Mamie Sue got lost satisfactorily, but they forgot she had Belle’s basket with her, and when they found her some of the sandwiches were lost forever; but Mamie Sue was happy.  It was wonderful the way Pink tracked her shoes by the asafetida.  That is one of the reasons Scouts can’t smoke:  they must keep their sense of smell to track things with.  One of the Willis girls let Sam Hayes treat her for snake-bite by the rules of the book and never said a word; but then neither one of those Willis girls ever says anything except what they have to in classroom, and we like them immensely.  They are Tony’s first cousins and both are of the first families of Byrdsville.

But the sensation of the day was when Tony really fell and skinned his arm bad—­and what do you think he did?  He let Lovelace Peyton do all the things to it that he showed him how to do out of the book.  I never saw any human being in my life so happy as that little patched boy was, and it was marvelous how he understood just what Tony said and did it quicker than any of us could.  His slender little fingers worked like a grown-up’s.

“Oh, if his father, the doctor, could have just seen him,” said Miss Prissy in such a sweetly sympathetic voice that the Colonel blew his nose.  He was Roxanne’s father’s best friend, and had watched him cut up what was left of people on the battle-field in the Civil War.  He told us all about it.  I feel that we must take better care of Lovelace Peyton, but I am sorry for Roxanne to have two geniuses in her family to watch over.  It is such a responsibility and requires even more of my help.

The luncheon was a success.  Everybody ate everything, especially the great surgeon and Mamie Sue.  The dried sticks made the sparks on the leaves for Pink so much to his pride that Tony had to call him Rosebud to keep him cool, he said, and Sam’s kettle hung on the forked sticks the first time and boiled the best potatoes I ever tasted.

The boys signaled to the Colonel by the Scout language and he got the signals perfectly.  Then he told them war tales until time to start home.  He carried Lovelace Peyton, who had gone to sleep on the car, home in his arms, while Miss Prissy walked behind him with Roxanne.  I wonder why Miss Prissy doesn’t want to marry such a grand man as the Colonel is?

But a strange thing happened to Tony and me as we came by the side wall of our garden after we had taken the quiet Willises home and he was bringing me to my front gate.  It makes me nervous to think about it.  That secret about the steel, which is going to keep Roxanne from living in such poverty, weighs on my mind so that I never forget it.  It is right out there in the little shed and it is both dangerous and precious.

Suddenly Tony stopped me right opposite the shed and gave the Scout signal of warning.

“Tip-hist-toe,” he said under his breath.  “Did you see a shadow dodge behind Roxy’s cottage just a minute ago, Phyllis?” he asked, in a whisper that was enough to make almost any girl’s blood run cold in her body.