Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Paul Fernandez and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Note | | | | Both "Ne'er-do-weel" and "Ne'er-do-well" | | are used, so both spellings have been | | preserved. | | | +------------------------------------------+ [Illustration: "WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT?"] A SCOUT OF TO-DAY BY ISABEL HORNIBROOK _Author of "Camp and Trail," "Lost in Maine Woods," "Captain Curly's Boy," etc., etc._ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY ISABEL HORNIBROOK ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published June 1913_ AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO "NED" The Author expresses her indebtedness to Edmund Richard Cummins for the song, "THE SCOUTS OF THE U.S.A." CONTENTS I. THE GREAT WOODS 1 II. ONLY A CHIP' 17 III. RACCOON JUNIOR 34 IV. VARNEY'S PAINTPOT 55 V. "YOU MUST LOOK OUT!" 70 VI. THE FRICTION FIRE 82 VII. MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL COUNCIL 104 VIII. THE BOWLINE KNOT 121 IX. GODEY PECK 145 X. THE BALDFACED HOUSE 159 XI. ESTU PRETA! 178 XII. THE CHRISTMAS BRIGADE 196 XIII. THE BIG MINUTE 207 XIV. A RIVER DUEL 215 XV. THE CAMP ON THE DUNES 230 XVI. THE PUP-SEAL'S CREEK 244 XVII. THE SIGNALMAN 262 XVIII. THE LOG SHANTY AGAIN 271 ILLUSTRATIONS "WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT?" (page 99) _Colored Frontispiece_ "HELP! _HELP!_" 56 "MAK' YOU S-SILENT! W'AT FOR YOU SPIK LAK DAT?" 150 IN CAMP 238 "CAN'T YOU SEE THE TIDE IS LEAVING YOU?" 252 _From drawings by J. Reading_ A SCOUT OF TO-DAY CHAPTER I THE GREAT WOODS "Well! this would be the very day for a long tramp up into the woods. Tooraloo! I feel just in the humor for that." Colin Estey stretched his well-developed fourteen-year-old body among the tall feathery grasses of the broad salt-marsh whereon he lay, kicking his heels in the September sunshine, and gazed longingly off toward the grand expanse of New England woodland that bordered the marshes and, rising into tree-clad hills, stretched away much farther than the eye could reach in apparently illimitable majesty.