"Say, Corporal Merritt," exclaimed a perspiring lad, whose "too, too solid flesh" seemed to be melting and running off his face in the form of streaming moisture, "don't we get a rest?"
A general laugh greeted poor Bob or Tubby Hopkins' remark.
"I always told you, Tubby, you were too fat to make a good scout," laughed Corporal Merritt Crawford, "this is the sort of thing that will make you want to take some of that tubbiness off you."
"Say, Tubby, you look like a roll of butter at an August picnic," laughed Simon Jeffords, one of the second-class scouts.
"All right, Sim," testily rejoined the aggrieved fat one, "I notice at that, though, that I am a regular scout while you are only a rookie."
"Come on, cut out the conversation," exclaimed Corporal Crawford hastily, "while we are fussing about here, Rob Blake must be halfway home."
With a groan of comical despair from poor Tubby, the Boy Scouts darted forward once more. On and on they pushed across country, skillfully tracking their leader by the various signs they had been taught to know and of which the present scouting expedition was a test.
Their young leader evidently intended them to use their eyes to the utmost for, beside the stone signs, he used blaze-marks, cut on the trees with his hunting knife. For instance, at one place they would find a square bit of bark removed, with a long slice to the left of it. This indicated that their quarry had doubled to the left. The slice to the right of the square blaze indicated the reverse.
Suddenly Corporal Crawford held up his hand as a signal for silence. The scouts came to an abrupt stop.
From what seemed to be only a short distance in front of them they could hear a voice upraised apparently in anger. Replying to it were the tones of their leader.