But there Roy Blakeley was mistaken. Looks did hurt Skinny; they were like blows to his sensitive nature. And now nothing but black looks greeted him. Something was wrong evidently; something very serious. For there was no criticism, no half-humorous slurs and sallies. The members of his patrol passed him things at the table, and once or twice asked such service from him, and it was pitiful to see him respond with such alacrity. But no one talked with him--with this boy who had "lifted" the white pennant and won the Hiawatha canoe. He thought it must be because he had not donned his scout suit. After breakfast he went off by himself and wandered up into the woods. He often did that to get away from the bantering scouts, but this morning he was beset with forebodings. Something was wrong, everything was wrong. The atmosphere he had felt at breakfast pervaded the whole quiet woodland. Something played on the strings of his delicate nature, causing them to vibrate with strange apprehension. He felt nervous, ill at ease; he knew something was going to happen. Up in the woods was an oriole's nest which he had been watching, for he intended to take it when it was deserted and claim the Audubon Prize. He sat down on a stump and looked at it now, hanging up in the tree like a dried rag. He had no more interest in the prizes. He had won the hardest one of all to win, and it had brought him nothing but trouble. After a little while, he wandered back to camp again, haunted by that strange sense of foreboding. A lonesome, forlorn little waif he seemed; hopelessly an odd number; not one single sign of the scout about him. Just a little codger from Corkscrew Alley. Passing a few yards from Administration Shack he saw the usual coming and going by which he knew that the office was open. There were the usual loiterers on the porch, scoutmasters hurrying in and out, new boys glancing around as they emerged and pausing to read the notices. Suddenly a rather tall boy with his scout hat tilted at a rakish angle came out, folding a paper. That was the set of rules that they gave to every new arrival. He also held a red card and Skinny knew what that meant, It meant he was registered as a scout without troop affiliation and was assigned to the big dormitory which, with several group cabins, formed what was called Pioneer Row.* So Danny had come through the routine of enrollment without trouble. Skinny was even proud of him, he looked so natty, so self-assured, so different from those bewildered looking new arrivals who glanced bashfully about seeming not to know what to do with themselves. There was one whole patrol of them and they seemed as helpless as a pack of sheep. * A pioneer scout is one without a troop or patrol. See page 24 of the Scout Handbook.