head bobbed up. There wasn't any more sleep for that camp, now.

"Oh, shut up!" growled Bill.

"You fellows turn us loose," we ordered. "We've got to go. We've got to
follow that man."

But they wouldn't, of course. They just laughed, and said: "No, you
don't want to go. You've given us your parole; see?" and they pulled us
down into the quilts again, and yawned and would sleep some more, until
they found it was no use, and first one and then another kicked off the
covers and sat up, too.

The sun was high and all the birds and bees and squirrels were busy for
the day. At least two hours had been wasted, already.

Half of the fellows didn't wash at all, and all we Scouts were allowed
to do was to wash our faces, with a lick and a promise, at the creek,
under guard. We missed our morning cold wet rub. The camp hadn't been
policed, and seemed dirtier than ever. Tin cans were scattered about,
and pieces of bacon and of other stuff, and there was nothing sanitary
or regular. Our flags were dusty and wrinkled; and that hurt. The only
thing homelike was Apache and Sally, our burros, grazing on weeds and
grass near the camp. But they didn't notice us particularly.

We didn't have anything more to say. The fellows began to smoke
cigarettes and pipes as soon as they were up, and made the fire and
cooked some bacon and fried some potatoes, and we all ate, with the
flies buzzing around. A dirty camp attracts flies, and the flies stepped
in all sorts of stuff and then stepped in our food and on us, too. Whew!
Ugh!

We would have liked to make a smoke signal, to let Major Henry and Jed
Smith and Kit Carson know where we were, but there seemed no way. They
would be starting out after us, according to instructions, and we didn't
want them to be captured. We knew that they would be coming, because
they were Scouts and Scouts obey orders. They can be depended upon.

I guess it was ten o'clock before we were through the messy breakfast,
and then most of the gang went off fishing and fooling around.

"Aren't you going to untie our feet?" asked the general.

"Do you give us your promise not to skip?" answered Bill.

"We'll give our parole till twelve o'clock."

We knew what the general was planning. By twelve o'clock something might
happen--the other Scouts might be near, then, and we wanted to be free
to help them.--

"Will you give us your parole if we tie your feet, loose, instead of
your hands?"

"Yes," said the gene