Presently, after the inspiring notes of the bugle had sounded, the patrol once more took up its line of march. Each scout had his staff in his hand, and carried a haversack on his back. Blankets they had none, for all those necessary things had been entrusted to the care of a farmer, whose route home from early market took him near the intended camping place on Lake Omega; a beautiful, if wild looking sheet of water some miles in length, and situated about ten from Cranford town.
Allan and Thad headed the procession that soon straggled in couples along the side of the dusty road.
"What made you mention the name of Brose Griffin when you detailed Number Four to remain at the camp?" asked Allan, who had evidently been thinking about this same thing.
"Well," replied the scout-master, "it flashed into my mind that these tough fellows might have dogged us up here, to play some of their tricks on us when in camp; and that holding Bumpus was meant to draw the rest off, so they could run away with our haversacks, which they knew must contain lots of things we couldn't well get on without in camp."
"Smithy couldn't if his hair brush and his little whisk broom were missing," declared Allan, with a chuckle. "Why, that boy seems to only live to fight against dirt. He's the most particular fellow I ever knew."
"Oh! wait and see how he gets over that before he's been a scout two months," said Thad, also laughing. "Nothing like the rough and ready life in camp and on the march to cure a boy of being over-clean. He'd never learn any different at home, you know, because his mother is the same way, and brought him up pretty much like a girl. But he's reached the point now where the true boy nature is beginning to get the better of that false pride."
"But seriously, Thad, do you believe we'll see anything of Brose Griffin and his two shadows, Bangs and Hop?"
"I certainly hope we won't," replied the other; "but you know what they are; and I've been told that they went around asking all sorts of questions about where we intended to make our first camp-fire. It wouldn't surprise me much if they did try to give us trouble."
"What will we do if it happens that way?" asked Allan.
"Defend ourselves, to be sure," replied the scout-master, promptly, as he gave a weed a snap with his staff that cut its top off neatly.