you."

"Say, Tubby, you look like a roll of butter at an August picnic,"
laughed Simon Jeffords, one of the second-class scouts.

"All right, Sim," testily rejoined the aggrieved fat one, "I
notice at that, though, that I am a regular scout while you are
only a rookie."

"Come on, cut out the conversation," exclaimed Corporal Crawford
hastily, "while we are fussing about here, Rob Blake must be
halfway home."

With a groan of comical despair from poor Tubby, the Boy Scouts
darted forward once more. On and on they pushed across country,
skillfully tracking their leader by the various signs they had
been taught to know and of which the present scouting expedition
was a test.

Their young leader evidently intended them to use their eyes to
the utmost for, beside the stone signs, he used blaze-marks, cut
on the trees with his hunting knife. For instance, at one place
they would find a square bit of bark removed, with a long slice
to the left of it. This indicated that their quarry had doubled
to the left. The slice to the right of the square blaze
indicated the reverse.

Suddenly Corporal Crawford held up his hand as a signal for
silence. The scouts came to an abrupt stop.