"Are some of those things hard?" Warde asked me. "I mean those tests," he said. "They're not so hard as these flapjacks," Hunt Manners told him. "Oh, is that so?" I said. "I notice hard things don't trouble _you_ much." He said, "The pleasure is mine; flop me another one, will you?" "They call these things stove-lids up at Temple Camp," Will Dawson told Warde. I said, "Yes, and you're a pretty good stove-lifter, all right." "I bet you have a lot of fun, you fellows," Warde said, kind of laughing. "Sure," I told him, "we have so much fun that even the weeping willows die crying from laughing so hard. If you had this patrol to look after your hair would soon turn white. My teeth are white already from worrying. We remind ourselves of balloons instead of foxes. We should worry. You're in for it now and you can't help yourself. The worst is yet to come. Don't you care, smile and look pleasant. You might have done worse, you might have got into the Raven Patrol." "What's the matter with the Raven Patrol?" the kid shouted, trying to eat a flapjack and shout at the same time. "One good thing about them," Westy said. "What's that?" Hunt asked him. "That's that they're not here," Westy said. "The Raven Patrol will be--it'll be flourishing when the Silver Foxes are all busted up!" the kid shouted. "Sure," I told him, "but not until then. Wait till you see that bunch," I said to Warde. "They're dead and they don't know it." "They died laughing at P. Harris," Westy said. "You think you're so smart, don't you?" the kid shouted. "One of our patrol is camp librarian at Temple Camp." "They're all highbrows," Westy said. "They think Scott's Emulsion is by Sir Walter Scott. They're all busy studying monotony in that patrol." "Do you mean to tell me that--that--that Ravens----" the kid began yelling. "You see how ravens can go up in the air," I said to Warde. "Now you know why they're called the Raving Ravens. They're all right as long as you don't feed them meat. They think you can do good turns riding on a merry-go-round." "What's the second-hand scout?" Warde wanted to know. "Good night," I said, "don't make me laugh. You mean a second-_class_ scout. Of course there are slightly used scouts, 1915 models, but you wouldn't call them exactly second-hand. First comes the tenderfoot, then the second-class scout and then the first-class scout--and above that are the Silver Foxes in a class by themselves." "That's because they can't get anybody to go in the class with them," Pee-wee shouted. Westy said, "Well, here we are talking about classes in vacation time. In a minute we'll be talking about arithmetic. Let's talk of something pleasant while we're eating." I said, "Sure, let's talk of something pleasant. I didn't start talking about the Ravens. The question is how are we going to follow a bee-line across the river? I wish the equator went across the river and we could walk on that." CHAPTER XII BLACK OR WHITE