hat he might try his hand at them; David not only tied all the
knots illustrated in the handbook, but for good measure added a
bowline on a bight, a double carrick bend, a marlin hitch and a
halliard hitch.

"That's wonderful easy to do," David declared as he laid the rope
down. "'Tis strange they calls that a test, 'tis so easy done."

"Easy for us," admitted Doctor Joe, "but for boys who have never had
much to do with boats or ropes it's a hard test, and an important one.
You chaps knew how to tie them, so in doing it you haven't learned
anything new. Let us make up our minds as scouts to learn something
new every day--something we never knew before, no matter how small or
unimportant it may seem. Think what a lot we'll know next year that we
do not know now; everything we learn, too, is sure to be of use to us
sometime in our lives.

"As we go along we'll find there is a great deal to learn in this
handbook, and all of it is worth knowing. We don't look far ahead.
Suppose we begin with the scout law. With your good memories you'll
learn it before we go ashore to-night. I want you to learn the twelve
points of the law in order as they appear in the book, so that you can
repeat them and tell me in your own words what each point means."

Doctor Joe turned to the scout law and explained each point in detail.
When he told them that "A Scout is kind" meant that they must not only
be kind to people, but that they must protect and not kill harmless
birds and animals, David protested:

"If we promises _that_, sir, 'twould stop us huntin' seals and deer
and pa'tridges and plenty o' things."

"Oh, no!" explained Doctor Joe. "It does not mean that. It means that
you must kill nothing _needlessly_. Here in Labrador we must kill
seals and deer and partridges and other game for food and for their
skins. That is the way we make our living. In the same way they have
to kill cows and sheep and goats and pigs for food in the country I
came from and to get skins for boots and gloves. In the same way we
are permitted to kill game when necessary. But we're not to kill
anything that's harmless unless we need it for some purpose. The
Indians and other people about here shoot at loons for sport. I've
seen them chase the loons in canoes and keep shooting at them every
time they came up after a dive, until the loons were too tired to dive
quickly enough to get out of the way of the shot, and then the poor
things were killed. The flesh i