“Hiram—–­supper!” called a shrill voice from The doorway.

“Coming, mother!  Boys, it does one good to meet the right sort of fellows once in a while.  Enjoy the woods in your own way, won’t you?”

“That man is right.  As he says, it does one good to meet the right sort of fellow once in a while—–­and he’s the right sort,” declared Darry fervently, as the chums trudged back to their outfit.

Camp was pitched, and supper was soon under way.  When it was all over, and everything cleaned up, Dick looked about him at his friends.

“I wonder if any of you fellows feel the way I do to-night?” he asked.  “We still have our white clothes, and Fenton is something of a town.  We’ve been in the woods for so long that I feel just like dressing up in white and taking a stroll into town.”

Tom, Dan and Dave voted in the affirmative.  Greg and Hazy averred that they had walked enough for one day.  So the four boys donned white, while the other two remained behind in flannel and khaki.

Dick and the three companions of his stroll when almost in Fenton, were passing through a street of pretty little cottages when a tiny figure, clad in white ran out of the darkness, bumping into Dick’s knees.

“Hello, little one!” cried Prescott, cheerily, picking up a wee little girl of four and holding her at arm’s length.  “Hello, you’re crying.  What’s the matter?  Lost mother?”

“No; lost papa,” wailed the little one.

“Perhaps we can find him for you,” offered Tom, readily.

“Mollie!  Mollie, where are you?” came a woman’s voice out of the darkness.

“Is this your little girl, madam?” called Prescott.  “We’ll bring her to you.”

In another moment the woman, young and pretty, also dressed in white, had reached the child and was holding her by the hand.

“Oh, you little runaway!” chided Dave, smilingly, as he bent over, wagging a finger at the child.

“No; it’s papa that runned away,” gasped the little one, in a frightened voice.  “He ran away to a saloon.”

“Oh, said Dave, straightening up and feeling embarrassed as he caught the humiliated look in the young woman’s face.

“Pa—–­runned away and made mama cry,” the little one babbled on, half sobbing.  “I must go after him and bring him home.”

“Be quiet, Mollie,” commanded her mother.

“Papa comes, if he knows you want him,” insisted the child.  “I tell him you want him—–­that you cry because he went to saloon.”

For an instant the mother caught her breath.  Then she began to cry bitterly.  Dick and his friends wished themselves almost anywhere else.

“It’s too bad when the children get old enough to realize it,” said the woman, brokenly.  Then, of a sudden, she eyed Dick and his chums bravely.

“Boys,” she said, “I hope the time will never come when you’ll feel that it’s manly to go out with the crowd and spend the evening in drinking.”