"I always thought so," Paul admitted, "and I've been in a few dandy camps in my time. My people have gone up in Maine every Summer for a long while, you know. But this year they are going to stay home for a change. Father hates to turn over his practice to any one else; and to tell the truth I said I wanted to be right here."
"Bully for you, Paul. We all feel that we owe you a lot for the way you've stuck to us through thick and thin. We'd never have won that banner there if——"
But Paul would not listen.
"Stow that sort of talk, Jud!" he exclaimed. "I've done my best, but it wasn't any more than lots of the other fellows could do. If we'd gotten hold of Mr. Gordon in time he'd have made
a better troop than we were. He knows a heap along many lines."
"Yes," remarked Jud, with a nod, "by theory, but I just bet you if it came down to practice you could beat him out every time. But what was it I saw you doing at our last camp, just before we pulled up stakes?"
"I was leaving a letter for Mr. Gordon when he came along," replied Paul, with a mysterious smile.
"What sort of a letter now, I'd like to know? Seemed to me you were marking on a piece of birch bark, which you stuck on a stick close to where our fire had been. And Paul," with a grin, "I had the curiosity to take a sly look at the same as I passed by."
"Yes. What did you see?" asked the patrol leader, quietly.
"Why, it looked to me like you'd gone back some years, and started drawing funny animals, and such things," replied Jud.