get a message sent a
long distance in shortest time by means of relays of runners (or
cyclists). The patrol is ordered out to send in three successive notes
or tokens (such as sprigs of certain plants), from a point, say, two
miles distant or more. The leader in taking his patrol out to the spot
drops scouts at convenient distances, who will then act as runners
from one post to the next and back. If relays are posted in pairs,
messages can be passed both ways.

Track Memory

Make a patrol sit with their feet up, so that other scouts can study
them. Give the scouts, say, three minutes to study the boots. Then
leaving the scouts in a room or out of sight, let one of the patrol
make some footmarks in a good bit of ground. Call up the scouts one by
one and let them see the track and say who made it.

Spot the Thief

Get a stranger to make a track unseen by the scouts. The scouts study
his track so as to know it again.

Then put the stranger among eight or ten others and let them all make
their tracks for the boys to see, going by in rotation. Each scout
then in turn whispers to the umpire which man, {309} made the original
track--describing him by his number in filing past. The scout who
answers correctly wins; if more than one answers correctly, the one
who then draws the best diagram, from memory, of the footprint wins.

Smugglers Over the Border

The "border" is a certain line of country about four hundred yards
long, preferably a road or wide path or bit of sand, on which foot
tracks can easily be seen. One patrol watches the border with sentries
posted along this road, with a reserve posted farther inland. This
latter about half-way between the "border" and the "town"; the "town"
would be a base marked by a tree, building, or flags, etc., about half
a mile distant from the border. A hostile patrol of smugglers assemble
about half a mile on the other side of the border. They will all cross
the border, in any formation they please, either singly or together or
scattered, and make for the town, either walking or running, or at
scouts' pace. Only one among them is supposed to be smuggling, and he
wears tracking irons, so that the sentries walk up and down their beat
(they may not run till after the "alarm"), waiting for the tracks of
the smuggler. Directly a sentry sees the track, he gives the alarm
signal to the reserve and starts himself to follow up the track as
fast as he can. The reserves thereupon coop