“I ain’t through yet,” Skinny said.  “I know your name and I like you.  I like you because you can dive fancy.”

“Yes, and what are you doing here, Alf?” Hervey asked, sitting down beside the little fellow.

“I’m a second-class scout,” Skinny said; “I found the tracks and I tracked them.  See them?  There they are.  Those are tracks.”

“Yes, I see them.”

“I tracked them all the way up from camp and I’ve got to go further up yet, so as to be sure.  You got to be sure—­or you don’t get the badge.  So now I won’t be a tenderfoot any more.  Are you a second-class scout?”

“First-class, Skinny.”

“I bet you don’t care about tracks—­do you?”

Hervey put his arm over the little fellow’s shoulder and as he did so he felt the little body trembling with nervous excitement.

“Not so much, Skinny.  No, I don’t care about tracks.  I—­eh—­I like diving better.  How far up are you going to follow the tracks?”

“I’m going to follow them away, way, way up so as I’ll be sure.  They might say it wasn’t a half a mile, hey?”

The hand which rested on the little thin shoulder, patted it reassuringly.

“Well, I’ll be there to tell them different, won’t I, Skinny, old boy?”

“Will you go with me all the way up to where the mountain begins—­will you?”

“Surest thing you know.”

“And will you prove it for me?”

“That’s me.”

“Then I won’t be a tenderfoot any more.  I’ll be a second-class scout.”

“Is that what you have to do to be a second-class scout, Skinny?  I forget about the second-class tests.  You have to track an animal, or something like that?  I’ve got a rotten memory.”

“And I’ll—­I’ll have a trail named after me, too; it’ll be called McCord trail.  These are my tracks, see?  Because I found them.  Only maybe they’ll say I’m lying.  Anyway, how did you happen to come here?” he asked as if in sudden fear.

“I was just taking a walk through the woods, Skinny.”

Skinny continued to stare at him, still with a kind of lingering misgiving, but feeling that gentle patting on his shoulder, he seemed reassured.

“I was just flopping around in the woods, Skinny; just flopping around, that’s all....”

CHAPTER XV

SKINNY’S TRIUMPH

And that was the triumph of Hervey Willetts, who would let nothing stand in his way. “Nothing!”

A hundred yards or so more and the stalking badge would have been won, and with it the Eagle award.  The bicycle that he had longed for would have been his.  The troop which in its confidence had commissioned him to win this high honor would have gone wild with joy.  Hervey Willetts would have been the only Eagle Scout at Temple Camp save Tom Slade, and, of course, Tom didn’t count.