n.

CHAPTER IX

FRIENDS IN KHAKI

While they were pushing laboriously onward through the woods,
overcoming all manner of obstacles, Lieutenant Fosdick gave the
scouts a pleasant surprise.

"One reason why I asked you to visit our camp," he remarked, "was
because I fancied all of you might be glad of a chance to take a
spin aloft in an aeroplane. You may like that, if it happens that
you've never enjoyed the experience up to now."

Hugh immediately turned to the army man and expressed his pleasure.

"I've often hoped to have a chance to go up," he said, "but hardly
thought it would happen so soon. And we'll all be only too glad
to accept your invitation."

"I should say so," added Ralph.

Bud did not say a single word, and turning to ascertain why, the
officer found a smile of the "kind that won't come off" spreading
all the way across his face. It was evident that Bud was too happy
for words. He had long dreamed of spinning through the upper
currents in one of those bustling airships that are becoming more
common every day; but, like Hugh, he had not expected the golden
opportunity to be sprung upon him so soon.

As they walked along, the officer once more started to question them
regarding the two strange men who seemed to be hanging about without
any known business to keep them up in this unsettled region.

"I think you said that one of them looked in through the window of
your shack night before last, and then fled when you let him see
that he had been discovered?" he remarked to Hugh.

"Yes, and we made sure that he had been there by examining the soil
under the window. It is a part of a scout's education, you know,
sir, looking for signs. We found them, too, marks of a long narrow
shoe, that told us the man could never be a hobo but must be a
gentleman. After they had rummaged through our cabin while we were
away, we found the same marks before the door, and indenting tracks
of our own, so that proved just when the fellows must have been around."

The army officer nodded his head and laughed softly.

"I understand what you mean, son," he remarked, "and it quite tickles
me to know how clever our boys are getting under the influence of
this new scout movement. It is bound to wake up most lads and set
them to thinking for themselves, years before they would have been
aroused under the old way. And I must say I'm heartily in sympathy
with the work of the association. It's the finest t