"Huh!" Jimmie commented, wrinkling his freckled nose, "if you should
ever furnish an item for your daddy's newspaper he'd never live it
down! You've been on all our trips with Ned, and never wired in a
word!"

The Boy Scouts of the Black Bear and Wolf Patrols had been through
many exciting experiences with Ned Nestor, who, young as he was, was
often in the employ of the Secret Service department of the United
States government. Frank, as Jimmie said, had been with Ned from the
start, and had never sent in a line of "copy" for the paper.

"I'm going to furnish a column a day this trip!" Frank declared,
making a motion to seize Jimmie. "We're going to take pictures,
aren't we? We'll take 'em by the acre, and dad's newspaper is going
to catch every one of them."

"Huh!" Jimmie declared, with a freckled nose in the air. "I'm a
newspaper man, too. You needn't think you're the only cherry in the
pie! I used to sell newspapers before I got into the Secret Service
with Ned!"

From his earliest years Jimmie had indeed been a newsboy on the
Bowery. He had never had a home except that provided by himself, and
this, in the early days of his life, had as often been a box or
barrel in an alley as anything else.

"Why the mountains?" asked Frank Shaw, presently. "Do you have to go
to the hills on this trip? I'm glad if you do, of course, but I'd
like to know something about it before we start. Dad will have to be