So it will be with you every day. You will have your duty to do, when often you would much rather do your pleasure, or play some games; but you have to command yourself and order yourself to do your duty in the first place, and amuse yourself afterwards.
When you succeed in doing this, and in always obeying the orders of your officer readily and cheerily, in small things as well as in great things, you will soon find that it becomes a habit with you and not a trouble, so that when the time comes for you to carry out some difficult and dangerous order you will be able to do it at once, without any hesitation and with complete success for the good of your side—that is, for the good of your business, your employer, or of your Country, without thinking of the difficulty or danger to yourself.
With a Scout, your "Duty" is to do a good turn to somebody every day. Your "Discipline" makes you command yourself to carry this out, even though it may be irksome or dangerous, and though nobody is there to see you do it. You do it because it is your duty and you are trusted, on your honour, to do it.
* * * * *
A DISOBEDIENT SCOUT.
I once had a brave scout in my force in the South African War. He was a brave man and an active scout, but he was not good at obeying orders, and in the end this cost him his life and did harm to our plans.
We had news of a force of the enemy which did not know of our presence in that part of the country. So we hid ourselves, meaning to surprise and capture them when they came along.
The orders were that not a sound was to be made and not a man was to show himself, and these orders were faithfully carried out—except by this one scout. He thought he knew better than others, and he slipped away unseen to go and look out for the enemy's approach.
Presently he spied a hostile scout and fired at him; the enemy's scout returned his fire, and after a short duel both of them fell mortally wounded.
But the noise of their shooting gave the alarm to the enemy's force; more came upon the spot, and, finding a British scout there, they naturally guessed that there must be more in the neighbourhood, so they took all precautions, sent out scouts in all directions, and then, coming on our tracks, at last discovered our hiding-place, and gave warning to their own side, who were then able to make their escape.