Nothing! He would send a line to his mother that very night and tell her all about it, and put E. S. after his name. Eagle Scout. The bicycle his father had promised him when he should attain that pinnacle of scout glory, he would now demand.  That would be where dad lost out....

If Tom Slade knew some secret about a higher award, that meant more stunts, Hervey would do those stunts, too; the more the merrier.  He should worry....

Yes, he was on the trail at last, and at the end of that trail was the stalking badge—­and the Eagle award. Hervey Willetts, Eagle Scout. It sounded pretty good....

He realized now that this discovery of his was just a streak of luck, that the chances would have been altogether against his finding real tracks in these two remaining days.  “I’m lucky,” he said.  Which must have been true, else he would have lost his life long ere that....

Darkness was now coming on apace, and it must be long past supper-time.  But this was no time to be thinking of eating.  Nothing would stop him now, nothing.  When he set his mind on a thing....

The tracks changed again in traversing the fields.  They were not tracks at all, in fact, but a narrow belt of trampled grass, which was not visible close by.  It was only by looking ahead that Hervey could distinguish it.  Half way across the field he lost it altogether, but, remembering the fact that it could be seen better at a distance, he climbed a tree and there lay the long narrow belt of trampled grass running under the rail fence at the field’s edge and into the sparse woods beyond.  He had not to follow it, only pick out the rail of the fence near where it passed and hurry to that spot.

And there it was, waiting for him.  If Hervey had been well versed in tracking lore and less of a seeker after glory, he would have scrutinized the lowest rail of the fence, under which the track went, for bits of hair.  But Hervey Willetts was not after bits of hair.  It was quite like him that he did not care two straws about what sort of animal he was tracking.  He was tracking the Eagle badge.

In the sparse woods the tracks appeared as regular tracks again, sharply cut in the hard earth.  Where the ground was bare under the trees, the tracks were as clear as writing on a slate, but in the intervening 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....