The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire

CHAPTER I.

A HALT BY THE ROADSIDE.


"Tara--tara!"

Loud and clear sounded the notes of a bugle, blown by a very stout lad,
clad in a new suit of khaki; and who was one of a bunch of Boy Scouts
tramping wearily along a dusty road.

"Good for you, Bumpus! Can't he just make that horn talk, though?" cried
one.

"Sounds as sweet as the church bell at home, fellows!" declared a
second.

"Say, Mr. Scout-Master, does that mean a halt for grub?" a third called
out.

"Sure, Giraffe. Brace up old fellow. You'll have your jaws working right
soon, now. And here's a dandy little spring, right among the trees! How
shady and cool it looks, Thad."

"That's why we kept on for an hour after noon," remarked the boy called
Thad, and who seemed to be a person of some authority; "when all you
scouts wanted to stop and rest. You see Davy, Allan here, and myself
made a note of that same spring the other day, when we came along on
horseback, spying out the lay of the land."

"Well, now," remarked the boy called Davy, as he threw himself down to
stretch; "that's what our instruction book says,--a true scout always
has his eyes and ears open to see and hear everything. The more things
you can remember in a store window, after only a minute to look, the
further up you are, see?"

The boy called Thad not only wore a rather seedy and faded scout khaki
uniform; while those of all his comrades were almost brand new; but he
had several merit badges fastened on the left side of his soft shirt.

These things would indicate that Thad Brewster must have been connected
with some patrol, or troop of Boy Scouts, in the town where he formerly
lived before his father, dying, left him in charge of the queer old
bachelor uncle who was known far and wide among the boys of Scranton as
plain "Daddy Brewster"--nobody ever understood why, save that he just
loved all manner of young people.