“Can I come and see the initiation?” Ruth Stanton asked.
“I’m sorry,” began Roy, “but——”
“I don’t believe a word you say.”
“You leave it to me,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll fix it.”
So the installation of Harry Stanton as a scout and a member of the Elk Patrol took place on the deck of his own beautiful cruising launch as it lay at Nyack Landing. The troop’s own ceremony, by which Tom himself had become a scout, was used, but it had been performed so many times since then that it went off with a routine smoothness, free from any of the little hitches that are apt to mar the impressiveness of scout ceremonials. The three patrols were grouped separately and Mr. Ellsworth stood apart from them.
Garry, who, though an outsider, was asked to participate, presented the applicant to Tom.
The three simple requirements of the tenderfoot—familiarity with the twelve laws and the history of the American flag, and the ability to tie four kinds of knots—had been proved informally at Shady Lawn and it remained only for Tom to read the laws one by one, pausing after each and asking the applicant if he agreed to accept it and abide by it. Then Tom presented him to Mr. Ellsworth and Harry, nervous but trying to be self-possessed, made him the scout salute, then offered him the hand-clasp, and then made the scout sign, holding up his hand with the three fingers upright.
Then he took the familiar scout oath, and Tom stepped forward and pinned the tenderfoot badge on him. Then the whole troop filed past, each giving him the scout hand-clasp, after which he stepped back with Tom as the members of the Elk Patrol raised their voices in unison, simulating the cry of the elk.
And so the Elks, for whom the former hoodlum of Barrel Alley had striven and worked and planned, became a complete patrol at last.
“All over but the shouting,” said Roy, not letting a minute elapse. “Better to be a pro-ally Elk than a German Silver Fox, hey? Listen to the Ravens rave,” he added, as that patrol set up its familiar cry in honor of the occasion. “Some flock! Let’s give the voice of the package—I mean the pack. Come on, Foxes!”