"Well, fellows, there's this much about it, if we are going to build a real sure enough motorboat this year we've got to get a hustle on us and earn some money. With the rent we received from the Historical Motion Picture Company and the money we secured from the circus ticket wagon we have just $73.75. We need $94.00 to buy the motor alone, even with the reduction that Mr. Clifford can get for us. And added to that is the expense of extra lumber and fittings, which will be at least thirty dollars more. Now where do we stand, I'd like to know?"

Thus did Bud Weir unburden his mind to the other boys of the Quarry
Troop, sometimes called, because of their mechanical skill, the Boy Scout
Engineers.

All spring the scouts had been planning to build a motorboat to be used on Long Lake. They had had their summer camp on the shores of this lake for the past two years, and they intended to have a camp there as usual this year, but they had decided to make it a construction camp and spend most of their time building a thirty-foot power boat, which would be the largest vessel on the lake. The idea was to increase the troop's fund in the treasury as much as possible during the Winter and Spring and use the money to purchase a three horsepower gasoline motor, which they calculated would be large enough to drive the boat faster than any craft thereabout.

But somehow the months had hurried past and the fund had not increased at a proportionate pace. Indeed if it had not been for a windfall of forty odd dollars from the Historical Motion Picture Company, the treasury would have been in a very bad way. The scouts really could not understand it at all. They had worked hard, or at least they thought they had, and they had contributed every cent they had made toward the engine fund, but somehow the balance in the Woodbridge bank looked mighty small to the scouts.

"What the dickens is the matter with us anyway, are we lazy?" queried
Nipper Knapp, breaking the long silence that followed Bud's remark.

"By jiminy, it looks that way to me," said Jiminy Gordon emphatically.

"It's procrastination that—"

"Whoops! Hi! what was that word? Ho, ho, say it again, Bruce," shouted
Romper Ryan hilariously.

"He's worked for months on that Boys' Life Dictionary Contest," said
Ray Martin, "that's what's the matter with Bruce. What does it mean?
Maybe it's something to eat!"

"Aw, say, quit your joshin' me," said Bruce, "that's a real word. It means—ah—er—well—"

"Sure it does, we knew it all the time, didn't we, Romper?" said Nipper
Knapp.

"That's exactly what it means," said Bud quite soberly.

"Well, it means that we've been putting off work. We haven't come down to brass tacks. And now we're up against it and our motorboat proposition falls through," snapped Bruce.

"Well, if that's what it means then you told the truth," said Bud, resuming his indignant attitude. "We fellows haven't been on the job. I haven't made a cent in three weeks and neither has any one of the rest of you. Now be honest, have you?"

"No, we haven't," said Dug Maston.

"I guess we are actually growing lazy," said Romper solemnly.

Then Babe Wilson, the sarcastic fat scout, added:

"No, we haven't been lazy, we've just been waiting for opportunity to knock at our door—"

(Rap—rap—rap, rap—rap—rap—rap.)

Babe looked startled and swallowed hard. Then, his sense of humor bobbing to the surface again, he grinned.

"That's Mr. Opportunity," he said.

"No, it wasn't," said Romper, rushing to the window, "it was a blasted old bill poster tacking a sign on Headquarters— Hi! git out o' there! This isn't an old barn!" he shouted to the bill poster.

But that individual never heard him and kept tacking away until the bill was up. Then he went on down the road whistling merrily.

"Hang it, Headquarters will look like a billboard soon. I'm going down to pull his blooming old sign off our wall," said Romper, as he disappeared through the doorway and stamped down the stairs. But a few moments later he seemed to have changed his mind, for he was heard to shout:

"Hi, fellows, come on down. It's worth reading anyway." And what the scouts read when they crowded about him was:

$200 In Prizes for Brown Tail Moth Exterminators.

The Town of Woodbridge is offering $200 in prizes to the individuals who can advance and demonstrate a practical method of exterminating the Brown Tail Moths that are infesting the trees in the township. For particulars apply to Mayor's Office, Town Hall.

Three Prizes Offered: $100 $60 $40.

"Say, was that opportunity, after all?" asked Babe in wide-eyed amazement when he read the poster.

And every boy looked at every other boy and wondered.

If there are any who do not believe that boys can become genuinely interested in study, they should have visited the Quarry Troop headquarters a few days after the discovery of the work of the bill poster. For at least three consecutive afternoons a dozen lads spent their time in the big meeting room on the second floor poring over dry looking pamphlets which bore the stamp of the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture.

They were all perusing this literature with the one purpose—to learn as much as they could about the habits of the brown tail moths, for they hoped in their study to discover some new and original way to exterminate the pest and thereby win one of the three generous prizes offered by the town authorities. But though they pursued the subject relentlessly none of them seemed able to generate an idea that smacked of originality.

"Aw, say, fellows, this will never do," said Babe Wilson. "We can't compete in this contest. We don't know anything about chemistry or things like that. Why, we don't even know a Brown Tail moth when we see one." He disconsolately tossed away his pamphlet and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Pshaw, don't give up so soon," said Bud Weir. "This reading isn't very gay but all the same we are learning some things we should know. And even if we are not familiar with chemistry, we may be able to figure out a way of getting rid of them by means of some mechanical appliance."

