"Yes, you _got to go_--to bed. To-morrow we'll go over to Administration Shack and have them take your picture. You can put on your new togs, dress up in your regular scout suit, all dolled up like a Christmas tree. You know they want pictures for _Boys' Life_, fellows that win awards and do stunts and all that. You go to bed now and when you get up in the morning put on your new scout duds. What the dickens are you afraid of? Nobody's going to kid you. And we'll go over and let Mr. Wainwright take a snapshot of you holding the pennant. _Alfred McCord of the Elk Patrol, Bridgeboro, New Jersey, holding the white pennant taken from a cabin where it was supposed to be guarded at Temple Camp, New York_. How does that sound? Go on in now, and remember when you get up in the morning put on your scout suit. That's your patrol leader's order. You're all right, Shorty, you're a little winner!" So this was the sequel of his triumph. "_Put on your scout suit._" A fine mess he had made of it. He knew Connie Bennett for a sober, sensible boy, who more than most patrol leaders had some notion of leadership and discipline. So Connie had known about the scout suit and had just not pushed him in the matter of wearing it. But now there was to be no more nonsense. Here was the penalty of heroism. What was he to do? It was clear from the way Connie spoke that the try for the Hiawatha Prize was quite out of the question; they did not regard him as a swimmer. What he would be expected to do, would be compelled to do, was put on his new scout suit and go to Administration Shack with his patrol and have his picture taken as the capturer of the white pennant. And all his fine plan of helping Danny to get out from the shadow of fearful peril would go for naught. This was Skinny's first experience in being a "really truly" hero. There was a vein of something running in the McCord family. I don't know whether you would call it a vein of the heroic or just a vein of recklessness and rebelliousness. Diffident and sensitive little Skinny had a touch of it. Perhaps it was this that bound him to Danny. At all events there was this about him. His temperament was one of sweet diffidence, of a smiling shyness which made him a subject both for banter and affection. At the other extreme in his strange make-up was the capacity for utter frenzy. I suppose you might say that he was highly strung and afraid to show it until something tipped the scales of his delicate nature. There was no such thing as authority then.