He was still in this happy state of mind when Cis chanced to remark that there were girl scouts as well as boy scouts. At once he was shocked, and wrathy, and quite disgusted. For it spoiled the whole boy scout idea for him if girls could be scouts. "Aw!" he cried, getting red with annoyance, "I don't believe it! How could _girls_ be _scouts_? If knights was scouts when they was little, well, anyhow girls never could be knights!" Cis did not know how it was, only that it was so; and she reminded him, with appeal in the violet-blue eyes, that she was not a particle to blame for it. "Girls can march," she said; "and they can be kind to cats and people a lot better than boys can." "One thing sure," Johnnie went on, firmly, "girls can't be cowboys." He determined to think twice before he became a scout since, apparently, the organization was not so exclusive as he had thought. "Oh, but girls can be cowgirls," went on Cis. "I've seen pictures of cowgirls _lots_ of times. They wear divided skirts." At that, Johnnie turned pale. "Well, I bet girls can't be pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other girls off horses with spears!" As Big Tom now came scuffing into the kitchen, nothing more could be said on the subject. But later on Johnnie again complained to Cis about the intrusion of girls into ranks where they could not fail to be both unwelcome and unsuited. "They don't belong," he urged, "and they ought t' keep out! They spoil _ev'ry_thing!" "Well, men do the same things," she argued. "Just to-day I saw a man running a _sewing machine_." "But he's got t' do it for some reason," Johnnie declared, "like I have t' make vi'lets--and cook." "But if all the boy scouts don't care because girls are girl scouts, why should _you_ care?" she wanted to know, hurt at his attitude toward her sex. "You know you don't belong yet. And if that young man thinks it's all right, why it must be, and he'll think you're funny if you scold about it." The next morning Johnnie had but one thought: The promised call of the leader. Naturally he did not take his usual trip to search for One-Eye and bring home a box. Instead he made elaborate preparations looking toward the arrival of his visitor. With One-Eye, somehow it had not mattered how the flat appeared. Hero though he was, style counted little with the cowboy, who dwelt in a cellar along with horses. And anyhow One-Eye thought the flat was all right "far's it goes." Those had been his very words.