A good bed! The scouts looked at each other in dismay. Perish the
thought! They were not out to sleep in good beds.

'Haven't you a hay-loft?' asked Dick.

'Yes,' replied the miller. 'What of that?'

Again Dick explained. The miller and his wife were rather puzzled at
the idea of the boys preferring the hay-loft, but they were willing
that the scouts should do as they pleased; and that night the two
comrades rolled themselves in their blankets, and slept snugly side by
side in a nest of soft sweet hay.

The next morning they were up bright and early, intending to slip off
before the people of the mill were astir; but they reckoned without the
miller, who was up earlier still, and insisted that they should eat a
good breakfast before they started. And when at last they struck the
trail once more, they carried a huge packet of sandwiches the miller's
wife had cut for them.

CHAPTER XXXV

A BROTHER SCOUT--THE TWO TRAMPS

It was mid-morning before they got the knots out of their neckties, for
they followed quiet ways on which few people were to be met. Then they
approached a small town entered by a steep hill. At the foot of the
hill an old man was struggling to get a hand-cart loaded with cabbages
up the slope. The scouts called upon him to ease up; then Chippy took
the shafts, and Dick pushed at the side, and they ran the heavy
hand-cart up the hill to the door of the greengrocer, whose shop the
old man supplied from his little market-garden. At the top of the
hill, as they rested to get their wind, a cheery-looking gentleman
drove by in a dog-cart. He smiled at sight of them and their task,
saluted, and called out; 'Well done, boy scouts!'

The comrades saluted him in return, and he drove off, waving his hand.

'I'll bet he's an instructor,' said Chippy.

'I shouldn't wonder,' returned Dick. 'He looked cheerful enough to be
one of ours.'

They only stayed in the town long enough to despatch a post-card, of
which Dick had a small stock in his haversack, to Bardon, to say all
was well, then pushed on, and were soon in the open country once more.

Two miles out of the town they met a comrade. They were passing a
house standing beside the road, when a boy came out at the gate. He
started and stared at sight of them, then gave the secret sign in full
salute; for he had observed the badge on their hats, and knew them for
patrol-leaders. They returned the salute, and the stranger stepped
for