With face a little flushed, the tenderfoot turned and took a few steps toward the head of the line. Just what he expected from his hero he could not have said. Perhaps he vaguely felt that Phelps would step forward and shake his hand, or at least greet the new-comer with a welcoming smile. But Ranny did not stir from his place. Stiff and straight he stood there, and as Tompkins paused hesitatingly, the shapely lips curled unpleasantly at the corners, and the gray eyes ranged slowly over him from head to heel and back again in a manner that sent the blood surging into the boy's face and brought his lids down abruptly to hide the swift surprise and hurt that flashed into his brown eyes. "At the end of the line, tenderfoot," ordered Phelps, curtly. "And don't be all day about it!" The latter words were in an undertone which could not well have reached beyond the ears of the lad for whom they were intended. The chill unfriendliness of the whole remark affected Dale Tompkins much like a douche of ice-cold water. With head suddenly erect and lips compressed, he swiftly took his place at the end of the patrol, next to a plump, red-cheeked boy named Vedder, who, save for a brief, swiftly averted side-glance, gave no further evidence of welcome than had the leader. In the brief pause that followed while the assistant patrol-leaders procured staves and distributed them, the tenderfoot tried to solve the problem. What was the matter? he asked himself in troubled bewilderment. What had he done that was wrong? Naturally a cheerful, friendly soul, he could not imagine himself, were their positions reversed, treating a stranger with such chill formality. But perhaps he had expected too much. After all, there was no reason why the fellows should break ranks in the middle of meeting and fall on his neck, when not more than a third of the crowd had ever spoken to him before. For a moment he had forgotten that while he had long ardently admired Ranny Phelps from afar, the blond chap had probably never even heard his name before. It would be different when they came to know each other. Cheered by this thought, Dale braced up and flung himself with characteristic ardor into acquiring the various movements of the drill. These were not difficult, but somehow, try as he might, he could not seem to satisfy his leader. At every slightest error, or even hesitation, Ranny flew out at him with a caustic sharpness that swiftly got the tenderfoot's nerve and made him blunder more than ever. Yet still he found excuses for the fellow he so admired. "You can't blame anybody for not liking to coach up a greenhorn when all the rest of them do it so well," he said to himself after the meeting was over and the boys were leaving the hall. "It's the best patrol of the three, all right, and I'll just have to get busy and learn the drill, so's not to make a single mistake." He sighed a little. "I wish--" "What's the matter, Dale? Seems to me you're looking mighty serious."