"I think this is mighty interesting," said Bruce, looking up from his leaflet. "I know now what's ailing those apple trees down back of our barn. The Brown Tail moths are in them. Listen to this: 'The principal injury caused by these moths is due to the feeding habits of the larva. They attack apple, pear, plum, oak, elm and willow trees. If the infestation is bad the caterpillars are often numerous enough to devour the leaves as fast as the trees are able to develop them. As the webs are made on the terminals the growth of the tree is frequently checked.'

"Those apple trees of ours haven't had a full grown leaf on them this
Spring and there are webs in the tops of them, too. That's the work of
Brown Tails all right."

"The most interesting thing to me about these little codgers is the way they got here," said Romper Ryan. "They came from Europe about 1897, so this book says. Came over on some young trees imported here. There couldn't have been more than a couple of cocoons, but look how they have spread since that time. They were first seen in Somerville, Massachusetts, but now they are all over the New England States. They are only just getting into Vermont, though."

"This pamphlet says that the female moth flies a great distance," said Jiminy Gordon, growing enthusiastic about the subject, "and that the female Gipsy moth, which is another kind of pest, can't fly at all. By jiminy, I thought all moths could fly, didn't you? It also says that the female Brown Tail moth is attracted by strong lights and can be found fluttering around arc lamps almost any warm—"

"Does it? Where? Where does it say they like strong light?" exclaimed
Nipper Knapp.

"Why, what the dickens struck you? It says so right here. Just listen: 'These moths are attracted to strong light such as electric arc lights, as they fly at night it is often possible to secure many specimens around arc lamps in cities and towns during the latter part of June and the first half of July. The—'"

"Whoop! That solves it! I got it, fellows! It's as easy as rolling off a log. We win the $100 prize sure!" exclaimed Nipper Knapp excitedly. Then while the boys were looking at him in utter amazement he continued.

"Listen, fellows! I was running mother's electric vacuum cleaner this morning before I started to school. I saw how easily the motor-driven fan sucked in everything in sight. I held the nozzle near a fly on the window pane and zipp—p-p, in went Mr. Fly. I thought right away that a big vacuum cleaner would make a fine moth catcher if we could only get near enough to the moths. And I even figured out a plan for a large one which wouldn't cost very much and could be made mostly of wood. But I knew it was foolish 'cause we couldn't get near the moths. Then—"

"Great! I see your plan. You are going to attract your moths by a light and then catch 'em with the suction cleaner," exclaimed Bruce.

"Sure, and here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to take one of the automobile's searchlights and shine it off on to some trees and then put the vacuum cleaner just under the light beams. Then when Mr. Moth comes flying down the path of light and gets over the top of the sucker—zing, in he goes. Get my idea? Wait, I'll draw a plan of the thing for you," and, rushing over to the writing table in the corner, Nipper began to draw hastily while the scouts all crowded around him and watched.

"There you are. There's the whole plan of the thing. Easy to make and easy to operate and I guess it's original all right."

The drawings traveled from hand to hand, each lad scrutinizing them carefully for some fault in the mechanical detail.

"Jiminy, I think you've struck it," exclaimed Gordon.

"Struck it? Why, man, he's got the first prize in his pocket right now," insisted Romper as he looked over the plans.

"Well, if it meets with your approval, fellows, let's get busy right now and build our moth trap."

"Right-o. No more procras—something-or-other, as Bruce said the other day. We'll get busy immediately," said Bud Weir.

"Well, first of all I think we should talk it over with Mr. Ford. He will be able to see flaws in our plans where we can't, you know," said Nipper.

"That was exactly my idea. And, by the way, did you notice that the pamphlet from the Mayor's office named Mr. Ford among the members of the judging committee in this contest?" said Bruce.

"Yes, I did," said Bud, "and for that reason I think he would like to see us boys try for the prize even though we don't win anything. Come on, we'll go over and talk with him."

Bud was quite right. When Mr. Ford learned that the boys had become interested in the fight against the Brown Tail moth he was delighted.

"That's the stuff, scouts. Take an interest in everything in the nature of a public improvement. If you grow up with that idea in mind you will make useful citizens," he said, when the boys informed him that they had been studying the Brown Tail moth campaign and intended to try for one of the town's prizes.

"Well, I'm afraid that it was more of a selfish motive that led us to take an interest. The troop needs one of those prizes to swell its treasury," said Bruce.

"Never mind, many of the noblest works in this world resulted from the selfish desire on the part of some one who wanted to win some kind of a prize. But I won't sermonize. Let me see what you have in mind as a moth exterminator," said the Assistant Scoutmaster.

The electrical engineer spent nearly half an hour in silent contemplation of Nipper's drawings after the plan had been explained to him. Finally, his eyes sparkling with amusement, he laid the drawings onto his desk and remarked:

"By Jove, you fellows are about the keenest observers I've met in some time. It all grew out of watching a vacuum cleaner, eh? Well, well, well, I think that idea is remarkable. I'm certain it will work. You should have it patented immediately. Make another set of drawings for me, Nipper, and I'll send them down to my patent attorney in Washington. Perhaps you may have struck it richer than you expect. You may be able to put the device on the market. Who knows? In the meantime get busy and build one and let me see how it works."

"We are going down and buy the material right away," said Bruce, enthusiastically, "and father says he will have the suction fan made over in his shop. It can be built of sheet iron and won't cost much, you know."

"All right, go ahead. I'll come over to headquarters now and then and watch you work," said Mr. Ford.