Meanwhile Lil Artha and Alec were trying their hands at the woodpile; for as the elongated scout explained to the Scotch lad, they would have need of considerable fuel during the long evening, as they sat by their fire and talked.
Alec proved to have enough stamina, at least; there was a stubborn streak in his Scotch blood that would never allow him to give up easily. Nevertheless, Lil Artha knew Alec had faults that must be corrected before he could reach that condition of excellence that all true scouts aspire to attain.
He had a hasty temper, like most red-haired, impulsive boys, and was, moreover, a little inclined to be cruel, especially toward dumb animals. Lil Artha, himself, had once been the same sort of a chap, and could readily sympathize with Alec; but at that he meant the other should see the error of his ways, and reform. So the tall member of the Wolf Patrol took it upon himself to be a mentor; and who so well fitted for the task as a boy who had had personal experience? No one can preach temperance so splendidly as the man who, himself, has passed through the fire of unbridled passions, and learned the folly of giving way to them.
Alec was particularly interested in the subject of the reversal of his badge. He had, of course, followed the customary habit of all scouts by fastening this to his coat in the morning in an upside-down position, until he found some opportunity for doing a good deed toward some one, which act allowed him to change its position.
"That was easy enough at home, d'ye mind, Lil Artha," he was saying, as he rested upon his ax, and recovered his breath, "because a fellow would be a gillie if he couldnae find mony a chance to do something for sae sweet a bairn as our little Jessie. But it's going to be a harder task away up here in the wilderness, I trow."
"Oh! I don't know about that, Alec," the other told him, encouragingly. "All you have to do is to keep your eyes about you. There are four chums around, and if at any time, for instance, you took a notion to do my stint of wood-chopping, that ought to entitle you to turn your badge over, because it would be a good deed, you see."
Alec looked queerly at him, and then laughed.
"But it would be depriving you of your necessary exercise, Lil Artha," he hastened to say, "and that I'd hate to do."
"Well, seriously speaking then, Alec, there are endless ways of doing good. You needn't be confined to lending a helping hand to human beings; a boy who takes a stone out of the shoe of a limping mule is just as much a benefactor as the one who helps a poor old woman across a crowded street, or carries her heavy basket part of the way home from market. I've bound up the broken wing of a crow; yes, and I knew a scout who even helped one of those queer little tumble-bugs get his ball up a little rise, after he'd watched him fall back a dozen times, and then claim the right to alter his badge. The rest of the troop laughed at him, but the scout-master hushed them up, and said the boy was right; and that not only had he done a good deed toward one of the humblest of created things, but he had learned a practical lesson in pertinacity and never-give-upitiveness that would be of great value to him all the rest of his life."
"Nae doot, nae doot," muttered the Scotch lad, reflectively, as though Lil Artha's interesting words had found a firm lodgment in his heart. "I can see where it is a verra interesting subject, this scoutcraft, Lil Artha. And ye ken I'm mair than glad now I took up with it."