"Oh! I see what he's after, the sly fellow," laughed Elmer. "He remembers the little stream that runs down the side of the hill right there, and reaches the lake. It isn't half as far away as the edge of the big water. Yes, there he comes, with a grin on his face, and a full pail. Good boy, Number Five!"
Once back at his fire, now burning briskly, the tall boy hastened to spill some of the contents of his kettle, and then set the latter firmly on the stones. Nor did he stop there. He had lost some ground, and several had by this time succeeded in catching up with him. So down Arthur lay, full on his stomach, where he could blow his fire, and get it to burning more savagely, after which he fed it with the best small pieces of splintered wood he had been able to pick up.
When a certain number of minutes had elapsed he beckoned to Mr. Garrabrant, who, anticipating the summons, had been hovering nearby. Together with Elmer, the scout master hurried up.
"The water is boiling all right," he announced, "and Number Five wins. But keep going, the balance of you, until we learn who comes in second and third."
Matty Eggleston proved an easy second, while Ted Burgoyne edged in just ahead of Mark, because, as he claimed, his "blowing apparatus worked better."
"But I think we ought to protest that win of Lil Artha," declared Chatz Maxfield, although he had been one of the last in the bunch.
"On what grounds?" asked Mr. Garrabrant, smiling, as though he had expected to hear something of the sort, though hardly from one who had no chance of winning.
"When his kettle upset he didn't go all the way to the lake to fill it again, as he ought to have done," said Red Huggins, who had also the ill fortune to overturn his tin vessel when the water had begun to steam, and who naturally felt a little "sore" as he termed it, because it was too late for him to enter again.
"Listen while I read the terms of the competition again," said Mr. Garrabrant. "I wrote them down so as to be prepared for any event; that's one of our cardinal principles, you know, boys. Here it especially states that 'any competitor who upsets his kettle at any time during the test may have the privilege of filling the same again from the nearest water.'"
"Oh! I didn't think of it that way, sir!" exclaimed Red.