"I'm like old What's-his-name, Cæsar. Ready to do the conquest act, but nothing more to conquer. Believe me, it's no cinch being a would-be hero. Couldn't you get bitten by a rattlesnake on one of your tracking stunts? Get your foot on him, you know, and he'll be wriggling and squirming to get his head free, and his cruel fangs will be within an inch of your ankle and you'll just begin to feel them against your stocking——"
"Don't," laughed Tom.
"When all of a sudden I'll come bounding out of the thicket, and I'll grab him by the head and force his cruel jaws shut and slip an elastic band around his mug. That ought to pull the silver cross, hey? And I and my faithful followers would get three extra weeks in camp."
"Would you like to stay longer?" Tom asked.
"Foolish question, number three million. Haven't we had the time of our young lives? I never knew two weeks to go so fast. Never mind, we've got two days more—and two days only unless I get some answers to my 'ad.'"
"Where's your patrol this morning?"
"Stalking; they've a date with a robin. I would have gone along except I didn't see much chance of any of them imperilling their lives taking snapshots of robins. So I stayed home to do a little packing—things we won't need again. But no use thinking about that, I suppose; that's what I tell them. We've had some good times, all right. Seems a pity we have to go just when Mr. Temple and his daughter have come. You're a lucky kid; you stay till the last gun is fired, don't you?"
"Yes, I'm going to stay till we close up. Come on, stroll up the hill with me. I've got to raise the colors. If you've only two days more there's no use moping around in here."
"All right, wait a minute and I'll be with you—dry the pensive tear, as your friend Roy would say. He's an all-around scout, isn't he?"
"Yes, he came right off the cover of the Manual, Mr. Ellsworth says."