I like best about being a
Scout. It teaches you to be responsible, and to understand that you've
got to do things just because you are responsible for seeing that
they're done, and not just because someone keeps standing over you and
telling you what to do."

"Where shall we go, Jack?"

"The camp for the Troop hike today is out at Beaver Dam. I thought we
might start from the other side of the lake there, go to Haskell
Crossing, and get back to camp in time for supper. Then we could get
our badges from Mr. Durland, I guess."

"That's a fine idea, Jack. I don't know that country very well,
though. Do you?"

"No. That's one reason for going that way. We know that we'll find a
place where we can make a fire and cook our supper, though. We don't
need to eat it unless we're particularly hungry, but we've got to cook
it."

"Say, Jack, if fellows make that hike alone, who's going to tell
whether they really did it or not? If a fellow wasn't straight, he
could go off somewhere; and then report that he'd hiked the fourteen
miles, and there wouldn't be anyone to prove that he hadn't."

"I know, but we're all on our honor, Pete, and a chap who had got to be
a Second Glass Scout wouldn't ever play a trick like that. It wouldn't
pay."

"I guess that's true, too, Jack. That's another fine thing about being
a Scout. When you see a fellow give you the Scout sign in a strange
place, you know he's all right, just because he is a Scout, even if you
never saw him before."

"Yes. That's why we've all got to be so careful to keep up the honor
of the Scouts, and not do anything ourselves, nor let any other Scout
do anything that would give outsiders a chance to say that we preached
one thing and did another."

They took the trolley to their starting point, on the side of Lake
Whitney away from Beaver Dam, where their fellow Scouts were to gather
later in the afternoon for a practice camp, such as Durland and
Crawford arranged for nearly every half holiday.

"How will we know when we've gone seven miles?" asked Tom.

"It's just about seven miles--perhaps a little more--to Haskell
Crossing, so we can tell without any trouble. That's one reason I
picked out the place. The trail through these woods is pretty rough,
but we can follow it all right."

"Whose land is this, Jack?"

"No one knows, exactly. It's a sort of a no man's land. Or, at least,
two sets of heirs to an old estate are fighting about it in the co