The Silver Foxes prided themselves on the accuracy of their fox call, and the attenuated “Haa-haa” resounded musically from the hills around.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” said Ruth Stanton, standing close to Garry and Raymond, who were watching half enviously. “I don’t see how they can do it. Did you have a call when you had your patrol last summer?”
“It wasn’t much of a call, it was kind of a squeak,” said Garry in his quiet way. “We called ourselves the ‘Church Mice’ because we were so poor. It wasn’t very much of a patrol and it all fizzled out.”
“Wasn’t that too bad! Why did it?”
“Oh, one fellow had to go away to school; another moved out west, and—oh, I don’t know, it evaporated, sort of. You see, Edgevale isn’t much of a place.”
“They used to have a lake there,” interrupted Roy, “but a bird stopped for a drink one day and after that they couldn’t find the lake. Shows you what a big place it is—hey, Garry?”
Garry laughed good-naturedly.
“Not very far from where we live is Vale Centre; Warrentown is near, too. That’s the county seat and they’ve got a bully troop there.”
“Why don’t you join that?” asked Ruth.
“Well, it’s a full troop, and when a troop’s full it can’t be any fuller. You just have to start another and I guess I wasn’t smart enough—hey, Raymond? We’re just free lance scouts now,” he added. “I don’t know as they’ll call us scouts at all at National Headquarters.”