“Well, to make a long story short, fellows, he issued a challenge to us. ‘You bring your team up to Placid,’ he said, ‘and play us. We’ve got plenty of room and can look after you overnight and give you some real food.’ I thanked him and told him I’d talk it over when I got back and let him know. We looked up trains and found that we could leave here early in the morning, on that seven-forty-five express, and get to Mount Placid at about eleven. We’d have to stay over there until the next forenoon at about ten-thirty. The one objection is just this. If we are to try conclusions with those folks we’ve got to make up a team of our best players, councillors included--the Placid team has four councillors on it, he tells me--and then get in a week or so of practice. If we do that it’s going to interfere badly with our ‘long hike,’ which is set for September fourth. If we postpone the hike we interfere with Visitors’ Day, the ninth. And we don’t want to do that, because that date is set down in the camp-booklet and parents and friends are doubtless arranging to come then, and if we change the date there’ll be a lot of confusion. Now, I’ve been wondering how it would do if we all went to Mount Placid, the whole kit and kaboodle of us----” Interruption of enthusiastic cheering. “--saw the game and then hiked back from there. We’d have seventy-odd miles to do and could take four days to do it in if necessary. It wouldn’t be any trick to ship our things to Mount Placid by express a day or two ahead. There’d be the matter of railway fares, of course, and perhaps some of you wouldn’t feel like paying out so much money.” Mr. Langham paused questioningly. “Nobody’d mind, sir,” someone shouted. “We’ll all go, Chief!” “Well, that would be the only drawback, I guess. We’ll think it over and talk about it again to-morrow night.” “Beg pardon, sir,” said Steve Brown, “but wouldn’t it be better to settle it now? If we’re going to play those fellows we’ll need a lot of practice. We ought to make up our team to-morrow and get busy. Every day would count, I guess.” “That’s right, Chief,” confirmed Mr. Gifford. “Why not find out now whether they are any of the fellows who would rather not go to the expense of the trip?” “Then you like the idea, fellows?” “Yes, sir!” “You bet we do!” “We’ll trim those chaps, sir!” “All right, then. Now, are there any of you who can’t afford the trip, or who don’t want to spend that much money? One way and another, it will probably cost each of you nearly four dollars.” Silence prevailed. There were whispers finally, but no dissenting voice until Gerald Jones piped up with: “I haven’t got that much, sir, and my folks are away from home and I don’t know where to get at them, sir, but if you’d lend me about two dollars, sir----”