No one paid any attention to this little gnome of a boy, and he was a pathetic sight sitting there with his intense gaze, having just a touch of wildness in it, fixed upon the lake.  Doubtless if his scout regalia had fitted him properly he would not have seemed so pathetic, for it is not uncommon for a scout to want to be alone in the great companionable wilderness.

Suddenly, this little fellow’s gaze was withdrawn from the lake and fell upon something which seemed to interest him right at his feet.  He slid down from the rock and examined it closely.  His poor little thin figure and skinny legs were very noticeable then.  But he picked up nothing, only kneeled there, apparently in a state of great excitement and elation.

Presently, he started away, looked back, as if he was afraid his discovery would take advantage of his absence to steal away.  Again he started, hurrying around the edge of the cooking shack and to the little avenue of patrol cabins beyond.  As he hurried along, the big brass compass flopped about and sometimes banged against his belt buckle, making quite a noise.  Several boys laughed as he passed them, trotting along as if possessed by a vision.  But no one stopped him or spoke to him.

In the patrol cabin where he belonged, he rooted in great haste and excitement among the contents of a cheap pasteboard suit case and presently pulled out a torn and battered old copy of the scout handbook.  He sat down on the edge of his cot and, hurriedly looking through the index, opened the book at page thirty.  He was breathing so hard that he almost gulped, and his thin little hands trembled visibly....

CHAPTER III

THE “ALL BUT” SCOUT

In that same hour, perhaps a little earlier or later, I cannot say, Tom Slade, having finished his duties for the day, strolled along the lake shore away from camp and struck into the woods which extended northward as far as the Dansville road.

He had no notion of where he was going; he was going nowhere in particular.  For aught I know he was going to ponder on the responsibility which had been thrust upon him by the scout powers that be, of judging stalking photographs preliminary to awarding the Audubon prize offered by the historical society in his home town.  Perhaps he was under the influence of a little pensive regret that the season was coming to an end and wished to have this lonely parting with his beloved hills and trees.  It is of no consequence.  About all he actually did was to kick a stick along before him and pause now and again to examine the caked green moss on trees.

When he had reached a little eminence whence the view behind him was unobstructed, he turned and looked down upon the camp.  Perhaps in that brief glimpse the whole panorama of his adventurous life spread before him in his mind’s eye, and he saw the vicious little hoodlum that he had once been transformed into a scout, pass through the several ranks of scouting, grow up, go to war, and come back to be assistant at the camp where he had spent so many happy hours when he was a young boy.