"Well! I wouldn't try to crack the nut, solve the riddle, of what's behind that queer-shaped crevice, Stud," he said. "It's black--black as a tinker's pot in there. You wouldn't know what you were heading into!" "Aw, gammon! I wouldn't be afraid to tackle that fissure--find out what's back of it--although I'm not a Tin Scout--ha! ha!--out with the whole toyshop to-day; all my monkey trappings," exploded a rough voice suddenly from among a trio of clownish-looking boys who hovered, vulture-like, on the edge of the picnic ground, transfixing with a sanguinary eye the Baby, whose soft heart was of blueberry "duff." "An' I tell you what's more, if I were to climb up an' in there, I'd trust to my own 'bean' and a few matches, 'thout any gimcracks," craked the boastful voice further, the special gewgaw on which the braggart fixed his eye, at the moment, being the little Baldwin safety lamp, four inches high, which Stud was just lighting, attached to the front of his olive-green scout hat. "Tr-rust to your own 'bean'--your own head--an' what's inside it! Well! I'll admit it's fiery enough," flouted the Henkyl Hunter, piqued even in the presence of girls into giving back tit for tat. "But you're carrying too many eggs in one basket, let me tell you, and you're likely enough to take a leap in the dark an' smash 'em all." "Ha! Am I now," snarled the other, resenting the implication that his brick-red head was a brash basket into which to pack all his chances of safety, such as were not anchored to the poor stay of a few fickle matches. "Am I now-ow?" he chortled, very red in the face--and tongue-tied--as he shadowed the picnic party through the cave. At his wits' end for a verbal retort, he presently proceeded, after the manner of his kind, to throw a stone in his own garden. "See here! you kids, if you'll let me stand on your shoulders, you two, I'll give those Tin Scouts an eye-opener," he said, retaliating after a manner to hurt only himself, as he addressed the two younger boys with him, his eyes cast up to that mysterious fissure, outlined, a rocky tripod, above his head, of which the Scoutmaster had remarked that all behind it was black as a tinker's pot. Into that ebony pot, forthwith, climbing by the willing step-ladder of his companions' bodies, Ruddy, the rashling, presently thrust his head--that flaming head with all his chances in it! His body followed, finding entrance through the crevice amidships, so to speak, where it broadened out to some three feet across from the tapering point of the lowest corner. "Oh-h! look at him. Do look at him!" panted the girls, held up in their search for pale-faced cave flowers and strange fungi by the "derring-do" act. "Gracious! some of you scouts ought to stop him--re-al-ly ought to stop him," shrilled Jessie, catching her breath at the shock of darkness visible in the yawning fissure's mouth, where the brief flicker of a match now chased bogies.