“Oh, no,” the scoutmaster jerked out; “we don’t do any sneaking here. Be careful how you talk. You are trespassing yourself, sir, if it comes to that.”

There was never a moment in the troop’s history, not even in that unpleasant scene in John Temple’s vacant lot, when the boys so admired their scoutmaster. His absolute confidence in every member of the troop thrilled them with an incentive which no amount of discipline could have inspired. It was plain to see that they felt this—­all save Tom, whose face was a puzzle.

He stood there among them, his belt pulled unnecessarily tight, after the fashion of the boy who has always worn a suspender, the trim intent of the scout regalia hardly showing to advantage on his rather clumsy form. His puttees were never well adjusted; the khaki jacket (when he wore it) had a perverse way of working up in back. He presented a marked contrast to Roy’s natty appearance and to Westy whose uniform fitted him so perfectly that he seemed to have been poured into it as a liquid into a mould. Both boys looked every inch a scout. Yet there was something strangely distinctive about Tom as he stood there. A discerning person might have fancied his uncouthness as part and parcel of a certain rugged quality which could not be expressed in precise attire. There was something ominous in the dogged, sullen look which his countenance wore. He seemed a sort of law unto himself, having a certain resource in himself and seeking now neither advice nor assistance. He was no figure for the cover of the Scout Handbook, yet he had drawn out of it its full measure of strength; he would accept no one’s interpretation of it but his own and thus he stood among them and yet apart—­as good a scout as ever raised his hand to take the oath.

“One o’ these youngsters went daown stairs and raound the haouse t’ th’ pantry ‘n’ he was seen to go without warrant of law crost Temple’s lawn and inter his private woods.” The man had his little spats of legal phraseology, of course, and Mr. Ellsworth could almost have murdered him for his “without warrant of law.”

“Any one of you boys go ’without warrant of law’?” asked the scoutmaster, with an air of humorous disgust.

“I did,” said Tom simply.

The scoutmaster looked at him in surprise.

“What for, Tom?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” said Tom.