ey? And they're
_mine_, ain't they? Because I found them? Ain't they?"

"Bet your life. I tell you what you do, Alf, old boy. You just follow
them up a little way further toward the mountain and I'll wait for you
here. Then we can say you did it all by yourself, see? The handbook says
a quarter of a mile or a half a mile, I don't know what, but you might
as well give them good measure. I can't remember what's in the handbook
half of the time."

"You know about good turns, don't you?"

"'Fraid not, except when somebody reminds me."

"I'm going to keep you for my friend even if I _am_ a second-class
scout, I am," Skinny assured him.

"That's right, don't forget your old friends when you get up in the
world."

"Maybe you'll get that canoe some day, hey?"

"What canoe is that, Alf?"

"The one for the highest honor; it's on exhibition in Council Shack. All
the fellows go in to look at it. A big fellow let me go in with him,
'cause I'm scared to go in there alone."

"I haven't been inside Council Shack in three weeks," Hervey said. "I
don't know what it looks like inside that shanty. I'm not strong on
exhibitions. I'll take a squint at it when we go down."

"The highest honor, that's the Eagle award, isn't it?" Skinny asked.

"I suppose so," Hervey said; "a fellow can't get any higher than the top
unless he has an airplane."

"Can he get higher than the top if he has a balloon?" Skinny wanted to
know.

"Never you mind about balloons. What we're after now is the second-class
scout badge, and we're going to get it if we have to kill a couple of
councilmen."

"Did you ever kill a councilman?"

"No, but I will, if Alf McCord, second-class scout, doesn't get his
badge. I feel just in the humor. Go on now, chase yourself up the line a
ways and then come back. I'll be waiting at the garden gate."

"What gate?"

"I mean here on this log."

"Do you know Tom Slade?"

"You bet."

"He likes me, he does; because I used to steal things out of grocery
stores just like he did--once."

"All right," Hervey laughed. "Go ahead now, it's getting
late--Asbestos."

"That isn't my name."

"Well, you remind me of a friend of mine named Asbestos, and I remind
myself of an eagle. Now don't ask any more questions, but beat it."

And so the scout who had never bothered his head about the more serious
side of scouting sat on the log watching the little fellow as he
followed those precious tracks a little further so that t