"Why, how did you know about that explosion that Lovelace Peyton almost blew us all into pieces with?" I asked with astonishment. "Roxy sniffled it all to me this morning when she was pouring out her trouble because you hadn't been over to cheer up the bugger to-day. She told Pink and Sam and Belle and the Sponge and me all about it, and I can tell you we thrilled some. By acclamation we have elected you to lead the Kitten Patrol of the Campfire that we Scouts have been talking about helping you bubbles set up for a month. We have already decided to put you in command of the girls, because we can then expect some real good stand-bying in case of Scout trouble or excitement. We meet in the Crotch to-night to decide all the details." Tony's eyes were shining and flaring and his red hair standing straight up in his friendly excitement. Honors are mighty apt to shock a person when they come unexpectedly, and I don't believe expected ones bring half the joy that the surprise ones do. I feel humble to think that in less than a year the boys and girls of a place like Byrdsville have found me worthy of the leadership of such a sacred thing as a Girl Scout company will be. For, of course, of all the things that boys ever were in the world, nothing is so wonderful as being Scouts like so many hundreds and hundreds have been made all over the United States in the last three years. And when the Boy Scouts do all the noble things in the noble way they do, what will be expected of the girls, now that they are being let Into the organization? The boys have to pledge themselves to be clean and honorable and kind and just and charitable and brave; so, of course, the girls will have to be all that and still more. Could I? I sat still and thought for a long time, and Tony, with his knowledge of girls, let me do it. Could I? Could a girl with a father that might have done the thing that my father is suspected of having done to a fellow-man, promise to be all or any of those things? How would she know that some little thing in her, like her father, wouldn't come up, just at the time when she was being depended on, to make her fail? This distinction was not for me! "Tony," I said quietly, and I didn't let the tremble in my heart get into my voice at all, "whatever happens to me in my life I can't ever forget that you offered to make me the leader of the Campfire, but--I can't be it. Please don't make me say any more about it. I can't." Tony understood. "Not a word more on the subject, Bubble; but I do want to say that you are one fine--" But just here we were interrupted by Mamie Sue coming lumbering across the wall from the Byrd cottage, for Tony and I had been sitting on a bench out under the blooming peach-tree arbor. She sat pretty close to me and gave me a nice, good, fat-armed hug as she offered me a paper bag.