Both Colin Estey and Marcoo had known what it was to feel their sense of pity and justice outraged by Leon's persecuting methods. But it needed the trained boldness of the boy scout to put the sentiment into words; to be ready to fight for his knightly principles and win. For he had won. Leon Chase fairly writhed at the choice set before him--at the necessity of yielding a point to the stranger! But he felt that it would be still more obnoxious to his feelings to be deserted by his companions, left to beat a solitary retreat homeward with his dog or wander--alone and fasting--through the woods, a boy hermit! "All right! Have your way! Come along," he cried crossly. "We'll never get anywhere--that's sure--if we waste any more time on a chipmunk!" Withdrawing the stick from the enlarged aperture, he flung it away and scrambled to his feet, whistling to the dog. It needed much moral suasion on the part of all four boys to lure the terrier away from the raided hole with whose earth his slim white legs were coated. But he presently consented to explore the woods further in search of diversion. And the incident ended without any torn fur flying its flag of pain on the summer air. The flag of feud between the two boys, Starrie Chase and Nixon, was not, however, immediately lowered. Coombsie--a studious, thoughtful lad--had the unhappy feeling of having brought two strange fires together which might at any moment result in an explosion that would be especially disastrous on this the first day of his cousin's visit to him. But as one lad has remarked: "Two boys cannot remain mad with each other long: there's always too much doing!" And everybody knows that sawdust smothers smouldering fire! It did in this instance. After about ten minutes of "grouchy" but uneventful tramping, the forest explorers came to a logging camp, a rude shanty, flanked by a yellow mountain of sawdust where a portable sawmill had been set up during the preceding winter and taken down in spring. In spite of the fact that so much lay before them to be seen in the woods--if haply they might arrive at the various points of heart's desire--it was not in boy-nature to refrain from scaling that unstable, shelving sawdust peak for a better view onward into those shadowy woods. And a lusty sham battle ensued, in the midst of which Leon found occasion to repay the trick played on him with the pitchfork seeds by slipping a handful of sawdust inside the scout's khaki collar. "Whew! that's worse than the devil's pitchforks," groaned the latter, writhing and squirming in his tan shirt. But does not a trifling discomfort under such circumstances enhance while curbing the enjoyment of a boy, tying him to earth, when his young spirit like an aeroplane, winged with sheer joy of life and youthful daring, feels as if it could spurn that earth sphere as too limited, and, riding on the breeze of heaven, seek adventure among the clouds?