That Hervey Willetts was a kind of odd number at camp was evidenced by
his unfamiliarity with the things that were very familiar to most boys
there. He was too restless to hang around the pavilion or sprawl under
the trees or idle about with the others in and near Council Shack. He
never read the bulletin board posted outside, and the inside was a place
of so little interest to him that he had not even seen the beautiful
canoe that was exhibited there, and on which so many longing eyes had
feasted.

Now as he and Skinny entered that sanctum of the powers that were, he
saw it for the first time. It was a beautiful canoe with a gold stripe
around it and gunwales of solid mahogany. It lay on two sawhorses.
Within it, arranged in tempting style, lay two shiny paddles, a caned
back rest, and a handsome leather cushion. Upon it was a little
typewritten sign which read:

This canoe to be given to the first scout this season to win the
Eagle award.

"That's rubbing it in," said Hervey to himself. "That's two things, a
bicycle and a canoe I've lost before I got them."

He sat down at the table in the public part of the office while Skinny,
all excitement, stood by and watched him eagerly. He pulled a sheet of
the camp stationery toward him and wrote upon it in his free, sprawling,
reckless hand.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: