“Oh! they ain’t all such fire cranks as you’ve always been, Giraffe,” ventured Step Hen. “And I say it’s good for the country they ain’t. I reckon the whole wood supply of the United States would have been used up by now if the rest of the scouts had their minds set like you.”
“But wait and see,” said Thad. “I’ve got a notion that Bumpus is going to surprise some of us a lot more. Fact is, I believe he’s just had his mind set on a hike like this for some time, because he’s been asking dozens of questions of me, and setting the answers down in that little note-book of his, till he half filled it.”
“Was one of them about makin’ ‘a fire after a rain?’” demanded Giraffe.
“Just that,” replied Thad.
“You told him how to dig out the dry heart from a stump or a log, to start his fire with, didn’t you, Thad?”
“Explained it all fully,” answered the patrol leader.
“Oh! if that’s the case I just guess he will have made a fire. It’s easy, once you’ve been shown how,” grumbled Giraffe.
“But you had to be told how, once, don’t forget, Giraffe,” Thad went on to say. “Be generous now, and remember that Bumpus has had his outdoor education sadly neglected. I’m glad he’s showing new life, and I hope it will keep right along. I believe it will. That’s the beauty of this scout business—once a boy gets a taste of these many things that call for self-reliance and thought, he keeps on wanting to know more. His appetite becomes enormous; but the food supply in the shape of information really has no limit, you understand.”
“I’m going in for it with all my heart and soul, Thad,” asserted Giraffe, more seriously than the patrol leader had known him to be for a long time.
“Me too,” echoed Step Hen. “It’s a good thing to know how to save a feller’s life if he gets near drowned, cuts his foot with an axe, gets shot by accident, or else has the hard luck to run up against a mean rattler.”