Thus on Christmas Eve did Godey drop off the fence on the side of the boy scouts, whose code of chivalry is only an elaboration of the first Christmas message: "Peace on earth, good will to men!" CHAPTER XIV A RIVER DUEL With the enlisting of Godey and his gang, who mainly represented whatever tendency there might be to youthful rowdyism in the demure little town, the whole vicinity of the tidal river was won over to the Boy Scout Movement. The new recruits, those who gave in their names on Christmas Eve as would-be scouts, together with one or two later additions, were formed into a second patrol, of which Godey became patrol leader, called the Foxes in honor of the commonest animal of moderate size to be found in their woods; the red fox being prevalent, too, among the white sand-hills, the Sugarloaf Dunes, that formed part of the wild coast near the mouth of the Exmouth River. Those milky dunes, formed of pale sand which was popularly supposed to have drifted down from New Hampshire to the sea and to have been swept in here by the winds and tides of ages, were a sort of El Dorado to the boys of the little town far up the tidal river. Pirates' treasure was confidently believed to be buried there; each lad who made the trip by steam launch, motor-boat, or plodding rowboat downstream for several miles to the dunes, was certain that if he could only hit upon the right sand-hill and dig deep enough, he would find its whiteness richly inlaid with gold. Other wild tales centred about the romantic dunes, of smugglers and their lawless doings in earlier and less law-enforcing times than the beginning of the twentieth century. It was even hinted that within recent years there had been unlawful importations at rare intervals of certain dutiable commodities, such as intoxicating liquors and cigars, by means of a rowboat that would lie up during the day in the sandy pocket of some little creek that intersected the marshes near the white dunes, stealing forth at night into the bay to meet a mysterious vessel. The latest report connected the name of Dave Baldwin, the _vaurien_, as Toiney contemptuously called him, with this species of petty smuggling. Wiseacres, such as Captain Andy and the doctor, were of opinion that no such lawless work could be carried on to-day under the Argus eyes of revenue officers. But it was known that Dave spent most of his vagrant days hanging round the milky dunes and their neighborhood, sleeping on winter nights in some empty camp or deserted summer cottage, and occasionally varying the pale monotony of the dunes by sojourning in the woods at the opposite side of the river. The possibility of running across him during a visit to the Sugarloaf Sand-Hills, or of seeing his "pocketed" boat reposing in some little creek where the mottled mother-seal secreted her solitary young one, had little interest for the boy scouts.