He stepped across the circle and put his arm around the younger boy. "What are you doing here--this time of night?" he whispered. "I was hunting for my compass. They were making fun of me so I came back alone to hunt for it. Did they--Danny, did they let you out?" "_Shh_--ut up. No, I gave them the slip. I hiked it all the way here to see you. I'm on my way--now don't get excited and don't talk loud." "You mean--you--mean you _escaped_?" "Yep, and you're going to pay me back for licking Dick Kinney. Don't you know how you said you would?" "Yes, only I'm scared." "I'm the one to be scared--only I'm not." "Yes, but Danny," Skinny pleaded as he nervously gripped the other's shirt with both hands, "listen--Danny--" (he almost pulled the shirt up over the other's belt in his nervous excitement) "you, you stepped right in the ashes and now you'll make tracks." "You little devil of a boy scout," laughed the taller boy in a good-humored whisper. "Come on, where can we go and talk? This blamed place sleeps with its ears open." "Are they--Danny, are they coming after you?" Skinny asked in panic fright. "Are they coming here, Danny?" "Not to-night, kid." "But to-morrow--Danny?" "I'll be gone before to-morrow." "Yes, but they'll get you, Danny," Skinny said, jerking in a panic of fear at the shirt he still gripped. "I know how you licked Dick Kinney, but----" "Come ahead, where can we talk, kid?" "Maybe they don't know you've got a brother here, hey?" Skinny said hopefully. "Naah, they don't know that. They're a bunch of yimps." "Yes, but--all right, come on up this way." You would never have supposed that the diffident, bashfully smiling little fellow who had blushed scarlet at the rumpus he had caused at camp-fire was the same as he who now hurried silently up the wooded hillside away from the main body of camp, expressing nervous excitement in every look and move. Little did his scout comrades know of the fire that burned in the soul of this forlorn little scout whose quaint discomfiture they so much enjoyed. "Come on up here," he breathed excitedly, looking fearfully back toward the area of peril. "Now I'm glad they jollied me--you bet; I'm glad I went back there. Come on up this way and don't speak when we go past that cabin. There's a scout in there that's got the one eye cup. That's for sleeping with one eye open. It don't mean that exactly--shhh. He's the one makes fun of me, because I didn't have a scout suit----" "He'd sleep with both eyes black if I was here," said Danny. This was quite a boast, but I dare say he would have made it good. "Hsh, we have to be good and scared of that feller."