"Well! you're a generous-hearted bunch," put in Nixon, the patrol leader, from his over-seer's post. "But the scout-master and I have more than a pound of raw beefsteak here which we brought along for our supper. As I'm not in these tests" (Nixon was now a full-fledged first-class scout) "I'll cut off a piece for Leon so that he can cook it himself; I guess we can spare him a couple of potatoes too; then he can pass the test, with the others." During the supper which followed while each scout, sitting cross-legged by his own cook-fire, partook of the meal in primitive fashion and Toiney made coffee for the "crowd," more than one Owl shared in the opinion once enunciated by Leon that eating in the woods--or in a woodsy hollow such as sheltered them now from the breeze that drove keenly across the marshes--was the "best part of the business." They modified that opinion later when the seven small fires, which had sputtered merrily under the cooking, were reinforced by logs and branches, and stimulated into a belt of vivacious camp-fires, each rearing high its topknot of crested flame, and throwing wonderful reflections through the stony hollow. "I always wanted to be a savage. To-night, I feel nearer to it than ever before," said Colin, listening with an ecstatic shiver to the wind as it chanted among the pines that formed their windbreak, capered round the hollow, flinging them a gust or two that made the camp-fires roar with laughter, and then, as if unwilling to disturb such a jolly party, rushed wildly on to take it out of the trees in the woods. "And now for the powwow, Mr. Scoutmaster!" he suggested, looking across the ring of fires at his tall brother and superior officer. "Hark! that's an owl hooting somewhere," broke in Coombsie. "It's the Grand Duke, I think--the big old horned owl! One doesn't hear him often at this time of year. He wants to be present at the Owl Powwow." "Ah, la! la! I'll t'ink he soun' lak' hongree ole wolf, me," murmured Toiney dreamily. But the distant hoot, the deep "Whoo-hoo-hoodoo hoo," or "Whoo-hoo-whoo-whah-hoo!" as some of the boys interpreted it, from the far recesses of the woods, added a final touch of mystic wildness to the sevenfold radiance of the firelit scene which was reflected in the sevenfold rapture of boyish hearts. And now the heads of human Owls were bent nearer to the golden flames as notebooks were drawn out containing rough pencil jottings, and scouts compared their observations of man, beast, bird, fish, or inanimate object, encountered in the woods, on the uplands or marshes, or upon the river during the past few days! Kenjo Red offered the most important contribution.