part of their vacation camping out in order that those who were backward
in their knowledge of how to take care of themselves when in the open
should have a good chance to learn many of the secrets of Nature.

So many strange things happened to the boys when up on Rattlesnake
Mountain that it would be utterly impossible to even mention them here;
but if you wish to know all about the mystery they solved, and the
numerous other exciting events that befell them, you must get the
second volume.

There was to be a special meeting, which the acting scout master had
called for this evening; and Bobolink, Jack, and Tom Betts expected to
be back from their errand in time to answer to their names when the roll
was called.

It was only to oblige Jack that the other two had left home half an hour
earlier than was really necessary. Jack had asked them, over the
telephone, to drop around, as he had to go out to his father's mill
before he could attend the meeting in the church, where a room in the
basement had been kindly loaned to them by the trustees.

"What's all this mean about you going to the mill at this queer old
hour?" Bobolink was saying, as the three boys continued to walk on
abreast, the speaker carrying the silver-plated bugle which he knew how
to manipulate so well when the occasion allowed its use.

"Why, you see it's this way," Jack went on to explain. "My father knows a
man of the name of Professor Hackett, though what he's a professor of
you needn't ask me, because I don't know. But he's a bright little
gentleman, all right; and somehow or other he looks like he's just cram