The Boy Scouts First Camp Fire | Page 7

flung it when we dropped down here."
"Oh! thank you, Davy; perhaps I am just a little careless, as you say;
but all the same it's funny how my things always go. Hope, now, I don't
lose that splendid little aluminum compass I bought the other day,
thinking that it might save me from getting lost in the woods some
time."
"Oh! come along, old slow-poke, we're going to start There's Bumpus
trying to screw his lips into a pucker right now, so he can blow the
bugle. Ain't he got the grit, though, to attend to his business with that
swollen face?"
Presently, after the inspiring notes of the bugle had sounded, the patrol
once more took up its line of march. Each scout had his staff in his
hand, and carried a haversack on his back. Blankets they had none, for
all those necessary things had been entrusted to the care of a farmer,
whose route home from early market took him near the intended
camping place on Lake Omega; a beautiful, if wild looking sheet of
water some miles in length, and situated about ten from Cranford town.
Allan and Thad headed the procession that soon straggled in couples
along the side of the dusty road.
"What made you mention the name of Brose Griffin when you detailed
Number Four to remain at the camp?" asked Allan, who had evidently
been thinking about this same thing.

"Well," replied the scout-master, "it flashed into my mind that these
tough fellows might have dogged us up here, to play some of their
tricks on us when in camp; and that holding Bumpus was meant to
draw the rest off, so they could run away with our haversacks, which
they knew must contain lots of things we couldn't well get on without
in camp."
"Smithy couldn't if his hair brush and his little whisk broom were
missing," declared Allan, with a chuckle. "Why, that boy seems to only
live to fight against dirt. He's the most particular fellow I ever knew."
"Oh! wait and see how he gets over that before he's been a scout two
months," said Thad, also laughing. "Nothing like the rough and ready
life in camp and on the march to cure a boy of being over-clean. He'd
never learn any different at home, you know, because his mother is the
same way, and brought him up pretty much like a girl. But he's reached
the point now where the true boy nature is beginning to get the better of
that false pride."
"But seriously, Thad, do you believe we'll see anything of Brose Griffin
and his two shadows, Bangs and Hop?"
"I certainly hope we won't," replied the other; "but you know what they
are; and I've been told that they went around asking all sorts of
questions about where we intended to make our first camp-fire. It
wouldn't surprise me much if they did try to give us trouble."
"What will we do if it happens that way?" asked Allan.
"Defend ourselves, to be sure," replied the scout-master, promptly, as
he gave a weed a snap with his staff that cut its top off neatly.
"But scouts are not supposed to fight; that is one of the principles of the
organization," Allan remarked.
"In a way you're right," replied the other, slowly; "that is, no true scout
will ever seek a fight; but there may be times when he has to enter into
one in order to defend himself, or save a comrade from being badly

hurt. You know the twelve rules we all subscribed to when we joined
the Silver Fox Patrol, Allan? Suppose you run them over right now?"
"Oh! that's easy," laughed the second in command. "A scout must be
trustworthy, loyal, helpful to others, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient
to his superiors, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent."
"Well, in order to be brave, and helpful to others, he may even have to
fight; but he is expected only to resort to such extreme measures when
every other means fail. And if those three roughs come playing their
jokes around our camp we'll try and speak decently with them first.
Then, if that doesn't work, they'd better look out."
The way Thad snapped his teeth shut when saying those last few words
told what he would be apt to do if forced into the last ditch by
circumstances over which he had no control.
"I hope we can coax Giraffe to quit trying to make fires all the time,"
said Allan. "It's a dangerous thing to do in the woods. Why, up in
Maine every hunter has to employ a licensed guide just to make sure he
doesn't leave a camp-fire burning behind him when he breaks camp,
which the rising wind would