That's why Bob's act in
patrolling the live wire earned him a Safety Scout button--the lives of
those smaller boys were in danger, to say nothing of anybody else who
might blunder across the wire just then--that's where the difference
comes in."

"That's so. I never thought of it in just that way."

"I know you haven't. When you stop to think it over, you see it's a
fellow's plain duty to take a chance when it's necessary, but it's
downright foolish to do it on a dare. One thing about Bob's live-wire
adventure I don't believe even he realizes," added Sure Pop. "It was
that hurry-up patrol of small boys that he threw out around the live
wire which really gave him the idea of how to organize the Safety Scouts
of America. I knew the idea would strike him and Betty sooner or later."

Chance looked admiringly at the little Colonel. What a wise Scout he
was, sure enough, as keen and clever at reading signs of the trail as
any Indian fighter that ever stepped in deerskin!

The boy looked longingly after the Safety Scout Patrol, which was just
starting off on an "observation hike," as Bob called it. Part of the
training Bob had laid out for his men was an hour's brisk walk, after
which each Safety Scout wrote out a list of the unsafe things he had
noticed while "on the trail."

"There's one thing that stumps me, though," said Chance. "How did Bob
_know_ that was a live wire?"

"He didn't. He simply had sense enough to treat _all_ fallen wires as if
they _were_ alive. See? Better safe than sorry. Just the same in turning
on an electric light: it _may_ not harm you to touch an iron bedstead
with one hand while you turn the light on with the other--but it's
taking a chance. Same's the fellow who turns an electric bulb on or off
while standing in a bathtub: he _may_ go on with his bath in safety--and
then again he may drop lifeless in the water.

"It's a good deal like the gun that isn't loaded, Chauncey. There _was_
a lad, you know, who found a gun was dangerous without lock, stock, or
barrel--his father whipped him with the ramrod! A real Scout knows how
to take care of himself--and of others. And that's especially true of
Safety Scouts."

"Well, Colonel," said Chance, reaching for his crutches and rising
painfully to his feet, "I'm _for_ it! Perhaps if I make good, the
fellows will quit calling me Chance and call me either Chauncey or
Carter, I don't care which--but Chance makes me sick!"

"Here's _to_ you, Carter!" s