en, when it came to a show down, what did he do? He found out that he
was just a plain Scout, shouldered his axe, and went off and did a big
scout job all alone. So there you are.

I am sorry for those who would have him too old for scouting, and who
seem to think that a fellow can lay aside all he has learned in the
woods and in the handbook, the same as he can lay aside his short
trousers. It isn't as easy as all that.

Did you suppose that Tom Slade was going to get acquainted with nature,
with the woods and streams and trees, and make them his friends, and
then repudiate these friends?

Do you think that a Scout is a quitter?

Tom Slade was always a queer sort of duck, and goodness only knows what
he will do next. He may go to the North Pole for all I know. But one
thing you may be sure of; he is still a Scout of the Scouts, and if you
think he is too old to be a Scout, then how about Buffalo Bill?

The fact is that Tom is just beginning to reap the real harvest of
scouting. The best is yet to come, as Pee-wee Harris usually observes,
just before dessert is served at dinner. If it is any satisfaction to
you to know it, Tom is more of a Scout than at any time in his career,
and there is a better chance of his being struck by lightening than his
drifting away from the troop whose adventures you have followed with
his.

It is true that Tom has grown faster than his companions and found it
necessary to go to work while they are still at school. And this very
circumstance will enable us to see what scouting has done for him.

Indeed if I could not show you that, then all of those eight stores of
his adventures would have been told to little purpose. The chief matter
of interest about a trail is where it leads to. It may be an easy trail
or a hard trail, but the question is, where does it go to?

It would be a fine piece of business, I think, to leave Tom sitting on a
rock near the end of the trail without giving you so much as a glimpse
of what is at the end of it.

So you may tell your parents and your teachers and your uncles and your
aunts not to worry about Tom Slade never growing up. He is just a trifle
over eighteen years old and very strong and husky. Confidentially, I
look upon him as nothing but a kid. I keep tabs on his age and when he
has to go on crutches and is of no more interest to you, I shall be the
first to know it. He is likely to have no end of adventures between
eighteen and twenty.

Mean