soon resolved. The newcomers evidently knew all the ins and outs. In the very end of the long woodshed stood a chicken-feed bin. By scrambling to the top of this, it was just possible to squeeze between the edge of the roof and the top of the fence. Once there, one had the choice of descending to the other side or climbing to the shed roof.

The expedition at present led to the other side. Here was no necessity of dangling, for the two-byfours running between the posts offered a graduated descent. Bobby found himself in the back yard of a tall house that occupied nearly the entire width of the lot. It was a very fine-looking cream-brick house. A cement walk led around it from the front. There were no stables, no clothes-lines, no pumps, nothing to indicate the kitchen end of a residence. The swift curve of a grassed terrace dropped from the house-level to that on which Bobby stood. Four large apple trees threw a thick shade here in summer. That the shade was utilized was proved by the presence of a number of settees, iron chairs, and a rustic table or so.

"There's Carrie!" cried May Fowler. "Why didn't you come on over? This is Bobby Orde who lives over there. This is Caroline English."

"We're going to play robber and policeman," announced Johnny English, cheerfully.

"All right," said Carrie.

She sat down behind one of those rustic tables. "She's police sergeant," confided Morton Drake to Bobby. "She's always police sergeant because she doesn't like to get her clothes dirty.'

"Goody! Here come the rest!" cried the alert Johnny, as four more children came racing around the corner of the house.

"Robber and policemen" was a game absurd in its simplicity. The policemen pursued the robbers, who fled within the specified limits of the Englishes' yard. When an officer caught a robber, he attempted to bring his prize before the police sergeant. The robber was privileged to resist. Assistance from the other policemen and rescues by the other robbers were permitted. That was all there was to it. The beautiful result was a series of free fights.

Bobby as a new-comer, was made a robber. were Grace Jones, Morton, and Walter. . . .

So

At a signal from Carrie the robbers scurried away. At another the sleuths set out on the trail. Each policeman selected a robber as his especial prey. Bobby ran rapidly around the front of the

house, dodged past the front steps and paused. Behind him he heard stealthy footsteps approaching the corner of the house. Instantly he ducked forward around the other corner and ran plump into the arms of Johnny English.

That youngster immediately grappled him.

Johnny was no bigger than Bobby, but he was practised at wrestling and his body was harder and more firmly knit. Bobby tugged manfully, but almost before he knew it he was upset and hit the ground with a disconcerting whack. Of course, he continued to struggle, and the two, fiercely locked, whirled over and over through the leaves, but in a brief period Johnny had twisted him on his back and was sitting on his chest.

"There, I told you I could lick you!" he cried triumphantly.

"Let me up! Let me up, I tell you!" roared Bobby, kicking his legs and threshing his arms in a vain effort to budge the weight across his body. Johnny looked at him curiously.

"Why! You aren't mad, are you!" He shrieked with the joy of the discovery. "Oh, fellows! Come here and see him! He's getting mad!"

Bobby's eyes filled with tears of rage. And then he seemed to see quite plainly the top of a sand-hill

and the village lying below and the blue of the River far distant, and to hear Mr. Kincaid's voice.

"But, sonny, you can always be a sportsman, whatever you do," the voice said, "and a sportsman does things because he likes them, Bobby, for no other reason-not for money, nor to become famous, not even to win

He choked back his rage and forced a grin to his lips very much the same sort that he had once accomplished when he "jumped up and laughed" at his mother's spanking, simply because he had been told to do that whenever he was hurt.

"I'm not mad," he disclaimed and heaved so mighty a heave that Johnny, being unprepared by reason of shouting to the others, was tumbled off one side. Instantly Bobby jumped to his feet

and scudded away.

He was captured finally, -so were the others, but only after fierce struggles. Even if a policeman could catch and hold a robber, to drag the latter to jail was no easy problem. For if he summoned the help of a brother officer, that left a robber at large who would make trouble and attempt rescues. At times all eight were piled in a breathless, tugging, rolling mass, while Carrie,

behind her rustic table, looked on serenely lest some of the simple rules of the game be violated. . . . Bobby returned home at lunch time to be received with horror by Mrs. Orde.

"You're a sight!" she cried.

"Where have you

been, and what have you been doing? I never saw anything like you! And look at those holes in your stockings."

"I've been playing robber 'n' policeman with Johnny English and Carter Irvine and all the others," explained Bobby blissfully.

After lunch Mr. Orde kissed his son good-bye. "Going up in the woods for a week, sonny," said he.

"Papa," asked Bobby, holding tight to the man's hand, "may I have the boys shoot with my rifle?"

"No, indeed!" cried Mr. Orde emphatically. "Not until I get back. Then maybe we'll have a shooting-match and invite all hands. "

TO THE PUPIL:

1. Trio means three; a graduated descent (de= down), a going down step by step; utilized, made use of; rustic, pertaining to the country, hence, not costly or showy, plain, homely; meridian means midday,— the meridian of their powers, their best days; quirk, a