“It wasn’t that kind of bravery I meant.” But Betty stuck to her point. “He did cry, I know. He was crying, too, when the boys were teasing him. But--well, I’d got into Witch’s Wood by mistake, you see,” she continued hurriedly. “I’ve explained to Drina, and she understands how. And that Robby-boy saw me climbing out. The other boys ran off because they were frightened of me--thinking I was the witch, I suppose,” went on Betty, “and never looked back. But he--well, he might have run, too, I suppose; but he didn’t. He was _brave_, like I said. He even forgot his cuts and things and stopped crying, and kept on telling me how spooky and frightening and all that the wood is. And he was shaking with fright himself all the time. I could see it. And _yet_ he went on.” By the emphasis of her utterance her convictions carried weight. The others nodded. “Drina said that,” agreed Mona. “She said he kept begging you not to go back and get spooked by the witch. Of course he’s sort of simple; and I expect his granny frightened him about it when he was little. She’s rather hateful. Perhaps he felt grateful to you for taking his part and wanted to pay you back. Didn’t he follow you home?” “Yes, poor darling,” said Betty in her most motherly tone--“and simply wouldn’t go, and wouldn’t go. And even when he _did_ go he kept saying that he’d do something for me some day. That’s all,” finished up Betty, as, cumbered with a writing pad and two sharp pencils, she turned lawnwards again. “It wasn’t an adventure, except, of course----” She stopped. Except the part of the afternoon when she had found the witch’s cottage. But she had decided to say nothing about that. Not to Mona and Rene; not even to Gerry; no, and not even in the weekly letter home. It was to be her own secret “with all the lovely bloom left on,” as Sybil had advised. Her experience in the wood, however, even though a part of it was known only to herself, came into active consideration at the next meeting of the senior Guides. “It just shows how useful it is for the juniors to understand tracking,” remarked Sybil. “A less sensible girl than Betty Carlyle might have got right into the heart of the wood. And perhaps, if the others had been telling her silly tales, she would have been more frightened than she was. There’s the cottage there, you see, I believe, still. That cottage which is supposed to contain a ghost.” “A cottage, Sybil?” Some of the seniors were not even aware of its existence. “Oh yes; quite a village story. And Rene, since she lives in the district, knows about it. No Guide believes in ghosts, naturally; but Betty is only such a raw recruit, and there is a cottage there. It’s out of bounds, of course, and lies right in the middle of the wood, I believe; and, our directions being to keep on this side of the broken paling, it’s out of bounds to us. But Betty knew nothing about that apparently, and went straight on.”