Silence, broken only by ringing snatches of laughter, reigned temporarily over the dunes. Then once again it blossomed into song:-- "Hurrah for the brave, hurrah for the good, Hurrah for the pure in heart! At duty's call, with a smile for all, The Scout will do his part!" And the soft purr of the low tide, with the breeze skipping among pallid dunes that looked like capped haystacks in the darkness, flung back the cheer for the "Scouts of the U.S.A." "_Aghrr-r!_" snarled the testy dog-fox, his distant petulant growl much resembling that of Leon's terrier, who, unfortunately, was not present upon the dunes to-night. Blink had already added the word "Scout" to his limited human vocabulary, but the wild fox had no such linguistic powers. The foreign music upon the lonely dunes was irritating, alarming to him. It seemed to have something of the same effect upon his brother-prowler, upon the man who skulked among the sand-hills within hearing of the song: at any rate, the semi-articulate sound which from time to time he uttered, deepened into an unmixed groan that escaped from his lips again later when the clear notes of a bugle rang over the Sugarloaf Dunes, warning the scouts by the "first call" that fun was at an end for to-night, and sleep would be next upon the programme. Then when lights were out, came the sweet sound of "Taps," the wind-up of the first day in camp, the expert bugler being Corporal Chase. For the Exmouth doctor had kept his word: Leon had been given the "bugle" literally and figuratively since he enlisted as a scout, symbol of the challenge to all the energy in him to advance along new lines, instead of the "foghorn" reproofs and warnings that had been showered on him prior to his scouting days. Then, at last, stillness reigned, indeed, upon the moonlit dunes. The bark of the dog-fox melted into distance, becoming indistinguishable from the voice of the returning tide. The man-prowler among the sand-hills slipped away to some lair as lonely as the fox's. And Toiney, with Scout Nixon Warren wrapped in his camper's blanket beside him, slept out upon the white sands "wit' de littal star on top o' them!" CHAPTER XVI THE PUP-SEAL'S CREEK The music of "Taps" was eclipsed by the blither music of "Reveille," the morning blast blown by Leon standing in front of the white tents, the sands beneath his feet jeweled by the early sunshine, the blue ribbon attached to his bugle flirting with the breeze that capered among the plumy hillocks. The tide which had ebbed and flowed again since midnight--when the last excited scout had fallen asleep lulled by its full purr--broke high upon the beach, where the white sands gleamed through its translucent flood like milk in a crystal vase. Far away in dim distance, higher up the tidal river upon its other side, beyond the plains of water, the woods which enclosed Varney's Paintpot and the cave called the Bear's Den smiled remotely through a pearly veil of haze.