"She's here, Don! Gee! she's here!" He dropped the axe and worked with his hands; by degrees the top of a pasteboard box appeared. They loosened the earth around the sides, found grips for their fingers, and pulled. The box came out. It was tied with string and could have been in the ground only a few days.
The prize was theirs. In their excitement they hugged each other joyously.
"You did it, Tim!" cried Don. "You get the credit."
"You found it," Tim said huskily. "You'd have found it without me. You—" Something he had kept bottled all morning, something he had never expected to say, tumbled from his lips. "You should have knocked my block off last night."
"Forget it," Don muttered lamely, but his eyes flamed with a new light.
He knew now that he had made no mistake in bringing Tim into the woods.
They stood with that queer awkwardness that moves boys when they bare their hearts. Tim fingered the string around the box.
"Say, if we could open this—"
The spell was broken. They cut the string and lifted the cover. Inside, packed in a soft bed of cotton, was a prize that shone out at them with a soft splendor—the Scoutmaster's Cup!
"One little beauty," breathed Tim. "Who ever thought Mr. Wall would hide it like that. If we lost it!"
"Let's get out of here," Don cried in fright. He ran for his haversack.
They took the back trail.