“Houp-e-là! We arre de boy! We arre de stuff! We arre de bes’ scout ev’ry tam’!” he shouted with an esprit de corps which found its echo in one breast at least—that of the terrier, Blink, who to-day capered with the troop as its mascot. “We arre de bes’ scout; n’est-ce pas, mo’ smarty?” And Toiney embraced Harold, marching at his side—Harold, whose lips turned up to-day and every day now in the scout’s smile, for since the night of the dune fire had not each of his comrades and the scoutmasters too, kept impressing on him that he had “behaved like a little man and a good scout” at duty’s call!
There were individuals among the onlookers, too, watching the three patrols march out of the town that morning, who shared Toiney’s primitive conceit that they were the “best scouts”; or at least fairly on the way to being a model troop.
Little Jack Baldwin, gazing at his rescuers, Scouts Warren and Chase, Marcoo and Colin Estey, marching two and two at the head of the leading patrol, clapped his hands and almost burst his heart in wishing that he could be twelve years old to-morrow so that he might enlist as a tenderfoot scout.
Whereupon his old grandmother smilingly bade him “take patience,” for the two years which now separated him from his heart’s desire would not be long in passing.
And the boy scouts, as they raised their broad-brimmed hats to old Ma’am Baldwin, saw a happier look upon her face than it had ever worn before, to their knowledge.
Farther on they came upon the explanation of this! They were taking a different route to-day from that which they usually followed in entering the woods. About a mile from the town they struck a partial clearing, where the land, not yet entirely relieved of timber, was evidently being gradually converted into a farm.
As the scouts approached they heard the ringing strokes of a woodsman’s axe, and presently came upon a perspiring young man, putting all his strength into felling a stubborn oak-tree.
“Hullo, Dave; how goes it?” cried the scoutmaster, halting with his troop.
“Fine!” came back the panting answer from the individual engaged in this scouting or pioneering work, who was the former vaurien, Dave Baldwin.
“Find this better than loafing about the dunes, eh?”