ard.

"That's rubbing it in," said Hervey to himself. "That's two things, a
bicycle and a canoe I've lost before I got them."

He sat down at the table in the public part of the office while Skinny,
all excitement, stood by and watched him eagerly. He pulled a sheet of
the camp stationery toward him and wrote upon it in his free, sprawling,
reckless hand.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This will prove that Alfred McCord of Bridgeboro troop tracked some
kind of an animal for more than a half a mile, because I saw him
doing it and I saw the tracks and I came back with him and I know
all about it and it was one good stunt I'll tell the world. So if
that's all he's got to do to be a second-class scout, he's got the
badge already, and if anybody wants to know anything about it they
can ask me.

HERVEY WILLETTS,
Troop Cabin 13.

After scrawling this conclusive affidavit and placing it under a weight
on the desk of Mr. Wade, resident trustee, Hervey sauntered over to the
cabins occupied by the two patrols of his troop, the Leopards and the
Panthers. They were just getting ready to go to supper.

"Anything doing, Hervey?" his scoutmaster, Mr. Warren, asked him.

"Nothing doing," Hervey answered laconically.

"Maybe he doesn't know what you're talking about," one of his patrol,
the Panthers, suggested. This was intended as a sarcastic reference to
Hervey's way of losing interest in his undertakings before they were
completed.

"Have you got a trail--any tracks?" another asked.

Hervey began rummaging through his pockets and said, "I haven't got one
with me."

"You didn't happen to see that canoe in Council Shack, did you?" Mr.
Warren asked him.

"Yes, it's very nice," Hervey said.

Mr. Warren paused a moment, irresolute.

"Hervey," he finally said, "the boys think it's too bad that you should
fall down just at the last minute. After all you've accomplished, it
seems like--what shall I say--like Columbus turning back just before
land was sighted."

"He didn't turn back," Hervey said; "now there's one thing I didn't
forget--my little old history book. When Columbus started to cross the
Delaware----"

"Listen, Hervey," Mr. Warren interrupted him; "suppose you and I walk
together, I want to talk with you."

So they strolled together in the direction of the mess boards.

"No