I'm just beginning to see how useful we really might be. We could
do a lot of things instead of soldiers, couldn't we? So that
they would be free to go and fight?"

"Yes," answered the scoutmaster. "And I can tell you now that the
National Scout Council has always planned to 'Be Prepared!' It
decided, a long time ago, what should be done in case of war. A
great many troops will be offered to the War Department to do odd
jobs. They will carry messages and dispatches. They will act
as clerks, so far as they can. They will patrol the railways and
other places that ought to be under guard, where soldiers can be
spared if we take their places. So far as such things can be
planned, they have been planned.

"But most of the ways in which we can be useful haven't showed
themselves, at all yet. They will develop, if war comes. We
shall have to be alert and watchful, and do whatever there is to
be done..."

"Who will be scoutmaster, sir. if you go to the war?" asked Harry.

"I'm not quite sure," said Grenfel. "We haven't decided yet. But
it will be someone you can trust -- be sure of that. And I think
I needn't say that if you scouts have any real regard for me you
will show it best by serving as loyally and as faithfully under
him as you have under me. I shall be with you in spirit, no
matter where I am. Now it's, getting late. I think we'd better
break up for tonight. We will make a special order, too, for the
present. Every scout in the troop will report at scout
headquarters until further notice, every day, at nine o'clock in