"And as you get to be more intimate with the little animals of the woods," continued the experienced scout, "you come to like them as brothers. We usually have a pet squirrel ducking about the camp, picking up the crumbs; and birds will come, too, if you're kind to them. All those little things help to make an outing more enjoyable, you'll find, Alec, the deeper you dip into them."
Alec scratched his head as though he found it just a little difficult to understand; he had been raised under such vastly different conditions that it would take some time to change his habits, Lil Artha realized. Still, he liked the tenderfoot very much, and meant to do all he could to make him see things through another pair of spectacles than those he had used in the past.
Already his lessons in handling the ax had borne fruit, and Alec gave promise of soon becoming an expert at the job. His success also gave the greenhorn a new-born ambition to excel in other branches of scout education. Lil Artha did not believe he would have much trouble in posting Alec; getting him to govern his temper, and be kind to everything that had life, would be another proposition; but constant association with such a fellow as Elmer Chenowith was bound to work a change little short of miraculous, Lil Artha had faith to believe; for he knew personally what the patrol leader was able to accomplish in his quiet, persistent way.
"After you've finished with that log, Alec," he told the other, "we'll start our fire. I want to show you just how to go about that task, because there are a hundred things connected with making a fire that you'll find mighty interesting."
"Ye don't say, Lil Artha? I didna ken that there was more than one way to start a blaze, which was to sticket a match to the paper, and let it go at that."
The tall scout laughed delightedly. Really, he would find great pleasure in showing this greenhorn how many curious ways there were of starting a fire. Lil Artha had made this a sort of fad for some time past; and while several tricks were still beyond his comprehension, he had mastered a number of others; so that he could start into the woods minus a single match, or even a burning sun glass, and make a fire in any one of five different ways.
"Oh! I can see where you've got a whole lot to learn, Alec," he told the other. "I'll promise to show you some interesting things while we're up here in the Raccoon Bluff camp. For instance, I'll make a blaze by rubbing flint and steel together, like the old Indians used to do centuries back on this continent. Then I've a little trick with a couple of sticks and some dry tinder to catch the spark."
"Ye maun show me that, for a certainty!" cried the other, "because I've read of it in Robinson Crusoe, or some ither book of travel and adventure amang the islands of the sea."
"Oh! there are lots of other ways for doing it in the bargain," pursued Lil Artha, now upon his most favored subject. "You'll think it a most fascinating thing, Alec, I promise you. And once you wake up to the fact that a scout can learn a thousand facts, if only he uses his eyes and his head, you'll be more than glad you joined the troop. Why, we live in a world of our own, and the poor ninnies outside don't have one-tenth of the fun that falls to us."
"There come Rufus and George," remarked Alec. "They look unco' pleased, as if they had discovered the slashing they went to look for. I'm a little interested in survey work mysel'. Rufus is clean crazy over it, too, and sometimes his fash is all aboot theodolites and chains and compasses and the like. They told me he was lazy, but if ye seed him workin' at the business he loved, ye'd know they leed, they leed."