Then the road----" began Jud.

"Makes a bend just beyond," Paul broke in with, "and goes no further up
that way. This is the last peep any of us are likely to have of far-away
Stanhope till we come out again on the way home."

"That's all right, then. Now that you mention it, I can see how the road
does take a turn a little way along. What do you suppose we're apt to
strike there, Paul? I'm more than anxious to get wise."

But the acting scoutmaster only shrugged his shoulders.

"You really don't know, then?" continued Jud.

"Only what I've heard. Some say there's a fine lake back here a few
miles. And that's what I'm hoping to strike, for a spot to camp,"
returned Paul.

"Well, I've heard that same thing," said Jud, slowly, "but never more
than half believed it. Just as like as not we'll find it only a duck
pond. But a camp always seems more like the real thing if it's only near
water."

"I always thought so," Paul admitted, "and I've been in a few dandy
camps in my time. My people have gone up in Maine every Summer for a
long while, you know. But this year they are going to stay home for a
change. Father hates to turn over his practice to any one else; and to
tell the truth I said I wanted to be right here."

"Bully for you, Paul. We all feel that we owe you a lot for the way
you've stuck to us through thick and thin. We'd never have won that
banner there if----"

But Paul would not listen.

"Stow that sort of talk, Jud!" he exclaimed. "I've done my best, but it
wasn't any more than lots of the other fellows could do. If we'd gotten
hold of Mr. Gordon in time he'd have made a better troop than we were.
He knows a heap along many lines."

"Yes," remarked Jud, with a nod, "by theory, but I just bet you if it
came down to practice you could beat him out every time. But what was it
I saw you doing at our last camp, just before we pulled up stakes?"

"I was leaving a letter for Mr. Gordon when he came along," replied
Paul, with a mysterious smile.

"What sort of a letter now, I'd like to know? Seemed to me you were
marking on a piece of birch bark, which you stuck on a stick close to
where our fire had been. And Paul," with a grin, "I had the curiosity to
take a sly look at the same as I passed by."

"Yes. What did you see?" asked the patrol leader, quietly.

"Why, it looked to me like you'd gone back some years, and started
drawing funny animals, and such things," replied Jud.

"Just what they were, ol