I said, “The next thing you’ll be trying to win the electricity badge by being struck by lightning.” Our young tenderfoot hero, Scout Cook, said, “If I can do Tests Five and Eight I’ll be a second-class scout. It’s all right if you give them good measure, isn’t it?”
I said, “Sure, but I wouldn’t give them a whole world tour for a two mile hike in these days of the high cost of hiking. Test Five says you must hike a mile and back. You must have hiked about a dozen miles. What are you going to do now?”
“Are you sure I’m a mile away from camp?” he asked me.
“Positively guaranteed,” I told him. “You’ll find out before you get back.”
“I’m going to do two tests at once,” he said.
“Boy, but you’re reckless,” Garry said. “What’s the other test?”
He said, “It’s Test Eight. I’ve got to cook this meat and these potatoes. See? And I’m going to put my initials on a tree to prove I hiked this far, and I’m going to take the food back to prove I cooked it. Because you have to prove things, don’t you?”
“Ask Scout Harris,” I said; “he’s in your patrol. He knows all about laws and food and everything.”
Gee whiz, I knew those two tests well enough—Five and Eight. One says a scout must go a mile—scout pace he’s supposed to go. The other says he must cook a quarter of a pound of meat and two potatoes without any cooking utensils. That kid had about a dozen potatoes and a couple of pounds or so of meat, ready to cook.
“Where did you get all this?” I asked him.