“Why, we aren’t doing any harm,” protested Rob Blake heatedly.

“I don’t care what you are doing or not doing,” retorted the other, “this is my father’s orchard and you’ll keep off it.  You and the rest of you tin soldiers.  I don’t want you stealing our peaches.”

“I guess you are sore, Jack Curtiss, because you couldn’t get a boy scout patrol of your own!  I guess that’s what the trouble is,” remarked Tubby Hopkins softly, but with a meaning look at the big lad.

“You impudent little whipper-snapper,” roared Jack Curtiss, “if you weren’t such a shrimp I’d lick you for that remark, but you’re all beneath my notice.  All I want to say to you is keep away from my orchard or I’ll give you a trimming.”

“Suppose you start now,” said Rob Blake quietly, “if you are so anxious to show what a scrapper you are.”

“Bah, I don’t want anything to do with you, I tell you,” rejoined Curtiss, turning away, with a rather troubled expression, however, for while he was a bully the big lad had no particular liking for a fight unless he was pretty sure that all the advantage lay on his side.

“It was too bad you didn’t get that patrol of yours, Jack,” called the irrepressible Tubby after him as the big youth strode off across the orchard toward the old-fashioned farmhouse in which he lived with his father, a well-to-do farmer.  “Never mind; better luck next time,” he went on, “or maybe we’ll let you into ours some time.”

“You just wait,” roared the retreating bully, shaking his fist at the lads, “I’ll make trouble for you yet.”

“Well,” remarked Rob Blake, as Jack Curtiss strode off, “I guess the run is over for to-day.  Too bad we should have come out on his land.  Of course he feels sore at us; and I shouldn’t wonder but he will really try to do us some mischief if he gets a chance.”

As it was growing late and there did not seem much chance of restarting the “Follow the Trail” practice, that day at least, the boys strolled back through the woodland and soon emerged on a country road about three miles from Hampton Inlet, where they lived.

While they are covering the distance perhaps the reader may care to know something about the cause of the enmity which Jack Curtiss entertained toward the lads of the Eagle Patrol.  It had its beginning several months before when the boys of Hampton Inlet began to discuss forming a patrol of boy scouts.  They all attended the Hampton Academy, and naturally the news that Rob Blake was going to try to organize a patrol soon spread through the school.

Jack Curtiss, as soon as he heard what Rob—­whom he considered more or less a rival of his—­intended doing he also forwarded an application to the headquarters of the organization in New York.  As Rob Blake’s had been received first, however, and on investigation he was shown to be a likely lad for the leader, he was appointed and at once began the enrollment of his scouts.