Don flashed a smile, and then the smile was gone.  So was the thrill of his triumph.  It was hard, this thinking you had weathered a storm and then finding that you hadn’t.

At supper Barbara and his father asked him about the game.  He told of his success, but with none of the flash and fire of a conqueror.  Barbara caught his glance and smiled at him understandingly.

“More trouble with Tim?” she asked.

“N—­no; not exactly trouble.  You see—­” And then he related what had happened last night, and the great hopes that had come, and how Tim had acted today.

“Don,” said Mr. Strong, “do you remember when you learned to pitch an outcurve?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You used to pitch to Alex Davidson out there in the yard.  One day you came running into the shop and shouted that you had it, and I went out to watch, and you couldn’t throw the curve again.”

“But I got it again next day,” Don said quickly.

“And now you can pitch it any time you want to,” said his father.

Don frowned.  This was too deep!  He saw Barbara smiling and nodding as much as to say, “Think it out, Don.”  Suddenly he straightened.

“You mean that because Tim played fair that once—­”

“Just the way you pitched your curve that once,” said his father.

Don sighed.  It was funny how his troubles dropped away when he brought them home.

Monday there was another patrol meeting.  Tim attended, but an imp of perverseness seemed to rule him.  It was the first time he had seen the patrol as a group since Friday night.  At first he looked hot and uncomfortable.  After a while he began to scrape his feet and drum on the table.  He seemed anxious to have it understood that, regardless of what had happened, no one need think that he was going to be bossed.

“Oh, keep your feet still!” Alex Davidson said at last.

Tim rolled a page of his pad into a ball and shot it across the table.  The missile struck Ritter on the nose.  Tim giggled, and made another ball, and shot this one at Andy Ford.

“Cut it out!” Andy said good-naturedly.  “You’ll get papers all over the floor.”

Tim grinned, and rolled another cartridge.  Don caught his bold, sidelong glance—­a glance that seemed to say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Others around the table caught that look, too.  Don’s face grew hot.  In an effort to keep the scouts from paying attention to Tim, he talked rapidly about the first aid contest, now two weeks off.  The Eagles and the Foxes, he said, were working hard, and the Wolves would have to give more time to practice.

“We’re behind,” Don finished, “and we must catch up.”

Somehow, what he said sounded strained, and forced, and lame.  Every scout felt it—­even Tim.  Andy Ford’s eyes snapped.  He didn’t look good-humored now.

“We’re not getting any better on our stretcher work,” he said bluntly.  “We need practice there.”