"Oh, what have we stepped into?" another groaned, holding his forehead in a way of despair.
"You mean what have we been drawn into!" said another. "Oh, that it should come to this!"
"What have we done? What have we done?" sighed still another.
As for Scoutmaster Ned, he gave one terrific groan (or perhaps it was a roar of abandoned mirth) and fell backward off the grocery box.
Only the fixer remained silent. His eyes stared, his mouth gaped. But not a word said he. It was Napoleon at Waterloo. Scout Harris had no words. Or else he had so many that they got jumbled up in his throat and would not come out. And as he stood there, bearing up under that mortal blow, the conquering legion, consisting of the two members of the East Ketchem school board, withdrew with an air of great conclusiveness and dignified solemnity to the shore.
Then, and only then, did Scoutmaster Ned sit up and rub his eyes, holding his splitting sides, the while he gazed after that official delegation constituting the entire school board. He gave one look at the fixer (and the fixer's face was worth looking at) and at the gaping countenances all about him. Then he fell back again and shook as if he had a fit and rolled over and buried his face in his folded arm and roared and roared and roared.
"Retreat! Retreat across the line! A disorderly retreat! That is our only hope! Who will lead a disorderly retreat?"
The desperate cry was not unanswered. "I will!" said Fido Norton. "Get the stuff together! Every scout for himself! Our freedom hangs on a disorderly retreat! Vaccination--I mean evacuation--is our only hope! Our freedom is more dear than our lives! Give me vacation or give me death! We've been foiled by a school principal disguised as a boy scout! Remember his pal, the manual training teacher? Spies! Traitors! We fell into their clutches. Follow me, we will foil the schools yet! Every scout grab his own stuff, or anybody else's, and retreat as disorderly as possible. Our liberty is at stake! I love the west shore so muchly now that I wouldn't even knock the West Shore Railroad."