“Hello, kid!  Where are you?  Did you break loose from Grandpa?  I had some beatin’ to do, but I done it and made a get-a-way good ’nough for the movies.  Don’t ask me where I’m at, for it’s a secret.  But, say, Kid.  Oh, you scout badge!  It’s a miracle worker—­ and better than real coin.  I wouldn’t give it up for a Liberty Bond.  So long! can’t tell you just now what my private post-office box is but will later.  My folks are cross-eyed looking for me, but all they ever wanted was my pay-envelope, so I should worry about them.  Give my love to yourself and if you’re not out of jail yet for the love of molasses, don’t be a simp!  Get busy!” It was signed “T.  W.”

And that was all; so like Tessie.  Rose sighed audibly, then read her mother’s letter and while this was really interesting to the daughter it now seemed tame in comparison, and it really was the letter from Tessie that gave her blue eyes the preoccupied look all that afternoon.

So the lost and found scout badge was serving the runaway girl as a passport.  Perhaps she was using it for unworthy purposes, and it was unlawful to wear a scout badge without authority.  The offence was punishable by law.  Rose thoroughly understood all this, but how could she reach Tessie to warn her!  Even a dismissed scout must return her badge and buttons to the organization, and there was Tessie Wartliz forging her way on the strength of that special merit badge!

Such thoughts as these riveted the attention of Rose, when Molly Cosgrove, passing through the room, whispered she could go with the lieutenant to the Flosston meeting that night.

“All right.  Thank you!” replied Rose to the invitation, but, somehow, she dreaded its acceptance.

CHAPTER IX

A TRIBUTE OF ROSES

The little meeting room over the post-office in Flosston had served as headquarters for True Tred Troop—­and tonight Margaret Slowden was to receive her new badge, to take the place of that much-prized little gilt wreath with its clover leaf center, her merit badge lost some weeks before.

“Hurry along!” called Grace, who was impatiently waiting for Cleo and Madaline, both of whom seemed to enjoy lagging while Grace wanted to be early rather than late.  “Don’t you know we have to take our tests and Captain Clark ordered us to be at headquarters at seven-fifteen sharp?”

“All right,” responded Cleo, “but here come Mable Blake and Mildred Clark.  We can all be together if you just wait half a second for us, Grace.”

“I don’t mind seconds, but I hate hours!” retorted Grace.  “I don’t want to be a moment late and give anyone a chance to think up hard questions for my tests.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry,” Cleo assured her.  “I know you can beat us all at knots.”

That brought back to Grace her attempt to make a “clove-hitch” and a “running bowline carry out her noble deed” and she flashed a significant look at Madaline, who shared a part of her secret.