"I wish," began Bunny, "that Specs—"
The sentence was chopped short by the rattle of the latch. As the Scouts turned, the door flung wide, and Specs himself popped into the room.
"Come on in, Rodman," he called. "Say, fellows, Rodman is a whiz. You know the cliffs out near Old Baldy. Well, I fell down one of them this morning, reaching for a fragrant fern, and Rodman came looking for me. Found me, too, by following my trail and—"
"Felix led me to him," Rodman said depreciatingly.
"Rats!" scorned Specs. "You did it. Felix didn't make a grapevine rope, did he, and pull me up the cliff? I guess not. And who reached down and plucked this fern? Felix? Huh! Smell it, Bunny. Listen, fellows! Rodman knows all the things we do about trailing, and the woods, and the birds, and tying knots, and making fires without matches, and—oh, everything. I always told you he was all right!" Specs made this statement gravely and sincerely; he had forgotten his former opinion of the new boy. "Well, then, what's the matter with making him a Scout in the Black Eagle Patrol? Anybody object?"
He stared at them fiercely, defiantly, as if daring one of them to protest. Nobody did. Horace Hibbs stroked his chin in high glee.
"Rodman," the Scout Master said, "can you tie—let me see—these knots: the square or reef, sheet-bend, bowline, fisherman's, sheepshank, halter, clove hitch, timber hitch and two half hitches?"
"Yes, sir. I know some others, too."
"And do you know the Scout laws, motto, sign, salute and significance of the badge?"
"Yes, sir."