“I think on the whole,” remarked the patrol leader, “it would be wiser for us to do it. Let’s locate that fire by the stars, or any other old way. Now, you can douse the glim, Giraffe.”
Accordingly the tall scout trampled on the partly-burned torch until the very last spark had been extinguished.
“Hated to do it, but orders is orders,” Giraffe was heard to mutter.
“Listen to him, would you?” said Step Hen, scornfully. “He feels that way about all the fires he makes, too; just hates to put ’em out. Makes me think of an old aunt I have. She raises chickens, but never has any to eat. Why, she says she might as soon eat a baby, as a hen she’d raised, and talked to, and made a pet of. Don’t ketch me being so old-womanish and silly.”
Now that they were in darkness, it would of course make their progress slower, since they had to reckon on all sorts of obstacles.
“One thing,” said Allan, as they started out, “I think I can come back to this same place in the morning, if we should want to find it again.”
“But what would we want to find it for?” Step Hen demanded.
“Oh! I don’t believe we will; but it might happen, you see, that we’d have to take up the trail again from here,” Allan explained.
“You mean in case we lost the fire, or didn’t find Bumpus with those two rascals?” Giraffe asked.
“That’s it,” said the Maine boy.