Harold was nothing loath. More and more his father's spirit flashed awake in him. Through the rest of that afternoon, which marked a new era in his life, he seemed to work with his father's fingers, while the October sky glowed in radiant tints of saffron and blue, and a light breeze skipped through the pine-trees and the brilliant maples that flamed at intervals like lamps around the clearing. "We'll come again to-morrow or the day after, Harold, and teach you more 'stunts'; I mean some other things, besides knot-tying, that a boy ought to know how to do," said Nixon as a filmy haze hovering over the edges of the woods warned them that it bore evening on its dull blue wings. "Aw right!" docilely agreed Harold; and though he shuffled his feet timidly, like the "poltron" or craven, which Toiney had in sorrow called him, there was a shy longing in his face which said that he was sorry the afternoon was over, that he would look for the return of his new friends, the only boys who had ever racked their brains to help and not to hurt him. Before their departure he had learned how to tie three knots, square or reef, bowline and the fisherman's bend. He had likewise admitted two more persons within the narrow enclosure of his confidence--the two who were to liberate him, the _éclaireurs_, the peace scouts of to-day. And, for the first time in his life, he had awkwardly lifted his cap and saluted the flag of his country as it waved in miniature from the planted staff. That afternoon was the first of several spent by Scout Warren and his aide-de-camp, Coombsie, on the little farm-clearing in the woods, trying to foster a boyish spirit in Harold, to overcome his dread of mingling with other boys, to awaken in him the desire to become a boy scout and share the latter's good times at indoor meeting, on hike, or in camp. When the date of the second meeting drew near at which seven new recruits were to take the scout oath and be formally organized into the Owl Patrol, they had obtained the promise of this timid fledgling to be present under Toiney's wing, and enlist, too. "I wonder whether he'll keep his word or if he'll fight shy of coming at the last minute?" whispered Nixon to Coombsie on the all-important evening when the other recruits led by their scoutmaster marched into the modest town hall, a neutral ground where all of diverse creeds might meet, and where the members of the local council, including the doctor and Captain Andy, had already assembled. "If he doesn't show up, Nix, you won't be able to pass the twelfth point of test for becoming a first-class scout by producing a recruit trained by yourself in the requirements of a tenderfoot," suggested Marcoo. "You've passed all the active tests, haven't you?"