“No, we’re going up the front way,” Tom smiled. “Llewellyn came down the back way.”
“He’s a peach of a scout, hey?”
“The best ever.”
Hervey had soon a pretty good demonstration of the advantage of using the brain first and the hands and feet afterwards. And he had a pretty good demonstration of the particular kind of scout that Tom Slade was—a scout that thinks.
They hit into the road about fifty yards from the boat landing and followed it through a valley to where it ran along the foot of the mountain.
“Are you sure this is the right mountain?” Hervey asked. “They all look alike when you get close to them.”
“Yop,” said Tom; “what do you think of it?”
“Oh, I’m not particular about mountains,” Hervey said. “They all look alike to me.”
Following the road, they watched the bordering woods on the mountainside carefully for any sign of a trail. Several times they clambered up into the thicket supposing some tiny clearing or sparse area to be the beginning of the winding way they sought.
Hervey was thoroughly aroused now and serious. Once they picked their way up into the woods for perhaps a dozen yards, only to find themselves in a jungle with no sign of trail. Tom returned down out of these blind alleys, his hands scratched, his clothing torn, and resumed his way along the road doggedly, saying little. He knew it was somewhere and he was going to find it.