"Yes, indeed. I think I can qualify in a couple of weeks."
"That's fine, Pete! You know I enlisted you, and a Scout is judged partly by the sort of recruits he brings into the Troop. They'll never have a chance to blame me for enlisting you if you keep on the way you've begun."
They were going along at a good pace all this time, not too fast, but swinging steadily along. The road did not seem long, because their hard, young bodies were used to exercise, and they took the walking as a matter of course.
"They'll be expecting us up at the Bentons, won't they, Jack?"
"Dick Crawford said he would write and let Jim Burroughs know we were coming, Pete. So I guess they'll be on the lookout all right."
"Do you remember the night we got to the lake, and Jim Burroughs and Miss Benton were lost in the woods?"
"I certainly do! They would have had a bad night of it if we hadn't found them, I'm afraid. But all's well that ends well. It didn't hurt them at all, as it turned out, and I guess it taught them both to be more careful about going out in woods when they weren't sure of the trail."
"Gee, Jack, I could have got lost myself then. I didn't know how to travel by the stars, and I wasn't any too sure how to use a compass."
They had traveled more than half the distance when they picked out a sleeping place that night. They went to a farmer's house, and when he found that all they wanted was permission to camp in his wood lot, and to make a fire there, he told them they could do as they liked. He invited them to spend the night in the house, too, but they told him they preferred to sleep out-of-doors, and, laughing at them, he consented.
They were off at five in the morning, and at noon, when they built a fire and cooked their dinner, they could see the wooded crests of the hills that were their destination rising before them.