Tom had heard people say that packing a trunk was a work of time, and had congratulated himself on the quickness and ease with which that particular trunk was packed; but when he encountered the almost human obstinacy with which that lid resisted his utmost efforts, he acknowledged that it wasn't "such a cinch after all." After one more ineffectual effort to close it, he again eyed it disgustedly. "I can't do a blamed thing with it," he growled, and then catching the sound of voices in Dick's room overhead, he shouted: "Come on in here, fellows, and help me get this apology for a trunk shut." When Dick and Bert reached him, Tom was stretched almost full length on the trunk and raining disgusted blows in the region of the lock. He looked so absurdly funny that the fellows executed a war dance of delight and roared with laughter, and then proceeded to drag Tom bodily off the trunk. Landing him with scant ceremony on the floor, they proceeded to show the discomfited Freshman that a trunk lid with any spirit could not consent to close over an indiscriminate mixture of underwear, pajamas, suits of clothes, collar boxes, and shoe and military brushes--most of these latter standing upright on end. With the brushes lying flat, boxes stowed away in corners, and clothing smoothly folded, the balky trunk lid closed, as Tom, grinning sheepishly, declared, "meeker a hundred times than Moses." This disposed of, and dressed and ready at last, their thoughts and conversation turned with one accord to the delightful fact that Mr. Hollis was to send the old "Red Scout" to take them to his home. The very mention of the name "Red Scout" was sufficient to set all three tongues going at once, as, during the half-hour before they could expect the car, they recalled incidents of that most glorious and exciting summer at the camp, when the "Red Scout" had been their unending source of delight. "Do you remember," said Tom, "the first time we went out in her, when we were so crazy with the delight of it that we forgot everything else, and gave her the speed limit, and came near to having a once-for-all smash-up?" They certainly did. "And," said Dick, "the day we gave poor old Biddy Harrigan her first 'artymobile' ride. Didn't she look funny when the wind spread out that gorgeous red feather?" They all laughed heartily at this recollection, but their faces grew grave again as they recalled the time when, the brake failing to work, they rushed over the bridge with only a few inches between them and disaster. "That certainly was a close call," said Bert, "but not so close as the race we had with the locomotive. I sure did think then that our time had come."