For years there had been a bitter feud between the sheep-farmer and a large family of gipsies of the name of King. The Kings went about the country in several small bands, and for generations the copse had been a favourite halting-place. But one spring the farmer lost some lambs, and was persuaded that the gipsies had been at the bottom of his loss. So he forbade them the use of the copse, and drove them out whenever he found they had dared to pitch their camp there. He was a hasty-tempered man, utterly fearless and quite unforgiving, so that a regular war had sprung up between himself and the Kings. Now he was persuaded that his enemies had sought the shelter of his copse, and he was off at once to attack them. He arrived on the scene to find the scouts turning their clothes. Instead of heathens, they now looked like Red Indians; for they had remembered the dry blankets in the haversacks, had taken them out, and were wrapped in them like a pair of braves. They saw nothing of the angry farmer till he burst upon them through a thicket of brambles within a dozen yards of the fire, so busy were they with turning their steaming clothes. The farmer's wrath rose higher at sight of the steam and smoke. A fire was the very thing he had defied the gipsies again and again to make on his land. He cracked his whip with a vicious snap, and rushed upon the scouts. 'I'll larn ye to make a fire on my land arter the many times I've a-warned ye,' he bellowed. The attack and the outcry were both so sudden that the scouts were taken by surprise. Dick was on the side of the rush. He saw that an onslaught was meant, though he knew not why, and grabbed at his staff. He forgot to keep hold of the blanket, and it slid to the ground, and left him defenceless. Down came the hissing thong, and wrapped itself right round him, a regular rib-binder. A yell of pain burst from the Wolf's lips; then he shut his teeth tight. The surprise had forced that first cry from him, and he did not intend to utter another. But the whip was already hissing through the air, and flight was the only thing possible; he made a spring clean across the heap of drying clothes, and fled. 'Tom, Tom,' panted a shrill voice behind, 'why will ye be so franzy? These be no gipsy lads. Look at their clothes a-dryin'!' The farmer's wife, well knowing her husband's impetuous temper, had followed up, and at sight of her Dick tucked himself away behind a wide-stemmed beech. The farmer looked down at the heap of steaming clothes, and was struck with the force of his wife's remark. 'Why, 'tis a sort o' uniform,' he muttered. 'O' course it's a uniform,' cried Chippy, who had stood his ground wrapped in his blanket and flourishing the tomahawk. 'It's the uniform o' Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts, an' what ye want to come 'ere for an' fetch my mate one acrost the ribs I'm blest if I know.' 'Bring my blanket here, Chippy,' called out Dick from his refuge. 'I dropped it in my hurry.'