ntervening
spaces the vegetation obscured them and he found them with difficulty.
This tracking in the woods was the hardest part of his task because it
required patience and deliberation, and Hervey had neither.

But he managed it and was beginning to wonder how far his tracking had
led him and whether he was near to covering the required distance. When
he felt certain of that, he would drive a stake in the ground, fly his
navy blue scarf from it to prove his claim, and go back to camp in
triumph. He had made up his mind that he would at once report his feat
in Council Shack, and offer to escort any or all of the trustees back
over the ground in verification of his crowning accomplishment. The only
Eagle Scout at Temple Camp, except Tom Slade; and Tom Slade didn't
count....

Still, as he looked back, the base of the mountain seemed almost as near
as when he had made his discovery, the fields and wood which had seemed
so long to the tracker were but small to the casual glance and he
realized that his whole journey was yet far short of a quarter mile.

The tracks now ran, as clear as writing, across one of those curious
patches of damp ground with a thin, slippery skin, which was torn
straight across in a kind of furrow. Hervey was so intent on studying
this that he did not notice in the shadow about a hundred feet ahead of
him a log directly in line with the tracks. When suddenly he looked up,
he paused and stared ahead of him in consternation.

Some one was sitting on the log.

CHAPTER XIV

HERVEY'S TRIUMPH

As soon as Hervey's dismay subsided he approached the log, and as he did
so the figure appeared familiar to him. There was something especially
familiar in the scout hat which came down over the ears of the little
fellow who was underneath it, and in the hair which straggled out under
the brim. The belt, drawn absurdly tight around the thin little waist,
was a quite sufficient mark of identification. It was Skinny McCord, the
latest find, and official mascot of the Bridgeboro troop, one of the
crack troop of the camp. Alfred was his Christian name.

The queer little fellow's usually pale face looked ghastly white in the
late dusk, and the strange brightness of his eyes, and his spindle legs
and diminutive body, crowned by the hat at least two sizes too large,
made him seem a very elf of the woods. At camp or elsewhere, Skinny was
always alone, but he seemed more lonely than ever in that still wood,