Tom led the way to the administration shack where a young man in scout attire asked Wilfred questions, writing the answers pertaining to age, parentage, residence, etc., in the blank spaces on an index card. “Your folks are at this address all summer?” “What?” “They don’t go away?” “No, sir, they stay in Bridgeboro.” “You know how to swim?” “Yes, I do.” “You want the bills or shall we send them to your folks.” Wilfred seemed bewildered. It was an evidence of how little he knew about scouting and the modern camp life of boys, that it had never occurred to him (nor to his mother either) that camps are often well organized and well managed communities, where bills are rendered and board paid. The boy flushed. “That’s all right,” said Tom quickly; “I’ll see you later about that.” “Yes, sir,” said the scout clerk pleasantly. “What do you mean you’ll see him about it later,” Wilfred asked rather peremptorily, as they went out. “I didn’t——” “Yes, you did,” laughed Tom. “You heard me say you were my guest, didn’t you? That was the idea all along; your mother understands it, anyway. Now look here, Billy; I’ve got a sort of a scholarship—understand? Never you mind about my relations with this camp. I can bring a fellow here and let him stay all summer without either you or I being under obligations to anybody—see? So don’t start in trying to tell me how to run my job. All _you_ have to do is to make good so I’ll be glad I brought you up here. All _you_ have to do is to be a good scout and you can do that by keeping the promise you made back home and doing the things your promise doesn’t prevent you from doing—there are a whole lot of things, believe _me_; look in the handbook. “Now you bang around here a little while till I let the resident trustees and Uncle Jeb know I’m here, and then I’ll take you up to the Ravens’ cabin; by that time they’ll be through eating—I hope. Make yourself at home—that’s where we have camp-fire, up there.” He hurried away leaving Wilfred standing alone in the gathering twilight. The boy strolled down to the lakeside and looked out upon the dark water. With all its somber beauty the scene was not one to cheer a new boy. Throughout the day that sequestered expanse of water was gay with life and the dense, wooded heights around it echoed to the sounds of voices of scouts bathing, fishing, rowing. One could dive from the springboard on the gently sloping camp shore and hear another diver splash into the placid water from the solemn depths of the precipitous forest opposite. You could make the ghost dive any time, as they said. But now, with the enlivening carnival withdrawn and the community adjourned to the more substantial delights of the “grub shack,” the lake and its surrounding hills imparted a feeling of loneliness to the solitary watcher, and made him uncertain—and homesick.