Sure Pop paused in his story as Betty came dashing around the house.
Like a shot the stranger jumped to his feet, and again Bob caught that
sudden flash of green as he raised his hand in salute.
"Hello, Betty, glad to see you!"
"Why, goodness me!" exclaimed Betty. "You seem to know me, but I don't
know who you are--unless you are one of those Boy Scouts Bob is so crazy
to join?"
"Not exactly _Boy_ Scouts," chuckled Sure Pop with a wink at Bob,
"unless you count us boys till we're ninety-nine years old! Girls are
scouts, too, in _my_ regiment."
"Now, Betty," warned Bob, "sit down here and don't you dare interrupt,
for Sure Pop's right in the middle of a story--and I think he's come to
stay a while, haven't you, Sure Pop?"
"Sure pop! I'll stay as long as the King will let me," laughed the merry
little scout.
"Well, after I got away from the crowd," he went on, "my eyes must
suddenly have been opened to the thousand-and-one things that might
happen even in Borderland to folks who didn't look sharp on the street,
for on my way home I saved several others from getting hurt.
"The first was a careless little cabin boy, who went along whistling
with his hands in his pockets. He slipped and fell plump in front of a
chariot, and of course he couldn't jerk his hands out of his pockets in
time to save himself. I grabbed him up in the very nick of time, or he'd
have been smashed flatter than a pancake.
"And only a block farther on, I met a carpenter hurrying through the
crowd with a ladder on his shoulder. Some one shouted to him, and he
whirled around with never a thought of his ladder. The end of it would
have hit a fat old banker squarely between the eyes if I hadn't been
watching for that very thing and caught it as it swung. I went home and
thought no more about all this, till that night, at midnight, I was
summoned before the King."
"The King!" cried Betty. "My, weren't you scared?"
"I was, sure pop! When I marched into the throne room it was crowded
with richly dressed people. The King and Queen sat on their thrones,
and as I went toward them I had to pass between two long lines of
trumpeters.
"Suddenly up went the silver trumpets, and the trumpeters blew a mighty
blast. Let me tell you, it was enough to send the shivers down your
spine, that trumpet call was! It seemed as if I never had climbed a
longer flight of steps. But at last I found myself bowing before the
King and Queen. The King, who wore a brand new uniform, just like this
one I have on, beckoned a herald to his side.
"'Now hark to his words,' he said to me, 'and say if he speaks the
truth.' And then the herald read aloud from a long white scroll, with
scarlet seals on it, the story of how I had saved the young chap from
the chariot that noon, and all about the cabin boy and the fat old
banker I'd helped on my way home!
"'Does the herald speak truly?' asked the Borderland King. And all the
rest strained their ears for my answer.
"'Sure pop, Your Majesty!' I replied before I knew what I was saying. At
that he pulled from his finger a new signet ring, inked it with some
magic ink, and motioned for me to hold out my right hand. How do I know
it was magic ink? Why, it must have been, for the print it made has
never faded. Look!"
Bob and Betty looked at the little scout's right hand, which he held up
again like the crossing policeman downtown. And this is what they saw:
[Illustration: UNIVERSAL SAFETY]
"'Hold it up,' commanded the King, 'where all can see!' And then the
trumpets sounded again.
"'Long live Colonel Sure Pop, the Safety Scout!' cried the herald. The
court wizard stepped forward, waved his hand and mumbled a few magic
words over me, and--what do you think!--I found myself dressed in a
brand new scouting uniform, the only one just like the King's!"
_Long live the Safety Scouts!_
--SURE POP
[Illustration]