With heart bounding with joy and elation, Hervey followed the bed of the stream.  The tracks, or whatever they were, were so clear that he could keep to the side of the muddy area and still see them.

It was characteristic of him that having made this great discovery, he did not trouble himself about the direction he was taking.  In point of fact he was going in a southwesterly direction toward the camp.

For perhaps a quarter of a mile the strange markings were clearly legible in the dusk, running as they did in the yielding caked surface of the stream bed.  They were as clear as tracks in caked snow.  Then the path of the dried up waterway petered out in an area of rocks and pebbles and beyond that there was no clearly defined way; the brook had evidently trickled down into the lower land taking the path of least resistance among the rocks.

No doubt Tom Slade could have followed that water path to its end, but Hervey was puzzled, baffled.  Yet the enthusiasm which carried him, as though on wings, to his triumphs was aroused now.  He had the prophecy of Tom Slade to strengthen his determination.  He must make good for Tom’s sake now, as well as for the sake of his troop.  He had told Tom that if he only once found a trail, nothing would stop him—­nothing.  Very fine.  All that talk about there being something higher than the Eagle award was nonsense, and Tom Slade knew it was nonsense.  “He said I’d do it, and I’m going to,” Hervey muttered to himself.

Hervey had no patience with obstacles, he must be always moving, so now he began frantically scrutinizing the ground to see if he could find some sign of the marks which had eluded him.  Since he could no longer distinguish the stream bed, he looked for some sign of those marks outside the stream bed.

And presently he was rewarded by the discovery of tracks, animal tracks sure enough, without any ribbon, so to speak, printed between them.  There they were upon the hard, bare earth, two lines of claw marks, continuing to a point where they disappeared again at the edge of a close cropped field.  Evidently his mysterious predecessor had known just where he wished to go and had forsaken the stream bed when it no longer went in his direction.  These were no aimless tracks, they were the tracks of a creature that had particular business in the southwest, and that knew how to get there.

CHAPTER XIII

THE STRANGE TRACKS

Hervey had not the slightest idea in which direction he was going, but in point of fact he was heading straight in the direction of Temple Camp.  But he had found his precious tracks and nothing would stop him now.  He would go over the top in a blaze of glory next day, and then perhaps a telegram could be sent to scout headquarters to have the Eagle badge sent up immediately so that he could receive the very award itself on Saturday night.  He was on the home stretch now, as luck would have it, and nothing would stop him—­nothing....