"But the '_Hare_'! he'd spoil--_Ouch!_" A sudden wrench of agony as Leon moved restlessly put the pointed question as to whether the mental pain which Harold Greer suffered might not be as hard to drag round as a thunderstorm ankle.
"All right, Nix! Enlist him if you can! I guess you'll have to pass on who comes into the new patrol."
Colin dug his nose into the pine-tips with a skeptical chuckle: that new patrol would have a big contract on hand, he thought, if it was to gather up the wild, waste energy of Leon,--that element in him which parents and teachers sought to eradicate,--turn it to good account, and take the fright out of the Hare.
But from the woods came a deep bass whoop that sounded encouraging: the Whoo-whoo-hoo-doo-whoo! of the Grand Duke bidding the world good-morning ere he went into retreat for the day.
It was answered by the Whoo-whoo-whooah-whoo! of a brother owl, also lifting up his voice before sunrise.
"Listen, fellows!" cried Leon excitedly. "_Listen!_ The feathered owls themselves are cheering the Owl Patrol."
Three weeks after the September morning when an anxious search-party led by Asa Chase, Leon's father, and by that clever woodsman Toiney Leduc, had started out at dawn to search the dense woods for four missing boys, and found a grotesque-looking quartette with faces piebald from the half-effaced smears of Varney's Paintpot, breakfasting on blueberries and water by a still ruddy camp-fire,--three weeks after those morning woods had rung with Toiney's shrill "Hôlà!" the first meeting for the formation of the Owl Patrol was held.
In virtue of his being already a boy scout with a year's training behind him, Nixon Warren was elected patrol leader; and Leon Starr Chase who still limped as a result of his reckless descent of that freak pine-tree, was made second in rank with the title of corporal--or assistant patrol leader.
Among the half-dozen spectators, leading men of the small town, who had assembled to witness the inaugural doings at this first meeting and to lend their approval to the new movement for the boys, there appeared one who was lamer than Leon, his halting step being due to a year-old injury which condemned him to limp somewhat for the remainder of his life.