Twenty minutes later, when Specs rose to replenish the dying flames in the great brick fireplace, his eyes fell upon Rodman Cree.
"Shucks!" he laughed, "what's the use of wasting our wood when that fellow's head is a regular bonfire?" He paused to digest his remark. "Say—say, let's call Rodman 'Bonfire' after this. It's a dandy name for him."
Horace Hibbs glanced shrewdly across the table at the recruit. "Do you mind?" he asked.
The boy grinned happily. "Of course, I don't. I—I like it," said Bonfire Cree, tenderfoot of the Black Eagle Patrol.