Still, as he looked back, the base of the mountain seemed almost as near as when he had made his discovery, the fields and wood which had seemed so long to the tracker were but small to the casual glance and he realized that his whole journey was yet far short of a quarter mile.

The tracks now ran, as clear as writing, across one of those curious patches of damp ground with a thin, slippery skin, which was torn straight across in a kind of furrow.  Hervey was so intent on studying this that he did not notice in the shadow about a hundred feet ahead of him a log directly in line with the tracks.  When suddenly he looked up, he paused and stared ahead of him in consternation.

Some one was sitting on the log.

CHAPTER XIV

HERVEY’S TRIUMPH

As soon as Hervey’s dismay subsided he approached the log, and as he did so the figure appeared familiar to him.  There was something especially familiar in the scout hat which came down over the ears of the little fellow who was underneath it, and in the hair which straggled out under the brim.  The belt, drawn absurdly tight around the thin little waist, was a quite sufficient mark of identification.  It was Skinny McCord, the latest find, and official mascot of the Bridgeboro troop, one of the crack troop of the camp.  Alfred was his Christian name.

The queer little fellow’s usually pale face looked ghastly white in the late dusk, and the strange brightness of his eyes, and his spindle legs and diminutive body, crowned by the hat at least two sizes too large, made him seem a very elf of the woods.  At camp or elsewhere, Skinny was always alone, but he seemed more lonely than ever in that still wood, with the night coming on.  Nature was so big and Skinny was so little.

“Hello, Skinny, old top!” Hervey said cheerily.  “What do you think you’re doing here?  Lost, strayed, or stolen?”

Skinny’s eyes were bright with a strange light; he seemed not to hear his questioner.  But Hervey, knowing the little fellow’s queerness, was not surprised.

“You look kind of frightened.  Are you lost?” Hervey inquired.

For just a moment Skinny stared at him with a look so intense that Hervey was startled.  The little fellow’s fingers which clutched a branch of the log, trembled visibly.  He seemed like one possessed.

“Don’t get rattled, Skinny,” Hervey said; “I’ll take you back to camp.  We’ll find the way, all right-o.”

“I’m a second-class scout,” Skinny said.

“Bully for you, Skinny.”

“I—­I just did it.  I’m going to do more so as to be sure.  Will you stay with me so you can tell them?  Because maybe they won’t believe me.”

“They’ll believe you, Skinny, or I’ll break their heads, one after another.  What did you do, Alf, old boy?”

“Maybe they’ll say I’m lying.”

“Not while I’m around,” Hervey said.  “What’s on your mind, Skinny?”