As these eight signalers proceeded on their way, they eagerly discussed ways and means by which their other activities could be correlated with working for the signal corps.
“Any exceptional feat of woodcraft scores twenty points in the record of the scout who performs it,” announced Lieutenant Denmead. “For instance, the scout who positively identifies the largest number of birds, animals, or trees may count twenty points to his credit; he who obtains the best six photographs of living wild animals may count fifteen points each; the same for him who makes the best collection of botanical specimens, insects, or minerals. And the prime requirement for the corps will be to send or receive a message by semaphore, American Morse, or Myer alphabet, sixteen letters per minute.”
Don gave a low whistle.
“You think that is pretty stiff?” inquired Denmead, turning to him with an encouraging smile. “Just you wait! I expect you fellows will be even more expert than that before these two weeks are over. Look out there, Arthur! That ledge you are standing on is rather slippery, my boy. Now then, Osborne, you and Sands go forward along that bare rib of rock, out to its edge, where you see a blasted pine-tree. Brace yourselves against the trunk and the lower branches, if they’re not rotten, and keep a look-out over the backwoods trail from camp. I suspect Division B will take that trail first. Have they left camp yet?”
“Can’t tell, sir,” called back Walter, when he and Alec had crawled to the end of the ledge. “I think they must have left, though, because——”
“Yes, they have, they have!” interrupted Don, pointing down to a clump of willows that grew in marshy ground near the easternmost arm of the lake. “See those blackbirds flying out in circles down there? That shows they are scared by something passing through the willow grove.”
The next moment, while they were taking their places and preparing to use the flags according to the alphabet-diagrams they had studied, there came to their ears, faint and far away, the low, weird, mournful howl of a wolf.
“That is Hugh Hardin calling his own patrol,” declared Billy. “Sounds like——”
“A trick!” muttered Alec, under his breath. “He wants to make us look for him in some place where he is least likely to appear.”
As if in answer to the wolf call came the subdued yet shrill “Kree-kree-eee” of a bird of prey, and, by an odd coincidence, a hawk was seen soaring rapidly above the tree-tops in another direction.