The next morning they started, with a minimum amount of duffel for one week’s supply, the load divided between them. There were crackers of the iron-clad pilot variety; there was rice, which Harry said he could do lots of things with; there were chocolate, cheese, figs, cereal, besides the things Harry had enumerated the night before. Besides these, there was “fly dope,” one or two household medicines, an antiseptic solution, blankets, two empty cushion bags, and a good-sized piece of balloon silk (weighing next to nothing) for shelter.
Harry wore long khaki trousers laced down from the knee, and moccasins of heavy mooseskin. From the belt up, however, he was rather a sailor than a scout, for he had never been able to bring himself to abandon the blue flannel shirt with its flap front and double row of pearl buttons. He positively declined to wear any kind of coat. His belt was a thin book-strap, and from this hung a small belt ax. Of course, he carried his rifle.
Gordon was a scout from head to foot. He would not have missed one detail of the full regalia. He carried his part of the burden in his duffel bag slung over his staff, on which he also ostentatiously hung the trap and snares and to which was bound the fishing rod and tackle.
“You want to do what I did, Harry,” said he on their way to the station. “Rip the lining out of your hat and pull it on good and tight—the felt catches your hair and it can’t blow off.”
“Or pull off either when you’re crawling through brush. It’s a good idea.”
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon. “Look here.” He held his scout hat forward, displaying inside the crown a little flap pocket filled with matches. “See, you can splash through all the water you want, but they’ll never get wet there, and you’ve got them right handy where you want them to light in a breeze.”
“Good for you,” said Harry.
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon.
But just then the train whistled and both boys sprinted down the hill.
The ride to the city was not long, one or two trifling purchases at a sporting goods store where Harry seemed to be well known took but a few minutes, and before ten o’clock they were seated comfortably in the Montreal Express, gliding up the east shore of the Hudson, just as the Oakwood troop, minus these two boys, had gone the day before.