"Start as soon as you like. You'd better get off and circle pretty widely, so as to get used to the car. But don't cross the State line, whatever you do, before twelve o'clock. That is strictly against orders."
There was a lot of good-natured talk among the Scouts when they heard of the great chance to distinguish himself that had come to the Assistant Patrol Leader of the Crows.
"Gee, Jack's lucky!" said one member of the Whip-poor-will Patrol.
"He is not!" defended Pete Stubbs, loyally. "He's a hard worker. He's spent a lot of his own time in the last year learnin' all about an automobile. He knows how to run one, and he knows how to fix it, too, if it goes wrong on a trip. That isn't luck, and don't you call it luck!"
"I didn't mean anything against Jack when I said he was lucky, Pete. No call to get so mad about it!"
"I'm not so mad, but it does get my goat to hear people say that everything that happens to Jack Danby that's good comes because he's lucky. I guess he isn't any luckier than any of the rest of us, but he sticks to the job harder."
No amount of coaxing, of course, would have induced Jack to tell what his orders were; and as a matter of fact, only one or two of the Scouts tried to find out. Durland had not even thought it necessary to warn Jack to be quiet, for he knew that Jack was on his honor as a Scout, and that nothing more was necessary to lead him to maintain a resolute silence on the subject of the strange scouting trip into the enemy's country which he was soon to begin.
"Good luck," cried the Scout-Master, finally, as Jack started off. "You know your orders—now make good!"