Rufus was perspiring, and short of breath after his exertion, but there was a look of extreme pride on his flushed face, and his eyes kindled also. Indeed, there was good reason for his self-congratulation; he had proven to himself that "where there is a will there is a way"; and possibly for the first time in his life Rufus realized the power that one may command when determined not to give in.
"Well, I did do it, didn't I, Elmer?" he chuckled, visibly pleased. "And next time I won't be so ready to throw up the sponge. I was a little bit huffed because you spoke the way you did, Elmer, but now I thank you. I wouldn't be surprised but that I'd have caught that big fly last summer instead of muffing it, and losing the game for our side, if only I'd made up my mind I could hold it, and must."
"That's the ticket, Rufus," the other told him. "Confidence is half the battle, and the rest is in doing it. But you've chopped enough for a while; better change work and give some other set of muscles a chance to get busy."
"Now, that isn't a bad idea, either, Elmer," Rufus went on to say. "I'd like to take a little turn out of camp before evening comes on, because somehow I seem to have a sneaking notion we'll run across one of the survey lines close by here. You see, they run down from the bluff across that wide stretch of country toward the setting sun; and by pushing along the ridge we ought to find a slashing."
"Well, if you can coax George, here, to go with you, Rufus," the patrol leader remarked, "I've no objections. I can understand how eager you must be to get your location fixed in the start; and I expect you'll sleep easier tonight if you learn that our camp happens to be near one of the survey lines."
George upon being appealed to readily agreed to go with the greenhorn. He knew why Elmer had made this arrangement; for as Rufus was quite a novice in most things pertaining to woodcraft, the chances were he would get lost the first thing. If given an opportunity, George, as a first-class scout, could begin the education of the tenderfoot thus placed in his charge; and the first lesson would be upon various methods of learning how to make his way through the densest forest when caught without a compass, and unable even to see the sun so as to know east from the west, the north from the south.
So George took great pride in explaining how the moss on the trees would serve as an almost infallible guide, all else failing.
"You see, in this section of country nearly all the big storms come from the southwest," he told Rufus as they walked on. "The moss is almost always on the north side of the trees, veering just a little toward northeast. Notice that fact well, Rufus, and never forget it. Some time it may save you heaps of trouble; I know it has me, and lots of other scouts in the bargain."
Finding that the tenderfoot seemed to show considerable interest, George went on to tell of other facts connected with the important subject.
"Now," he observed, soberly, "you may think I'm going to a lot of trouble telling you all this, Rufus; but if ever you do get lost in the woods, and keep wandering around for hours, and then have to make a lonely camp, and sit up most of the night listening to the owls and foxes and such things, why, you'll understand why it's so important a thing in the education of a scout."