"Sure, it's all right," laughed Roy, "come ahead. I'd have asked you
only I never thought about it."

"Have you got your note book?" Pee-wee again demanded.

"Yep," Warde laughed.

"Then you're all right," Pee-wee assured him. "It doesn't make any
difference whether one scout goes with you or two."

With such high legal authority as this, Warde's mind was at rest. He was
the newest scout in the troop and a member of Roy's patrol, the Silver
Foxes. He had made a great hit in the troop and was immensely liked.

He had not been long enough a member of the Silver Fox patrol to have
imbibed the spirit of freedom with its sprightly leader which the others
so hilariously exhibited. The Silver Fox patrol was an institution
altogether unique in scouting. One had to be half crazy (as the Ravens
and Elks said) before one became a tried and true Silverplated
Fox--warranted. The Silver Foxes had a spirit all their own--and they
were welcome to it.

Warde had shown his mettle by his tests, and also he had shown his fine
breeding and spirit by not pushing too aggressively into troop
familiarity. If he was not yet a full-fledged scout, he was at least a
fine type for a scout, and the uproarious Silver Foxes and their
irrepressible leader were proud of him.

He had now, as he had said, but one test to take before becoming a first
class scout. This meant more to him than it might have meant to another
for he had obtrusively prepared himself to claim several merit badges of
the more easily won sort, as soon as his first class rank should enable
him to properly lay claim to these.

He was ahead of the game in fact, and hence the anxiety of his tone and
manner when he ran after Pee-wee and Roy, hoping that here might be the
chance of fulfilling the final requirement before the coveted first
class badge should be his. None fully knew how much he had dreamed of
the first class badge. His fine loyalty had kept him at work among them,
but he had not been able to see those two fare forth without jumping at
the chance.

The test on which his achievement hung is on the same page of the
handbook with the picture of the badge he longed for:

4.--Make a round trip alone (or with another scout) to a point
at least seven miles away (fourteen miles in all) going on foot
or rowing a boat, and write a satisfactory account of the trip,
and things observed.

Warde Hollister was not the one to strain the meaning of this. To h