The furious gale had subsided. But as Captain Andy knew, the greatest danger to his own vessel lay in the sullen and terrible swell of the "old sea" which it had stirred up. Nevertheless, the Constellation bore down upon the shipwrecked men, getting as near to them as possible, without being swept on to the rocks herself. Then Captain Andy gave the order to put over a dory, stepped into it, and called for a volunteer. Twice, to and fro through the towering swell of the old sea, went that gallant little dory. She was smashed to kindling wood on her second trip, but not before the men in her could be hauled aboard the Constellation with ropes--not before every member of the yachting party was saved! "And I guess if Captain Andy wants a chance to haul Dave Baldwin off the rocks where the old sea stirred up by the gusts of his own waywardness and wrongdoing have stranded him, the district attorney won't stand in the way!" said the doctor to himself. His surmise proved correct. * * * * * It was just one month after the fire upon the dunes that the three patrols of boy scouts, Owls, Foxes, and Seals, assembled at a point of rendezvous upon the outskirts of the town, bound off upon a long Saturday hike through the October woods. But some hearts in the troop were at bottom heavy to-day, though on the surface they rose above the feeling. For it was the last woodland hike, for the present, that Scout Warren of the Owls would take with his patrol. The return of his parents from Europe was expected during the coming week; and he--now with two white stripes upon his arm, signifying his two years of service in the Boy Scouts of America, wearing also the patrol leader's bars and first-class scout badge--would rejoin his Peewit Patrol in Philadelphia. However, his comrades' regrets were softened by Nixon's promise that he would frequently visit the Massachusetts troop with which he had spent an exciting year, and which, unintentionally, he had been instrumental in forming. And on this brilliant October Saturday Assistant Scoutmaster Toiney Leduc, perceiving that the coming parting was casting a faint shadow before, exerted himself to banish that cloudlet as the troop started on its hike. "_Houp-e-là!_ We arre de boy! We arre de stuff! We arre de bes' scout ev'ry tam'!" he shouted with an _esprit de corps_ which found its echo in one breast at least--that of the terrier, Blink, who to-day capered with the troop as its mascot. "We arre de bes' scout; _n'est-ce pas_, mo' smarty?" And Toiney embraced Harold, marching at his side--Harold, whose lips turned up to-day and every day now in the scout's smile, for since the night of the dune fire had not each of his comrades and the scoutmasters too, kept impressing on him that he had "behaved like a little man and a good scout" at duty's call!