CALLED TO ACTIVE SERVICE "What's this call for a special meeting of the Boy Scouts, Jack?" asked Pete Stubbs, a First Class Boy Scout, of his chum Jack Danby, who had just been appointed Assistant Patrol Leader of the Crow Patrol of the Thirty-ninth Troop. "Well, I guess it isn't a secret any more," said Jack. He and Pete Stubbs worked in the same place, and they were great... more...

CHAPTER I SERIOUS NEWS "As long as I can't be at home," said Harry Fleming, "I'd rather be here than anywhere in the world I can think of !" "Rather!" said his companion, Dick Mercer. "I say, Harry, it must be funny to be an American!" Harry laughed heartily. "I'd be angry, Dick," he said, finally, "if that wasn't so English — and so... more...

CHAPTER I LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE! "Two Black Bears!" "Two Wolves!" "Three Eagles!" "Five Moose!" "Quite a mixture of wild creatures to be found in a splendid clubroom in the city of New York!" exclaimed Ned Nestor, a handsome, muscular boy of seventeen. "How many of these denizens of the forests are ready to join the Boy Scout Camera Club?" "You may... more...

AT THE EDGE OF THE FIRE A pall of smoke, dark, ugly, threatening, hung over a wood in which the Thirty-ninth Troop of the Boy Scouts had been spending a Saturday afternoon in camp. They had been hard at work at signal practice, semaphoring, and acquiring speed in Morse signaling with flags, which makes wireless unnecessary when there are enough signalers, covering enough ground. The Scout camp was near... more...

GLEN MASON RUNS AWAY It was the supper hour at the State Industrial School for Boys, known to the general public as "The Reform School." Glen Mason sat on a long bench trying to hold the place next to him against the stealthy ravages of the boys who crowded him. "Where's Nixy?" he inquired angrily of his neighbor on the right. "Did he go to town again?" "He's... more...

I.—Silverhorns By Henry van DykeTHE railway station of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look particularly merry at two o'clock of a late September morning. There was an easterly haze driving in from the Baie des Chaleurs and the darkness was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour of rain would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent travelers yawned in the... more...

I.—The Great Big Man By Owen JohnsonTHE noon bell was about to ring, the one glorious spring note of that inexorable "Gym" bell that ruled the school with its iron tongue. For at noon, on the first liberating stroke, the long winter term died and the Easter vacation became a fact.Inside Memorial Hall the impatient classes stirred nervously, counting off the minutes, sitting gingerly on the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EAGLES AT HOME. "After all, fellows, it's good to be back home again." The speaker, Rob Blake, leader of the Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts, spoke with conviction. He was a "rangy," sun-burned lad of about eighteen, clear-eyed, confident and wiry. His Boy Scout training, too, had made him resourceful beyond his years. "Yes, and it's also good to know that we... more...

AN INTERRUPTED DREAM Walter Upton pushed aside books and papers, yawned, stretched, yawned again, then settled back in his chair comfortably, his hands clasped behind his head. "I'm glad that vacation is only one week off," he murmured. "School is all right, and I know I'm going to be mighty sorry when school-days end for good. Just the same, this infernal grind to get a... more...

Chapter I The Disappearance It was the fifth of August. Warsaw the brilliant, Warsaw the Beautiful, the best beloved of her adoring people, had fallen. Torn by bombs, wrecked by great shells, devastated by hordes of alien invaders, she lay in ruins. Her people, despairing, seemed for the greater part to have vanished in the two days since the fatal third of August when the city was taken. Many of the... more...