“Oh! forget it all, Carl, and come in with us,” urged Josh, laying a hand affectionately on the other’s shoulder. “If it’s anything where we can help, you know as well as you do your own name that there isn’t a fellow but would lay himself out to stand back of you. Isn’t that so, boys?”
Three other voices instantly joined in to declare that they would only be glad of the opportunity to show Carl how much they appreciated him. It always touches a boy to find out how much his chums think of him. There was a suspicious moisture about Carl’s eyes as he smiled and nodded his head when replying.
“That’s nice of you, fellows. But after all perhaps I may see my way clear to joining the troop. I hope so, anyway, and I’ll try my best to make the riffle. Now Tom, tell us all Mr. Witherspoon said.”
“Yes, we want to know what we’d have to do the first thing,” added Josh, who was about as quick to start things as Felix Robbins was slow. “I sent off and got a scout manual. It came last night, and I’m soaking up the contents at a great rate.”
“That was why I saw a light over in your room late last night, was it?” George Cooper demanded. “Burning the midnight oil. Must have been interesting reading, seems to me, Josh.”
“I could hardly tear myself away from the book,” responded the other boy. “After to-night I’ll loan it to the rest of you, though I guess Tom must have got one from Mr. Witherspoon, for I see something bulging in his pocket.”
Tom laughed at that.
“Josh,” he said, “it’s very plain to me that you will make a pretty clever scout, because you’ve got the habit of observing things down to a fine point. And if you’ve read as much as you say, of course you know that one of the first things a tenderfoot has to do is to remember to keep his eyes about him, and see things.”
“Yes,” added Josh, eagerly, “one test is for each boy to stand in front of a store window for just two minutes, making a mental map of the same, and then go off to jot down as many objects as he can remember to have seen there.”
“That’s quite a stunt,” remarked Felix thoughtfully; “and I reckon the one who can figure out the biggest number of articles goes up head in the class. I must remember and practice that game. It strikes me as worth while.”